Premium Member David Mullen ASC Posted February 28, 2004 Premium Member Share Posted February 28, 2004 Has anyone seen "Greendale", the new feature directed and shot by singer Neil Young? I saw a trailer and figured it was Super-8 but was wondering how it was blown-up to 35mm. Looks pretty good, almost more like an old 16mm film stock from the 1960's. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member Wendell_Greene Posted February 28, 2004 Premium Member Share Posted February 28, 2004 Haven't seen the film, only saw a clip on the morning news and a brief comment by Neil. Jim Jarmursch's use of S-8 on the "Crazy Horse" documentary a few years ago may have influenced Neil. I wonder if Pro-8mm were involved as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Patrick Neary Posted February 29, 2004 Share Posted February 29, 2004 Here's a short bit about the film (with a "behind the scenes pic) on indiewire, although there's little tech/post info: http://www.indiewire.com/people/people_040226young.html You can also find a schedule of film play-dates and locations on Young's own web page- Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt Pacini Posted March 1, 2004 Share Posted March 1, 2004 Oh man, I'm jealous! How come my Super 8 feature didn't get this much attention! I'm pissed! (har har) I'll have to check into it. Sounds interesting. Matt Pacini Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Patrick Neary Posted April 6, 2004 Share Posted April 6, 2004 I finally had a chance to see Greendale this weekend at Portland's great Cinema21. The movie was fantastic (apparently the three people that walked out after 10 minutes didn't agree...) Some of the footage was crummy -Neil's not much of a DP ;) but when he hit focus, and the light was good, the super-8 just looked otherworldy- in a good way. Some of the 500 or 800 asa stuff he shot was truly amazing, like looking at a moving Monet. I'm really curious how they posted from super8 (at 18fps, no less) to 35mm- There's a digital intermediate in there somewhere, does someone actually transfer Super8 to HD or 2k? Anyway, makes me want to shoot lots more super-8... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nate Downes Posted April 7, 2004 Share Posted April 7, 2004 I finally had a chance to see Greendale this weekend at Portland's great Cinema21. The movie was fantastic (apparently the three people that walked out after 10 minutes didn't agree...) Some of the footage was crummy -Neil's not much of a DP ;) but when he hit focus, and the light was good, the super-8 just looked otherworldy- in a good way. Some of the 500 or 800 asa stuff he shot was truly amazing, like looking at a moving Monet. I'm really curious how they posted from super8 (at 18fps, no less) to 35mm- There's a digital intermediate in there somewhere, does someone actually transfer Super8 to HD or 2k? Anyway, makes me want to shoot lots more super-8... Several companies do it. But in this case, it was transferred to DV at Super 8 Sound in California (who also supplied the stock for it). The camera used was a Nautica, a well-known underwater Super8 camera. (Whyever he used an underwater camera beats me). There are labs that will do a direct transfer to 16mm and even 35mm as well. With the new Vision2 film to soon be arriving on Super8 (already available in europe), the little format is turning into a very versitile and powerful system indeed. There are even projects that "Super16-ify" Super8, widening the gate and allowing light to fall on the "sound-stripe" area. As noone makes Super8 sound film anymore, this gives almost 30% more usable film area in a widescreen format. A small independent movie, Sleep Always, was done with this widened Super8 format. Looks amazing, and they used low-end Ektachrome 160 film. I can only imagine what the results would be with Vision or Vision2. Here is a webpage where it describes this widened-gate Super8 and even details more about Sleep Always, including a chance to order it. I bought a copy to study the film-format and have signed to have my Super8 cameras modified to the format. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member David Mullen ASC Posted April 7, 2004 Author Premium Member Share Posted April 7, 2004 There are some Spirits that allow a Super-8 gate for transfers to HD -- they did this for the PBS show "American Family", which is shot in HD except for these Super-8 home movie sequences. I think Laser Pacific did the transfer work. You could also use standard def as an intermediate step. For example, you could transfer Super-8 at 30 fps to 60i Digi-Beta -- so that one frame of Super-8 becomes one frame of video (two fields). This could be uprezzed to 24P HD, combining every two fields into one frame and playing 30 fps as if it were 24 fps. Ultimately the footage would be playing at 24 fps so if you shot it originally at 24 fps, it would be at the correct speed even though it would be sped-up looking on the Digi-Beta master. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mitch Gross Posted April 9, 2004 Share Posted April 9, 2004 Cineric in NY made an introduction to their lab movie and shot it all in S-8 and then optically blew it up to 35mm, in part to demonstrate their ability to do so. It looks surprisingly good. Technicolor Creative Services in NY did a Spirit HD transfer of some high speed B&W reversal S-8. mostly for the personal amusement of their top colorist. Grain like golfballs but sharp and contrasty. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member John Pytlak RIP Posted April 9, 2004 Premium Member Share Posted April 9, 2004 Amazing how much you can "blow up" images on modern film stocks. B) Geoff Boyle reported great results in transferring small portions of the frame on the new VISION2 stocks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nate Downes Posted April 9, 2004 Share Posted April 9, 2004 That reminds me, I need to order some Kodachrome for my shoot next week. Hey John, does Kodak still do the prepaid mailers? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marty Hamrick Posted April 12, 2004 Share Posted April 12, 2004 There are even projects that "Super16-ify" Super8, widening the gate and allowing light to fall on the "sound-stripe" area. Who is doing this and how are they doing it?What is the aspect ratio they are converting the gate to?I've often thought that super 8 still had some more life as a viable format especially if it could fit the HDTV aspect ratio as well as super 16 does. Marty Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nate Downes Posted April 12, 2004 Share Posted April 12, 2004 There are even projects that "Super16-ify" Super8, widening the gate and allowing light to fall on the "sound-stripe" area. Who is doing this and how are they doing it?What is the aspect ratio they are converting the gate to?I've often thought that super 8 still had some more life as a viable format especially if it could fit the HDTV aspect ratio as well as super 16 does. Marty A website explaining the process can be found here. The new aspect ratio is now 1.66:1, identical to Super16's. There is a good article to be found here as well. I'll be modifying my Super8 cameras for SD8 shortly, having found the process to be perfect for my needs. The folk that run the friendlyfirefilms website are willing to perform the modification to camera gates for a very reasonable price. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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