Roger Todd

Wow! If I lived in the US and had a car I'd be nabbing those! Sadly I'm on the other side of the Atlantic... However, I have a Milliken DBM5 and the thread on the screw that holds the shutter in place is shot, you wouldn't have a spare you could sell me, please?

Doug, thanks for your advice, and sorry for not replying sooner - I've not been on the forum for a good few days now and this is the first time I've seen your post! I'm glad I'm on the right track. I've actually taken the easy way out, in that I have dropped the camera off with Martin Stent, movie camera technician par excellence, and he's already managed to sort out the shutter (and he's replaced the 72-degree shutter with a 160-degree model, which is ideal!) and he's currently in the process of re-wiring it to run off a 240V-120V stepdown transformer. Okay, it'll cost a good deal more than if I mucked around with it myself, but seeing as he had to do the shutter anyway (there's no way I could have solved that) I thought it would be better for someone who knows what he's doing to hack the wiring... When it's done and I've got something filmed, I'll let you know!

Well, a chap I bought another camera from off eBay has been incredibly helpful, and provided me with photos of the shutter (and how to remove it) in his Milliken (which I think may be a DBM 4, but is identical to mine). I post the photos here as reference for anyone else who might find them useful: He has also put me onto someone who should be able to fix my machine, so watch this space...

I'm going to shoot some 16mm soon and hadn't seen anything about this deal - many thanks for posting this info, it's incredible!

Right, you said 'no wires', so the first thing I suggest is... wires! Seriously, though, here are my thoughts for each shot. The Zipper Attach monofilament to the zip and pull it up from above. Small Flying Weapons Will the camera be locked-off? Or moving (handheld)? Will the characters at whom the weapons fly be relatively still or leaping about? Depending on how static or dynamic the action is in the shot may have quite a bearing on how to film/video it. On the whole, I would imagine shooting the weapons against greenscreen and chromakeying them in would be feasible; mounting the weapons on green rods would make controlling them easier. That's fine if the weapons simply pass in front of people, but more awkward if they are to pass behind (as they would if, say, they were to circle around an actor) because you would need to matte them out as they pass behind your actors' bodies. You could shoot the actors against greenscreen with the weapons. But then you'd have problems with, for example, the green rods passing in front of the actors because where the grren overlaps the actor, those portions of the actor's body would become transparent. I suppose you could digitally rotoscope in either case, which might be feasible if only a few seconds of action are involved.

Your Milliken - a DBM4? - must be subtly different because there's no way I can get the innards out of mine with the shutter attached. But I've ben in contact with someone else and he's going to see what he can dig up, so I'll keep you posted!

True... Mind you, I have to get the wretched thing to work first!

No worries! Don't do anything tricky if you can possibly avoid it, especially with complex bits of machinery like these cameras! I know a chap in south London who sells the odd Milliken, he might be able to have a look - I'm in no hurry, I have become rapidly aware that getting this machine sorted out will have to be A Project...

You're right there! But there's one more favour you could do for me, if that's okay - could you remove the lens mount plate and post a photograph of your machine's shutter, please? It would be quite handy for me to see another example of a Milliken shutter before I muck about with mine...

That is exactly the sort of info I was after, thank you Kristian! However (typically!) I now have another question... Whilst playing with the knob on the left-hand side (if looking face on down the lens) of the camera that turns the mechanism manually, so I could see how the intermittent claw and registration pin operated, I became suspicious of the timing of the opening of the shutter. Earlier this evening I did a little test with some scrap film marked with a red cross and, hey presto, the film continues to move as the shutter opens, probably for at least 40-degress or more than half of the shutter opening. I videoed it with my camcorder and below are sequential stills to illustrate what I mean - you can see the red cross move down as the shutter opens up more and more: My question is this: surely by the time the shutter opening uncovers the film, the film should be absolutely stationary? If so, then by a roundabout way I am led back to my original problem - how to remove the shutter (this time so I can reposition it)...

Thanks for the tip, Mark - but *gulp* 18 spools minimum?

On the contrary, you have been very helpful, thank you! At least I now know that it may be possible to ease the innards out - I'll have a go (but I'll stop short of forcing it) tonight. At a tangent - perhaps I should start a new thread? - I've been searching for posts here concerning short (0.2994") and long (0.3000") pitch 16mm film. My Milliken takes long pitch, but I can only ever find short pitch film for sale. Various posters here speculated that below 500fps it may not matter, but as an owner of a Milliken, do you have experience with using the 'wrong' pitch of film?

Well, I can't say anything about your camera specifically, but I can attest to speeds of up to 200fps being possible with Super-8 cartridges with no discernible problems. Many years ago I modified a cheapo Royal Super-8 camera to shoot at high speeds (a real hack job, I literally cut a hole in the side of the body to accommodate a more powerful motor). Among various bits of footage I shot was this: Anyway, be that as it may, I wish you the best of luck sorting out your camera!

Thank you so much for scanning and uploading that manual, and thank you too for the video showing how to load it with film - invaluable!

First, having just joined this site today, I would like to say hello, and say how fascinating it is to browse. Also, I would like to thank Kristian Schumacher for posting the Milliken camera manual on his website - it should prove invaluable! Now, I have recently purchased a Milliken DBM 5B. As usual (from what I gather), it lacks the power cable. It is provided with a 115V AC motor, and in order to have any chance of re-wiring it, I need to get at the interior. However, I found that I need to remove the shutter first (something I had already surmised but confirmed once I had downloaded Kristian Schumacher's scanned manual). The manual, however, gave a description (but no picture) of the shutter fastening that does not bear any resemblance to my machine's shutter. Nothing attaching it to the shaft appears capable of being unscrewed. Below is a photo of it: Now, does anyone have a clue as to how I can remove my shutter? Can it even be done? Anyway advice would be most gratefully received!