sunrise wrote:
And I must say that this looks absolutely fantastic. I am looking so much forward to seeing this project realized.
Ektagraphic wrote:Great! Be sure to share the film when you are through!
Uppsala BildTeknik wrote:Wow, it looks great! You put down a lot of work on this... Looking forward to see the results.
Why do I suddenly feel pressure to deliver something good ?
Here is the schedule:
Special effect this summer. Live action this autumn. Trailer available somewhere around Christmas, rough cut next spring, final movie next summer. Don't forget I am doing this in my spare time.
(I need to do the special effects first because I need some shots to do front projection with live actors)
MovieStuff wrote:
Your approach is correct but you don't need to crank up the light. Slow down the camera to about 6fps or so slower and move the ship very, very slowly. The slower shutter speed will allow you to use very little light and still have great depth of field.
I just realized that with my Nizo 801, I can set the camera the shutter to "B" and the time laps to 6 fps giving my an exposure time of 1/8 sec for each frame. Can anyone confirm this ? This would allow me to have a much deeper depth of field. I need to slow down the rotation and movement of the ship to 1/3 the nominal speed.
Looks like I need to shoot yet another test cartridge. (10th test cartridges so far and counting)
I think that you will find that you don't need as much light as you think. The ship is white and the film you are shooting on is pretty contrasty. You will also want to max out your blacks and shadow areas for an authentic space look so a degree of underexposure is going to be a good thing, in terms of the "look" as long as the whites stay relatively white. See if you can get a few slide projectors and use 2 or 3 with zoom lenses to concentrate the light just on the ship only. There are units called "stackers" that allow you to stack the projectors on top of each other and align them precisely. They go pretty cheap on ebay these days.
You can also create a custom mask that is the shape of the projector and put it in a slide mount so that only the ship is lit and nothing else. That will keep spill from getting on the background, support wires, etc. The projectors can be just out side the frame of the camera, which makes them super bright but the masking keeps light from spilling everywhere. When I did the animated pilot for "Rescue Robots" about 20+ years ago, that is what I did and simply had the slide projectors move along with the ship for the duration of the shot. You'd be surprised how effective that is. You'd think that you'd get multiple shadows but you really do not notice them at all. Works great and handy for a variety of SFX applications.
Bravo! I've been interested in trying something like this myself for a while. Never had a good script though. Hooray for models. "Moon" was just done using models, and I hope it comes back into film vogue. It's so realistic!
Working within the limits of a super8 camera is difficult when trying to achieve this look. From the countless hours I've invested in watching Star Wars behind the scenes I know that slow shutter speeds, and mechanics make the look real.
Since the cameras you're working with don't have 6fps or slow shutters, I'm wondering if it might make sense to try and shoot this overcranked, maybe at 48fps?
I imagine the light will still be fine, but the movement will be more fluid, and will actually seem like the ship has way more momentum, leading the viewer to feel like the ship is gargantuan. Counterintuitive from what I've learned, but may work better?
Note: The slightest jerk or whatever from the camera may make it look super fake.
Also, in an earlier post, Roger mentioned a wide angle lens. I agree with this as it will give you a huge depth of field. However, since the ship is 5 ft. long or so, you may be able to get the camera close enough (in to make it seem like it is so big it just fills up the whole frame. The KEY is to not let anything go soft as Roger points out. KEY! Suddenly it will be a macro shot. Bad.
Ah, if you were going to shoot on Single 8 a Fujica ZC1000 would have been an excellent choice... It can shoot down to 12fps if you need more light. Too bad they are hard to find and quite expensive (compared to other 8mm filmcameras, really cheap compared to videocameras).
Someone in this thread wrote:Had you considered 200T?
Sasounet wrote:I would have like to film with such a fast film. Great for depth of field! (At f2.8 with Kodachrome, you don't have a lot of depth of field. Now why did I built a model that long...)
However, I am an old school guy and I want to be able to project my movie at the end. That rules out all negative film.
According to this webpage: http://www.single8film.com/faq.html it is a reversal emulsion. "Both R25N and RT200N can also be cross-processed as a negative film using ECN2 chemistry. ECN2 includes the necessary rem jet removal step required for Single-8 films."
I have no idea what the RT200N looks like, perhaps it has too much grain or something...
And by the way, please consider getting it transferred before scratching it/getting dust all over it in a projector... (I am a new school guy who thinks all films should be properly transferred. ;) )
Uppsala BildTeknik wrote:
I have no idea what the RT200N looks like, perhaps it has too much grain or something...
And by the way, please consider getting it transferred before scratching it/getting dust all over it in a projector... (I am a new school guy who thinks all films should be properly transferred. ;) )
I considered Fujichrome RT200N. I did some test and it looked great. A bit grainy but overall much better than Ektachrome 64T. The problem was that if I was to go with RT200N, I would have to use that emulsion for the whole film. The different in thickness makes it impossible to mix it with other filmstock or the focus needs to be change every other shot while projecting the movie. It was a difficult decision, but after reading so much good thing about cinevia T64 and the fact that I could mix it with Kodachorme, Ektachrome, I choose not to go with fujichrome.
Don't worry, I will transfer all reversal master copies even before doing the first rough cut.
Sasounet wrote:
I considered Fujichrome RT200N. I did some test and it looked great. A bit grainy but overall much better than Ektachrome 64T. The problem was that if I was to go with RT200N, I would have to use that emulsion for the whole film. The different in thickness makes it impossible to mix it with other filmstock or the focus needs to be change every other shot while projecting the movie.
Actually you have two options for projection:
One is to get a contact print made of the spliced movie. If you use two-frame Ciro splices, the contact print is almost perfect, in terms of little distortion at the splice area. The other option (if you want to project your original) is to find a Beaulieu sound projector. The Beaulieu has the pressure plate on the backside, which keeps the emulsion always at the same point relative to the lens. This allows you to intercut different thicknesses of film and still maintain focus.
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