TimeTub

[Kirk Anderson]

I've just finished my first cut of TimeTub. It's a super8 film, shot on a Canon 814 and recorded on a Marantz pmd 201. A friend of mine approached me on how to make a film on super8, he wrote and directed the piece. I had been heavily involved with a different project and I advised him and loaned him equipment with out fully reading the script. He shot it all on Kodak 500t and 200t, then hooked up a color transfer and telecine from Postgroup in San Diego. He then gave me a copy of the script, DVD of the footage and a CD of the sound. I've spent about 40 hours syncing sound and making the first cut with him at my side. If you've ever edited with a director you may know, they want to keep everything, every single line, every reaction. Sorry for my rant, but after his edit with me the piece was 22 min and incoherent. I will recut this week and probably pull it down to 15min and attempt to make sense of this time travel/alternate universe film. Just wanted to let everyone know, it is completely possible to shoot and create a film using faux sync sound techniques.

 

We bought a Canon 814xl from ebay for $100 and shot with it the next day.(untested, that takes balls baby)

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We used a combanation of Laptop with garage band and a Marantz PMD 201 tape deck for sound.

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Clapper Board

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FCP and lots of hours

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A sync sound super8 movie for under $1000.

 

Total we had an hour of footage and I would guess a 15 min after my recut. It is possible, completely possible to create a super8 faux sync sound movie. I just wanted to give some inspiration, and I will post clips this week. also if anyone has any questions about my experience I'll do my best to try and answer.

[Kirk Anderson]

edit: it was an untested Canon 814 autozoom, not an XL

[Galen Carter-Jeffrey]

edit: it was an untested Canon 814 autozoom, not an XL

 

Thats awesome! Can you post a clip or two? I want to see how it looks and sounds. Were you happy with the quality of the audio?

[Kirk Anderson]

I'm fairly happy with the quality of the sound, there is a smidge of camera noise, but what can you do with out spending more cash on a nicer/quieter camera? They wrapped the cam in a pillow most of the time. The sound did drift a little bit, approx 6 frames every 10 seconds. I would just trim the sound frames on longer takes and it worked well. Much to everyone's surprise the sound from the tape deck sounded 10x better than that of the lap top, but we mostly used the laptop sound because of time contraints on a festival entry. We would have had to transfer all the tapes to AIff at real time and bring them into FCP. THe lap top sound was just easier. should have a few scenes up shortly. The dialouge was definately heavy so syncing was crutial.

[Mat Newman]

Hi Kirk,

 

I'd love to hear more about recording synch sound with garage band.

 

How'd you set that up? What kind of mic did you use? Was the sound merely acceptable, or actually decent?

 

And surely you can get it down to under 10 minutes!!! :P

 

Mat

[Kirk Anderson]

Hi Kirk,

 

I'd love to hear more about recording synch sound with garage band.

 

How'd you set that up? What kind of mic did you use? Was the sound merely acceptable, or actually decent?

 

And surely you can get it down to under 10 minutes!!! :P

 

Mat

Mat,

I wasn't around for the actual shoot, but they used most of my equipment, I belive it was recorded partially with the internal Mic on the actual macbook for tests and a few larger group shots, but mostly with a Shure SM 57. The mic used step down adapters until it was RCA jacks and plugged into a box then directly into the computer. Garage band was then used to record. The sound was acceptable, as I said before and there was definate camera noise and they had a slight problem controlling levels. I'm not sure if that was due to amateur actors or the equipment, but when the actors would go from soft voice to yelling the audio would be almost non exsistant, to overbearing ear drum bursting loud. I just feel like the mic was almost too responsive, or just really touchy.

As far as the actual process, clapper boards are the greatest asset to an amateur sync sound filmmaker. Just make sure your clapper girl has the board in a place you can read and watch the snap, then gets the hell out of the shot. A few times, the board was unreadable, or the clap wasnt there, or the girl stood in the shot and as an editor I was screaming!

I should have a post of footage up tonight!

kirk

[Z Will Ham]

Anxious to see/hear it.

I plan on making a couple sync sound super 8 shorts using a flash sound recorder.

Were you forced to keep scenes short due to the sound going off sync so quickly?

[Kirk Anderson]

here's a quick 20 second clip, I had trouble getting the files on youtube, I need to figure out compression better. anyhoo, as promised here's a taste.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NpBiNevVnk

 

kirk

 

edit, also I just found out Pro8mm did the processing, so hats off to them. Although these images have been through a long long color correction process during telecine at post group in san diego

Edited May 9, 2007 by Kirk Anderson

[Kirk Anderson]

TIMETUB will be premeiring at SFSU FILM PREVIEWS on MONDAY MAY 14th at SFSU Coppola theatre.

I don't know the exact time yet, so come out all day!!!!

 

Come out and support the films created by the Cinema Dept at SFSU.

 

Film Previews

Monday, May 14 & Tuesday, May 15 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.

Juried screenings of Cinema students' films made in the past year. Films selected by audience and jury will be shown at Film Finals (see below)

Coppola Theater (FA 101)

 

Film Finals

Reception 5:00 - 6:30 p.m. CA 153

MiniCine Information

Show 7:00 - 10:00 p.m. McKenna Theater (CA 129)

Films selected from Film Previews

Film Finals on MySpace