PRO SUPER8? An interesting article

[Lucas Lightfeat]

I don't think Jessh misunderstood you exactly, he made a different interpretation of the same system, whereby you wouldn't need to alter the camera. The way Jessh describes it, it's just like what you described, but by only masking and running through twice, one gets a similar result. You simply project, or transfer, with a masked gate, and every alternate frame will be part of the continuous shot. It's clumsier, somehow, but also a hell of a lot simpler to achieve the same practical result.

Lucas

[jessh]

jessh you misunderstood me.

no, actually you misunderstood me :-)

I was talking about shooting only half the 16mm film frame vertically. No flipping the film or any fancy tricks like that. See the attached image.

unfortunatly what you have in mind is a bit complicated, and I believe impractical. In order to advance the film only half of the 16mm frame you would either have to use film that had the perforations twice as often (which would be the exact same film that is required by regular 8mm) or you would have to create an all new claw advance mechanism that is much more complicated than anything that currently exists. Basically both of these options would require modifications to a 16mm camera that are not very practical.

The solution to this problem is instead of trying to expose every frame of film in sequence, you would shoot the bottom half of every frame, then flip the film over and shoot the top half (which would be upside down in relation to the other half). There are some drawbacks to doing it this way, but it is a much more practical solution, unless you can build an all new camera.....

One of the drawbacks to this method, which I stated in my last post is that it requires double perf film, by this I meant film that has perforations on both edges (looks like the picture you posted), not fiilm such as 8mm which is twice as many perforations. This would mean that you can still use regular 16mm film, just not the single perf type that is used with super16.

So basically to modify a 16mm camera to use this format all you would need to do is mask the film gate(or machine a new gate for it).

Although modifying the gate is all that is really required, there are 2 more things you really need to do if you want it to work well. If you plan on using zoom lenses you are most likely going to want to re-center the lens mount so that when you zoom you don't get really weird effects. This will also keep the sharpest part of the lens(the center) in the center of the frame.

You will also want to adjust the viewfinder in some way so that you can actually frame for the new format, the simplest way of course would be to mask it, or get frame markings etched into the ground glass, or something similar.

16mm full aperture is actually 1.37:1, so the aspect ratio of this half height format would be 2.74:1
If your target aspect ration is 1.85(standard 35mm) or 1.78(16:9, HDTV) then you would end up with a lot smaller image area than if you were using cropped 16mm(but it would still be larger than super8, and cheaper....), if you are going for a 2.35:1 aspect ratio(common anamorphic widescreen) then less cropping would be required, so the quality difference between cropped regular 16mm wouldnt be as bad(but who crops 16mm to 2.35 anyway?)
If you just want the widest screen image possible, and are ending up on video, then you could just use 2.74:1 and have a very distinct widescreen image. And of course if you want 1.33:1(standard TV, etc...) you would basically have an 8mm image area, at half the price of 16mm, and the ability to pan the image a lot in post....

does anyone know of any websites or other places where this has been discussed?

~Jess

[mattias]

jessh you misunderstood me.

i don't think so. flipping not only reverses the image left and right but also up and down, so the effect you're after can also be achieved this way...

I wasn't talking about the pro super8 idea. I was talking about shooting only half the 16mm film frame vertically. No flipping the film or any fancy tricks like that.

ask yourself this: what's easier? using any regular 16 mm camera with a matted gate, flipping regular 16 mm film, or modifying the pulldown mechanism and using hard to find d8 film? think about and i think you'll understand that it was actually you who misunderstood. :-)

(this discussion has been up lots of times before. check the archives)

/matt

[mattias]

oops, didn't see that post jessh. sorry for the redundancy. ;-)

what's up with this splitting of pages anyway? how about letting the thread run until there are 20 messages before it splits at 15? this would prevent these lone orphaned messages that you so often miss...

/matt

[Lucas Lightfeat]

Surely a masked gate will bleed a lot. Isn't a new gate absolutely required with this system?

I guess no-one's ever successfully tried this system. I would do it myself, but I'm put off by the lens alignment adjust, which would be a nightmare to get right, involving removal of the lens mount - I know it would be a disaster if I tried it - I'd get through a few cameras until it worked!

Sorry if this has been discussed at length before...

Lucas

[mattias]

Surely a masked gate will bleed a lot. Isn't a new gate absolutely required with this system?

probably, but special gates for workhorses like bolexes and k3's can be ordered almost off the shelf, can't they? perhaps a gate from a h8 filed to full width would work in a 16 mm bolex?

/matt

[eric@earthid.org]

what we all really need is a small, compact camera that acts as a hub. having the ability to use s8, 16/s16, and 35mm film stocks. it should have an auto-record that controls you dat, md, or hd audio record, wherein when the trigger is pushed, both film and audio roll to speed(a second or two after trigger is pushed, film gets visual mark while audio receives audible mark at exact same time. this process repeats itself upon the release of the trigger. meantime, the viewfinder is a small compact lcd attached to a ccd that allows both viewing and output to other device(monitor, recorder, computer) as composit or optional dv signal. hell with timecode, simply have a plug in for one of your nle software packages that recognize the visual/audio marks made by the trigger on/off. oh, this is my perfect little world, and this perfect little world has no intention of going to the big screen ... just straight to dvd. i had to cut this short because my wife is calling me ... but you get the just of it.

[jessh]

I would do it myself, but I'm put off by the lens alignment adjust, which would be a nightmare to get right, involving removal of the lens mount - I know it would be a disaster if I tried it - I'd get through a few cameras until it worked!

the lens alignment isn't exactly necessary, it is basically the same issue you have when modifying 16mm cameras to super16. The lens is just no longer centered on the center of the frame, so if you try and zoom while filming you won't get what you would expect... But for the most part you should be able to get by just fine without recentering the lens, many people seem to do it for super16, and with that there are even more reasons to center the lens.

Don't let the minor details stop you, Try it!!! :-)

~Jess

p.s. I accept no responisiblity for any negative consequences of doing what I have described :-)

[roxics]

jessh you misunderstood me.

no, actually you misunderstood me

The solution to this problem is instead of trying to expose every frame of film in sequence, you would shoot the bottom half of every frame, then flip the film over and shoot the top half (which would be upside down in relation to the other half). There are some drawbacks to doing it this way, but it is a much more practical solution, unless you can build an all new camera.....

~Jess

No I got what you said. You just went off in a new direction which is why I believed you misunderstood me.

IMO though your suggestion isn't much different then shooting double 8. The point was to get rid of the hassle of flipping the film altogether. Not to mention ditching double perf film in favor of common 16mm stock. Afterall we're talkiing about a bunch of people that are going from a cart based super8 system where all you do is insert a cart and shoot. The point was to make it almost as easy and better.

Yes I'm aware of the complication of the gate claw movement. But surely we live in the digital age. Someone can find a way to modify or build a new camera that it is capable of pulling the 16mm half way. Perhaps a sprocket based system rather then a claw. I never said it would be easy to make. But the point was to make it easy for the end user.

[jessh]

IMO though your suggestion isn't much different then shooting double 8. The point was to get rid of the hassle of flipping the film altogether. Not to mention ditching double perf film in favor of common 16mm stock.

I just want to make sure we are clear on one point, the one-edge-perf film I am talking about is not the same half-pitch film used by regular 8, it is common 16mm stock that is readily available from kodak and many dealers, it is simply becomming slightly less common than the single-edge perf which is required for super-16.
(http://www.kodak.com/US/plugins/acrobat ... lorNeg.pdf)
I am not saying you didn't understand this, just wanted to make sure it is clear to everyone.

Yes I'm aware of the complication of the gate claw movement. But surely we live in the digital age. Someone can find a way to modify or build a new camera that it is capable of pulling the 16mm half way. Perhaps a sprocket based system rather then a claw. I never said it would be easy to make. But the point was to make it easy for the end user.

and my point is that while your proposed system is possible and would be better in many ways, it is simply not going to happen. While the method I am talking about is not only feasible but only requires a rather "simple" modification to almost any 16mm camera to begin expirementing with.

~Jess

[Guest]

Well this entire thread is about a dream format anyway. Figured I'd throw in my 2 cents on what I think would be a great format idea no matter the complications in engineering.

[mattias]

Well this entire thread is about a dream format anyway. Figured I'd throw in my 2 cents on what I think would be a great format idea no matter the complications in engineering. :)

what complications? modifying a gate is hardly rocket science. it seems like everybody is missing the point of this "format": you can use any 16mm camera and regular 16mm film and just matte the gate.

/matt

[jessh]

Well this entire thread is about a dream format anyway. Figured I'd throw in my 2 cents on what I think would be a great format idea no matter the complications in engineering. :)

nothing wrong with that :-)

~Jess

[roxics]

Sorry the last Guest posting was me forgetting to check in

mattias the complications I was speaking of was the advanced claw movement for the "shooting half the 16mm film frame without flipping the film" idea. Which was separate from the "matte the 16mm film gate and shoot half then flip and shoot the other half" idea. Just so know one gets confused.

[mattias]

yeah, sorry. realized that after posting. i would guess it could be done by simply widening the gate and recentering the lens on a bolex h-8 though, which isn't rocket science either. the biggest problem with this approach is your post options. with the flip method you can do optical printing to scope format or transfer to video using regular 16mm equipment.

/matt