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Ultra HD Kinetta Scan service & acheiving a cinematic look


Zachariah Shanahan

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Greetings fellow S8mm users!

 

I''m planning to shoot a 7 minute narrative festival short on my Fujica ZC-1000 with a variety of stock from Retro 8(http://film.club.ne.jp/english/englishindex.html

)

using the Fujinon f/1.8 7.5-70mm

 

Currently in pre-prod researching theory in attaining a cinematic look on Single 8mm with the use of anamorphic lenses etc. but my mind keeps flowing back to an Ultra HD scan since I heard of the Kinetta (http://www.kinetta.com/) used on

"Our Nixon" http://vimeo.com/45079849

 

I want to play with as large a res file as possible, at least 2.5k, so I can dramatically work with the image in post and crop it. Though this might not sound feasible I want as close to 16:9 as possible.

 

 

I've heard that Cinelicious (http://cinelicious.tv/we-love-film/small-formats)

has a great rep. Alternatively, if anyone knows of a scanning house with a Kinetta they could please share.

I found the Massachusetts College of Art and Design has one for their students, so I'm waiting for an answer for their service.

 

Regards

Zachariel J Shanahan

"Aspiring" Filmmaker

 

PS: I should be getting 5 test rolls/holiday film of HD scans from Retro8 soon, though I think they just do a telecine with a 5d Mk2. I'll share the results when I get them. I've been very impressed with Tak's service since we spoke on the phone on their Tokyo premises (as the front of desk couldn't speak English (^_^)

 

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There is hardly anything special in the components. Costs are apparently in the software.

The design must make up for the lack of delivered hardware :)

 

You need to wait until some manufacturer shows up on alibaba.com :)

 

With all these millions of miles of family film I am amazed there aren't a number of high end equipment suppliers

from China.

The stupidest of gadgets are thought of. All these HD cameras should be feasible to be run with an adapter which can scan Super-8 from 200ft reels. How difficult can it be?

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What I've seen of Kinetta scans look damn good. It's the brainchild of Jeff Kreines, whose encyclopaedic film knowledge, wit and intelligence are well known to CML subscribers. From what I understand the advantages of the Kinetta scanner (beyond the quality of the scans themselves) are that it handles any film format, can scan even badly damaged or vinegared film, and is small enough to be easily transportable.

 

The last time I researched it, there were Kinettas in Paris at As'Image, in San Francisco at Movette Film Transfer and one in Israel somewhere. There are others in archival or college institutions that don't handle outside work. For the Nixon scans I believe Mr Kreines took a Kinetta to the Nixon Presidential Library and scanned the films there.

 

According to Kinetta@Massart the lucky students at Massachusetts College of Art and Design get 2.4K scans of their films for $10 per 100'.

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It's an incredible prospect to behold.

 

I'm working on my first S8mm project at the moment so I'm discovering the limitations with tests etc. though I think with the technology available now it's never been a better time to embrace the small format.

 

Yeah, As'Image list their 4K scans at 3296 x 2472 though I found no mention of Kinetta on their site. Though this is a giant image to work with!

 

@Dom you're from Melbourne. I'm in the Gold Coast. Do you get your stock from NanoLab?

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The Kinetta's brochure works very hard to justify the costs by showing how much per reel it would cost to a working facility. For existing shops I guess that makes sense, they can plug in their existing numbers and see if it makes sense. But with the list price of $179,000 with one gate I finding it hard to see it's worth. A 4k Spirit with Resolve & controllers, 16, 35, vistavision and Super 8 gates could be had for nearly the same. Maintenance would be more on a Spirit.

 

If they could get it down to the $30,000 range it might make more sense for the "dvd mill" market.

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  • 2 weeks later...

It appears to be very much like the Retro machine from Moviestuff.tv Or the Müller HM-23.

 

Very little moving parts or feelers. ust scan what comes past. Find a perforation using a laser and photograph there. Use software to extract the frame and do all things to the image then. Construct the images into a moving image stream.

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The Kinetta looks a bit more sophisticated than catching perfs on the fly. It's designed to handle poor quality film, with shrinkage and other issues, without risk of damage. To bring prices down you do need to get into mass production, rather than one off or batch manufacture. You could bring the price down, but it is aimed at the archival market, which has demands that your everyday 8 mm transfer house doesn't.

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  • 4 years later...

It does good work but I think it's main advantage is portability. For the Nixon films, they brought the scanner into the facility where they were stored, instead of risking sending the historical films out for scanning. I would love to have one on my desk, but it would be more than i paid for my house. I'm installing a new 2K camera head on my Retroscan, and would be willing to take the "Pepsi Challenge" with the Kinetta... and play "find the $173,000 difference"

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