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digital to 16mm transfer


Milica Jovcic

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Hi everyone,

 

I follow your forum and topics for a while and it helps me a lot in a work with super 8/16mm.

 

Reason is I finally write is question about transferring material from digital format to 16mm. Can you give some hints and directions for further researching?

 

Project we are working on is documentary about avangard artist and the reason I wants to avoid digital formats mixing with archive material is that those archive materials are very roughh and low-fi. They are mostly shot on VHS, Super 8 and Betacam

 

Is there some 'affordable' way for this action? it would be about 20-25 min of material at most.

 

I'm very limited here in Serbia to search ask for. Help is more than welcome!

 

Thank you and regards from Belgrade,

 

Milica

 

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You could just film the video as it's played on a high quality TV or monitor. I'd assume you wouldn't be using a cathode ray tube display, so syncing to avoid the bar wouldn't be an issue. Just shoot at the same frame rate as the video and you shouldn't run into problems.

 

If possible, it would be a good idea to shoot a test.

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Thak you for quickly answer!

 

Sure, we have plans to start with tests.

 

5D and maybe with Canon XF105, those camers we can afford right now. But what you thinking about filming on Betacam and than transfer on 16mm? Would it be too raw?

 

Good think is that we have old guy here who had a lot of experience doing telecine from digital to 16/35mm on a way you described.

 

I guess we'll do tests in next month, so I'll post it.

 

Thank you again for support,

 

Milica

Edited by Milica Jovcic
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This has come up before, check out this company:

 

http://www.videofilmsolutions.com/main

 

I'm fairly sure this is the most affordable & highest quality digital to film solution you will find. You will wind up with a master negative and one print and you can do optical soundtrack if you like. I'm working on a 16mm cinemascope short that I hope to send them. It will be lightyears ahead of filming a monitor, trust me. Just call and ask for Tommy and he'll walk you through your options and may even encourage you to test the screen option so you can see the difference with his work.

 

Please share any other solutions you find as those of us with projectors would find this very helpful.

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  • 2 weeks later...

This has come up before, check out this company:

 

http://www.videofilmsolutions.com/main

 

I'm fairly sure this is the most affordable & highest quality digital to film solution you will find. You will wind up with a master negative and one print and you can do optical soundtrack if you like. I'm working on a 16mm cinemascope short that I hope to send them. It will be lightyears ahead of filming a monitor, trust me. Just call and ask for Tommy and he'll walk you through your options and may even encourage you to test the screen option so you can see the difference with his work.

 

Please share any other solutions you find as those of us with projectors would find this very helpful.

 

I agree with Will. These Guys are probably the best on the marked today. I definitively would give them a try.

 

Ask for Tommy and thell him Randy sent you ;-)

Edited by Randy J Tomlinson
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  • 2 weeks later...

Niagara Custom Lab also does this, I've seen the results and its quite good:

 

http://www.niagaracustomlab.com/digitaltofilm.html

 

I've also seen 16mm that was filmed off a laptop computer screen with a Bolex that looked quite excellent considering the source material was grabbed off YouTube.

 

NCL will do a short test for free as I would imagine other labs would. I'd suggest you submit a clip to as many labs as possible and try your own filming of a screen and decide for yourself what is right for the film.

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  • 4 weeks later...

I've been working on this the last week.

 

One problem with a normal computer screen is that the colour components of the screen are separated in space (if you look very closely). Normally this doesn't matter as the eye mixes these colours together, but a camera/film (shooting the screen) doesn't quite mix the colours as effectively as the eye - the result is that the film doesn't look as colourful as it otherwise might

 

One solution is to use a black and white screen with colour filters and multiple exposures. An alternative is to use black and white film (panchromatic film) on a conventional colour screen, shooting the three colour channels in separate passes and recombine them onto colour film (with colour filters/light) on a contact printer.

 

ColourSeparationPipeline.jpg

 

 

Carl

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  • 7 years later...
  • 3 months later...

We used a digital to 16mm process for our film Operation Avalanche. It was done by Pablo Perez at Niagara Custom Lab, though he's not there anymore. I believe they still do video -> film transfers.

You can read about the process here:

https://blog.filmsupply.com/articles/operation-avalanche/9/

Operation Avalanche Trailer:

 

Jared

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