2-perf Super8 Anamorphic

[Carl Looper]

Betacam SP looks different then the Alexa, but nobody shoots in that anymore.

 

And yet people still shoot Super8 and appreciate such. Still shoot 16mm. Still shoot 35mm.

 

The point is not whether this is the case (because it is the case), but how one might understand that, ie. beyond just scratching one's head in disbelief.

 

Breaking news - Sony has just announced they are to release a new Betacam SP camera. Industry abuzz with excitement. Ha ha.

 

Or - just announced - vietnam era portapak to make a comeback complete with backpack and tape splicer.

 

History man. It doesn't just go away. Its still there. It is very powerful.

 

C

Edited January 27, 2016 by Carl Looper

[Freya Black]

According to wikipedia and Kodak's own website, it was 2004. It had to be after 2002 because I remember not shooting something on super 8 in 2002 because I couldn't get negative stocks.

 

Yet here is a thread from 2001 where people are confused as hell as Kodak has started packaging Vision 1 200T in the same packaging as they used for EXR 200T in Super 8:

 

http://www.hostboard.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-29579.html

 

Of course you probably couldn't get it in your drug store right?

[Freya Black]

Right, but those aren't really "improvements" in the format, they're just individual features of particular cameras. If you really wanna get down to the nitty gritty, 16mm had ultra high speed cameras, one's that could rewind for double exposure, cameras that were also projectors, I mean the format has been all over the place.

 

 

Why is a crystal motor an improvement to the format, yet a timelapse function isn't?

I'm not getting this. I think we are back in double standards territory again.

 

Freya

[Freya Black]

Well, the frame jitter and gate weave was nasty. They clearly used a decent camera, the glass wasn't bad and the crazy high power lights/low grain mean they probably used 50D. So man, if you want a camera that requires a few thousand watts of tungsten in order to look good and frame jitter/gate weave were irrelevant, then go for it! I just think it looks amateurish and again, the logmar test footage looks quite good in comparison. So if you work the format in a perfect situation, it can deliver some decent images. It's just, perfect situations are hard to come by and the larger the camera negative, the less you have to work negative to achieve an acceptable image.

 

I've been a bit surprised so far that you havn't mentioned the grain till now because I actually thought the footage was quite grainy, although not in a bad way, I think it looks quite nice. I would guess this is 200T because the Vision3 50D footage I have seen just isn't as grainy as that. I'm getting the impression you havn't really seen much footage from the Vision 3 stocks on Super 8 Tyler. There is quite a difference from the Vision 2 that you might be familiar with. Super 8 hasn't stood still .I also note that again you are unable to seperate the format from the people operating the camera which is interesting.

 

Of course you don't need a thousand watts of tungsten to shoot 50D, you can shoot outside in the sun when it is around too. Just like you can with 16mm. Unless there is now a special rule that you can only shot Super8 indoors with the film you bought from the drugstore?

[Freya Black]

As a side note, I'm going to be shooting a short film in Los Angeles at night soon. My choices are Super 8, Super 16 or Super 35. I've been debating S16 or S35 because I have a feeling if I shoot S16, 500T if I slightly underexpose because I have no choice, I won't have enough image to pull from due to the grain. On the other side, if I shoot S35 4 perf, with my own bloody camera, I can probably pull a lot more out of the negative. It's all about having the right tool for the right job and delivering a product that 20 years from now, will still surprise you. It's the methodology I've tried used for my entire filmmaking career.

 

This is what I've been talking about, having the right tool for the job, but to you it's not about that at all. It's about whether it's "professional" or not.

 

Here you are worried about the format but it seems to me that lenses might be a bigger issue than the format. What lenses are available to you in 16mm or 35mm? How fast are they. You might want to think about shutter openings and frame rates too. It depends on how starved for light you are and what kind of scenes you are shooting. 16mm might even have an advantage in the sense that it's more likely to be in focus if you are shooting wide open although you have to weigh that up against the grain.

 

You worry me Tyler because you are all miserable about the mistakes you have made in your career and you subject others to your pain about this here but you still seem to be trapped in certain ways of thinking. If you are concerned with making a film that is commercial then you need to think in that way and in that sense, what you shot it on and even what it looks like, is way down the list of what is important. If you want to sell a film to a distributor then their first question will be "who is in it". If you have an a list actor or recognisable name then they won't care if you shot in on a single chip dv camera, as long as you can see what's going on okay. If you don't have a famous actor then the genre becomes more important. There is a history of horror movies with no name actors for example and a lot of distributors who distribute horror. Horror can also be quite a flooded market so bad in that sense. You need to think more about all this kind of stuff, the marketing etc if you are looking to do commercial work. It's not been about what it was shot on since contact printing 35mm was a thing and distributors wanted to avoid that blow up from 16mm or video. Those days are gone.

 

What camera you shot on, what format you shot in, whether it is "professional" nobody cares. They might care a tiny bit if it looks good or not but that will be way down the list behind other concerns.

 

In this context Super 8 is frequently not practical for all kinds of reasons. So as I keep talking about, it's about using the right tool for the job. However I wouldn't ever dismiss it if there was an advantage to be gained from using it in the way you do Tyler.

[Tyler Purcell]

Yet here is a thread from 2001 where people are confused as hell as Kodak has started packaging Vision 1 200T in the same packaging as they used for EXR 200T in Super 8

Interesting read, though it does clearly say "Super 8 sound" which is Pro8mm today and the only place I know of in the whole of North America who sold Super 8 negative stocks before 2004.

 

Well, it's also well documented on Wikipedia and Kodak's website. I wish it existed when I was trying to shoot Super 8 all those years ago, it would have been awesome.

[Tyler Purcell]

Why is a crystal motor an improvement to the format, yet a timelapse function isn't?

I'm not getting this. I think we are back in double standards territory again.

Since modern films have something called dialog, crystal lock is critical for audio recording.

 

Timelapse is a special effect. Filmmakers don't need special effects to make movies.

[Carl Looper]

Timelapse is a special effect. Filmmakers don't need special effects to make movies.

 

Well, by that logic filmmakers don't need ultra high speed cameras, or one's capable of double exposure. So why are these special features for 16mm okay to elaborate, but special features for Super8 are to be treated as irrelevant?

 

"If you really wanna get down to the nitty gritty, 16mm had ultra high speed cameras, one's that could rewind for double exposure, cameras that were also projectors, I mean the format has been all over the place." - Tyler

Edited January 27, 2016 by Carl Looper

[Tyler Purcell]

Well, by that logic filmmakers don't need ultra high speed cameras, or one's capable of double exposure. So why are these special features for 16mm okay to elaborate, but special features for Super8 are to be treated as irrelevant?

True, but I was trying to mention things that make a format more professional and the ability to do over-cranking is a huge deal.

[Freya Black]

True, but I was only mentioning things that make a format more professional and the ability to do over-cranking is a huge deal.

 

Yeah but again overcranking is a special effect also and one that a lot of Super8 cameras are more than capable of.

Timelapse can be used in movies too.

[Freya Black]

Since modern films have something called dialog, crystal lock is critical for audio recording.

 

Timelapse is a special effect. Filmmakers don't need special effects to make movies.

 

Not sure how you feel about Kubrick or if you consider him modern but the whole dawn of man sequence contains no dialogue, not to mention that Luc Besson movie. Both excellent movies from a while back.

 

Also filmmakers may not need special effects but they often use them to add something extra...

[Freya Black]

Interesting read, though it does clearly say "Super 8 sound" which is Pro8mm today and the only place I know of in the whole of North America who sold Super 8 negative stocks before 2004.

 

Well, it's also well documented on Wikipedia and Kodak's website. I wish it existed when I was trying to shoot Super 8 all those years ago, it would have been awesome.

 

You misunderstood the thread. Super8 sound sold EXR and Vision 1 stocks under their own brand and people were looking on that website to get a description of the 2 different stocks. They didn't sell the Kodak packaged stuff, which confusingly used the same packaging when switching from EXR to vision.

 

It might have been a lucky escape for you anyway as I remember the EXR 200T having the most extreme colour grain ever, in Super 8. It made things look like a pointilist painting or something like that. The newer Vision 1 200T was light years ahead in terms of less grain tho. Depends on if you would have got lucky with the contents! ;)

 

It would have been available back then. I'm not sure where you would have got in from in the states. Definitely not from Super8 sound but maybe you could have got it directly from Kodak?

 

Here is the packaging:

 

Edited January 27, 2016 by Freya Black

[Carl Looper]

Tyler's logic is completely circular.

 

It seems the "reason" Super8 is not professional is because, in the first place, it's not professional.

 

It is akin to the old 35mm filmmaker who, after reading 1920s Kodak marketing literature for 16mm, transforms what he reads into a natural conviction that 16mm is for home-movies. They would, like Tyler, ignore features such as over-cranking for 16mm, as such features would be irrelevant. Because they have already made up their minds that 16mm is not a professional format in the first place.

 

But Tyler will nevertheless argue that things like over-cranking make 16mm "more professional".

 

"I was trying to mention things that make a format more professional" says Tyler, "and the ability to do over-cranking is a huge deal."

 

But like the old 35mm filmmaker, Tyler won't extended this same logic to Super8, because in the first place, Super8 is a home movie format. It says so in all the Kodak marketing. One see's pictures of Dad photographing the kids in the park with a Super8 camera, all with happy smiles on their face.

 

That's Tyler's logic. It would seem.

 

But the great thing about Tyler is that he has no apparent qualms about arguing this position at all. He'll argue it to the cows come home. It would seem.

 

In any case, whether one regards Super8 as "professional" or otherwise, whether one treats that as having any meaning at all, it doesn't actually stop one from doing something with Super8, professional or otherwise. Well, it might stop Tyler.

 

C

Edited January 28, 2016 by Carl Looper

[Carl Looper]

"See your children laugh, play, roll, tumble, right there before you on your home screen"

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 28, 2016 by Carl Looper

[Carl Looper]

I should just add that I don't have anything against home movies.

 

Some of the most fascinating material I've ever seen is home movie material. There are filmmakers working with found footage on Super8, doing brilliant transfers of such to digital, using innovative techniques, such as HDR sampling, through image process scripting, that provide some of the most exquisite and beautiful insights into what that 'genre' reveals, that I've ever seen, Anonymous and strangely touching in all sorts of strange ways.

 

Another filmmaker I find fascinating makes home movies on 35mm. Absolutely gorgeous.

 

Myself, I've never been able to feel anything but anxiety when making a home movie, regardless of format. I have a need to do something other than such. However I have managed to shoot one or two rolls of film along such lines. And some video.

 

C

Edited January 28, 2016 by Carl Looper

[Tyler Purcell]

This is what I've been talking about, having the right tool for the job, but to you it's not about that at all. It's about whether it's "professional" or not.

If you need a shot that's suppose to look like a home movie from the 60's, 70's or 80's, then Super 8 will work great. My issue has nothing to do with the format BEING professional, I could care less. It has to do with people trying to turn a format which is clearly consumer grade into something that it was never designed to be then claiming it's awesome, when it truly isn't.

 

I only re-entered this thread because many pages ago when someone said Logmar was a professional product. I disagreed with this notion and the thread blew up. It's great to have so many passionate people who care about Super 8. I have a very strong connection to the format, I've shot 10's of thousands of feet of it and have even made a few quite challenging narratives with it as well. My personal experiences with the format clearly differ then a hand-full of people on here, who maybe using it in a completely different way then I have in the past.

 

Here you are worried about the format but it seems to me that lenses might be a bigger issue than the format. What lenses are available to you in 16mm or 35mm? How fast are they. You might want to think about shutter openings and frame rates too. It depends on how starved for light you are and what kind of scenes you are shooting. 16mm might even have an advantage in the sense that it's more likely to be in focus if you are shooting wide open although you have to weigh that up against the grain.

Lenses are a huge issue, but with the plastic pressure plate of super 8, it's hard to get crispness out of even the best glass on super 8. Plus, most cameras have built-in lenses which are pretty slow. My two S8 cameras are 5.6 and they weren't bad when they came out.

 

What camera you shot on, what format you shot in, whether it is "professional" nobody cares. They might care a tiny bit if it looks good or not but that will be way down the list behind other concerns.

It doesn't matter what camera or lenses you use. What matters is how good the quality of the film is at the end. I'd say technical bits, like how professional the cinematography, color and sound mix are, really help. I've seen films with bad actors get picked up because they were professionally made. I've seen great actors in technically poor films, not see the light of day. Plus, in this all-digital world, it's really challenging to separate your project from everyone else. Distributors expectations have been set much higher then they were 10 years ago.

 

In this context Super 8 is frequently not practical for all kinds of reasons. So as I keep talking about, it's about using the right tool for the job. However I wouldn't ever dismiss it if there was an advantage to be gained from using it in the way you do Tyler.

For it's very specific use, you can't beat it.

[Carl Looper]

There's a few people who do use Super8 professionally.

 

I did for a little while.

 

Weddings are a bit of a money earner. Music videos get a bit of cash flowing.

 

I was paid real money for the use of my Leicina Super8 camera, in a recent Australian feature, called "Holding the Man" (now on iTunes).

 

But Tyler wants to continue complaining that one can't shoot something like Star Wars on Super8, as if that was ever being entertained by anyone in the first place. Well, other than Tyler.

 

C

[Tyler Purcell]

I'm not complaining... I merely made a comment a few pages back about The Logmar not being a professional camera and stated why it isn't. I was then lambasted on my comment and ridiculed for even contemplating that Super 8 was only good for home movies. Hey man, that's my opinion and I've got drawers, boxes and cabinets full of Super 8 film. So it's not like I'm new to the whole thing and you won't find someone more in love with celluloid then I am. Heck, I'm in the middle of shooting super 8 home movie material for an award-winning filmmakers documentary.

[Carl Looper]

I'm not complaining... I merely made a comment a few pages back about The Logmar not being a professional camera and stated why it isn't. I was then lambasted on my comment and ridiculed for even contemplating that Super 8 was only good for home movies. Hey man, that's my opinion and I've got drawers, boxes and cabinets full of Super 8 film. So it's not like I'm new to the whole thing and you won't find someone more in love with celluloid then I am. Heck, I'm in the middle of shooting super 8 home movie material for an award-winning filmmakers documentary.

 

 

Saying Super8 is not a professional format is one thing. Saying it is only for home movies is another. There is, however, a whole range of film making that works outside of these brackets, for which Super8 (or any other film video format) can be a fit. Not everyone's cup of tea perhaps.

 

As for the concept of a "professional camera" - that's just marketing hype, be it attached to an Alexa or the Logmar. It's basically no different from attaching the label "home movie" to a camera. It's just meaningless.

 

It's what is done with a camera that makes all the difference, be it for a professional work, or some other work.

 

Anyway ... The project on which you are working sounds excellent. Stay in there man.

 

C

Edited January 28, 2016 by Carl Looper

[Tyler Purcell]

Anyway ... The project on which you are working sounds excellent. Stay in there man.

Thanks! Yea it's gonna be awesome. We're matching stuff shot in the 80's and our first test with I believe Agfachrome 200 (whatever pro8mm sells) was perfect. It wobbled around and was super grainy. I had to project it for the director 4 times and every time he was just, "WOW it looks just like the old footage" and I was shocked how close it was. He's actually going to shoot 2 rolls in a week on location for the film. I can't wait to see what he gets! :)

 

Meanwhile, I'm shooting 16 like it's going out of style. Can't even afford to process it all right now! Hopefully I can work out a deal to get selects transferred soon so I can start cutting digitally.

[Carl Looper]

Thanks! Yea it's gonna be awesome. We're matching stuff shot in the 80's and our first test with I believe Agfachrome 200 (whatever pro8mm sells) was perfect. It wobbled around and was super grainy. I had to project it for the director 4 times and every time he was just, "WOW it looks just like the old footage" and I was shocked how close it was. He's actually going to shoot 2 rolls in a week on location for the film. I can't wait to see what he gets! :)

 

Meanwhile, I'm shooting 16 like it's going out of style. Can't even afford to process it all right now! Hopefully I can work out a deal to get selects transferred soon so I can start cutting digitally.

 

 

Cool. That's the thing about film, and particularly so Super8 - is that you can't actually synthesise that look with video source and processing. Because it's not a question of difficulty - it is actually physically impossible. It's that capability in film which I otherwise call "magic". The wobble you could synthesise of course, but not the image.

 

I shot about 10 rolls of 16 for a short film recently, and I processed two of the rolls myself, but my mentor offered to process the rest of the rolls for me, as it was driving me to tears at one point (trying to load a Lomo). Anyway I was his assistant during the processing, hands on water tubes, timers, thermometers. We had a production line going with about six Lomo tanks running in parallel. Got it all done in an hour or so, and onto the drying racks. It all came out beautifully.

 

The film screens using a custom 16mm xenon projector I'd modified for double system sync sound. In other words, real film on the screen, and booming digital sound out of big speakers. Was just great. Huge audience. Double applause. And the gags in the film hit the right note with genuine laughter from the crowd. Film went on tour.

 

Haven't been able to get a digital copy made yet due to a disintegrated belt in the optical printer I've built (which seconds as a scanner) and a misbehaving 16mm gate on another scanner. But will get that fixed in due course.

 

C

Edited January 28, 2016 by Carl Looper

[Freya Black]

I'm not complaining... I merely made a comment a few pages back about The Logmar not being a professional camera and stated why it isn't. I was then lambasted on my comment and ridiculed for even contemplating that Super 8 was only good for home movies. Hey man, that's my opinion and I've got drawers, boxes and cabinets full of Super 8 film. So it's not like I'm new to the whole thing and you won't find someone more in love with celluloid then I am. Heck, I'm in the middle of shooting super 8 home movie material for an award-winning filmmakers documentary.

 

Hey I don't give a monkeys about anything being professional or not. I was just arguing with you because you said that Super 8 looked bad and I love the look of Super 8 and other film formats too. I actually like to keep Super8 as cheap and portable as possible however because I feel those are it's two big advantages. I'm not worried if the zooms have an older vintage look, that's great, people spend a lot of money and time trying to get a vintage look out of high end 4K digital cameras.

 

Super8 is really versatile too. You can use it to shoot inserts for a documentary like you describe where you shoot reversal and try and make it look closer to home movie footage from long ago to give it that effect of something out of time. You can shoot colour neg for a completely different look, perhaps to make it look like 16mm independant movies from some time back or to make it look more modern but different. You can shoot Tri-X to make it look more punky or gritty or edgy or something. So many looks.

 

Special effects can by quite useful in narrative cinema too. Look at Memento where Christopher Nolan uses Black and white as an effect to flag a diferent time line.

 

For me it's all good and it's really useful to have that versatility available to you if you need it.

[Tyler Purcell]

I shot about 10 rolls of 16 for a short film recently, and I processed two of the rolls myself, but my mentor offered to process the rest of the rolls for me, as it was driving me to tears at one point (trying to load a Lomo).

I wish there was a home processing system for Super 8 and 16mm that actually worked well. Every one I've seen is very meager and is nearly impossible to get perfect results from. I love the guys who show video's of their home processing kits and pull film out with all sorts of issues like left over coating on the film and areas that aren't processed. They're like "lets put it back in the soup" and I'm like, hold on a sec, you just exposed it to light!!!

 

Anyway, one would think for a grand or two, you could make a pretty serious home processing machine to do small runs of motion picture film. Do you know of any developments in that arena?

[Tyler Purcell]

For me it's all good and it's really useful to have that versatility available to you if you need it.

Man, I wish I had a "versatile" super 8 camera. I just acquired a Beaulieu 4008, but it hasn't run in years and the special rechargeable batteries are toast. So I gotta invest in batteries and doing a camera test. I was hoping to use it to shoot my friends stuff, but for the time being he's just going to use the camera we tested few weeks ago and verified to be working.

 

What kills me is not having complete control over the exposure.

[Carl Looper]

I wish there was a home processing system for Super 8 and 16mm that actually worked well. Every one I've seen is very meager and is nearly impossible to get perfect results from. I love the guys who show video's of their home processing kits and pull film out with all sorts of issues like left over coating on the film and areas that aren't processed. They're like "lets put it back in the soup" and I'm like, hold on a sec, you just exposed it to light!!!

 

Anyway, one would think for a grand or two, you could make a pretty serious home processing machine to do small runs of motion picture film. Do you know of any developments in that arena?

 

The Lomo tanks work perfectly well. I'm still very much a novice when it comes to processing, but I get there in the end - it's just I'm a bit of nervous wreak by the end of it. You get exactly what anyone else in a dedicated lab would get. Its no different. You can certainly get by on your kitchen table, and many do, but for production line work, or just peace of mind, you'd want to build a more dedicated space for such. Our lab has water tanks in a convenient place, over a sink, with timers and thermometers, and plastic jugs, etc.

 

There are some subtleties one learns of course. How to load the Lomo in a few seconds (experience) as distinct from an hour (me once), or at what angle the Lomo tank needs to be in order to ensure it's emptied correctly and in the quickest time. Lots of little things like that.

 

As for some more convenient way of doing it - I don't know. I imagine there's some things around.

 

C