Christian Appelt

Stephen, this is a cinema projection lens, not intended for filming. It has no iris to control exposure, and the minimum focus distance will not allow for closeups. If you want to use the anamorphic part only, it has to be adapted to your spherical prime lens. For 35mm anamorphic projection, it's a fine high quality lens.

I have shot a lot on UN54 and never saw such grain structure. I suspect problems in processing. Actually both UN54 and N74 have finer grain than Eastman b/w stocks of comparable speed. However, doing tests is a good recommendation, maybe some adjustment to the mags (pressure pad roller distance to sprocket) is necessary. I have shot Orwo in 16mm using Arri and Bolex cameras and never had a problem. Same for the Arrif 35II and the 35mm Konvas which has loop formers inside the mags too. I would also recommend checking takeup tension because it might be set too high so a slight difference in surface properties between Orwo and other makers' stock may be enough to account for the lost loop.

Gautam, if you want to modify your K-3 yourself, take a look at the assembly/disassembly videos here: k3camera.com I never had emulsion buildup because I didn't shoot that much footage with my own K-3, but in dusty environment, I always clean the gate using those soft cleaning tissues (single-wrapped) recommended for glasses. They usually contain a bit of alcohol, but it never affected the metal gate parts of my other Russian cameras (Konvas), so I assume it's safe for the K-3 gate too.

I agree with Charles, these are intermittent scratches, probably from the film touching the loop formers. You should remove them since they do more harm than good, and the K-3 is easy enough to thread anyway. Always check your loop size after threading, the loops at their largest size must never touch the plastic parts. BTW, Q-tips are not good for cleaning the gate, they may lose fibers.

If you want to build a projector to screen your footage, how about this? :) Ciné Confiture (You have to scroll down to see the whole device...)

Usually I chose a seat at the distance of the screen's width. Now I don't mind handheld shots and a bit of shaking, but when I watched BATTLE: LOS ANGELES on a 72 ft. screen, it became so unpleasant that I moved back to about 1,8x screen width. Even then, I found the cinematography disturbing. Too many TV-style closeups in the first ten minutes, you should have a reason if you treat the audience to Sergio-Leone-size portraits. I think I understand what the filmmakers intended, but for me it did not work. In my opinion, only Aaron Eckhart's fine performance held together this movie. Not that he or any other actor had much help from the script, even a popcorn movie should have some intelligent dialogue lines. I saw a 35mm print with decent sharpness in the few places where it was not destroyed intentionally. Certainly you can use techniques like that if the director knows how to do it, but use it constantly for almost two hours and it becomes a nuisance. Heavy shaking even in a simple office scene like Eckhart talking about his retirement is just bad filmmaking.

John, "out of control" describes it accurately. Many old projection lenses sold for DSLR use - what a cheat! I wondered about the Totalvision lens set which is very nice, but more than $6000? Come on! I wonder where the anamorphic bug that bit those eBay sellers came from. Especially the Iscorama prices are a joke. For your CP-16, I recommend either a Kowa 8Z (with a certain limitation on wide angle shooting), but you have to construct a decent support for it. Now and then FOTON-A adapters turn up on eBay, with or without the 37-140mm spherical zoom ($700-800 for both ar reasonable). You should find a front anamorphic FOTON-A for about $300-350, and it is a great piece of glass that will cover more wide angle than every other adapter I know. Russian anamorphic adapters for 50+80mm spherical combination lenses or square front Lomos (with damaged irises or fungus in the spherical part) can be found often at reasonable prices. Right now, there is a nice Kowa lens on eBay: auction link If you want to spend more money, get the real thing, a vintage B&L camera attachment like this one: B & L cam att. As for the price...I got mine for less than $400 (without the nice box, I have to admit) before the craze started.

An anamorphic attachment like the Russian FOTON-A should work with your lens, it will cover focal lengths from 140 to 37mm with 35mm zoom lenses. Last week I saw one on eBay for about $700. With the Kowa attachment, I'd prefer good prime lenses to any zoom, its diameter will limit the wide angle end a bit (around 25mm IIRC). The people watching your finished film will not know how cool your camera setup looked, so go for quality... ;)

Take the film to someone who specializes in restoration work. Cineric, Inc. might be a good adress: Cineric

Evan, here's my $0.02: - No matter what film stock you use, b&w in many lighting situations requires special lighting technique. You cannot depend on different colour shadings to separate elements from each other. - There is no shortcut to "classic black & white" because there are many different styles. Look at some DVDs - look at A BOUT DE SOUFFLE, THE HILL, THE HUSTLER, SHANGHAI EXPRESS, MANHATTAN - totally different stylistic approaches. What do you intend to do? - Most b&w stocks are available in 35mm, so get a still camera and shoot some setups like you would when shooting the movie. Print or scan your negatives, anything you can do in Photoshop can be done later with digital film tools. - Do the same with color neg and desaturate it digitally. Do you see a difference, and if so, which one do you prefer? - Two reasons for shooting b&w movies in colour used to be the lack of decent b&w lab work in many locations and the finer grain structure of high speed color stock compared to - as Karl said before - some very old b&w emulsions. Do you have a lab that does quality b&w work or not? If not, color negative may be the better way to go. Filmotec stocks From my personal experience, I recommend Filmotec-Orwo's b/w negative stocks, both the EI 100/21 and the EI 400/27 types give excellent results. I definitely prefer the Orwo to Eastman's b&w stocks. There used to be some problems with certain Arricams (do a forum search), but I heard this was fixed. I never had any problem running Orwo through Konvas, Debrie and Arri 2C cameras. Do some tests and decide what you like best. To find out more about classic b&w lighting techniques, read PROFESSIONAL CINEMATOGRAPHY by Charles G. Clarke and PAINTING WITH LIGHT by John Alton, both classic texts available as reprints.

Scotchlite 7610 is available from 3M, you can even order it online. Scotchlite Data Sheet sizes

Cole, I wouldn't recommend this camera unless you consider it a collector's item or prop for display. The price is OK for motor, mags and all the small stuff. As far as I can see, the camera body is an Arri II, it has the original pre-war movement. Image steadiness ist not as good as with later models, and you have a 120-degree mirror shutter. Which means less light on the film and more shuttering with pans and fast moving objects. The next model, named IIA, was introduced in 1953 and had an improved movement and a 180-degree shutter. So unless you definitely want a model II, I suggest you get one of the many decent IIA, B and C models on the market. This package may be fine for all the additional stuff. It is correct that "Made in Western Germany" was used after WWII when Germany was split in half (US, British, French in the west, Russian in the east), so this camera was produced between 1946 and 1953.

ED WOOD and IVING IN OBLIVION are my favourites, too. Here are some more: LA NUIT AMERICAINE (Francois Truffaut, 1974) BARTON FINK (Joel &B Ethan Coen, 1991) TWO WEEKS IN ANOTHER TOWN (Vincente Minnelli, 1962)

There may be another way to get your silhouettes, unless you want to show the inside of the theatre with the actor's shadows in one shot: 1. Light the theatre screen from the front, as evenly as possible, switch all the house lights off. 2. Put your actors between the screen and the camera, keep the theatre dark. You may need to put up some kind of base for your actors to stand on and your camera must be raised to get actors and screen straight on. 3. Contrast between the brightly lit screen and actors without front lighting should be enough to create silhouettes. I used this setups many years ago to create silhoeutte shots for a 16mm music video where the director wanted a kind of poor man's Maurice Binder montage (Bond movies). We had the actors stand on plywood boards put over the theatre seating (with blankets under the boards to protect the seats), the camera was on a small platform in the rear of the theatre. It works with matte white screens, may be harder to light a silver screen evenly. We used 2x5kW lamps for a 50ft.+ theatre screen. Compared with the backlighting technique, you lose less light and can use more than one lamp without creating multiple shadows.

Dylan, here's a fantastic book on classic and modern motion picture lab technology written by Dominic Case: Film Technology in Post Prouction This will give you more insight into film lab procedures. Your print stock question is not retarded, but if you are interested in finding out how certain effects were accomplished, you need to know the basics. You'll find reading Dominic's book great fun and quite an inspiration. If you have access to a good film library, there's an older book called Basic Motion Picture Technology by Bernhard Happé, of course it doesn't cover digital intermediate processes since it was written in the 1970s.

Jorge, if you've never used a 8mm film camera before, I'd recommend a good book like Lenny Lipton's Independent Film Making, can be bought on eBay for little money. I found that old books written in the 1950s/69/70s for amateur filmmakers are most useful because they explain basics of photochemical filming in a straightforward way. David Cheshire's Book of Movie Photography is another great introductory book I know. A bit of reading can save you a lot of trouble with 8/16mm film.

If you want to use the Kowa 8Z lens on your camera, please note that it is not just a matter of finding the right step-up/down ring. #1 - The weight of the Kowa 8Z may be a problem with C-mount cameras, at least when you use long zoom lenses. Don't know about video camera mounts, but make sure to get a decent support. #2 - The 8Z always has to stay in the "oval upright" position, so if your spherical lenses front rotates, that's a problem. In the 1980s, someone did manufacture a rotating thread adapter, so even with rotating spherical lenses you could adjust the 8Z after focusing the base lens. Never saw one of these, maybe the know more at The Widescreen Centre. BTW, Roger Deakins is referring to spherical Kowa lenses, not the anamorphic ones. IIRC Clairmont Camera used to rent Kowas, I think they were listed in a ~1992 AC ad. More on mounting an 8Z: cinematography.com thread filmshooting.com thread

I guess it is a matter of cost. How many DVDs can you sell on a title, and getting 70mm telecined is much more difficult than 35mm. As for reduction print quality, I never saw a single 35mm reduction print from Russian or Eastern Europe 70mm productions with decent quality. Either it had to do with the dupe stock they used or the optical system - in the book WIDESCREEN CINEMA AND STEREOPHONIC SOUND by M.V. Vysockij (english translation ed. by Raymond Spottiswode, 1971) they describe an optical reduction printer which uses a small glass screen and a kind of Scheimpflug arrangement to compress or expand the image between film formats. Never understood how it was supposed to work, only a crude line drawing was shown. In Eastern Germany (GDR), DEFA studios built their own 70-35 printer, but from descriptions, they did not create a new printing lens but adapted existing anamorphics. The reductions I saw from GDR-made 70mm films also looked no better, sometimes worse than 35-35 prints. Given the fact that Russian anamorphics (like back anamorphosers for zoom lenses or the Konvas/Kinor deanamorphic viewfinder) were excellent, I'd like to know why they never got reduction printing quite right.

Link fixed: Dersu Uzala screenshots (fixed) Scroll down to post #1490 and click on images. More screen shots

Luckily, there are a few surviving 70mm prints. Printed on non-Eastman positive stock, they haven't faded over the years. DERSU UZALA was shown some time ago at the Karlsruhe widescreen festival, and it was most impressive. On a large screen, one notices they had some problems with very long telephoto lenses, focus pulling seems somewhate crude to modern standards. But the beauty of Kurosawa's images it stunning. Here are some screen shots, scroll down on the page and click on some images to see them full sized. Dersu Uzala screen shots

If I recall correctly, the Filmorama lens was marketed by Bell&Howell. The claim about being the only double-use 16mm anamorphic lens is not true, but it may have been the first. Nearly all 1950s amateur anamorphics by Isco, Berthiot, Möller (Bolex), S.A.T.E.C. (DyaliScope), Panavision (Superama) and Old Delft (Vistascope) were used for both taking and projecting films. AWSM: Amateur Anamorphics AWSM: "Wide Screen Movies Come to the Home"

Gregg, I would recommend a Kowa 8Z anamorphic adapter for 16mm work. I had two Proskars some years ago and wasn't impressed by their quality. The problem with projection anamorphics is that they will not allow for close distance focusing. The Kowa will go down to 1.5 meters, even closer with diopter lenses. Another solution may be a Foton-A front lens which is used to "anamorphize" Foton zoom lenses. It should give you less vignetting on the wide side of your basic lens. If you have trouble getting focus right in the viewfinder, use a Siemens star table as a target, I use it under low-light conditions and with dark viewfinders (Konvas at night...).

Brian, after looking at the TGTBATU title sequence, here are my thoughts. For easy access, I'll refer to time codes in this YouTube clip: Credits TGTBATU 1. Lettering is hand drawn and animated for transformation. (00:50) 2. Silhouette figure is also simple animation. (00:04) 3. Photo stills were printed to high contrast to give them that stencil look. (00:38) 4. Pencil brush effect (like 00:15 & )was filmed (I assume black color on white paper) and printed to high contrast, resulting in a travelling matte and counter-matte strip of film. By combining these hicon masking with the background (photo) stuff, the photo becomes visible where color is applied by the brush. 5. Color splash effect (0:58) was done either by shooting through a glass pane on which color was dropped or simply on paper. Masks were create don hicon, same technique as in 4.) 6. "Snow" or "moving grain" (0:25) created by single frame animating sand or other grainy material, creating matte/counter matte again. The striking effect is created by the way these rather simple printing and animation table techniques are combined, color changes and transparency give it more depth. This is just a basic explanation, I have no idea how many films or what kind of printer was used, but hicon masking and optical printing was they way to do this in the 1960s. Just my $0.02...

Beside the use of refracting material like rippled glass, slit-scan techniques have been used too to transform titles. There is an article “Animation Mechanisms” in American Cinematographer, Jan 1971, written by filmmaker John Whitney (1917-1995) on his custom built slit-scan/time-exposure machine. In the article it says that slit scan was used to create moving titles for the Doris Day movie THE GLASS BOTTOM BOAT. About John Whitney John Whitney's short films can be found on YouTube, he used slit scan techniques for CATALOG (1961): Classic hand-drawn animation was also used frequently to transform lettering. In combination with high-contrast mattes and optical printing, very complex patterns and levels could be created.

Brian, I'd love to see your film! I did install the latest Opera version. Scrolling down the page http://www.brianpritchard.com/British%20Labs.htm I see just a grey window. Internet Explorer does show a black window with a [PLAY] symbol, but nothing more. If I copy & paste the adress http://www.brianpritchard.com/player_flv_maxi.swf, the URL changes immediately to http://e.freewebhostingarea.com/outside-access-blocked/insert-it-into-a-webpage-under-the-same-account.gif If the problem is difficult to solve, would you consider an upload to youtube.com ?