Would you still buy new commercial super 8 prints?

[slashmaster]

Was wondering if anyone in here would buy new commercial films if they were available? I'm playing with the idea of trying to sell super 8 or regular 8 200 foot long prints of the film I'm trying to do when I'm done with it.

[Maurizio Di Cintio]

Well it's all down to the film content and final price... Can you articulate?

[slashmaster]

Well it's all down to the film content and final price... Can you articulate?

The content is going to be this https://www.facebook.com/GetOnTheGround As for the price, well that greatly depends on how much I can find filmstock for to make the positive prints. I'm open to suggestions. Planning on printing each positive directly from the original negative with no intermediate print so the quality will be very high. Planning on the boxes being the typical 2 piece cardboard bottom and cover with the red super 8 emblem and plastic reel inside just like this http://www.forevergeek.com/wp-content/m ... films.jpeg

[Will2]

I wish we could convince studios to release 16mm prints for purchase but they would have to cost crazy amounts to cover the cost. You could actually take a Blu-Ray and do a film out from that with amazing quality.

[slashmaster]

I wish we could convince studios to release 16mm prints for purchase but they would have to cost crazy amounts to cover the cost. You could actually take a Blu-Ray and do a film out from that with amazing quality.

Yeah, and probably 80-90% would be the film stock wouldn't it?

[aj]

Was wondering if anyone in here would buy new commercial films if they were available? I'm playing with the idea of trying to sell super 8 or regular 8 200 foot long prints of the film I'm trying to do when I'm done with it.

Here you have a reproduction service: http://www.andecfilm.de/en/e_s8_neg_pos.htm
Possibly you could get a somewhat better price but likely a 400ft roll will take Euro 150-175
Maybe if you would find a stash of budget material in the US it might work out cheaper

And they have acquired this company: http://www.digital-direct.de/
So who knows what they still can do.

[kuparikettu]

And then there is CPC in Ukraine -- which, while not offering super-8, offers quite a good price for 35mm prints: http://www.cpc.kiev.ua/pricing

[wado1942]

No, I wouldn't be interested. Here's the thing; Super-8 can look great as first-generation, if you were really careful about composition, lighting, used excellent lenses etc. but you'll never get that good of quality out of a copy. Where will you get print film in Super-8? Your only option would be to shoot black & white and have it developed as negative, then the same for the print. The print itself would be emulsion to base, so it will be very soft looking, unless you used an optical printer. In that case, you'll have loss due to the optics involved. The ultimate best option would probably be Tri-X developed as neg, optically printed to Tri-X. That means lots of grain & still a soft image in the best case scenario.
16mm fares much better. You can have great quality contact prints struck directly from the negatives without much loss. I would certainly be interested in that if the price was right. I wouldn't want Super-8 blown up to 16mm though.
I've seen some good 8mm and Super-8 prints, but they were reductions from 35mm, probably optically printed to reversal from a positive. There's a lot more quality potential going from 35mm to Super-8 than S-8 to S-8.

[jpolzfuss]

Your only option would be to shoot black & white and have it developed as negative, then the same for the print.

Wrong. Andec can process Super8-colour-negatives (e.g. Kodak Vision3 50D) and can do great prints (on Super8-colour-print-stock). The only drawback is the soundtrack: As andec prints on PET-based print-stock, only the main-track can get striped (=mono only). (All other labs that were able to do add both stripes onto PET-based super8 have been closed or aren't willing to repair their broken devices "due to lack of demand".)

[wado1942]

OK, so they had some S8 print film slit. You'd still have a copy of an already low resolution, high grain medium. You still also have to run it through an optical printer to avoid making a base to emulsion contact print. First gen S8 on its best day can look good, but I doubt it will hold up to copying like 35mm or 16mm does.

BTW,

Wrong.

... rude.

[slashmaster]

Thanks for the replies AJ, Wado, Jpolzfuss, Kuparikettu, Maurizio, Will2. I was on a little vacation but now I'm back.


AJ, if I lived in that area I would give that place a shot at least once.


Wado, the plan was to go from 16mm negative optically to super 8 negative. That would be less of a quality loss than super 8 to super 8 contact print wouldn't it? You seem to know a lot about this stuff, now that you brought it up what did places like Castle Films or Blackhawk Films do back in the day? That was probably at least 3rd generation by the time the consumer got it? Or was it?

[wado1942]

If you're going from 16mm to S-8 via optical printer, I think that would be OK, assuming it was a very good optical printer with print film in it. I'd still rather have a contact print on 16mm, but I realize that's rather expensive even for a 200' movie.

I think the way Castle etc. did it was by running a 35mm print through a rear projection screen into multiple printers with reversal film. Don't quote me on that though. I'm not that familiar with Blackhawk. Whatever method they used, I have a Super-8 color print of the first Bugs Bunny movie (with sound) that's incredibly sharp compared to Castle, so I suspect it was made via optical printer from a 16mm reduction. It seems to be Ektachrome.

[Will2]

I'd definitely buy 16mm prints all day long but not Super 8 (unless they were very inexpensive.)

[richard p. t.]

Just as a point of clarity, there is no reason for super 8 contact prints from colour negative to be made base to emulsion rather than emulsion to emulsion. One 'always' puts emulsion to emulsion in a contact printer (o.k., I used scare quotes there because there have been times when I have needed to print base to emulsion for experimental film reasons). Andecs contact printer works just like any other contact printer in that regard - printing emulsion to emulsion. Of course, this means that, like any contact print, the film wind is reversed. Thus, B-wind camera film becomes an A-wind print. That is normal. An optical printer 'always' yields B-wind prints (scare quotes for the same reason).
Also, a contact print made on a step contact printer will theoretically be better than any optical print. The increase in contrast from an optical print is theoretically always greater than with a contact print (its like the difference between condenser and difuser photographic enlargers). Step contact prints will also be theoretically sharper because there is no lens involved. Also the focussed light used in an optical printer means surface features and imperfections of the film base and the base side are more pronounced with an optical printer.
I don't know whether the Andec super 8 contact printer is a step contact or a continuous contact printer on the other hand.
I can say that Andec don't slit or have someone else perforate and slit super 8 print stock. Vision colour print 3383 has been an available Kodak catalogue item up until about a year ago. It was 16mm wide and perforated 1,3 (ie like two parallel pieces of super 8, rather than like Ds8 which is 1,4).
All that said, Slashmaster was talking about reduction printing rather than contact printing. Reduciton printing is optical printing. This would require an optical printer that could take super 8 print stock in its camera. When 'bulk' release printing of super 8 prints was done, they did indeed have special printer that could take a 35mm oiriginal and optically reduce to make a series of up to 4 super 8 images side by side for printing onto super 8 sprocketed 35mm wide film. These were continuous optical printers I believe (rather than the more conventional step optical printers which, like all step printers, expose one frame at a time). There were other types of bulk printers as well for super 8. I have seen a number of these stored in a farm shed out in the bush here in Australia. Crazy.
Anyway, you certainly would need to check whether Andec have a system of optically reducing 16 to super 8. As I say, systems did exist for bulk reduction to super 8. And I believe, but could be wrong, that there were even systems that could bulk print to 1,3 super 8 16mm stock. And there also did exist a Takita reduction/blow up printer that did allow a continuous optical print to be made in either direction from 16mm. That is what you would need. But does Andec have one of these as well? They certailnly have a conventional optical printer that can blow up from super 8 to 16. But it is one thing to have a super 8 gate for an optical printer projector that allows blowing up to 16 and 35, it is another to have a super 8 gate for your optical printer camera to capture on super 8 print stock. In any event, it would be a very expensive option to do for each print if it had to be done on a conventional optical printer. You can't even do it economically on a JK optical printer with the available 1,3 print stock unless you had a Bolex converted to 1,3 super 8. If Andec have a machine like the Takita continuous optical printer I am thinking of (or a dedicated step optical printer like my 16/35 arri) that can readily reduce to super 8 print, then you are in business. Otherwise, the cheapest option would be to use Andec to make straight super 8 contact prints from super 8 neg, because making super 8 prints on a conventional optical printer, if possible at all, would be way too expensive to be practical.
PS, you can confirm whether a super 8 print that you have is a reversal or a neg/pos print simply by looking at the non image edges of the film to see whether these are black or clear, black being reversal and clear being neg/pos.
I hope you project comes off!
cheers,
richard

[slashmaster]

Thanks Wado, who made your bugs bunny film? I've got a Castle Films Woody Woodpecker on standard 8, the quality is terrible. But I have 16mm 100 foot news parades from 1946 and 1947 from Castle. The quality is awesome! Only bad thing is the 100 foot reels have very small cores so the end of the film is too curly to be very flat in the gate.


Will2, I might take you up on that offer! I go to a place called Cinelab in Massachusetts and they already told me they could make me prints. We still have yet to talk about how much though. So what's your favorite way to have your 16mm? Traditional metal cans on large core metal reels? The more rugged rectangular plastic boxes with 4 locking tabs? Do you have a favorite length? What do you like?


Richard, thanks for the big reply! I'm still digesting it... So you're telling me that going from a super 8 negative emulsion to emulsion would be better than from 35mm negative optically down to super 8? I didn't know about the 4 super 8's on 35mm strips like that, it's fascinating! I'll bet the 2 strips in the center are slightly better than the ones on the outside.