Alan Hill

Dom,

Thanks for the info from Australia none the less. We managed to build a battery pack and get the old beast up and running. Even at high speed. With everyone bailing out on film here in Los Angeles a few of us are still having some fun getting that "Film Look" by actually shooting film. It still looks great and you don't have everyone on the set second guessing you on the flatscreen. No need for a tent city either. I don't mind the extra expense of processing and transfer. It seems to keep talent on their toes when they know we are filming and not shooting video. With video there always seems to be that, "Oh well, we can always just do another take, after all it's free" attitude.

I'll be sad to see film go. But I'm sure people waxed poetic about B&W film too.

Thanks,

Alan

Yes for very high speeds and 1000 ft loads 12V batteries are often not enough.

 

On occasion we've used 14.4V batteries without problem so 13.2V is definitely fine.

 

The upper limit of the motor electronics tolerance is around 35V I've been told (so two 14.4V batteries fully charged are sailing pretty close to the wind).

Cinema is 24 frames per second, regardless of what James Cameron or Roger Ebert says.

 

Stu Maschwitz explains it nicely on his blog at ProLost.com:

 

"Roger Ebert hates that wagon wheels go backwards. It drives him nuts. Years ago he saw a demo of Maxivision 48, a system that shoots and projects 35mm film at 48 frames per second, and he’s never forgotten how smooth it was. Like many, he decries 24 fps as a technological dinosaur, a holdover from a bygone era.

 

Why Roger should relax: With the advent of HD, it became easy to create digital moving images of high enough spatial resolution to pass for film (unless you’re Jim Jannard, see above), but at first we could only do so at 50 or 60Hz. HD video at 60 images-per-second inspired no filmmakers and no audiences—in fact, at the very Sundance I met Roger, a 60fps HD test shot by Allen Daviau was booed off the screen. It wasn’t until we hobbled our HD cameras to 24 that we could start making movies digitally. More frames-per-second is indeed smoother and more life-like. Just like video. Who would have imagined that audiences don’t want movies to feel more like daytime soap operas?"

 

You can read Maschwitz's whole post here:

 

http://prolost.com/blog/2010/7/8/seven-fetishists-and-why-they-should-relax.html

Congrats to James Cameron for finally discovering Showscan!!! A process that has been around since the mid 1980s. Finally Douglas Trumbull is vindicated, YES!

And it only took 25 years for James to see it, next thing he'll be declaring widescreen or 3-strip to be the future...stay tuned...

Doesn't E6 Ektachrome 100D resolve as much as K40 did?

Having just seen an HDNet broadcast of a Charlie's Angels episode, one thing regarding resolution comes to mind. Had ABC chosen to shoot that show digital in the 1970s they would have locked in those shows with 1970s technologies, namely NTSC and video tape. Thanks to some money spent by ABC, Farrah, Kate, Jaclyn & Cheryl in HD have never looked better. Man, those women were beautiful.

Sadly any discussion of resolution seems odd, considering that the primary demographic that advertisers want to buy (18-34, or is it 13-18) are mostly viewing content on their phones.

I used to calibrate my brother's large screen TV so that it accurately represented reality, as best as possible across the thousand or so satellite channels he had the option to watch. Only to come over a few weeks later and find that one of this young daughters had put the TV back into Vivid mode again. Claiming that the picture was looking dull and washed out.

So much for all that hard work that went into filming those programs. Not to mention what Satellite compression does to resolution...

I'm looking at building some battery packs for a 35-3 and I had just a few odd questions:

1. Is the 12v battery really just that? In that I mean that certain systems that say they are 12v actually are more like 13v fully charged and by the time they are passing 12v, you don't have much power left.

2. Would there be any advantage, or danger of using 13.2 volt batteries? I know there wouldn't be a problem with one battery hooked up, since the camera can be powered up to 24v for highspeed photography. But would 26.4v harm any of the electronics, or is it close enough not to do any harm? Anyone know the working range of the 35-3?

Thanks,

Shoot Film! It really gives you that "Film" look!

Hello,

Yes, I agree. I just finished watching The Informant and it really bugged me. I know they filtered it a lot, but the highlights seemed not existent. Sure it was sharp, almost too sharp in a lot of areas. But overall the "Look" of the film just didn't agree with me. So, at least this generation of RED isn't quite there for me right now.

If I buy the SR I, I will most likely shoot Reg 16mm and have it scanned for the digital world. Clearly the days of flatbed editing are long gone. There is a guy here in town selling a flatbed system cheap. Fire sale cheap.

I tried to find comparison sales for the SR online and all I could find were people looking to sell their cameras, but their ads had been up, in some cases for 2 years with no action. It really does, unfortunately look like the 16mm market is dwindling fast. Sad to see.

Or at the images if you take this advice.

Thanks for the quick response. I watched the clips you linked to. Very interesting. What was the process that was used? Were these done using the anamorphic squeeze you mentioned earlier? Which I'm still more than a little fuzzy on.

I saw one lab that was bragging about a new ARRI scanner that they now had. I guess it might be getting tougher and tougher to find someone who is willing to go the extra mile to get great images out of standard 16mm on a budget. Sure anythings is possible if you have an unlimited budget. But I haven't won the lottery yet? Maybe I should actually buy a ticket. Nah.

Thanks,

Any details on the process for the transfer to video would be great. I'm looking into film scanners and ProRes 422 as a way to get from Regular 16mm into the digital realm.

Alan

Yeah, don't double post. I first answered this in the Classified section and then discovered it here. Below is my response from the classifieds.

 

Alan,

 

This probably should be posted in the 16mm section of this forum.

 

You pose a tough question. Many folks would say, don't spend any money on 16mm, go digital, and there are good points to their reasoning.

 

Alot of it depends on what you are looking to do. If you plan on "making money" with the camera, i.e. hiring yourself and the camera out to clients, be aware that the market for Super 16 is shrinking pretty quick, and the market for regular 16 is pretty much completely gone.

 

If you want the camera for shooting personal projects, you need to decide what you want to shoot? As nice as I'm sure the Scarlet will be, it still won't be film, and if you want to shoot film, you need a film camera. How many thousands of dollars you want to spend on a film camera is really up to you and your budget.

 

As far as converting to Super 16 being worth it or not, again, it depends on what you plan on using the camera for? Remember, if you convert the camera you described to Super 16, the lens that comes with it will not cover the Super 16 format, so you will need to acquire more glass.

 

As far as finding a transfer house that will transfer a 16:9 section from a regular 16 negative, I would believe that any transfer house could do that for you. I have been doing that for years and never found a house that couldn't accommodate me.

 

To get an idea of how regular 16 looks when transferred 16:9, you can look at the clips listed below. They were all shot regular 16 and transferred 16:9.

 

Arri16S film clips

 

Best,

-Tim

 

PS: Michael and I transfer regular 16 footage differently. We both shoot a 16:9 chart at the beginning of the first roll, but I have the transfer house transfer the footage at 23.98 fps with pulldown and an anamorphic squeeze. So when I put the footage into my computer for editing, etc., I remove the pulldown and stretch the image to 16:9 and you get a higher quality image than letterboxing in transfer and then trying to blow that up to 16:9 full frame.

Hello,

I am able to buy a 16sr I, with German Electronics, 10-100mm Ziess (f2.9) T3.1 lens, 2 magazines, 2 batteries an the usual grips, rings, matte box.

The question is: What is it worth paying for this camera given that it is setup for 1.33 regular 16? I know that it can be converted to Super 16 for about $4000, but then the question becomes: What is an Arri SR16 Super 16 worth? More than $5,000, $6,000? With the German electronics, it's pretty close to being an SRII. But is it worth it?

It seems like it might be a big risk to invest the money to upgrade, what with digital seemingly barking at the door (Yeah, I know HD has been "on the verge of taking over since the early 1980s). The RED camera people seem to be getting to within about 5-10 years of replacing the usefulness of a nice 16mm camera.

Besides the sentimental/artistic reasons, does it make economical sense at this point in the game?

Does anyone know of a lab that could do telecine on regular 16mm and crop the top and bottom to make a 16:9 transfer? I know this method wastes a lot of the negative, but $4,000 (Conversion charge) would buy a lot of film and processing...

What do you guys think?

Alan

Sorry for double posting, but I wasn't sure if this subject belonged in the marketplace or camera discussion boards...

Hello,

I am able to buy a 16sr I, with German Electronics, 10-100mm Ziess (f2.9) T3.1 lens, 2 magazines, 2 batteries an the usual grips, rings, matte box.

The question is: What is it worth paying for this camera given that it is setup for 1.33 regular 16? I know that it can be converted to Super 16 for about $4000, but then the question becomes: What is an Arri SR16 Super 16 worth? More than $5,000, $6,000? With the German electronics, it's pretty close to being an SRII. But is it worth it?

It seems like it might be a big risk to invest the money to upgrade, what with digital seemingly barking at the door (Yeah, I know HD has been "on the verge of taking over since the early 1980s). The RED camera people seem to be getting to within about 5-10 years of replacing the usefulness of a nice 16mm camera.

Besides the sentimental/artistic reasons, does it make economical sense at this point in the game?

Does anyone know of a lab that could do telecine on regular 16mm and crop the top and bottom to make a 16:9 transfer? I know this method wastes a lot of the negative, but $4,000 (Conversion charge) would buy a lot of film and processing...

What do you guys think?

Alan