John Pytlak-What will Kodak do about the jittery carts?

[Scotness]

i mean, super8 is bound to be jittery with the small size.

Let's make one thing quite clear - there is a world of difference between breathing or slight moving and jitter -- jitter looks like your image is having and epileptic fit - it's all over the place - and the cart sounds anythng but smooth as it goes through.

For those of you who haven't experenced your lucky - I hope you never do.

I wish I could find where I originally posted about this when it happened to me (I think it was before Andreas reworked the forum) - but with alot of assistance from my local rep I got Kodak in France to listen and we sent them a telecined portion of film along with the actual film that was shot on a serviced 4008 and they admitted it was their fault and was due to a new supplier not manufacturing the internal washers correctly.

They refunded me about $600 for the 40 odd carts of it I got - but if you were to put a dollar value on the wages/time/locations etc that were blown it would be over ten thousand -- of course we were doing it for free - but going back over and reshooting it all wasn't possible for a number of reasons.

Liek I said in another thread - I want to shoot another feature on Super 8 next year but if this isn't cleard up I'm not likely to (not wanting to sound like Ridley Scott here!)

So anyway John - just find whatever you were doing right in the 70's and re do it!

Scot

[Juno]

John, please, just get it fixed!!!

[Patrick]

Hmmm...would Single 8 be an attractive option for you, Scott?

[Scotness]

No it's mega expensive

Scot

[filmbuff]

No it's mega expensive

Scot

Try Regular 8

[MovieStuff]

The carts might be perfect, but my unmaintained, 40 year-old gummed-up Nizo film claw could botch everything up. And I'd blame Kodak, rather than admit what a gomer I was for shooting with such a dismal camera. ;)

But if you can depend on the cart being consistently good then that lets you diagnose the camera problem more easily. Right now that is not the case.

Roger

[MovieStuff]

3) films shot in the 70s = PERFECT as Rogers points out.
some time ago i watched some *fetaure* films made in the 70s shot with various cams within each *feature* and luckily the framelines (various positions - various cams) were visible. films were projected and the framelines was totally bolt-on steady unlike anything i have seen from the 80+.

the image stability was total like projected slides.

....matter of fact i just seen a 16mm blowup of Nanni Morettis "IO SONO UN AUTARCHICO" the other day. this is a 95min feature shot in 1976 on super8 ......... but the most amazing thing was that the registration was up to any film i've shot on 16mm or s16 so far........

i've seen countless unsteady super8 charts on several high end cameras, including a leicina special and a freshly serviced beaulieu 5008. in fact, none of my cameras is capable of something nearly as steady, and it's unlikely that they all need servicing.

This is what I am talking about, John. There are quality control problems with the modern Super 8 carts compared to the product produced by Kodak back in the 60s and 70s and has no relationship to the camera being used. The difference is staggering and well worth looking into by Kodak. As far as people sending footage back to Kodak, that is really impractical and quite unnecessary for obvious reasons. It is impossible to tell if a cart is bad just by looking at it and, once the footage is shot and processed, the defective cart is gone. Plus, the defective roll may very well have important usable footage that the shooter does not want to part with. Kodak really needs to just roll up their collective sleeves and sort this out without customers having to spend time and money being unpaid field operatives. Again, the problem is well documented and does exist.

Roger

[Angus]

Just a pure guess here...are the manufacturing costs being kept so low that quality is suffering?

I remember older carts had a light blue plastic pressure plate, whereas now it's black like the rest of the cart. Maybe different marerials were used then compared to now...and I don't know what's inside a K40 cart as I've never opened one (maybe the same as a B&W cart though).

We do know that the number on the bottom right has changed (V1.2 for example) so presumably the design and manufacture is altered from time to time.

[John_Pytlak]

:arrow: Again, you need to return samples of the problem, and unused cartridges from the same batch though your dealer. If you encounter a cart that seems excessively noisy or seems to have too much drag, send the partially used cartridge. With hundreds of different models of cameras in use, in different states of repair, there may be an issue that Kodak's internal testing just isn't seeing.

From this discussion, it's clear that some people encounter problems, but others don't.

When you see steadier images on old productions, you need to take into account how they were transferred/duplicated, as pin-registered systems have given way to continuous transport telecines.

[christoph]

From this discussion, it's clear that some people encounter problems, but others don't.

with respect, it rather seems to me that there's a general problem which some people bothers and others not.

what i'm saying is that under the many super8 cartridges i've shot with many different cameras there was not a single one that was close to the one i've seen in the theatre the other day (and that was shot on a midrange camera in the 70ies), and that was a projection which is usually less steady than a transfer! (besides, i usually check the framelines/perforation to make sure it's not a transfer problem).

and what roger is telling you is that using the same transfer machine with old amateur film and with recently shot film results in different registration. consistently. and he's transfering a lot of stuff.

so what are we supposed to do? send in every single cartridge because, as said, none is as steady as it could? or just bite the bullet and hope get used to it?

don't get me wrong, i'm glad that kodak still makes super8 films, but if they could look into this issue and make the cartridge work the same way as they used to 30 years ago i would be even happier.

++ christoph ++

[MovieStuff]

:arrow: Again, you need to return samples of the problem, and unused cartridges from the same batch though your dealer. If you encounter a cart that seems excessively noisy or seems to have too much drag, send the partially used cartridge. With hundreds of different models of cameras in use, in different states of repair, there may be an issue that Kodak's internal testing just isn't seeing.

I understand but, realistically, how is that going to tell Kodak what they need to know? If they don't have the camera that it was shot on, won't the natural assumption be that it was simply a camera issue?

How about if I just spring for about a half dozen different ebay cameras, have half of them repaired and the other half "as is" and send them all to the Kodak testing department? Then Kodak would have a better sampling of the types of cameras their carts are shot on.

When you see steadier images on old productions, you need to take into account how they were transferred/duplicated, as pin-registered systems have given way to continuous transport telecines.

This is an anomaly that has nothing to do with telecine or duplication, John. If you look at the frame lines, you can see them expand and contract, independent of any transfer or blow process. We are talking about how the original film tracks in the camera; not the steadiness of a subsequent transfer or blowup.

Roger

[ccortez]

Seeing the problem in 1980 supports the point that small formats are more sensitive to certain issues like unsteadiness and focus shift. Especially Super-8, whick was originally designed for low-cost amateur moviemaking.

But it also supports the fact that Kodak has had 25 years to do RMA analysis on this problem, yet in 2005 they are still asking irritated customers for sample lot returns.

If in this very small sampling of users on this forum the incidence of problems is as high as it seems, I would recommend Kodak use some science to determine a more appropriate sample size for testing than what you currently use.

Having done that, I'll eat my proverbial hat if you don't come up with failing carts at a percentage that is more representative of the experience stated here than is your earlier "don't find anything" result.

If what you come up with is something like the 10% I expect, you're seriously mistreating your low-end film customers and adversly impacting your own bottom line as well.

[T-Scan]

I must be lucky then, no jitter problems.. some occasional breathing, but that is due to the end of the roll. the new negs that i've had transferred over the last year have all been rock solid as well.

[MovieStuff]

I would recommend Kodak use some science to determine a more appropriate sample size for testing than what you currently use. Having done that, I'll eat my proverbial hat if you don't come up with failing carts at a percentage that is more representative of the experience stated here than is your earlier "don't find anything" result.

Yes!

Roger

[Scotness]

:arrow: Again, you need to return samples of the problem

Done that - and so have others - and Kodak have acknowledged what the problem is and admitted that it is their fault so with all respect John you need to stop giving us that line which sounds like a stalling tactic and move on to Step 2 which is fixing the carts.

The ball is in your court. If you want to PM me I can give you the contact details of the Kodak rep here who worked with me in providing actual film and telecine samples of the jitter and who got Kodak France to analyse it and work out what the problem was.

It really has to be solved once and for all - and it obviously can be because the problem wasn't around in the 70's - and you can bet your bottom dollar that if the problem was around in the 70's it would have been solved quickly because of market pressures. Those market pressures aren't here on Super 8 now - but if you want it to be a viable entry point for new film makers (as opposed to video) then it has to be solved because no one in their right mind would shoot anything major on Super 8 with this risk involved.

And to everyone here: if you haven't experienced jitter before don't feel this is irrelvant to you because if you keep shooting Super 8 eventually you will get one of these carts and your work will be ruined by it.

How could any company really expect people to persist with a given product in this kind of climate??

Scot