Ultra-16mm -- Viable for Digital Intermediates?

[Guest Ian Marks]

Tim Carroll - I'd like to see the trailer for "Novice." What's the URL? Thanks.

[John King]

[q]posted by David Mullen:

Don't you think for what you spent to own several 16mm cameras you could have shot a feature in 3-weeks and rented a modern Super-16 Arri-SR3 for the same price?[/q]

 

I really don't know. You're probably right, but there were several 'issues' sort of standing in my way of doing that. Mainly there is my extreme adversion to renting camera equipment. There is the price, then the insurance, and then the question if I'll have everything ready (as much as I think I'm ready) before I begin shooting. By that last I mean, for example, what if I get rained out or something. I'm sitting on a camera rental that I can't get use of-- big loss for a little guy like me.

 

I just like the idea of having my own equipment and taking my own chances I guess. Really neurotic I know but really I can't help it. I don't think I would have the nerve really to rent. Admittedly I wound up buying way too many cameras, more than I needed or even wanted really. At first it was just to have one, and later I kept seeing better models that were more reasonably priced and I got lucky winning the bids (WARNING TO OTHERS READING--> Ebay can consume your soul--and your budget! LOL!) Anyway here I am with equipment that I am confident can do the job required, but now I'm confronted with this aspect ratio issue.

 

Now in my original post I mentioned blowing-up to 35mm. Certainly that is way beyond my budget now, but who knows in a year or so it might not be. If at some time in the future I want (and can afford) to have 35mm prints pulled, then I thought with Ultra16 I would be closer to the accepted 1.85:1 widescreen ration and would ultimately save some on that end. I'm really way behind the times (so please bear that in mind) but from what I gathered, if I shoot in regular 16mm (1.33:1 ratio) I would be confronted with all sorts of reformatting problems. Is it true that this can be done digitally (Is this what they refer to as a 'pan and scan' process?) If so then it sounded to me like the end cost would be prohibitive.

 

Again I amy be completely wrong about all this. I'm a real green horn to filmmaking, what I 'know' about filmmaking really is what I've gathered from reading many books on the subjects by a wide variety of writers, offering a wide variety of opinions. What I actually know at this point for myself is extremely limited. That's why I came here to get guidance from you folks.

[Tim Carroll]

Tim Carroll - I'd like to see the trailer for "Novice." What's the URL? Thanks.

 

 

the Novice

Official Movie Site. Quicktime Required.

 

-Tim

[Robert Glenn]

I have a question about 2k scanning. are they able to scan edge to edge... perf holes included if desired?

[David Mullen ASC]

I have a question about 2k scanning. are they able to scan edge to edge... perf holes included if desired?

 

I believe the Spirit, if used for "scanning" Super-16 for a D.I., has a fixed relationship to the CCD line-array, so I'm not sure if it can scan beyond the edges of the frame. Don't know what other scanners are used for Super-16.

[David Mullen ASC]

A few points I want to make:

 

One is that when making any feature film, the camera is the EASIEST thing to get ahold of, yet so many people feel that they need to start by getting a camera, which leads them to buy one (or more). To put together a feature, you need actors, crew, location, and money, not to mention a script. If you have the resources to get all of that together and pay for it, the camera is almost an afterthought.

 

And assuming that the shoot is done all at one go, which is the most efficient method since it is hard to pull all those elements together multiple times, plus you can get better deals when you have a set period when you need all of the equipment, you invariably can rent a much better camera than you can afford to buy.

 

So being fearful of rental is irrational. And buying multiple 16mm cameras as a percursor to making a feature is also irrational. How do you know that was the most efficient use of your production budget? I've shot 30 features to date with rented equipment, so I don't understand what the advantage is to owning unless you are working on a long-term off and on again project like a documentary or have to make your feature on weekends scattered over many months.

 

The right way to make a feature is to start by adding up all the money you have to make it with and draw up a budget. The wrong way is to start by buying cameras and then figure out the rest as you go. Even if you decide that buying makes sense, it should be the last thing you do, not the first thing you do. Because it's too easy to spend that money.

 

I notice young filmmakers doing this all the time. The easiest thing about making a movie is buying equipment, so that's what they do. The hard part is writing scripts and casting actors and putting together a production.

 

As for having to cancel a rental, that happens all the time. You generally don't pay for equipment you never pick-up.

 

It really comes down to goals. Is the goal to make a feature? Or is the goal to have a camera so that one can shoot all the time, get work as a cameraman, etc. If you're really focused on getting a feature made, your budget priorites are different than if your goal is to set-up some sort of business as a shooter.

 

In terms of shooting 16mm for a blow-up to 35mm for 1.85 projection, there are NO additional costs if you shoot regular 16mm instead of Super-16. You simply COMPOSE the regular 16mm for cropping top & bottom to 1.85. The whole 16mm frame gets transferred to 35mm and the projector mask crops this to 1.85. Unless you transfer using HDTV as an intermediate, in which case a 1.78 area of the regular 16mm frame gets transferred to fill 16x9 HD, and that is transferred to 35mm with a 1.78 hard matte, to be projected with a 1.85 projector mask.

 

But there are no additional costs involved compared to working with a Super-16 frame UNLESS you didn't compose regular 16mm consistently for cropping to 1.85 or 1.78, but composed for full-frame regular 16mm. THEN you may have to reposition the frame shot by shot for widescreen presentation.

 

Now it's a different thing altogether to buy a camera as a learning tool, assuming you plan on shooting this feature yourself. Although a camera bought to learn on can be very cheap and simple. The only camera I ever owned was a Sankyo Super-8 camera that I got in high school.

[David Mullen ASC]

I'd also add that high-quality lenses make a big difference when shooting 16mm for a blow-up, and buying a set of good lenses can cost more than a camera does.

[Stephen Williams]

I have a question about 2k scanning. are they able to scan edge to edge... perf holes included if desired?

 

Hi,

 

No they are not! The film has to be held, advanced and registered frame by frame using the edges and the perfs.

 

Stephen

[Tim Carroll]

I notice young filmmakers doing this all the time. The easiest thing about making a movie is buying equipment, so that's what they do. The hard part is writing scripts and casting actors and putting together a production.

 

It is not just young filmmakers. I can only speak for myself and the people I have worked with on small productions, but I agree with David totally on this. It is interesting, when I go to monthly meetings of local filmmakers, it seems all anyone wants to talk about is "What camera do you have or shoot with" and the last few months the conversations have been dominated by talk of the new HVX-200.

 

Speaking for myself, when I first started out, making a big Hollywood production seemed so far out of any possibility, and I had a couple of stories I wanted to tell visually. So it became, "How can I do this myself." Which meant getting access to a camera. When I found out how much rental costs were and about insurance, and realizing I would have to shoot around the schedules of the actors and others I was hoping would help me on my project, the idea of owning a camera seemed smarter than renting. Of course this was when owning a camera meant a Bolex for under $1000.

 

Once I learned the hard way that a camera that costs less than $1000 is not going to make a "Hollywood" looking movie, I sold my motorcycle and a few other possessions to scape together the money for the Arriflex 16SR. And it served my purposes well, although now that I am no longer in Chicago and no longer have access to the acting talent and crews, the camera may get sold.

 

But buying a camera is very seductive. It can instantly make you feel like a legitimate filmmaker, the next Steven Spielberg (glad to see his Best Director nomination). But it can easily become the obsession of your filmmaking life. To paraphrase Lance Armstrong, "It's not about the camera."

 

-Tim Carroll

[Mark Williams]

Every Film Maker should own there own Camera HOW else can you learn how to use one? And of course with that camera you will want to practise and become Proficient.. Its a Journey of discovery.. Along the way you may make something that makes money.. Perhaps a commercial or a Music vid. A short story.. After all how many times can the best Movie makers pull it off? If we didnt think we had a chance then most of us would give up.. Its that hope that we can excel and create In order to maximise the chances then its only natural to want the very best quality you can get.. I reckon that when you are professional then that is the time you would rent Because you can pick up any camera and intuitivly know what to do without practise. You then know more precisely how long a shoot will take.. But for someone new to this, to rent really is a disadvantage and could be a bitter experience..

 

If you can improve Picture quality and learn with your own gear.. GO For it..

[David Mullen ASC]

Owning a camera for practice is different than owning one to make professional features and other productions. Like I said, the only camera I've ever owned was a Super-8 camera, which I learned on. That was enough to teach me about f-stops, exposures, filters, focal lengths. The only thing you don't really learn in Super-8 is threading a camera, which is not a big deal.

 

When I finally started shooting 16mm, I used a rented Arri-S for a few projects, but honestly it only took me fifteen minutes at the rental house to learn to use it after years of working in Super-8. Soon afterwards, I was at film school using their Eclair NPR's and Arri-S's.

 

I'm just pointing out that there's a difference between a camera you use to teach yourself and a camera you use for professional work. You don't need to spend much at all on the first, you don't need good lenses, etc. You mainly need to keep your costs low.

[John King]

David Mullen,

 

All I can say is that I wish I had the oppurtunity to talk to you earlier --ie. before I bought all these cameras! LOL! Actually, I think that the issue of owning versus renting is like most other questions confronting filmmakers, there are pros and cons to both options and nailing down that 'one right way' is really hard if not impossible. A lot probably depends on long term goals. Mine is to make more than one movie, so I expect a lot of use from my cameras. Secondly, although I did not go into it this way, after acquiring several different models of Bolexes, and liking them all, I've decided on a side hobby of collecting Bolex cameras and accessory equipment. It's kinda like my Harley friends, they can tell you all about this or that particular model of Harley-Davidson motocycle-- I'm getting to where I can do the same with Bolex cameras.

 

Putting together a production, although difficult sometime, has not really been that hard for me--yet. Most of my actors, understandably, are amatuers, but good amatuers coming from small local theatre clubs. Writing scripts can be a chore, but I have done it and will continue writing. In fact I'm working on one while preparing to get up to shoot another. Yeah, all this with a regular job, so I keep myself pretty busy.

 

Hey, at least I admitted in my post that I was neurotic in my hang-ups against renting equipment, and irrationality, I guess is just a symptom of that. And like Tim Carroll stated in his post its not just young filmmakers out doing this. Well, maybe you could call me 'young' in the sense that I am new to filmmaking, but I'm 42 getting ready to turn 43 this year, so 'young at heart' is about as close as I come to young these days LOL!

 

Now, about this business of cropping for the 1:85:1 ratio. This was one of the main reasons why I was considering to go the Ultra16 route. First of all, I do not have much faith in my ability to properly crop the frame. I've read about others doing this and I believe that they said they cropped by masking off the end of the matte box to the proper frame ratio (correct me if I'm wrong here, I'm not sure but I believe that's what I read). So again, I'm afraid that I might mess this up. Is there any sort of formula you can offer as to how to do this properly? What dimensions or other measurements do I need to be aware of? Also I was concerned about wasted frame space. From what I saw by way of examples it looked like cropped 16mm frame wasted a lot of emulsion area. It put the overall picture on a mcuh smaller frame, and I was wondering how this affected picture quality.

 

As always, your advice is greatly respected and greatly appreciated!

 

JMK

[David Mullen ASC]

The standard 35mm 4-perf frame is 1.33 : 1 (4x3), so framing for cropping to 1.85 in-camera is standard operating procedure, and so is projection masking to 1.85.

 

It's simply a matter of getting 1.85 framelines added to your viewfinder groundglass.

 

Now I don't know how difficult this would be in your case, but on the other hand, if you modified your cameras to Ultra-16 you'd want to modify your viewfinder markings anyway to accomodate that, wouldn't you? Or else how would you know what was in the Ultra-16 frame? You'd STILL have to compose for cropping top & bottom to 1.85.

 

In the case of Super-16, since the full aperture is 1.68 : 1, and the framelines show you that often with a 10% TV safe area as well, one could get away with guessing about 1.85 simply by giving yourself some extra headroom in every shot. I did that once for a Super-16 feature and when it was cropped to 1.85, it looked fine.

 

But for a standard 16mm groundglass marking, it's too hard to guess the 1.85 area since you're looking at a 4x3 frame. But like I said, even if you converted the camera to Ultra-16, you'd want to remark your groundglass anyway as part of the conversion.

 

Someone else with experience with these old cameras (Bolex, etc.) can probably tell you how to add some 1.85 framelines to your groundglass, maybe even just with a pencil, I don't know...

[Guest Ian Marks]

David and Tim make excellent points about the folly of investing your own money to buy high-end camera equipment . . . BUT . . . I would point out that owning an inexpensive MOS camera and then learning to wring the best possble image quality out of it - while respecting its limitations - is a great way to learn PRIOR to launching into that big, important project. Better to screw up shooting a 3 minute film on a two-day shooting schedule than on something you're staking your future career on.

 

David mentioned using his film school's Arri S's and NPR's, but obviously not everyone is in film school or can borrow a camera from a trusting friend. Moreover, there are bargains to be had out there - one can own a Bolex kit for not a lot of money. Strangely, no one will criticize your purchase of a bicycle as irrational, but spend the same amount on a camera and everyone will remind you that the first rule of filmmaking is not to spend your own money.

 

I think the problem is that some people think that by buying a camera they are "on their way" to making a film because this is the item they most associate with the movie-making process. Obviously, owning a camera does not confer "filmmaker" status any more than owning a beret will make you French. As has been pointed out, it's much more about having a great story and pulling together the talent, the crew, the money. Cameras are a relatively minor detail - but they are kinda cool.

[Matt Pacini]

I think there are a few things everyone has to remember about whether or not you should consider Ultra16:

 

1. Even if you convert, you're not "switching over" to something that makes your camera unusable, other than the new format.

You can still get a regular 16 frame in telecine or film transfer if the facility you're using doesn't deal with Ultra16 (which is very likely).

 

2. In light of #1 above, don't do Ultra16 if your project absolutely needs more resolution than regular 16, because there's a good chance you'll have to revert to it if you can't find or afford a facility that can deal with it. Again, nothing lost, since the r16 frame is still there.

 

3. If someone else rents or buys your gear for your film projects (which describes 99% of all those criticizing the format here), then it makes no sense to even think about it.

 

4. If you're someone who owns your camera(s) in order to learn how to shoot and gain more experience, or you fund your own low budget projects, and you tend to shoot on nights & weekends, and not in solid blocks where you can rent gear for 2-4 weeks straight, then you may be a good candidate.

 

But I'd say, even with all the criticism about the format, I think it's healthy to have "tinkerers" inventing new ways of doing things. I would imagine all the same advice was given to the man who came up with Super 16.

I'm glad he didn't listen.

 

MP

[Tim Carroll]

But for a standard 16mm groundglass marking, it's too hard to guess the 1.85 area since you're looking at a 4x3 frame.

 

Someone else with experience with these old cameras (Bolex, etc.) can probably tell you how to add some 1.85 framelines to your groundglass, maybe even just with a pencil, I don't know...

 

On my Arriflex 16SR I added the 16:9 frame marks by using two pieces of Scotch Magic Tape, one on the top and one on the bottom of the fiber optic screen (the ground glass on an Arri SR). That way I could still see what was going on in the top and bottom of the frame, but I had clear reference marks of how we were going to crop the picture.

 

I plan on doing the same thing with an Arriflex 16S I just rebuilt. The Scotch Magic Tape comes off easily and does not leave marks on the ground glass of the 16S. You need to be a bit more careful with the fiber optic screens though.

 

-Tim

[Sam Wells]

Same thing on mine only I use clear Scotch tape as I want to see the out of frame clearly, makes life easier; (plus I do some things 1.33:1 I'm old school)

 

Also I have mine at 1.85:1 as this is tighter i.e. "safer" (another reason for clear tape -- don't want UFO's outside 1.85)

 

-Sam