Some footage by request

Post by **wado1942** » Wed Sep 05, 2007 7:35 pm

Somebody at a commercial shoot I did Monday asked me about some Super-Duper-8 I shot so I'm posting it here for all to see.
I shot Kodak Vision2 100T at 24fps with about a 45 degree shutter angle F2 and no filters. I had one of the two companies I've found that can accommodate the wider frame to transfer the film via modified Rank Turbo to MiniDV. They did an anamorphic transfer so if watched on a widescreen TV, it would look normal and fill almost the whole screen. I've done no manipulation in post production except to remove the 3:2 pulldown and 7.5ire setup needed for NTSC playback. I also converted the 1.212 aspect to square pel so it will view on a computer properly. You can see the native aspect ratio of S-D-8 is about 1.53:1. I encoded the file at 1Mbps to preserve as much of the original quality as possible for this demonstration. Some of you have seen the intro to my music video in an earlier post, this is from the middle of it.
http://www.gcmstudio.com/videoonly/sd8demo.wmv

Post by **schoft** » Wed Sep 05, 2007 8:31 pm

kodak vision2 100T super8 ?

uhh ? I thoughed 100T was 16mm and 35mm only

Post by **O. Knights** » Wed Sep 05, 2007 10:43 pm

Hi,

Great looking piece, really shows what a professional looking format S8 can be, lovely clean telecine..... This is the one problem I've found with transfering the Pro8 neg stocks, the dreaded dirt is so magnified you really need a wet gate transfer or some clever post software.
To the 2nd poster it's Pro8 (re=packaged Vision 2)

Oliver

Post by **wado1942** » Wed Sep 05, 2007 11:44 pm

It was a wet gate transfer so I guess you'd be right on that. The Post House has totally won my loyalty. Thanks for the kind words BTW. I was going to a really raw look and I think this footage does it.

Post by **toby_tools** » Thu Sep 06, 2007 1:07 am

Wow'
That really looks good. Who did the transfer?
First you show off that great looking PlusX now this.
Very nice.
Toby

Post by **wado1942** » Thu Sep 06, 2007 2:26 am

The Post House (Cine Post) did the transfer. Yeah, they did a great job. Way better, not to mention cheaper than Debenham, which is the only other company I've found that can do S-D-8.

Post by **Scotness** » Thu Sep 06, 2007 2:54 am

Wow that's a really nice looking clip. Well done.

Bodes well for the professional future of Super 8 - small, manoeuvarable cameras that are easy to load, with a great looking resulting image. The DOF issues will probably be the only thing that holds it back (okay okay and the blow-up-ability and the registration) -- but apart from that the future looks good

Can you post the whole clip when you've finished it?

thanks,

Scot

Post by **wado1942** » Thu Sep 06, 2007 4:02 am

Yeah, I plan to post it when I'm done. It'll be a couple of months though because I have other projects that are taking priority.

Post by **mattias** » Thu Sep 06, 2007 12:20 pm

has the footage been sharpened in post or is that a compression artifact? it almost looks like video. pretty good though. keep it up.

/matt

Post by **wado1942** » Thu Sep 06, 2007 5:18 pm

It's compression artefacts. Even though I used 1Mbps variable for the rate, the bit of grain it has really wreaks havoc on the compressor. Perhaps later I'll replace this with a lower compression version.

Post by **Will2** » Thu Sep 06, 2007 5:48 pm

O. Knights wrote:Hi,

Great looking piece, really shows what a professional looking format S8 can be, lovely clean telecine..... This is the one problem I've found with transfering the Pro8 neg stocks, the dreaded dirt is so magnified you really need a wet gate transfer or some clever post software.
To the 2nd poster it's Pro8 (re=packaged Vision 2)
Oliver

Me Too! The last round I did with Pro8mm was so awfully dusty it looked like it was 20 year old worn out film transfered by one of those DVD mills.

But when I shoot Kodak 200T or 500T and have another lab process it, then transfered, it always looks great.

I had another telecine house (FSFT in Seattle) transfer that Pro8mm film again and even they had problems with it.

Could Pro8mm processing be the issue or something in how they manufacture the films? I almost want to buy some of their stocks and have someone else process it to see.

Post by **wado1942** » Thu Sep 06, 2007 6:18 pm

I remember a comparison of various labs being done a while back. This group shot something like 15 rolls of E64T all of the same subjects and sent them to various labs to see how they stacked against eachother. Among them: Spectra, Dwayne's and Yale got the highest rank for comparring speed, cost and quality. Pro8mm was the ONLY lab that they said made the film look bad. It was grainy, the blacks were not black but blue and there were lines in the film. Dwayne's was average as far as the film look goes but it was so cheap and fast it got a higher rank. There were a couple of labs where they didn't get the film back at all.

Post by **Patrick** » Thu Sep 06, 2007 7:55 pm

"There were a couple of labs where they didn't get the film back at all."

You mean the labs didn't give the film back??

Post by **wado1942** » Thu Sep 06, 2007 9:09 pm

Post by aj » Thu Sep 06, 2007 9:24 pm

No.

wado1942 wrote:I remember a comparison of various labs being done a while back. This group shot something like 15 rolls of E64T all of the same subjects and sent them to various labs to see how they stacked against eachother. Among them: Spectra, Dwayne's and Yale got the highest rank for comparring speed, cost and quality. Pro8mm was the ONLY lab that they said made the film look bad. It was grainy, the blacks were not black but blue and there were lines in the film. Dwayne's was average as far as the film look goes but it was so cheap and fast it got a higher rank. There were a couple of labs where they didn't get the film back at all.

I may sound stupid, but I hide it well.

You are misquoting from a test by Smallformat magazine. Stupid and not well hidden.

The labs were sent a film and were requested to process and return these for free. And then be enrolled. Hardly an ethical way of organizing things.

As the films were not anonymous either the result of the test is hardly serious.

Most labs returned the film. Some didn't. They had no obligations but were listed as non returners by the magazine. Imagine you receive a unrequested item. If you do not spend time and money on it and do not return it you are blacklisted somewhere in public.

Now some quote from this this test and forget the details and suggest malbehaviour by these labs.