Market for super 8 larger than 70mm market?

[Patrick]

Seeing a film projected in 70mm is a rare treat these days. Of course occasionally, at select cinemas, you can see a new print of a classic film like '2001' or 'Lawrence of Arabia.' However, new productions being shot on 65mm film are extremely rare. 'Baraka' is one of the very few 70mm films of recent times. One of the reasons for the scarcity of this format in the modern day is the lack of 70mm projectors at most cinemas.

I was thinking recently - even though the super 8 market itself is extremely tiny, I wonder if there are more people shooting super 8 than 65mm. When you consider the thousands of people around the world who shoot super 8 each year and the small number of 70mm productions that were produced over the last two decades, it seems likely that the super 8 market is larger...unless someone can prove me wrong.

[Angus]

I would be sure more people are using super 8....but I wonder about feet (or square feet) of film shot...

[woods01]

Interesting thought but don't forget about Imax films and its become
vogue for major releases to get a Imax blowup. If you're interested in
making your own Imax film check out their handy FAQ:

http://www.imax.com/corporate/content/p ... /faqs.html

Of traditional 65mm shoots, Hamlet was the last film to be shot in the
format but parts of the New World were shot on it (they wanted to shoot
all 65 but didn't have the $$). I've heard that there is a Baraka sequel
planned to be shot on 65mm but its easy to plan to shoot it, another to
get the budget for it.

[pulsingcinema]

Sometimes I think the reason for not utilizing 65mm on major features has less to do with expense and more with the fact that 70mm is not exactly a very "sexy" technology and is, in fact, associated with runaway productions and gigantic overages which make producers nervous. I read an article online with Storaro where he discusses some of the sequences in "Little Buddha" which he shot in 65 and he had to have many strong discussions with the producers over that fact that Arri didn't put a premium on the rental of their 65mm equipment and that modern technology had ironed out many of the problems which the format encountered in the past.

It just has to be more than the sheer expense, I mean come on. I still can't understand how some of these 100 million dollar productions are suddenly counting their pennies when it comes to using this format. If you think about it and look at the cost breakdowns at in70mm.com the real difference between 35mm and 65mm is only realistically between 500,000 to a couple million, depending on the shooting ratio of course, something which I guess would get a Terrence Malick in trouble. Still, who knows? From that Storaro interview and from other sources I've read online no one is putting a gigantic premium on the gear or film and it's no more specialized or finicky than Hi-Def. So I think in many of these cases the real reason is rather complex.

[kentbulza]

Very few theatres have 70mm projectors, and fewer with maintained ones.

[christoph]

It just has to be more than the sheer expense, I mean come on.

it's not so much expense in film stock and rental but rather that the rigging is clumsier limiting camera angles and movements, that you need more light, and better set design.

add to that that everything is slower and more complicated (and most of the high budget films are action heavy which needs multiple cameras, motion control, steadycam or handheld, crash cams, vfx etc...) and if nobody can really screen it, it's understandable that the producer doesnt want to do it.

++ christoph ++

[T-Scan]

Consider if you shoot 2.5 minutes of 65mm your looking at 281ft of film... equivilant to about 44 cartridges of S8 film. So the question is, does the S8 community shoot 110 minutes of film @ 24pfs for every 2.5 minutes of 65mm being shot? Last fall, I saw "Antartica" at the Imax... there was a scene showing them setting up a 70mm rig, what a monster.

[Janne]

Saw this blog entry
http://hollywoodlostandfound.net/blog/2 ... -65mm.html

[wado1942]

I agree with pulsingcinema. The price difference between 35mm and 65mm is very little when you consider like half of the budget goes to the stars, 1/3rd goes to CGI and the remaining bits go to everything else (I may be exaggerating a little). The projectors have little to do with it also. Most of the quality is lost in the initial capture. Camera film is far grainier and less sharp than the intermediaries so it makes sense to shoot 65mm and do an anamorphic reduction print to 35mm. It would have almost the same clarity as a 70mm production. In fact, most 70mm productions were projected from 35mm anamorphic prints and it worked very well.

But we're living in a video world where we must have instant setup and feedback on everything. It takes longer to rig 65mm cameras and post production takes longer because there probably hasn't been a new 65mm camera design since the 70s so what we have is very heavy and large while 35mm cameras are now the size and weight of old 16mm cameras. With more and more movies being made in post production, slowing down the production means less time to get the "real" work done. Dealing with what's now a non-standard format also slows down scanning and printing etc. Not to mention that movies are being edited and color corrected at 2K resolution which is about half that of 35mm. There's not much purpose of even using film now because the digital color graders are going to make it look like it was shot on a $6,000 HD video camera anyway.

I love the look of 70mm and I love when movies are made on sets instead of computers just like I love optical post production instead of video. But we live in a video world and it seems that these days 2 years of a movie is in preproductions, 3 months in production and 2 years in post production. The actual production is becomming less and less important as time passes and all the important stuff is done by software engineers and pencil pushers. So why WOULD anybody use 70mm when only a few elements from the actual camera footage will even make it to the screen?

[thebrowniecameraguy]

Something funny about oudated projectors, the city I came from setup an outdoor movie theater.

I remember walking through the storage of the historical museum and seeing a 70mm projector sitting near a box of prints of that format, L of Arabia etc. They were saved from the downtown theater when it was converted into offices. Maybe I can talk them into pulling the projector and sound equipment if I trained myself to be the projectionist. They can't deny me, since I have at least a basic knowledge with making my own films for projection anyway...

I swear though, when I saw the setup (not close enough for the right loops to the supply and take up spools etc...) the bulk of the machine will take up a lot of space. Thats the one downside... The little outdoor theater seats 40, some even parked in cars if they wish, at the back of course. I worked at a certain unamed major theater chain *cough**all of one day* the person training me in the boothes could load one of the 35mm projectors with her eyes closed. Meanwhile I fucked up 3 movies so badly I had to call for help and the guests in the seats were angry. It only took me 15 minutes to work it out. I mean, they got to see the damn thing didn't they?

[wado1942]

That's amazing.
We had a theater close here (along with many others) not long after a big chain theater arrived (let's just say it rhymes with kedwards) and they just threw way their projectors. My room mate tried to rescue one of them and they ran him away.
"But you don't want it...I do."
"It's private property"
............what a waste. Those lenses alone are worth a few grand.

BTW, I firmly believe that there's more super-8 users than 70mm but 70mm for pure footage is probably greater than super-8.

[Patrick]

Speaking of waste, there was a television station over here that burned thousands and thousands of feet of 16mm film material. According to this woman I spoke with on the phone (who worked for the station), there was no place to store these films and the station wasn't interested in paying anyone to store the films for them - so they destroyed them.

[wado1942]

Another friend of mine found our state library was going to throw away their 16mm film and beat them to the punch. He now has over 800 film reels, some of which are treasured classics. Original prints of the Superman cartoons, some amazing indie film shorts, some local documentaries etc.