Dirk DeJonghe

Never run negative on any editing table. Get a film workprint or a telecine transfer with embedded keykode if you want to conform and print the negative in optimal conditions later. Most film students are amazed when they see the full quality of a projected S16 print and we even have a school that makes a direct blow-up from S16 to 35mm once a year to show.

If you are watching the clip on an Apple computer monitor and not a real video monitor, you will need to adjust the gamma of your output. Some computer monitors have a different gamma than required for video and they show the blacks too bright causing very noisy dark greys instead of blacks.

We use about one can of film cement per year. Kodak insists on selling us 10 cans per order because of hazmat shipping they say. Somewhere I have the Agfa formula for film cement and there are many online too.

You don't need Kodak to make film cement, several formulas are online.

Be sure to rewind the film stock twice, in order to keep the Keykode number on the proper edge of the film and ascending.

I have worked on a film, part home processed, that won a prize in Venice. However, the home processing is part of the look that the artist wants and there were some sections processed by a commercial lab (us). The difference is night and day. If you want the home processed look, go for it. If you want consistent quality, with good agitation (impossible to achieve in hand processing for longer footage), precise gamma and density, look no further than your pro lab. In the end it will be cheaper too. Concentrate on the creative parts of filmmaking instead.

Hi Dom, It will cover S16 at some focal lengths but no all; if I remember it would cover from 25mm onwards. if you want I can mount it on my camera and check. Compared to the current modern zooms it is much more yellow, nice to create a mid 1970ies look.

For sale: Aaton mounted Contax fixed lenses. Excellent condition. Worldwide shipping at cost. Price: 2000€ OBO for the set, plus VAT if applicable. Dirk DeJonghe (send PM)

Rare Angenieux R16 high speed zoom lens. Will fit NPR or ACL, Aaton with Cameflex to Aaton adapter not included. Very good condition, in original case. Make offer, will ship worldwide at cost. Dirk DeJonghe (via PM)

Compared to color negative stock, the B&W Orwo stock has considerably more grain. If you like that look, fine, if you don't I suggest color negative 50D and desaturate in post. Doing a 1.78 letterbox from standard 16 is not going to help the grain issue.

Having worked with a Marconi B3410 telecine for 22 years, I know it is sensitive to adhesive residue on the back side of the film. In those days, a lot of television was shot on 16mm colour reversal, edited on Steenbeck and the film with many tape splices put on telecine. If the film was kept in a hot location, the tape would 'bleed' and adhesive would be all over. Every time this adhesive unstuck on the feed side reel, you would get some wave effect since the smooth passage of the film over the line-array CCDs was disturbed. Even the modern Shadow telecine I have now is not entirely free from this problem.

Black acetate leader for negative cutting needs two essential properties: 1. It needs to be very black. Kodak leader is dyed in the mass, scratches will not show. 2. The perforations need to be short pitch. Kodak is best, no processing needed, very good perforation pitch, not sensitive to handling. If unavailable Orwo stock is made specially for black leader, needs exposing and processing, more expensive and sensitive to handling scratches.

Stuart, If you read my post again, that is exactly what I am saying.

Ansel Adams 'The Negative' is invaluable for serious understanding of how film works. Of course you will work with fixed development gammas in MP color, but in B&W you can process to lower/higher gammas. Use his empirical film testing procedure in Appendix A to test the sensitivity of your camera/lens/exposuremeter/stock/processing combination. This will tell you the -4 stops reference point (black with detail). After a keylight test (using the sensitivity you just found) you will know the falloff point of your highlights. After that, practice, practice, practice, did I say practice? His advice is: "expose for the shadows, let the highlights fall".

If you don't mind uploading it to my ftp site, PM me and I will create an account and password. We can all learn from this.

It would be helpful to know what is really wrong with the DVD, may save hassle in the future.

Welcome to the brave new digital world. Life will never be as simple as it was. How will it be five years from now with every manufacturer having his own blend of fileformats, hardware, OS, metadata etc, etc. How much chance is there that 50 years from now your files will still be readable? Your negative will still be fine.

My daughter Kaat comes to London quite often, but right now she is in Tel-Aviv. We can arrange Fedex pickup from your house if necessary. Just give us a call and they will come to pickup later in the day. We get daily shipments from all over the globe and Fedex is the best courrier we can imagine.

If you received a Prores file on a DVD ask for another copy of the file on another disk or stick. Nobody transfers Prores directly to DVD so they probably still have it on their computer somewhere. We usually keep transfers(simple rushes) for at least a month before erasing. What happens all the time: customer receives a Mac formatted Hard disk as requested by editor. Producer puts it on his Win computer. Computer says: "disk is not formatted do you want to format yes/no?" You can imagine what happens in some cases; obviously not possible on a dvd.

The Kodak stocks on 100ft daylight spools used to be wound using an oscillating motion where the film was moving from left to right to leave no gap between the film and the flanges of the spool. There also used to be (on the negatives) an additional layer in the emulsion that protected against light-piping. Since these two measures are no longer applied at the factory it is greatly recommended to load the film in very subdued light or complete darkness if you can. Especially if you shoot Super16 on daylight loads. Even a jacket turned outside in will be better than nothing; a changing bag is a good investment and can be handy to resolve camera jams too.

Our customers can also order Kodak stock via us. Talk to Aaike or Kaat for details;

Static electricity is very rare on color camera negative because of the conductive carbon rem-jet backing. It might be a problem in very low relative humidity on B&W stocks. We wind color intermediate and print stocks at over 1000 ft/min in complete darkness, never seen a spark. Very little chance on hand rewinds. Just keep the room at 50% humidity or more if in doubt.

You can buy both Fuji and Kodak from= http://www.frame24ltd.co.uk/

The work we did was to have the camera groundglass marked for 2.35, nothing else was changed on the camera; in the case of optical blow up to Anamorphic, one production used both the Tronchet anamorphic add-on lenses and the spherical Super 16 lenses with center extraction. This particular film was shown as closing film on the Berlinale Festival. There are now 1.33 ratio anamorphic lenses available that would permit use of the entire 1.66 Super16 area against the 1.17 area used by the Tronchet system. The advantage of using spherical lenses on a cropped 2.35 image on the Super16 negative are: much wider lens choice, not limited in front diameter, normal out-of-focus backgrounds instead of squeezed, zoom lenses can be used as well as long telephoto lenses. In brief: optical blow up from S16 to Super 35 Interpositive using spherical Printing Nikkor lens on the optical printer, next Super35 spherical to 35 Anamorphic Duplicate negative using special design Isco blowup lens on optical printer. Last: contact print 35mm Duplicate negative to Projection print 35mm CScope (fully standard formats). If digital: scan the Super 16 negative full gate and crop in postproduction. Render to anamorphic and record to 35mm film. With current generation negative stocks both methods give very good results with standard Super16 equipment and lenses. You cannot just take a file and open up a wet gate for optical printer, you have to build a new one, start counting at 15-20000 US$.

Super 16 is here since several decades, it is an ISO standard and supported by manufacturers of film stock, cameras, lenses, telecines, scanners, film printers, animation cameras, and many more than I can think of. No need to invent yet another format. Those Keykode numbers on the perforation side are mighty useful for negative conforming, scanning from edit list, etc. We have worked on about a dozen Super16 features that were blown up to Cinemascope 2.35 anamorphic format via optical printer and digital scanner. Let's concentrate on using existing formats with existing tools.