16mm Film And Prices Help

David Silverstein · November 3, 2005

My teacher has a 16mm camera (im in highschool) and said I can use it if I want to make a film. I looked up film prices and they are kinda high and I didnt know what reversal or that other kind ment. I say Kodac Plus-X BnW for 100 bucks for 400 feet at www.16mmfilm or something like that I forget. Anyway any suggestions on film and prices and ways of getting it and ways of getting it on my mac.

Thanks for your help.

Dave

Robert Glenn · November 4, 2005

My teacher has a 16mm camera (im in highschool) and said I can use it if I want to make a film. I looked up film prices and they are kinda high and I didnt know what reversal or that other kind ment. I say Kodac Plus-X BnW for 100 bucks for 400 feet at www.16mmfilm or something like that I forget. Anyway any suggestions on film and prices and ways of getting it and ways of getting it on my mac.

Thanks for your help.

Dave

ebay can bet good... Just don't get some of that stuff from the 50s!

Charles MacDonald · November 4, 2005

YES Film is Expensive....but it is also interesting.

To give you a few hints..

REVERSAL film is processed and returned to you ready to show in a projector. Black and white reversal film is made by Kodak, as Plus X or Tri X reversal. and by FOMA in eastern europe. JandCphoto http://jandcphoto.com/ sells the FOMA at about 23.99US for a hundred foot roll that will run about 2-3 minutes. expect to spend that much again to get it processed. The kodak is about the same price or a few dollars more.

Almost all 16mm cameras will take the 100 ft rolls. Some will take longer rolls. The longer rolls MUST be loaded in the dark. The 100ft "daylight spools" can be loaded in VERY DIM light. I use my darkroom and a safelight myself but that is probaly overkill. The safelight IS NOT "SAFE" for the movie film, but it is a convenient sorce of dim light.

Negative film is also available in Black and White and colour. The Kodak B&W Negative films are Plus-x and Double-x. The negative plus x is NOT the same as the reversal Plus-x

Negative film must be printed to be shown in a projector or Transfered to video. If you search google for video transfer you will find many folks some of whom will be happy to deleop your negative film and record it on various Video formats. Some of these are compatible with editing them on a computer.

Edited November 4, 2005 by Charles

David Silverstein · November 4, 2005

wow thank you for replaying so fast I think ill be posting a lot more here all the other boards are sooo SLOW if they even respond at all.

So basiclly im look at a lot of money no matter what. Now is there any programs or companies that sponser student film makers out there? I only need like 500-1000 dollars. Also I guess I MUST do my homework before shooting film it seems like its very picky. How do I keep it from being underexposed I was looking at the kodak plus x 30 bucks for 100 ft isnt TO bad for film pricing. I dont want to think how much film costs for a full feature. UGHHH! Anyway if I can I may just shoot 24p and rent a DVX-100a who knows.

Will Montgomery · November 4, 2005

Anyway if I can I may just shoot 24p and rent a DVX-100a who knows.

You should look into Super 8... you can buy a starter camera on eBay for less than $50 and film/processing is about half of what 16mm is.

If you are used to editing DV, both 16mm and Super 8 can be transfered to miniDV and edited just like it came from a camcorder... except it will have a TRUE film look.

Even if you just try a roll or two, I'd would do it for the experience. So you can see the difference. Its important to know what kind of tools are available. You will probably be better off with a DV camera if you're just starting out, but try film to see how it works, you'll be impressed in the end.

David Silverstein · November 4, 2005

will the super8 look good though I always thought of 8mm being very low quality

Stephen Williams · November 4, 2005

will the super8 look good though I always thought of 8mm being very low quality

Hi,

Super 8 can look very good, as its a small format it will be grainy!

Stephen

Matt Wells · November 5, 2005

I dont agree about loading the daylight spools above.

These can be loaded in full daylight if you like, but you may risk slight edge fogging, although this is normally not visible and outside the safe margins of the frame

As a rule load in subdued light - if it is a sunny day, go in the shade or something.

This is how I have loaded loads of Kodak and Fuji 100ft spools.

This is the route to your mac.

Buy film

Shoot film

process film

transfer film to tape via "telecine"

capture the footage onto your hardrive with the use of a tape deck. If you have the film transferred to mini DV this is the mose economical way of getting it onto your hard drive beacuse you can use any miniDV camera with a DV in/out firewire socket as a tape deck.

You can then use any software you have to edit, add music etc etc.

You need to understand how to expose film too. This is another story, but if you do not already have experience I would recomend a cheap manual SLR 35mm stills camera like a Pentax K1000 and go shoot some slide film. Why Slide? because it only needs processing for you to view it - no printing - so you get to see exactly what you shot with the exposure you used (when labs make prints from negative they often get tweaked etc for the best print). This is a very cheap way to learn film exposure, and a lot cheaper than messing up with 16mm!! A few rolls of slide and you will learn a lot.

Once you get onto Motion picture cameras, in some ways the exposure becomes simpler - this is because the exposure time of each frame - the shutter speed - is fixed and you can not change it as the camera is shooting a number of frames per second (eg 24), hence the exposure time of each frame has to fit into that.

With stills you have to decide on your shutter speed as well as the aperture of the lens.

Anyway this is my advice. If possible write down the exposures you use with each still.

(of course you would need a slide projector too but these are so cheap and loads of people have them sitting in their attics which can be begged or borrowed.)

Matt

PS - dont confuse super8mm film with 8mm video - Very very different formats!!

Super8 is film so it looks like film, but because of the small frame it has a more griany look. It is capable of very high quality results.

Edited November 5, 2005 by Matt Wells

David Silverstein · November 5, 2005

I have already bought an old Canon AE-1 35mm SLR camera. Ive been shooting with it for a couple of months now. My first batch of film was ALL UNDEREXPOSED lol because I was shooting on 1/8 of a second shutter speed indoors when I found out thats WAY to slow for a humans hand with no tripod. So ive been getting better and better. I was wondering if film was the same way I just need to give it a lot of light and have the aperature set currently im guessing.

The only thing with the super8 is that I already have acess to a 16mm and I dont want to buy a shitty super8 camera and get bad expierence.

Charles MacDonald · November 6, 2005

To clarify the "daylight spools" I have been using a lot of the Black and white reversal film, and it is more likely to fog than the colour negative film. The colour negative has a black coating on the back of the film that is removed in processing. Most of the B&W film does not as I found out the hard way on one of my first attempts to make a 16mm Movie....

In this case, you probaly want to try and be safe.

I have already bought an old Canon AE-1 35mm SLR camera. Ive been shooting with it for a couple of months now. My first batch of film was ALL UNDEREXPOSED lol because I was shooting on 1/8 of a second shutter speed indoors when I found out thats WAY to slow for a humans hand with no tripod. So ive been getting better and better. I was wondering if film was the same way I just need to give it a lot of light and have the aperature set currently im guessing.

The only thing with the super8 is that I already have acess to a 16mm and I dont want to buy a shitty super8 camera and get bad expierence.

Depending on the exact camera, your effective shutter speed is probaly going to be arround 1/50 to 1/60 of a second on your movie camera at 24 FPS.. Your camera will have a shuter angle, which says how many degrees of the shutters rotation it is open. example a 120 degree shutter gives 120/360 * 1/24 = 1/72 second.

If you can't find out the angle from the manual, I would guess that their are a lot of folks here that could give you the fugure with the make and model of the camera.

24 FPS is the speed sound movie projectors run at - silent movies were shot at 16 to 18 FPS, but they then to show more jumpiness. Super 8 consumer cameras also run at 18 FPS. Some folks doing production for video will crank the camera up to the video frame rate of 29.9 fps. Of course that uses up more film. The telecine folks do have methods to transfer at 24 FPS, as that is still the speed used for theatrical movies in North america. (The folks in europe sometimes use 25FPS.)

You can pick a range of film speeds to match you project. In the colour negative we have sppeds form 50ASA to 500 to play with. As Movie making is generaly done in a studio, most of the films are ballanced for tungsten light - ie 100T , 500T So to use those in daylight you need a #85 Filter. their are 50D and 250D films that are intended for use in the daylight.

I am not sure what film you were shooting in your Canon. Some of the higher speed films will get you above an 1/8 of a second. Common slide films are 100D so they might be in that range indoors.

Will Montgomery · November 6, 2005

I dont agree about loading the daylight spools above.

These can be loaded in full daylight if you like, but you may risk slight edge fogging, although this is normally not visible and outside the safe margins of the frame

As a rule load in subdued light - if it is a sunny day, go in the shade or something.

Everytime I've loaded in daylight, even in the shade, I've had significant edge fogging. When I asked the lab tech he laughed and said there is no such thing as a daylight load film unless you're using Kodachrome or another really slow film.

That doesn't mean it has to be complete darkness, but only enough to barely see what you're doing.

The edge fogging may not matter that much if you're shooting regular 16, but if its Super 16, it could be more noticable.

Steve Wallace · November 6, 2005

Everytime I've loaded in daylight, even in the shade, I've had significant edge fogging. When I asked the lab tech he laughed and said there is no such thing as a daylight load film unless you're using Kodachrome or another really slow film.

That doesn't mean it has to be complete darkness, but only enough to barely see what you're doing.

The edge fogging may not matter that much if you're shooting regular 16, but if its Super 16, it could be more noticable.

What speed film are you shooting outdoors? The only shade I have used is my own body (hunched over the camera). And I have never really had any fogging issues. I've shot, 7245 (EXR 50D), Kodachorome 25 & 40 (in regular 8mm), the old Vision 200 72xx stock (not V2), and Ilford 400 all this way.

Was your spool wound at the factory, or did some one wind it down themselves? This can be the cause of major fogging when loading outdoors. All that I mentioned above were wound down by Kodak, except the Ilford and that was done by the recan place we bought it from.

Will Montgomery · November 6, 2005

What speed film are you shooting outdoors?

The rolls I've had issues with were Vision 500T and Vision2 200T. Normally wouldn't use that outdoors but I was doing a test on a new camera and that was all I had. The camera is Super 16 so the edge fogging would cut into the shot more and because it was a test, the lab carefully looked at the negative.

Each roll was a Kodak 100' spool.

Haven't had any problems since then, but I've been pretty paranoid about loading in as low-light as possible.

Steve Wallace · November 6, 2005

The rolls I've had issues with were Vision 500T and Vision2 200T. Normally wouldn't use that outdoors but I was doing a test on a new camera and that was all I had. The camera is Super 16 so the edge fogging would cut into the shot more and because it was a test, the lab carefully looked at the negative.

Each roll was a Kodak 100' spool.

Haven't had any problems since then, but I've been pretty paranoid about loading in as low-light as possible.

Was the fogging only visable on the expanded frame area? If so, that would make sense, the films I discussed above were all regular 16mm (4:3 for TV), so I wouldn't have noticed fogging on the expanded frame area. But it is was uniform on both sides, I would say something else was wrong.

David Silverstein · November 6, 2005

Well when I load I will probably just make the light so its barely enough to see and ill wait until my eyes get adjusted before loading so I can see better which probably will make a difference.

David Silverstein · November 7, 2005

Ive decided im just gonna shoot with a DVX-100a andshoot 24p and cinemode I think it will open up my creative ideas more and not worrying about wasting film and if the film is coming out and having to wait to get it processed all that. If it comes out good and someone wants to found for film then thats what well happen but right now im gonna stick on a budget of around 400 with free actors and free locations usally my school.