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Super-16 question; cost effectiveness


George Ebersole

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I'm sorry to hear that about Super-16.

 

When the Sharpe series first aired the image quality was limited by SD TVs. But seeing it now on bluray is like seeing the series for the first time all over again. It's that good. All the scenes now really stand out.

 

There is a bit of grain, but the image quality compared to previous 16mm stock really pushes it back. Although in some shots, noticeably night shots, there is a bit of artifacting going on. Still, the amount of information your eyes and brain see is really amazing.

 

Coaxial magazines; don't most modern Arriflex cameras use coaxial mags? Sorry for the stupid question, but I'm not a DP.

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Stock cost for 2 perf are higher, that is all.

.54/ft vs .32/ft

 

I understand the power of 35mm short ends and that getting 16mm short ends is tricky. However, even if you made the stock price identical, you're still shooting more film for the same amount of time on screen.

 

after that the per foot price is almost always CHEAPER THAN 16MM.

When discussing color negative and a bulk discount rate, you can generally get the same numbers for 16mm and 35mm per foot, if scanned at the same resolution. However, for 2 perf 35mm, you are working with MORE FEET! So the pricing goes up exponentially.

 

There are many examples often published here of young "film first timers" shooting 2 perf and loving it.

I love 2 perf... however, it's NEARLY 2 times the cost of 16mm when you add up all of the elements from camera rental to post production. I do budgets for productions all the time, I'm constantly pushing customers to get deals at labs directly. I've taken the numbers they've worked hard to get and I've done the math on everything, which is how I derived the film production spreadsheet which is on my website.

 

For a 90 minute Super 16 movie:

 

$26,880 @ 10:1 ratio for all of the "film" related aspects. (2.5k finish)

$17,550 @ 3 weeks for all of the camera related aspects.

=

$45,000 (rounded up)

 

For a 90 minute super 35mm 2 perf movie:

 

$43,600 @ 10:1 ratio for all of the "film" related aspects. (4k finish)

$29,700 @ 3 weeks for all of the camera related aspects.

=

$65,000 (rounded up)

 

These budgets assume new bulk stock purchasing. However, even if you use short ends, even if you do the 2 perf finish in 2k, you'd still not have equal numbers. No matter what, 2 perf is more money then S16mm, there is no way to make them the same pricing, unless you physically owned the equipment and even then, the cost is so much greater then owning 16mm equipment, the benefit goes right out the window.

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Coaxial magazines; don't most modern Arriflex cameras use coaxial mags? Sorry for the stupid question, but I'm not a DP.

The only MODERN, sync sound 35mm coaxial magazine cameras are the Aaton's. All of the 35mm cameras outside of those, are loaded every time you put a new magazine on the camera.

 

All of the modern 16mm cameras are coaxial.

 

So switching loads on 16mm is WAY easier.

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Coaxial mags are not the same thing as quick-change mags. Arri BLs and 535s are coaxial but still require you to thread the movement.

 

It's pretty much just the Aaton 35-III and Penelope in 35mm (which are displacement, not coaxial mags) that allow you to quick-change magazines like a 16mm XTR or an SR.

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The only MODERN, sync sound 35mm coaxial magazine cameras are the Aaton's. All of the 35mm cameras outside of those, are loaded every time you put a new magazine on the camera.

 

All of the modern 16mm cameras are coaxial.

 

So switching loads on 16mm is WAY easier.

 

 

 

 

Coaxial mags are not the same thing as quick-change mags. Arri BLs and 535s are coaxial but still require you to thread the movement.

 

It's pretty much just the Aaton 35-III and Penelope in 35mm (which are displacement, not coaxial mags) that allow you to quick-change magazines like a 16mm XTR or an SR.

 

 

 

 

Okay, that's right. I misunderstood. My bad.

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Coaxial mags are not the same thing as quick-change mags.

Thanks for the clarification. Nobody I know has ever used the word quick-change, I've just heard the 16mm magazine's be called "coaxial", so I always thought that was also in reference to quick change, not just a roll of film on each side of the magazine.

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I shot a music video last month, about 40 minutes worth of Super 16 for a 3.5 minute video. I calculated out that it added about $3000 to the cost compared to shooting video on equipment I already owned.

 

Curious though, was it the client that wanted you to shoot on 16?

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I've actually found much much lower prices for 35mm Kodak stock, shortends but still.

Ohh no doubt. Reel Good Film sells 35mm Kodak short ends for between .25 and .35/ft. So you're looking at an average of the same price or slightly lower then 16mm.

 

The problem is, you ain't getting much 5219... you're getting 5203 (50D) or 5207 (250D). Everyone and their mom wants to shoot 19', it's "the stock" for 35mm.

 

So sure you can get great deals on 35mm stock through Reel Good, but you're still gonna have to buy 19' new in most cases. Sometimes Reel Good has a bunch of 19', but it gets gobbled up so quickly, it's very rare to get your foot in the door.

 

Another thing is that 16mm doesn't have the same re-can market because most of the people who use it, buy what they need and no more. So there isn't left overs, like you get on 35mm films where IN MOST CASES (3 perf/4 perf) you're shooting A LOT more film the 16mm for the same amount of time.

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But don't you have to do a lot of color correcting with short ends because of the different chemical mixes in the emulsion?

 

At least I've been told that one of the reasons that you buy a batch of film for a project is that the film itself has a certain image consitancy, and that if you mix batches, even the same type, that the image varies.

 

Not to get too off topic, but I thought part of the reason S16 was created was to give DPs and directors a good inexpensive film stock that had consistant image.

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But don't you have to do a lot of color correcting with short ends because of the different chemical mixes in the emulsion?

Well, you wouldn't want to use different batches for the same shot. It's not a problem to use different batches for different shots...

 

At least I've been told that one of the reasons that you buy a batch of film for a project is that the film itself has a certain image consitancy, and that if you mix batches, even the same type, that the image varies.

The variances are pretty minimal today. I've done back to back tests, even with different print stock and you can't tell the difference. As long as the film has been stored properly and hasn't been exposed to heat or any radiation that could alter the image, you're in pretty good shape with short ends. Of course the risk is not knowing those things... I personally haven't had any issues with short ends.

 

Not to get too off topic, but I thought part of the reason S16 was created was to give DPs and directors a good inexpensive film stock that had consistant image.

Remember, 16mm was a consumer format and Kodak treated it as such for decades. They didn't want it interfering with their money maker; 35mm.

 

From my understanding of history (the dates maybe off on this, so don't stab me) it wasn't until Kodak started releasing their color negative stocks for 16mm in the early 80's, that really made 16mm more professional. Prior to that, the only options filmmakers had for 16mm were grainy reversal films.

 

Even though the Super 16 frame size was developed in the 60's, it wasn't widely used until the 90's, thanks mostly to the newer stock and better optical printing methods.

 

The big breakthrough for 16mm was Kodak Vision film stock using T grain. This opened up the door for 16mm to really be used for professional shooting. This was also around the same time you could buy a NEW super 16 camera. Prior to that, the S16 format was a "modification" rather then something you'd get from the factory new.

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Thanks Tyler. That's interesting about the history of super-16. I had no idea. I was under the impression that a lot of commercials were shot on 16 pre mid 80s. Looking at a lot of the commercials from the 70s, to my eyes at least, it seems like a lot of them were shot on regular 16.

 

Very interesting. Thanks for the run down and history lesson. I truly did not know this.

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Curious though, was it the client that wanted you to shoot on 16?

 

Yes. I was shooting some 16mm at a recording studio for another project when a different client saw it and asked if it was "still available" and I was like, "hell, yeah it's available."

 

Music clients really like the idea of standing out from the crowd. I still wouldn't recommend film for most corporate clients, not because of the expense, but because in 16mm it has a different look than most of their other footage that I would have to work with and 35mm would involve me renting a quiet camera (I have a great Steve's Cine modded crystal 2C but it's ridiculously loud) If it's a project that can be from beginning to end in film, I definitely bring up film as an option.

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I really like the look of super-16, but it feels like it gets grainy for low light or night shots.

 

Very true. We've been so spoiled by digital in low-light situations. When in doubt, add more light. When not in doubt, add more light. That's what my colorist always tells me.

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Very true. We've been so spoiled by digital in low-light situations. When in doubt, add more light. When not in doubt, add more light. That's what my colorist always tells me.

 

Yeah, but here's the thing that gets me, and that is a lot of footage I've seen in years past doesn't have a lot of grain to it. It has less visual information because it's 16mm, but it doesn't look grainy like today's Super-16.

 

Is that my imagination, or is there some real reason for that?

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Well, it's hard to compare a DVD or BluRay, to a theatrically run modern movie in the theaters. Any movie that's presented at home, has gone through an extensive de-noising process because the MPEG distribution methods, can't deal with noise, it just gobbles up all the bandwidth. The solution is to remove the noise, which makes the image softer and henceforth no real visible grain.

 

So you're not imagining anything, you're just not comparing apples to apples. You'd have to visit the cinema and see the movies you wish to compare, projected on film.

 

I see a lot of older movies on 35mm, thanks to the revival houses we have here in LA. So I'm constantly seeing what older movies actually look like and ya know what, they don't look that great. They're pretty darn noisy compared to modern movies and honestly, it's not a good noise.

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The solution is to remove the noise, which makes the image softer and henceforth no real visible grain.

 

Modern encoders for DVD and Blu-ray don't require the kind of brute-force noise reduction or brickwall filtering that was necessary 15 years ago. By "modern" I mean encoders from the past 10 years or so.

 

Yes, in the beginning of DVD, the encoders weren't efficient and would choke on anything random: video noise, film grain, etc. But the past 10 years brought in a wave of high quality encoders for MPEG2 (DVD) and AVC (Blu-ray) that don't decimate the grain and don't require that you do "extensive" (or really any) noise reduction before encoding.

 

 

So you're not imagining anything, you're just not comparing apples to apples. You'd have to visit the cinema and see the movies you wish to compare, projected on film.

 

 

In a theater, you're not going to be seeing Super 16 projected, and you're pretty unlikely to see regular 16 projected (in most theaters). So are you talking about comparing it to a 35mm blow-up? Because that's not apples-to-apples either.

 

It's also worth bearing in mind that the photochemical print process itself is responsible for a fair bit of grain reduction. We hear this a lot from clients who have only ever seen their films projected, but when they're scanned at 2k or 4k, they're surprised by how much grainier they look than what they remember. This is because they're not used to seeing the grain that's always been there, because of the natural grian loss that happens when you print the neg.

 

 

Yeah, but here's the thing that gets me, and that is a lot of footage I've seen in years past doesn't have a lot of grain to it. It has less visual information because it's 16mm, but it doesn't look grainy like today's Super-16.

 

The type of transfer, the resolution of the transfer, the method of viewing all come into play here. An SD transfer is going to be less grainy looking than an HD transfer, simply because of the higher pixel density of HD, which makes a more detailed representation of the film. Same goes for 2k or 4k. Modern film stock isn't grainier (quite the opposite in some cases), but high resolution scanning tends to highlight that grain more than low resolution scanning.

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*snippage*

 

The type of transfer, the resolution of the transfer, the method of viewing all come into play here. An SD transfer is going to be less grainy looking than an HD transfer, simply because of the higher pixel density of HD, which makes a more detailed representation of the film. Same goes for 2k or 4k. Modern film stock isn't grainier (quite the opposite in some cases), but high resolution scanning tends to highlight that grain more than low resolution scanning.

 

 

I think that's probably it. The few 16mm films I've seen in theatres, including a screening room at a studio I used to work at, look very vibrant, but just had a sliver less detail than 35mm rushes I used to see. Both were raw footage, but I don't recall 16mm having as much grain as I've seen not only on my blurays, but on YouTube uploads.

 

Replies are much appreciated.

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Yeah, but here's the thing that gets me, and that is a lot of footage I've seen in years past doesn't have a lot of grain to it. It has less visual information because it's 16mm, but it doesn't look grainy like today's Super-16.

 

Is that my imagination, or is there some real reason for that?

 

There may be a few things going on there. For one, if you are looking at footage in the past that was scanned in SD and possibly "up-rezed" to HD you won't have the same level of detail and therefore less grain.

 

I will say that some of the 16mm re-mastered footage I'm seeing on Blu-Ray like "World At War" and even a Peter Gabriel concert re-mastered is showing more grain and slightly less vibrant color so my best guess is that you're seeing old telecine's of 16mm projects vs. recently re-scanned and colored versions of the same material.

 

Maybe this is just a trend, but I'm seeing DP's less concerned with grain when they use Super 16 since that's one of the reasons they're shooting with it. Scanners today also may reveal more grain due to their amazing resolution. There is very good grain reduction software, but if you want no grain, why shoot film?

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Modern encoders for DVD and Blu-ray don't require the kind of brute-force noise reduction or brickwall filtering that was necessary 15 years ago. By "modern" I mean encoders from the past 10 years or so.

 

Yes, in the beginning of DVD, the encoders weren't efficient and would choke on anything random: video noise, film grain, etc. But the past 10 years brought in a wave of high quality encoders for MPEG2 (DVD) and AVC (Blu-ray) that don't decimate the grain and don't require that you do "extensive" (or really any) noise reduction before encoding.

Well actually, almost every movie has noise reduction, film or digital.

 

In a theater, you're not going to be seeing Super 16 projected.

It doesn't matter, the transfers of a lot of these movies still suck. So when comparing old content to new content, the transfer, post and presentation process needs to be identical.

 

I've done quite a bit of film restoration over the last few years and the quality of older material on new scanners has always blown me away.

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