Frank Wylie

I had 17 x 35mm projectors at one time; 95% were silent era. Had some pretty rare ones and damn near every Powers model every made; they all were a collector's collection in Ohio. Took the largest U-Haul truck I could rent to move everything back home to Dayton. In retrospect, that was a nightmare, but I enjoyed cleaning them up and getting them running again. Sold the bulk of them to Carey Williams of Chicago for his Cinema Museum and then it went out of business. I still wonder who wound up with them...

Do yourself a favor and if you shoot on lab stock for any serious work, shoot a chip chart on the head of the roll for each roll to allow for the variations that Simon notes. When we do emulsion batch changes on film stock in processing, we do what is called a "crossover" test that allows us to match the incoming stock emulsion batch to the outgoing one to maintain our lab-wide settings. A color chip chart would at least give a colorist a baseline correction to bring all the rolls to a uniform, neutral start before grading the entire lot.

Most "turd polishing" is done post-scan now days. If it's not on the film originally, it won't be on the scan, but you can fake better imagery with noise reduction, dust busting and heavy image manipulation. As we used to say in the lab, "GIGO: Garbage in, Garbage out", but now you can put the garbage in a shiny new wrapper...

Ah... yeah. Sorry to be a wet blanket, but that's like asking how to design a car and how to run a factory to build them! A film recorder is not made like an appliance, nor does it operate like one. You will need full knowledge of digital color science, film lab color science, close coordination with a color film lab (onsite being the very best) and a small fortune to purchase and maintain it. It is far more economical to just have your filmout done by a lab that has the experience, unless you are very wealthy and have tons of time and brainpower to throw at the problem. I don't like to discourage people, and I understand your motivation, but take this sincere bit of advice that this one is really, really difficult and probably beyond practical DIY means...

Happy Holidays! Here's to a better future and more creative horizons! ?

That's sad. It puzzles me why people are so fixated on Super 16mm, when with the negative stocks we have today, it is totally unnecessary.

No, there's no prohibition on posting photos that I am aware of... Every inspection bench is unique to the person using it and has been customized to a large extent by the user over 10 to 40 years of use, but there are basic tools that are common to every bench. Rewinds with medium length shafts. Micarta flanges for dealing with 35mm film on cores. Split reels are used pretty much for all other formats (R8, S8, 16mm, 17.5mm, 22mm, 28mm and the very rare 65, 68 and 70mm (practically never). A dual or single gang synchronizer. Digital or Analog shrinkage gauge. Light box built into the table top. Work lamp with magnifier. Cement splicer (usually Maier/Hancock that has been modified), a guillotine splicer and sometimes an Ultrasonic splicer for Estar-based film. Exacto knifes, unperforated splicing tape of many widths, white paper tape (art), loupes, grease pencils, razor blades, bottles of cement, solvent dispenser and many other misc. supplies. Some of the benches are built upon a motorized base that allows the entire bench to raise or lower; others are fixed.

I have no experience with it or anyone who has operated the same. Sorry! Our benches are the more traditional (for the USA) upright rewind stations...

Ray, I have forwarded your contact information to Brian Allan, our person in charge of maintenance contracts. We have the last Triese machines Tom built; all sprocket drive 16/35. Regards, Frank Wylie Chief Timer

Horizontal film inspection table. They were made by Arri, Kinoton, Steenbeck, Cinemechanica, CIR and many others (on a very small scale). As per usual, unless you find one rotting in a warehouse, they are outrageously expensive for what they are... Here's a CIR (same company that makes guillotine splicers) bench. https://www.cir-srl.com/products/inspection-equipment/cine6-family-rewinding-tables/ When money is no object: https://www.cir-srl.com/products/inspection-equipment/d-observer-cine3-digital-inspection-table/

Ah, good! Glad you were able to get the right information.

Gautam, I wish I were as hopeful as you, but to temper this a bit, we have to know that Orwo is currently an emulsion manufacturing concern that has no base manufacturing, coating or confection (perforating, slitting, packaging) facilities and relies on others for these services. As such, their output is pretty limited. There have been rumors of developments in more still film production, but I have as of yet to hear of any improvement in their motion picture film production. Ferannia is making progress, but is struggling to even fulfill P30 still film orders at the moment. Any high-volume raw stock production for motion pictures is probably very far in the future. Illford has emphatically stated over the last decade that it will not be returning to motion picture film stock production, ever. Period. Users can purchase their bulk still film and use it as configured, but there are no plans to support traditional MP stocks. Kodak is struggling to meet current demands with their greatly reduced capacity after the demolition spree of the early 2000's. We can only hope they are investigating a means to improve their production capabilities, but there is no obvious sign that this is occurring. The word I hear from European restoration facilities and archives is that budgets have been slashed and photochemical has become the exception rather than the norm. Digital "preservation" continues, but film work is increasingly rare. Our preservation film lab has been shut down since the beginning of the Pandemic and, with each passing month, is increasingly looking as if it may never return, despite claims to the contrary. It remains to be seen if we will every print a foot of film again. Our staff is steadily retiring and no replacement personnel are being hired; there are not many of us left in the lab and we are all getting old. I will be able to retire in a few years, as will most of my colleagues. I hope you are right, but I remain a bit dubious. The signs are not good.

Wish your photo was larger... How about a larger photo of the top along with a shot of the Steenbeck tag on one of the rear legs; that will give us a model number and series. This looks like a modified Steenbeck for... not sure. It might be a very rare beast. Do you see just one frame projected in the viewer? Wondering if it might be a Vistavision flatbed; if you see two frames, it might be...

Film stock prices are an unfortunate result of many converging factors. Those who simplistically blame "Kodak" as an imperial price-gouger have not done their homework. Kodak, Kodak-Alaris, Eastman Chemicals and Sino-Promise are good starting points. Kodak is but a shell of it's former self and has been broken into many pieces that are not centrally owned or controlled. Another factor is the disastrous tenure of Antonio M. Pérez as Kodak's President starting in 2003. Pérez came from Hewlet Packard and wanted to make Kodak a Ink Jet printing giant, but wound up leading Kodak to bankruptcy in 2012. Also, to lower tax liability, Kodak demolished many of the buildings and infrastructure need to produce film on a scale of economy everyone desires in the mid to late 2010's. You can't coat film on desire... Kodak is no longer the vertically integrated giant it once was, so it has to source and compete with everyone else in the market. "Cheap" film is a fantasy; the raw materials needed to produce film are also needed to produce solar panels, electric cars, computers, etc., etc... Face it, we are actually quite lucky to have film at all. I find the prices breathtaking myself, but it is still available, so enjoy it while you can, if you can...

As I have heard many times, you can ASK for any price, but what people will pay is another thing...

Here's an article on film sound that fits nicely into this discussion: https://www.slashfilm.com/673162/heres-why-movie-dialogue-has-gotten-more-difficult-to-understand-and-three-ways-to-fix-it/

Not unless you own the motor and an Arri-S and want to shoot animation...

Yes, after 40 years, I still have to think hard about proper wind/orientation on single perf 16mm! It never gets any easier (at least for me)!

That would be my guess; either short ends wound incorrectly to a spool or a magazine somehow loaded incorrectly...

The Dune track was stupid loud with sub woofers threatening to jump out of the screen and assault the viewers. Do they really think it adds to the viewing experience when you have to mop the blood up off he floor from all the ruptured ear drums? Come on folks!

How about contacting them: https://www.alangordon.com/

We had a couple of ST cameras in the early 1980's at my University. Of course they were standard gauge, but were the go-to camera when you wanted great images in the field! Dragging the Mitchell 16 out of the studio was not only forbidden, but highly discouraged! ?

Emulsion is emulsion; it needs to breathe a bit or the trapped gasses will attack the gelatin, dyes and/or silver, starting decomposition. The only time you should seal a can is if it has already started Vinegar Syndrome and you are placing molecular sieves into the can to scavenge the acid vapors and extend the life of the film. However, alas, Vinegar Syndrome is incurable; you can only retard the process, not stop it.

If you are going to store the film in metal cans, be sure the lid loosely fits; not air tight. Better yet, invest in some archival cans like these (no endorsement for any particular brand, do some research): https://stilcasing.com/products/35mm-casing/ https://filmforevermpe.com/t/tuscan-archival-film-cans The cans the film came in work perfectly fine too, but just be sure they are not sealed or have tight fitting lids. In the distant past, someone made a punch that knocked-out a few breathing holes in the side of the can; that works too... One final thing; try not to store film on reels if at all possible. The uneven covering of the film edge causes "spoking" (like the spokes of a wheel) due to higher out gassing of the uncovered edge of the film. Store on cores and then wind back to a reel if you need to put it on a reel for whatever purpose.

Duncan, Have you considered uploading these to the Internet Archive? https://archive.org/ Great resource and you can create your own collection. Frank