Half sixteen

[S8 Booster]

Seems to be one on ebay: Cine-Kodak Special II Movie Camera



R

[studiocarter]

They can be had a lot cheaper than THAT. Without all the goodies natch.

[Rob]

The Cine Kodak Special cameras I & II both will do 16mm half frames out of the box, no sweat. it was made for it. .....

Its a great idea for use with modern editing methods and you could apply it to any camera just by masking off half the gate. But what would have been the idea originally? You would end up with two movies interlaced on the film. Editing would be impossible and since the Cine Specials were decent and expensive cameras, you'd think the type of person who used one wouldn't be content to show an enedited film. Still, really nice idea.

Rob

[Dave Hardy]

I hope this doesn't get francis too exited. My suggestion would be to get Jakko at JK Camera to modify a 16mm bolex with Super 8 sprockets & a Super 8 pull down claw. The aperture plate would be split 16mm on the vertical axis. 2 perf pulldown resulting in the VistaVision aspect ratio of 2:1 rather than the overly wide 2:66 to 1 ratio of Split 16mm horizontal. A 16mm projector would then need to be modified with Super 8 sprockets & a Super 8 claw to pull down the film the hight of 2 Super 8 frames. This would result in much higher resolution than the split 16mm method. However this would rely on Francis' fantasy that Kodak in their magnificent wisdom would bend their rigid policy DS8 & begin supplying film once more in the DS8 format.

When I had my optical printer I experimented to achieve split screen. I found that matting at the filter slot position produced a soft edge to the matte. I got a sharper matte at the printer gate position. So if 2.66:1 aspect ratio is satisfactory, you could simply mask off the lower half of the frame. This could be as simple as a matte in a matte box, cut if you plan on doing a substantial amount of shooting it might be better to have the aperture plate in the camera replaced. This would involve custom machining of the new aperture plate. Masking with the aperture plate or a matte box you could further crop the aspect ratio to 1.85 or 16:9 in you non linear editing system.

Dave

[francis]

well, interestingly enough i was going to start looking into vista8 early next year.

as for the fantasy of ds8 film, john schwind has the email sent to me by kodak that they will make me an order for ds8 film. anything else?

[marc]

A lot of people may not know this but what has been mentioned here was one of the original proposals for Super 8 before it was established into it's present form. As I have mentioned before, I think they should have left the frame height the same as the R8 and used the width of the S8. That would have been your wide screen. And before Nigel says it, yes we should accept Super 8 for what it is. However, there is nothing wrong with monday morning quarterbacking about what could have been.

[francis]

well, i would have to agree. regular8 height, super8 perf size, all in ds8. that would be a blast. about 10% extra time compared to super8, with a nice wide super duper8 aspect ration and the overall cheapness of of ds8. but why accept super8 for what it currently is? innovation is what made filmmaking creative. techniscope would never have happened if people accepted what was available, the same goes with 16mm and super8..for 35mm would have been the accepted thing. there would never have been vistavision. i say bring on the ideas if you have the resources. i hope to try out vista8 next year in a ds8 camera who knows, mabye itll work, mabye itll have a purpose, mabye itll have users. lets experiment.

[Actor]

The Cine Kodak Special cameras I & II both will do 16mm half frames out of the box, no sweat. it was made for it. .....

Its a great idea for use with modern editing methods and you could apply it to any camera just by masking off half the gate. But what would have been the idea originally? You would end up with two movies interlaced on the film. Editing would be impossible...

No, the two movies are not interlaced but side by side. Half 16 film is slit lengthwise and spliced just like D8 and DS8. Half 16 projectors are designed to take either 8mm reels or 16mm reels. Regular 16mm film, with a 7.62mm perf pitch, is used for half 16, so all 16mm films work in half 16. So unless Kodak, Fuji, etc. all discontinue 16mm film (an event far less likely than the discontinuance of super8, reg8 or DS8 film) there will be film for half 16.

A half 16 camera is either laid on it's side or else a dove prism is placed in front of the lens to rotate the image 90 degrees. The same for a half 16 projector.

The width of half 16 is equal to the height of regular 16 and the height of half 16 is equal to half the width of regular 16. I.e., regular 16 is 10.3x7.5 mm. Half 16 is 7.5 x 5.15mm. The aspect ratio of regular 16 is about 4:3. The aspect ratio of half 16 is about 3:2 (the same as a 35mm still camera or a 35mm vista-vision camera without an anamorphic lens).

And if you do the math you'll find that half 16 costs even less than DS-8.

[mattias]

["split-vista-s8"] would result in much higher resolution than the split 16mm method.

i thought the idea was to save film stock as well as being able to use existing equipment to a large extent. why don't just shoot super 16 if it's resolution you're after?

/matt