Freya Black

I was recently asking a similar question in another thread (with regard to print stock in camera) apparently panchromatic film came in during the 30's sometime, and films before then were orthochromatic like this one! So the colours might be similar to those in early silent films like "the cabinet of dr caligari" and "nosferatu". Personally I think that sounds like lots of fun, but then I probably have very strange ideas about cinema. I assume you are thinking of running this stuff in the Auricon, which is a nice idea! :) Not only might it improve the sound quality but I bet you could shoot a really interesting film with optical sound and the silent film look. Might be very atmospheric if done right! ;) love Freya

I don't actually have a fridge, I have a special stone thing that was used before they invented fridges. It sounds like it is more the water than the actual temperature that is the big danger to film, this concerns me as perhaps the moisture level in the cellar will be greater than in the rest of the house, but then these are sealed cans so maybe this is less of an issue. I notice that kodak ships film in cardboard boxes. Perhaps these are a good medium as the cardboard would absorb the moisture ahead of the cans inside? I have a "coca cola" ice bag that I could put some of the film in. As an aside, presumably, film on set should be just kept at room temp? Theres no point in keeping film in an ice bag with an ice block, or anything? Out of interest, what about hot, dry conditions like in the desert? So heres a question, is freezing the film potentially more harmful then storing it at room temperature? love Freya

Isn't Fog more a function of age than temperature? (or of course possible exposure to light) I thought temperature was more likely to affect colour? I'm definitely planning to do a fog/camera test. I'm planning to shoot some dream sequence stuff as my tests, so if there is fogging maybe it will add to the look! ;) I'm not expecting this film to be in tip top condition to be honest, because of the age, but I've heard that plus-x and VNF are quite hardy even at room temp, the colour neg stock might be quite dubious of course. I'm sure I will be able to find a use for it all tho, as I'm an art student ;) and I'm planning to telecine. love Freya

Is there anything I need to be aware of with regard to storing film in the freezer? I've just scored a lot of old 16mm film cheaply, sadly a lot of VNF but also some PlusX! :) I'm very excited and it is presently stored in my cellar which is generally dark and cold (even today when it is sunny). I'm thinking of freezing it. Is film bothered by sudden changes in temperature, for instance if the film suddenly gets very cold? Should the film be wrapped in any specal way? Anything else I should be aware of? love Freya

Here is an interesting link on low cost shotgun mikes, with technical explanations and pattern diagrams: http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/revie...otgun_mics.html love Freya

PDF for DIY Zepplin I thought this might be useful too Home Made Shock Mount DIY Boom Pole (For Completeness) love Freya

Ja, Sorry, I didn't mean to confuse anyone, that's why I said it was offtopic. The Only reason I mentioned binaural mikes is that a lot of the DIY mic articles are concerned with making binaural headsets, but of course making a mono omnidirectional microphone is just a matter of ommitting one of the two microphone capsules and not mounting the capsule on a headset. If you want an omni pattern, it's a very cheap way of getting very good results. love Freya

Robert is right, as I mentioned earlier, when using a high end shotgun mike on a film once, I could hear quite clearly the birds in the trees outside directly behined me. You would need to position the mic so that the crowds were not directly behined the microphone but the mic was pointing at the parade. A slight angle should do it. Shotgun mikes reject heavily from the sides. love Freya

Experimenting with dolby and DBX seems like a good idea, and valve electronics are much loved in the audio world for their warmness and musicality. Hmmm, if you want to point the microphone at paticular items to pick them out from the hubub then a shotgun mike could be better, but if you want to record the sounds all around you then omni's might be better. Spaced omni's are often used for recording orchestras. Off topic but lots of fun, are binaural headsets, because you get this strange stereo image that feels like you are really there if you play the sound back through stereo headphones. It doesn't work with speakers tho. ;) I've always liked the idea of being able to film your own optical soundtracks this way, I hope you have lots of luck! love Freya

Exactly yes! It is the same as a lav miike mentioned earlier(it's an abreviation), the one I said might be hard to attach to alien dogs! ;) love Freya

Sorry, it's early in the morning here and I wasn't paying attention, but I leave the other posts up as they might be useful. If you just want to record ambient sounds in mono, then an omnidirectional mic is probably the way to go I suspect: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller...Bar&A=search&Q= There are very cheap electret condenser capsules around that are omni, and it occurs to me that you could maybe even build a little microphone yourself! This kind of thing is very popular with people making binaural headsets and the like. http://www.minidisc.org/homemade_mics.html http://webpages.charter.net/tidmarsh/binmic/ Obviously you would want to test this with a tape recorder or minidisc or something first before wasting film! :) love Freya

The A.E. Townson recommendations above look quite helpful. I've heard some good things about the azden but never used one. Perhaps you can pick up a cheap one from e-bay. If you are planning to make conventional drama films, the azden might be a good choice. However you mention you might make music films of some kind. If you are filming live music, then maybe you won't need a mic at all and could get a feed off the mixing desk, assuming the performers had their own PA/microphones. (can the camera accept line level signals?) If you can set up an sm57 right in front of the performer then it might be a good choice, A little way back and an omni might be a better choice, it could pick up a more realistic sound of everything that is being played, and in fact everything in the room (including perhaps the camera?) In a more controlled environment you might be better with a cheap condenser mic but it really depends what kind of thing you have in mind. Perhaps you can tell us more. love Freya

"I have been using the original Auricon (Electro Voice) E-6 mic." Electro Voice have traditionally been a preety good make of mke, but I don't know the model you mention and EV mikes are not so available this side of the pond. What problems do you seem to be having with this microphone? love Freya

Hiya Jack! :) Different microphones have different patterns, and it really depends on what kind of use you are going to put the microphone to in your films. In feature films, shotgun (lobar pattern) microphones are usually used, these microphones are highly directional and pick up the sound directly from the front of the microphone but not from the sides. This can help in alieviating such sounds as camera noise and general environmental noises and focussing the sound on what you want. It's important to keep the microphone aimed at the "talent" with these microphones or you can get an off mic effect quite easily. Strangely, they also seem to pick up sounds directly from behined the microphone too! I remeber on one shoot being shocked to hear the clear sound of birds singing in the trees outside. These microphones tend to be very directional and very sensitive. For television news style interviews, other forms of microphones are often used. There is an omni dynamic microphone made by electro voice, that is very popular in this application. I can't remember the model number, perhaps someone else knows and can chime in. This is the microphone that is often shoved in the faces of people trying to leave court and the like as people desperately ask for a comment. It would be fine for alien dogs I suspect. However, it is an omni pattern microphone. This means it picks up sound from all around. It's not very discriminating. It's likely to pick up camera noise or any kind of sound in the vicinity, this is why it is used in these sort of media scrum type environs, where they may not be able to get the microphone positioned at the "talent" in the way they would like. The SM57 and SM58 are cardioid microphones. They are less directional than shotgun mikes but also more directional than omni microphones. They pick up sound from the front but also somewhat from the sides. They are commonly used in live music applications. The SM57 is billed as an instrument microphone but is very frequently used for female vocals or just vocals generally. Apparently the capsule inside is the same or very similar to that of the sm58 but with a different enclosure. This would be fine for on camera interviews where someone handholds the microphone or other applications such as music videos, poetry readings, bingo announcements etc. Another possibility used in the film and video world are lav mics. These are the tiny microphones you often see clipped to peoples ties on the news. They are generally quite cheap but they are usually positioned very close to the talent. They can often be hidden because they are so tiny. Sometimes you can find radio lav mics quite cheap on ebay, That way people can wonder around fairly freely without a direct connection to the camera. Don't know how they could be easily attached to an alien dog tho. It all depends what kind of thing you intend to film! :) Hope that helps a little. love Freya

I think Russia does not use ASA speeds on their cameras, certainly my zenit camera is like that. Here is a chart for GOST to ASA conversion: http://www.kataan.org/techref/gost-asa.html I'm not sure if the K3 uses GOST or not, tho, perhaps someone else here knows. The speeds look quite similar to ASA mind you, so probably wouldn't make that big a difference when shooting on negative film. The telecine (film transfer to video) doesn't look too awesome. It might account partly for the 8mm look you describe but I guess it's not so important for a camera test. These people do cheap transfers, so perhaps when you are happier with the results you are getting, you can get your more important stuff transfered here. I assume you can't afford fancy spirit transfers and the like! ;) http://www.tfgtransfer.com/ love Freya

I guess you could try solarising the film? love Freya

I should point out that the 2 new ektachrome stocks may look very different to the old VNF. I have to agree that I've never been very keen on the look of the old VNF (although ironically it looks like I'm about to shoot a ton of it) but these new stocks might look completely different. I've heard people say nice things about the 100d who have shot it and I'm personally keeping an open mind about the new 64T until I've really seen it. Kodak calls all kinds of things ektachrome for some reason, these films are not only a completely different formulation but a completely different process (E6) too. I suspect the E64T will look closer to the 100d than the VNF. Theres a lot of F.U.D. doing the rounds at the moment, we actually know very little about what things will be like. We don't know if the new stock will be process paid or not, and we don't have a clear idea of what it will look like. Perhaps we should wait till we have some facts before we make desciisions about things. love Freya

*I'm* in the u.k. and it doesn't seem that controversial at all! The whole issue seemed to have dropped off the map long, long ago. I'm actually not sure where I would actually stand on this position politically these days for a variety of economic reasons anyway. However, the bottom line is we aren't in the eurozone, and while that may have some advantages, in this paticular instance it causes problems. It was just a comment on the current situation with processing film, don't read anything more into it, the political stuff is dead in the water for the forseeable future anyway, whatever your position on it. love Freya

It's suprising how hard it is to find out anything about labs in this country, (especially looking on the internet) compared to the mainland or the states. :( love Freya

That link didn't work for me. You could try: http://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/support/...ablocator.jhtml love Freya

So there might be pre paid mailers?! I guess we will have to see! I'd even be very happy with pre-paid TRI-X becoming available or something. Fingers crossed here! :) I tend to find it's hard to communicate with Hemel Hempstead, tho they are quite helpful when you finally get through to the right people. Well it will be interesting to see which way the wind blows, it's all bad timing for me at the moment, everything suddenly seems very up in the air. I'm a bit loathed to start talking to them about S8 at this moment too, as there is a lot of flack in the air, as you might expect. I don't want to develop a bad reputation with them just because I like S8! :) love Freya

Can I infer from that statement that the new stock is NOT process paid? ;) This link is for E6 processing labs generally. From what I can tell, few of them process S8. S8 processing is very difficult here in England because we have no S8 labs whatsoever. :( We either have to use a broker to deal with a European lab, or attempt to deal direct, with all the currency and payment issues. It's a shame we aren't in the Euro zone but it's one of those things. The process paid film was really straightforward and nice. Will the new filmstock be significantly cheaper than K40, as it doesn't have processing, or are prices not finalised yet? love Freya

Is this new ektachrome film going to be process paid like kodachrome 40? Does anyone have any information on retail price? love Freya

I've been using sewing machine oil on my cameras but if you have access to oil for motion picture cameras of some kind it might be better.

Sounds like it could be a good job for a filmo or similar because of the all metal construction and rugedness?