Zac Fettig

Well, he did win 2 Best Director Oscars. ;)

If it helps, here's a lens test I ran as soon as I got the 14x (The camera was about 6 years old at the time). All hand held. Way too much hand held and zoomed too far. No color correction.

All I get is: “Against th…” This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Against the Wild Films Inc.” It seems they honored your takedown request.

The anodizing treatment that they show in the video is purely decorative (although it does help with contolling corrosion). It won't make the surface any harder or smoother than the base aluminum it starts out as. There are a few colors available in a hardcoat, but most of the time, if it's got color (other than clear or black). It's just for decoration. They wouldn't have had access to any really special, low friction surface treatments for Aluminum in the 70s (unless it was military). I don't believe PTFE Hardcoat anodization was available until the 80s. Your best bet (quality wise) is to machine (I'm asssuming you have experince with precision machining. Tolerances are +/- 0.001" at most, with +/-0.0005" more common, in a film gate) a new gate from brass, not aluminum. You'll be able to hold a much finer tolerance, and control of the surface finish. Then see if an auto body shop or a job shop near you has a connection for chrome plating. It'll be harder and smoother than almost anything you could do at home. Although the plating shop might get picky about materials. Chrome-plated brass was the material of choice for quality gates back in the old days. There are better solutions today, but not by much. Aluminum would have been used in cheaper projectors. Today, it would probably be 7000-series aluminum with a teflon-impregnated hard coat. Keep in mind, most super 8 projectors were meant for home use. They were fairly cheaply constructed. I doubt they'd go to too much trouble for fancy treatments on the parts, unless it's a Zeiss Ikon or something equally expensive. The easier approach is to just get another projector and file down the gate. The worst that can happen (other than film sctaches) is that you open up a little too much of the gate. If you take your time, and wet sand the surface with fine grit sandpaper, you should be able to get it pretty smooth. If you run a test roll through it you should be able to tell if it's scratching. They do make spray on teflon coatings, if that helps. The easiest approach is to just buy a wolverine scanner, and scan 6 frames at a time.

You're right. You would have trouble keeping infintiy focus with the adapters listed above (unless you have access to a machine shop, but then you could just get a proper adapter machined). I forgot the FFD of the 2/3"-B4 mount (48mm) was so close to the EOS mount (44mm), that the EOS mount itself has to be pulled off to make it work. I was thinking of the 1/2" B4 mount ones (which are less, but I'm never sure how much less). I don't have any tests handy. But there is a difference between the two lenses. The 14X is quite a bit sharper. I did find a few clips. First a standard 20X auto lens: 14X. This was Canon's standard 14X 1/3" lens with a XL mount slapped on. Made in response to the Optex-Fujinons: Someone with an Angie 12-120 adapted for XL (I would LOVE a Arri Bayo/Standard->XL adapter): Ebay really depends on when you're buying. Every so often, somebody will pop up and actually want to sell something; as opposed to cashing in - those guys post the same thing at the same inflated price week after week. If you're patient, you'll get one for less. The reality is, the XL lens was kind of a dead end, and hence aren't worth that much. The old ones won't even work on the HD XL mount cameras. I bought my 14X in June of 2013. I had the XL2 sitting around gathering dust, and thought it would be worth it if I was going to try upscaling the footage. I personally love it. Don't get to use it much.

I believe Optex is out of buisness. I know a bunch of places that specialized in Canon XL series have all gone under. If you absolutely have to go this route, your best bet is to go on ebay, and get a B4-EOS adapter and then grab a EOS to XL adapter. Ideally a mechanical one (like the Novoflex or the Fotodiox one), instead of the ground glass Canon adapter. If you just want to shoot on the XL2, it might make more sense to just get a manual XL lens. I was able to pick up a Canon 14X XL manual lens for $100 not too long ago. The 16x manuals sell fairly cheap too, only a little bit more (I've seen $130 commonly). Not many people want them, and the XL2 has fallen by the wayside. If you're willing to wait, I've seen an Optex modified Fujinon go for around $220 on ebay last year, but they don't come up for sale every day. To be fair, 28 Days later was shot on XL1 and prototype XL1s. The XL2 looks a lot better.

Off hand, I don't. I just know that because it was in Arri's promotional literature. I'll try and dig up the flyer.

Josh, your teacher told you a fib. Arri developed the 16S in the 50s, after the war was over, at the requst of Disney. The price could be correct, if they have a $325 minimum charge. You don't have to do the telecine locally though. If you process it locally, the film is stabilized and can be shipped. Here's a link to Cinelab's (USA) commercial rate card: http://cinelab.com/PDFS/Cinelab-CommercialRateCard2014.pdf

http://www.mcmaster.com/#coil-spring-round-belts/=szmqbf You can get spring belts from McMaster.

Keep in mind that the Vision3 500T Koadk makes with 2 perfs is sold in 400' loads with a 20 piece minimum order (roughly $3700). And you still have to roll it onto daylight loads to get it to work! Spectra might have some double perf left in 100' loads. http://spectrafilmandvideo.com/Film.html You'll probably do better contacting them. Let us know how it turns out. I have a Redlake LOCAM I've never used beacuse getting double perf is such a pain.

Do they need to be drywall screws? Or will any self-tapping screw work? I'm assuming this is for wood, so a wood screw should work just as well (unless you're really close to the breaking point of the screws).

If you can make do with 1" screws, there's always McMaster: http://www.mcmaster.com/#tapping-screws/=svl7yb

In theory they should be exactly the same. The only difference between to two is the lens.

That amount of jitter looks normal to me. Cameras don't get much better than the Beaulieu 4008 ZM2 you're using. Keep in mind that there is no registration pin or pressure plate (the bigger problem) on a Super 8 camera (Except the prototype-stage-Logmars and the very rare Mekels; or some DS8 cameras). Any super 8 camera with drop in loading does not have a registration pin. It can't. There is no pressure plate to hold the film against. My guess would be the film stock. It looks like you're shooting Negative (with a remjet backing) and the other footage is (probably) Tri-X+Kodachrome (or Ektachrome) reversal. The reversal is thinner, and won't hop around as much.

Phil's right. The only caveat is to buy when the deal is too good to pass up. For example, if a friend is fed up with film, and offers you a 16SR3 package for a dollar, buy it! If you're chasing the gear trend, that's bad. Be patient.

It really depends on how much the difference in cost comes out to, and what you plan on doing with the footage. If your end result is to end up on DVD screeners (or online), with little to no post work, you don't need an HD transfer. It's nice, but not necessary.

I've used some older Zeiss lenses for 16mm cine and some Zeiss (and Zeiss Jena) 35mm still lenses. They're generally excellent, and are certainly at least on par with any other comparable lens in the world. The older East German Jenas can have build quality issues, but typically are excellent optically.

If you want to go the simpler route, here's a couple of links: http://www.diyphotography.net/build-your-own-lenses/ http://forum.tz-uk.com/showthread.php?52712-Tony-Lovell-s-home-made-914mm-super-telephoto-lens

I've never built a lens per se, but I've designed lens assembly fixtures (for a production line). If you want to build a creative lens, it's fairly straight forward. If you want to build a precise, Zeiss quality, cine lens; forget it. It's really, really hard to design and assemble. The technicians who do it are highly skilled. This is a good video: http://vimeo.com/26251829 A brief overview of all the steps involved in making a lens. It's all really high skilled tech work.

Yes. Other than the Logmar, the Gakken, and a few Beaulieus there hasn't been a new super 8 camera in decades. The Leicina is a fantastic camera and is still high end.

The idea is sound. In the "good old days" Kodak used to make their cine stocks available on 35mm rolls for DPs to use in testing (source: "Every Frame a Rembrandt" -Andrew Laszlo). I don't know the Konica well, but if you can set it for 1/50th of a second, and meter for that (use a tripod. It won't come out well hand held) you should have a good idea of what the finished project looks like. I heard (possibly apocryphally) that Matthew Libatique did something similar when filming Black Swan. He'd test lighting by shooting a still on a DSLR, so he'd know he's got (close) to what he'd get when he shot on S16.

No problem! Glad to help!

I'm not crazy about the text background on the synopsis. I like the ruled paper look on the bios more. Personally, I like a unified look across pages. Also, most of the write-ups need to be edited. For example, the original text for your bio: "Matthew had a desire to make films for a long time but never took the opportunity to try until getting a cheap camcorder for a gift one holiday. He started recording his daughter playing and then would practice editing the video on Pinnacle Studio. The he and his Friend George decided to write a short comedy script for him and George to act for. This script evolved into Matthew’s first official short entitled “Psycho Granny.” Shot on a Canon XL-2, in 2005, Matthew didn’t like the look of digital footage. He wanted to step up to shooting on film. He wrote a serious script entitled “The Wheat and the Chaff” and shot it on Super 8mm film. That was in 2008 but in 2012, Matthew started working on a feature script about the end of the world according to the book of Revelations entitled “Malum” (latin for evil.) Matthew finished the script but didn’t acquire the funds to do it justice. He instead wrote the feature script “Unworthy” and knew he could raise the money for it. It was due to be shot in 2013 but camera issues and logistics prevented it until 2014 when things started coming together. Matthew is currently working on a Master’s in Computer Science from DePaul University in Chicago." It has a lot of information, but most of it isn't relevant from the reader's perspective, and it is hard to read. It reads much better like this: Matthew had a burning passion for film for many years. One day, while filming his daughter playing, he had a “Eureka” moment, and a filmmaker was born. Matthew shot his first short film, “Psycho Granny” in 2005, with his friend George, on a Canon XL-2 digital camera. In 2008, Matthew shot his short film “The Wheat and the Chaff” on Super 8 film. Matthew has worked on my film projects since then. Currently he is involved in pre-production on “Unworthy”. Matthew, when not working on film projects, is currently working towards his Master’s Degree in Computer Science from DePaul University in Chicago.

“There is no stupid question! Except, possibly, a question not asked.” --Christer Romson

I'd go with 85B. It matters, but only a little, and a lot of it is stylistic choice. An 85A will drop 5500K to 3400K, and an 85B drops 5500K to 3200K. So the 85A will give you a slightly cooler (more bluish) look. If it helps, the film (7213) is rated at 3200K.