Just thought to throw this idea out to the people of the 8mm community. Back in the 70's, a widescreen wave hit the little 8mm format and gave way to "Span 8". Here's what the "Handbook of Super 8 Production" says about it.
The Span 8 system is a unique custom system for filming a 3:1 aspect ratio which may also be projected at the standard CinemaScope ratio of 2.66:1. By using a double Super 8 camera and a 16mm lens, and widening the film aperature, one image can be formed on double 8mm film across the full width. When shooting Span 8, the double super 8 film is only run once through the camera. It is not flipped over since the entire film width is utilized in the first pass.
So I know there are some crafty home-brew types still tinkering around in thier basements and was wondering what the possiblity for re-introducing this format again could be? It seems so many have tried to achieve widescreen through anamorphic lenses but have failed at getting the right results. Just imagine the possiblities....
:?:
Your S8 widescreen information certainly looks and sounds the business.However,there seems to me to be a slight case of "Whats the point?" in the case of Double S8.
Widescreen/Scope on the small frame has never been really successful,due to the cramming of all that extra information into a small frame.If one is in the market to use/obtain/rework 16mm cameras to this format,why not use 16mm anyway? The end product is far superior,and with a wealth of filmstocks to choose from.
It would be gratifying if someone out there could disagree with me,but having tried both,when I want to shoot 'scope,out comes the H16.The comparison is like 35mm is to IMAX.I think that is a fair analogy.
Come on out there,lets hear it!
Whats the point you say? You mention shooting a bolex when you want "scope", but isnt that still squarish? Even super 16 does not even come close to the 3:1 that the "span 8" would give you.
The failures are basically what I have heard on these forums. I have heard of problems such as Anamorphic lenses vignetting really bad and only working with really telephoto shots. I have not heard one person online say that they have successfully achieved widescreen Super 8 and thier methods they have used. I have heard just of the stories where people waste a lot of money on anamorphic projector lenses, and add to that investment the crazy adapters needed to fit the lens to your camera, and not to mention the huge weight and size of these anamorphic lenses requiring support rods so the lens doesn't tear the front of your camera off. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't see anyone saying otherwise.
That sucks quite hard. I am just now preparing for a project that I really wanted to shoot wide, and I thought that the anamorphic thing was going to work, thank you for your input.
I suppose I could just find some way to mask off the top and bottom of the frame while shooting and have them crop it out during telecine.
Your span 8 example has my head spinning....I wish there was an easy way. If you had the conversion done, it seems like you would still not know how to frame in the viewfinder, yes? Can they mod that too...so you see the whole span frame? And what about the transfer......could they even transfer that size frame?
How can I find out more about this fascinating idea?
Well exactly how to go about it depends on most importantly finding technicians that can occomodate the modification of both camera and transfer device (Roger if your reading this, you know you want the challenge). Of course I completely understand that I am coming up with a bunch of great ideas for other people to do, something which I can't help but resist especially since I can barely clean a film gate, little alone cut its size in a finely machined fashion. If the mod was not a complete hastle, and some were interested in try to achieve this, then make way for the format. This is how Super 16 got started in the first place, a bunch of film nerds hoping to make something new come of the format. I don't know where to take it from here.
:roll:
Eggbersmith: Well what is it you really want?
35mm anamorphic is "squarish" as you put it.
16mm is the same,but both come out with the similar aspect ratio of2.35:1
Span8 comes up with 3.1. Very good so how wide do you need to go and for what reason?
Span8 is a brilliant idea-for those wishing to experiment without using anamorphic lenses.Fine,but where do you draw the line?
'Whats the point' I admit in retrospect was a bad choice of words.Of course there is a point to the boffins out there,but again,just how wide do you really need to go?
I think there's a certain amount of scaremongering going on here about the use of anamorphic lenses. Vignetting only becomes a problem if the A lens in not properly matched to the main lens. Some of the A attachments being sold are just too small (rear element-wise) for some of the large Super8 camera lenses. I have successfully used an Iscorama 54 A lens with my Nizo 6080 and had no problems. I suppose the only downside is a certain amount of grain enlargement in the horizontal plane when "unsqueezed", but in all honesty it's not all that noticeable on a fine grain stock.
OK, I've been in this discussion before, and someone mentioned a pretty good idea:
1.Get a 16mm camera.
2. Modify the gate so that either the top 1/2 or the bottom 1/2 is masked off completely.
3. Mark the mask in the viewfinder if necessary.
4. Load camera with double-perf 16mm film. Shoot.
5. When film is completely run through, remove from camera, flip it over (like reg8mm or DS8)
6. Run it through again.
7. Get a 16mm Worprinter and transfer it yourself, again flipping the film.
Advantages:
1. One or two fairly simple mods to just about ANY 16mm camera. No mechanical mods.
2. What filmstock do you want to shoot? Kodak has said that double-perf is still available as special order (and I didn't get the impression it was the standard gajillion roll minimum)
3. WIIIIDE if you want it.
4. A real film transport.
5. Film capacity limited only to what camera you mod.
6. 2x run time of normal 16mm. Save on cost of stock.
Disadvantages:
1. I guess running film through a camera and projector twice increases the risk of damage, but since I'm going into DS8, I don't like to think about that. ;)
2. Load times take longer than S8, but...(See #1 above)
3. Less frame height than Super8. I guess you could sort this out in the gate, though
4. I can't think of any others offhand. Anyone else?
Yeah, double-perf 16mm isn't the standard any more, but let's face it, this is a super-8 forum. We're used to jumping through hoops for 2-1/2 minutes of images.
This is possible utilizing Bolex H8 parts, a Bolex H16 Rex body and Regular 8mm film.
No modification of the H16 film gate/aperture is necessary as to key to this is the interchangeable Bolex film transport/gate "shuttle". Both R8 and 16mm film perforations are identical.
So in effect the full width of the standard 16mm gate can be utilized. I present some frame specs for discussion purposes, i.e.
Standard 16mm frame width = 10.3 mm
Standard 16mm frame height = 7.5 mm
Standard R8 frame width = approx. 4.5 mm
Standard R8 frame height = approx. 3.5 mm
Therefore two of the following theoretical widescreen frames = 10.3 mm (w) x 3.5 mm (h) can fit in the standard 16mm frame height = 7.5mm.
We are presently discussing which pitch to utilize regarding framelines.
The actual aspect ratio = 1:29 or 1:3 for discussion purposes. The standard 2.4 Cinemascope aspect ratio can be extracted in post.
The plan is to mask the brighter and sharper Bolex 13x viewfinder with the 2.4 Cinemascope aspect ratio whilst shooting in the field. This masking would also allow a "safe" shooting area.
There are individuals re-perforating fine grained 16mm stock for 16mm wide R8, e.g. Vision 3 500T/ 200T. I have contacted a Bolex tech who is willing to modify and swap Bolex shuttles. My regular transfer service has previously tested full 16mm wide R8 transfers in their various 16mm transfer bays.
I call this native spherical 8mm Cinemascope. Stay tuned in 2011.
Nicholas Kovats
Shoot film! facebook.com/UltraPan8WidescreenFilm
supa_ate_sixteen wrote: I have not heard one person online say that they have successfully achieved widescreen Super 8 and thier methods they have used.
freedom4kids wrote:
I believe the Bolex anamorphic system utilized a 1.5x compression/squeeze factor. Would you guess the stock being a European version of Kodachrome II?
Yes, according to the original author it was European Kodachrome and the used lens was an Iscomorphot. He still owns this lens, I have made an adapter for his projector.
I take it the original squeezed image was digitally unsqueezed/uncompressed via Avisynth?
Yes, a piece of cake actually. Just some resizing and adding two black borders.
I have used all degraining etc.. filters before resizing.
Fred.
my website:
http://www.super-8.be
about film transfering:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_k0IKckACujwT_fZHN6jlg
I appreciate your archival efforts. This should be split off onto a different thread but I am curious if there are any efforts to develop a 64 bit version of AviSynth? And perhaps a version that can handle 32 bit DPX/Cineon files?
Nicholas Kovats
Shoot film! facebook.com/UltraPan8WidescreenFilm
