Finished 1st super 8 video. Looking for advice to improve

[bottlegardener]

Hi folks,
My band and I recently finished our first ultra-low-budget super 8 music video. We really enjoyed the experience and would like to keep working on more. We certainly made our fair share of rookie mistakes (too many to enumerate!) and really made a lot use of this forum's archives to try to figure out how to get closer to ideal next time. We were using Tri-X with a rented Canon 814 XL-S.
One thing I'm still unclear on though, is what factors influence the apparent grain? i.e. under vs over exposure.
For instance, for a few shots where the camera was too high to look into the eyepiece and I forgot to close the eyepiece shutter (with fairly strong light behind the camera), it seemed like the picture was grainier. I know Tri-X is often called a grainy film and don't mind that, but I'm just hoping to squeeze maximum quality out of the stock.
Thanks in advance for any tips.
I've read that Here's the video:
https://vimeo.com/77014538

[Will2]

Love the experimental feel. The audio recording sounded great too. Were those overlays/double exposures in camera somehow how done in editing?

You actually did a really good job on sync all the way through…only a couple scenes did it not seem believable. That is really hard with Super 8 for lots of reasons I'm sure you encountered.

Under exposure will bring out the grain as you try to compensate for it in transfer. If you're shooting super 8 it's all about the grain so embrace it. Tri-X looks great projected but most compression codecs have issues with the grain as evidenced on the Vimeo link. In Super 8 I've found that you need to work in the least compressed codecs you possibly can and do the best final compression for the web possible as the grain will make it look "blocky".

[bottlegardener]

Hey, thanks for the feedback and the great info Will.
We intended to do in-camera lap dissolves but we misread the manual--only the bigger 1014 XL-S has that feature. So we tried to simulate it Premiere just by layering.
Since this vid, we were given an old Canon AutoZoom 814 (non-electronic) and found a cheap Nizo S80. We had the cameras repaired/tuned up by forum member Jean-Louis 'bolextech' Seguin (great guy!).
I'm slightly confused how to approach shooting 200ASA daylight Tri-X with these cameras. They both have the spring-loaded slide potentiometer style of notch reader. But in the case of the Nizo, I believe the highest daylight ASA it will read is 100. Would I be best off engaging its 'half-shutter' diaphragm switch where the equivalent shutter speed gets cut in half? For the Canon, I read its daylight range tops out at 160ASA. Is this close enough? Or would I be better off taking grey card readings with a light meter and setting the exposure manually?
More generally speaking, would you say it's worse to over- or under-exposure this film?

[carllooper]

.

The first time I ever shot Tri-X on Super8 (early eighties) I was very disappointed in the grain - I thought I'd made a big mistake using the stock. But as I sat watching the film I couldn't take my eyes off the imagery. It had this incredible beauty and power that was inseparable from the grain. It was hard to put one's finger on it. It was as if the image were impossible without the grain but at the same time didn't in any way depend on the grain. This double effect, between the image as an image and the image as a reality beyond the image. This interplay. To imagine the image without grain would be like imagining a ghost without it's transparency.

So I'd agree wholeheartedly with Will - embrace the grain. It has it's own strange power.

But I don't know if this means one should try to enhance the grain (although certainly there's plenty to be gained by experimenting on that front). But to use the ghost metaphor: the spooky attribute of a ghost is it's transparency. But if you enhance the transparency the ghost disappears. And equally, if you enhance the opaqueness the ghost disappears.

C

[Tommy]

For a first time effort, it is highly commendable work.....I would love to see your third or fourth effort.

[bottlegardener]

Thanks folks.
I definitely can see what you mean about the 'ghostly' quality about the Tri-X grain Carl. Just as a viewer I've always liked grainy stuff in 35mm feature movies as well, like Tom DiCillo's camerawork in Stranger Than Paradise. Like tape hiss, I think it's definitely sometimes your friend.
For our little video, I was just thinking one or more of the many mistakes we made may have made the grain more prominent at points than it may have been if we were move careful. To my eyes it seems like the grain varies a fair bit from scene to scene (it might be hard for an outside person to tell in the finished video because it's a mix of off-the-wall, which blurred the grain, and a pro frame discreet transfer). At times, I thought it might be a little over the top even for super 8.

[James E]

That is certainly a lot more impressive than my first S8 Tri-x rolls! I'm an old school still photo guy. So when in doubt, overexpose. I highly recommend manual metering/exposure. Even if you take a read with the internal meter and then set manual from there. Old or not I've embraced some new things like the light meter app on my MOTO Photon.
Dig the tunes.. Reminds me of early Pretenders.

[nikonr10]

Hey, thanks for the feedback and the great info Will.
We intended to do in-camera lap dissolves but we misread the manual--only the bigger 1014 XL-S has that feature. So we tried to simulate it Premiere just by layering.
Since this vid, we were given an old Canon AutoZoom 814 (non-electronic) and found a cheap Nizo S80. We had the cameras repaired/tuned up by forum member Jean-Louis 'bolextech' Seguin (great guy!).
I'm slightly confused how to approach shooting 200ASA daylight Tri-X with these cameras. They both have the spring-loaded slide potentiometer style of notch reader. But in the case of the Nizo, I believe the highest daylight ASA it will read is 100. Would I be best off engaging its 'half-shutter' diaphragm switch where the equivalent shutter speed gets cut in half? For the Canon, I read its daylight range tops out at 160ASA. Is this close enough? Or would I be better off taking grey card readings with a light meter and setting the exposure manually?
More generally speaking, would you say it's worse to over- or under-exposure this film?

Hi , nice first TRY at making a film /video ! 200 asa is way to fast for day light try a ND fillter or dark red help's in cuting down light or use a 100 asa film !
you learn as you go on , then get into home cooking , it,s such a great feeling to shoot then dev your film then edit ,
keep it DIY !

[James E]

You could try this too:
http://www.freestylephoto.biz/422150-Ad ... -15-meters
Or Foma or Orwo.
http://www.pro8mm.com/reversal-super-8-film-stocks.php

Process it in a bucket for some phunky effects!

[bottlegardener]

Hey sorry I missed your messages folks. Thanks for the great tips and the encouraging words.

I wasn't aware of those 100ASA b&w stocks. Has anyone ever compared them to Tri-X? Curious how they perform in terms of grain and contrast.

Since that message, my girlfriend and I made a couple more super 8 music videos.

This is the second one we did. This time on colour negative:
https://vimeo.com/77941410

And the newest; another Tri-X black and white one in three parts:
https://vimeo.com/84533481
https://vimeo.com/84533510
https://vimeo.com/84533511

We did these on our own cameras. A friend of the family gave us his old Canon Auto-zoom 814 and we found a Nizo S80 at a garage sale. The Canon was really eating through batteries and would sometime have its motor seize or slow down (there are some speeds up as a result of this). Luckily, the excellent technician, Jean-Louis Seguin, lives in the same city as me. He found and fixed a short circuit in the trigger that was causing it.
Next time around, I'm going to take your advice and use manual exposure. I think I'm also going to avoid the extreme telephoto end of the Canon too--I just can't seem to get perfect focus when it's totally zoomed in. The Nizo has the split image viewfinder, which I find way easier (tho the camera's lens seems to need much more light).

PS Neither of our cameras have macro modes. I found some cheap close-up lens adapters. Any pitfalls to watch out for when using these for super 8?