Shooting a Practical 16mm Projector

[Mark Heim]

Hello All,

 

I'm shooting some pick up scenes for a short film this weekend. One of the scenes involves a character watching some old 16mm footage inside a barn at night. I wanted to do everything in-camera, on set. We are shooting with a SR3 on 7219. The projected film is 7285 running through an autoload projector (Not sure what model). The scene is simple, with the character sitting down. We wanted to look over her shoulder seeing the projected image.

 

From what I have discussed with people, it seems I shouldn't have too much to worry about. However, I haven't been given the opportunity to do a test. I was wondering if anyone had any experience shooting a similar effect. Do I need to worry about syncing the shutters? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

[Lester Dunton]

Mark,

 

You should be fine, to be sure use a 180 degree shutter, and to double check, take the film mag off, cut a small piece of tracing paper, place it in the camera gate - be careful of the pull down - run the camera and projector, and view the inverted image to confirm lack of flicker.

[John Sprung]

The 180 degree shutter works fine if the camera is at the same frame rate as the projector. The camera shutter is open for 180 degrees and closed for the other 180, making 360. The projector cycle is a bit more complex. It's open for 90 degrees, closes to interrupt the light for 90, then open displaying the same frame for another 90, and finally closes for 90 to pull down the next frame.

 

What you want is for each camera frame to see only one projector frame, which happens by chance about three times out of four. What you don't want is your camera exposure to straddle the projector pulldown, giving you a double image. With no film in the camera, and some moderate action in the projection plate, run and stop the SR a few times to see if you can see that double frame thing in the finder.

 

When you're actually shooting, start/stop each take until you see the double image in the finder, because what you see there is exactly what's *not* going on the film, in terms of time.

 

 

 

 

-- J.S.

[Doug Palmer]

Perhaps one way would be to physically join the camera to you projector, using a flexible shaft, assuming it's not in shot ! The flicker won't be seen, ie. 1:1 shafts running in sync. Panning the camera is possible, even hand-held. See my blog

But I don't know where you'd run off from the Bell & Howell, probably toomuch trouble... :blink: