Freya Black

...and where did you get that great outfit! :) love Freya

Gasp! That looks amazing, possibly the best VNF I have seen. I'm not keen on the stock generally but ironically I have a freezer full of the stuff at the moment (because nor is anyone else) but those stills, really change my opinion on it a little. They remind me of the work of Kenneth Anger to be honest. I'm quite amazed by the colour in these stills, a lot of ektachrome I have seen looks sort of washed out. Did you use coloured gels in the first scene at all, it doesn't look like it but.... It really looks quite magical! Can you tell me where the transfer was done? love Freya

The address for Forde is: http://www.fordelabs.com/ ...and they even have a straightforward website, which not a single lab in England seem to have! Well enough of my whining... ;) love Freya

Yes Forde will process VNF and they seem quite reasonable. I hear Dwaynes also do VNF, they certainly do for S8. There always seem to be lots of options for labs in the U.S. Here in Europe if you aren't shooting colour neg in 16 or 35mm, it just seems to be Andec and that's it. I've even thought of shipping stuff to the states myself but I'm scared of all the customs stuff. love Freya

It seemed like everyone was out of the office, and I didn't want to bother them on their mobiles! That seemed inappropriate. I could tell that Sam was trying to find all my answers on a database or something. He was friendly and nice tho. Maybe there was a really good cheese and wine party happening somewhere! I will definitely e-mail Clive I think. Thanks John. love Freya

Lots of possibilities at the lower end: You can get a S8 camera, and a viewer editor. Shoot Reversal and project it, or even get a cheap Telecine done on a workprinter or an old Rank or something. You could forget about reversal and shoot the 200T and 500T vision negative stocks available in S8. Then you could do a transfer on a cheap old rank or on the shadow at flying spot in seatlle. Forde can process the colour neg. You can get an old bolex or even a cheap Filmo or something. Obviously this means no sync sound but then you might not need that for a commercial or music video or something anyway. You can then shoot the colour neg, get it processed and have it transfered either at a higher end place or at: http://www.tfgtransfer.com/ I imagine you could find something in betweenn the 2 extremes too! I would be wary about buying re-cans off ebay. It's bad enough buying film off ebay when the cans are factory sealed still. I think you would be better buying from those places like dr rawstock or somewhere... Theres a few of them in the states. You don't have to jump right in at the deep end, you could pick up a Canon S8 camera or a beaulieu S8 or a Bolex H16 or Filmo or something and start experimenting with the cheaper stock options. S8 it is especially nice because you can get little viewer editors quite easily and play around with cheap reversal stocks to experiment with at first. Little viewers for 16mm seem hard to come by, but then again, you can always get a projector! love Freya

Well they seemed helpful on the phone but then they didn't come through with the goods. Nothing arrived in the post. Maybe I shouldn't have asked a question about the 64T. Oh well. love Freya

Wasn't this discontinued just under a year ago? love Freya

Fraid not, you still have a 50mm lens whatever camera it is connected to. 50mm would of course be considered a bit telephoto in 16mm. This means that it is hard to get cheap wide-angle lenses for use in 16mm when using the M42 mount because 25mm lenses would just be what is considered normal in 16mm, so you would need a lens less than 25mm in size to get wide angle shots, whereas in 35mm cameras a 30mm lens would be wide angle! The lenses stay the same size whatever they are connected to. love Freya

Actually I just rang and that wasn't a bad experience. When I rang, I got right through to Entertainment Imaging (none of this trying to explain what cinematography or movie film was!). Then I spoke to a man called Sam who was really nice and helpful. Your two pals were out and about John, and I didn't fancy bothering them on their mobiles. No good news on the VNF labs tho, they mentioned the widescreen centre who outlab to Andec anyway, but I did get them to send me that DVD of the vision stocks that I have wanted to see for ages, so that's good! I think I might even ring them again sometime. :) love Freya

Do you know I think I'm going to ring them! I shall tell them you sent me too, so they know who to complain to about getting bothered by some crazy woman! :) love Freya

Their website is back up. Sadly it looks to be very expensive, and there is a set up charge. They claim to be the only lab in the u.k running VNF however. Guess I could send it to Andec in Germany, but I think I'm going to attempt to home process in E6. I'm a little worried that the process is different, especially that the film might not fix correctly and deteriorate in the long term which would be a shame, but it seems like other people have had some luck with VNF in E6, so it looks worth a shot. love Freya

I've not tried anywhere yet! :) Do you know if they do and also perhaps what the price might be? love Freya

Does anyone know anywhere that will process 16mm ektachrome VNF in London, or failing that the u.k.? love Freya

Best to assume the stock lens is not great, but people get excited because the K3 has an M42 mount, which was a standard mount for 35mm Still cameras at one time, so there are lots of high quality prime lenses for still cameras that can be attached to it and also bought cheaply off e-bay. Wide Angle can be a problem tho. Okay, the K3 does not have a magazine. It uses 100ft daylight spools. Film can be bought fresh on 100foot spools. Failing that, if you have empty spools, you can respool film off a 400foot core and onto 100foot spools. You need to first spool it onto a 100foot spool, and then spool it back off again onto another 100foot spool from the first one. This is so the film is the right way round. Obviously this must all be done in complete darkness (you knew that already right!) It is best to load the camera in complete darkness too. The K3 tends to have variable build quality and it can be fairly easy to get a bad one. An Arri is a very high quality camera that most people using a K3 would be very happy to have access to. The K3 is very, very low quality compared to an Arri. love Freya

The low Res version is the only one that works sadly, and it is artifact city. Block,Blocky, Blocky. Worse than a pxlvision camera. I love the misc en scene in the video tho, it reminds me a lot of "Inauguration of the pleasure dome". The idea reminds me a lot of the "Space is the place" film with Sun Ra too. It does seem very repetitive, tho. love Freya

In my opinion the cuts are also waaaaaaay too fast. Can barely see a thing that's going on. I like the last few seconds when it slows down, and think it would be a better trailer if it was just that last few seconds where the girl say akeelah and the announcer. The rest just hurt my eyes. love Freya

The cost of Telecine can often be the most significant cost. There are some cheaper options around, especially for S8 where there are workprinter transfers if you shoot reversal, and there are older Rank telecine machines but this can still add up depending on how long your film is. Obviously cheaper telecine is not going to look like a fancy colour corrected transfer on a spirit/shadow either. There are so many variables with telecine that it's really hard to talk about the cost. It depends on what you shoot and all kinds of things. To be fair, you don't have to end up on miniDV, you could end up on digibeta or HDCam, but for low budget filmaking miniDV is very much the preffered choice for a lot of obvious reasons. I don't think anyone should write off film or video, depending on the look you are after, video might be a better choice in some cases and film is obviously a lot more expensive, and sometimes even difficult to work with. It all depends what you are up to. love Freya

Thanks Rolfe, It's nice to hear the older cooke lenses are nice. What I'm noticing from lenses is that the shape of for example faces, can be different with different lenses. It's often a slight thing. I'm not sure if the lenses are just different or if some lenses are just better but as I say, the canon and Fuji lenses look much nicer to my eye. Do you think some lenses have less optical distortion than others? I'm mostly just afraid that I will shoot footage on film with the Taylor Hobson lenses and not like it, but I guess theres only one way to find out! :) love Freya

This is a facinating conversation. I've noticed that I find some lenses to be horrible and others that I really like. Canon made lenses are usually my favourite. This is certainly true of video and Super8 cameras at least. The lens on the PD-150 seems a bit horrible to me. Chinon S8 cameras always seem to be the peak of nasty, except that is for whatever kind of lens it is on my fisher price pxl camera. I like the lenses on Fuji and canon digital still cameras but often not other makes. I'm wondering if this is just the different looks of different lenses or if some lenses are just better than others. and if the look of lenses is maintained across manufacturer? The reason I'm wondering is because I'm planning to shoot some stuff on 16mm where I have various old Taylor Hobson lenses. mostly. Are these lenses likely to be similar to other lenses made by the same compay? A lot of people talk with reverance of cooke lenses but isn't there a big difference between say Speed Panchro lenses and other lenses by the Cooke company? Is what I'm seeing just the fact that better lenses just provide a less distorted image? [sorry this is slightly OT with the whole 16mm thing] love Freya

Kodachrome 40 is still available from Jessops and other photo shops. It is also available from 7dayshop on the internet. K40 is process paid film. It comes in a box with a little envelope which you fill in and mail back to Kodak. K40 is only processed in switzerland and the U.S. You can send your film directly to switzerland but a lot of people send their film to Wimbledon rather than trust the royal mail, and also to save some postage. YMMV. This will change within a year however, as kodak have discontinued K40 and are closing the plant in switerland. There is going to be a new emulsion for S8 called ektachrome 64T to replace K40, but at the moment it is completely unknown if this will be available process paid or in Jessops etc, so a lot of stuff is still up in the air. You can also get K40 and other film stocks such as Plus-X, Tri-X and vision2 negative films direct from kodak. The Tri-X and Plus-X are black and white and you can process them yourself at home with a special tank. The Colour negative films are ECN2 process. There is no lab in the u.k. to process black and white or ECN2 process film. With regard to the ECN2 process colour negative films (vision2), there is a company called Andec in germany that will process them. There might be another German lab too, I can't remember just now. You can also drop your film off at the widescreen centre. They basically just send it to Germany and charge you extra for the service, but if you don't have a credit card or acess to one, then this may be your only way to process the stuff. I suggest you have lots of fun with K40 while you can! :) love Freya

Bizzarely it seems like there are a ton of us Brits on here at this moment! :) So to capitalise on this while you are all hanging around here, can anyone suggest a supermarket or similar kind of place, where I can buy ziplock bags! I had a look in kwik save but unsuprisingly they didn't have any, but I obviously intend to look in some real supermarkets too. ;) love Freya

Here you have more of an argument. Processing for S8 doesn't really exist in the u.k. so it has to be sent abroad. Prices have dropped slightly for the processing but it probably costs a similar amount to getting 16mm film processed or not much different by the time you have paid for shipping and currency conversion etc to Germany or the states. Telecine is generally a similar price whatever the format, and it''s not very available in the u.k. for S8. There are cheap trnsfers available in Norway tho. Mostly you save on the cost of the film and the cost of the camera with S8. At the moment you can get cheap processing too with K40 but that may obviously not be the case next year. Video is definitely an option too although it has to be said that if you intend to end up shooting on film in the future, you end up being in the situation that you can get nice results on video, but feel somewhat lost and frightened by the huge leap to start working on film. Almost like starting all over again as a beginner, and that can be really off putting. I should also point out that a lot of the downpoints we have discussed are specific to shooting S8 in the united kingdom. If you are on the mainland or in the united states, there are definitely options for processing, telecine etc. Forde for lab work for starters and Flying Spot if you want high end telecine. If you shoot reversal, then you could always get a workprinter transfer too, there are lots of options. In fact, if you are in the states, then the idea of shotting S8, might actually be quite attractive. :) love Freya

I think it's an icebox yes! :) Can you tell me what a ziplock bag is? Is it a small polythenne bag thing with a plastic zipper thing or something else? I've never seen one big enough to hold 400 foot spools? (If it is the polythene thing.) Or maybe you mean more of a conventional bag? Maybe if I put the film in the freezer before I turn the freezer on? Ah I see! So you think it's definitely better to freeze than not to freeze? This makes it all sound quite dangerous to freeze. How do kodak store stock? love Freya

The Agfa PDF list the perforation pitch as being 7605 which is short pitch as used in cameras normally. I'm not sure what you mean by curved pitch tho, so paerhaps you mean there is some other kind of problem?? I'm definitely not a perf expert! ;) love Freya