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HailtotheKing

HailtotheKing

[QT]http://www.zenweasel.com/ifilm/16mmtest.mov[/QT]

I just wanted to share with all of you exciting news! :D No I didn't win a million dollars, so get that out of your head. BUT I have shot my first roll of 16mm film, gotten it back and it's turned out BETTER than I EVER would have thought!!!! IT's AWESOME!!! It's Black and White and these were just tests to see if my Bell and Howell I got off ebay(for 10 bucks!) would take good pictures. WOW...it not only takes good pictures, it takes SUPER CLEAN CRISP images! Rock steady picture when your playing it threw the project. I wish you all were here to have seen it when I first viewed it! It was awesome.

REMEMBER this is only a TEST FILM and was shot only as a TEST FILM. That's all this is. This was just to see if the camera even worked! We desided to shoot a short scene for the test.
The file size is about 15mb, as I tried to make it look as clear as possible. Thanks to my man ZEN for hosting this. The transfer I did to get it to the computer is "crude" and doesn't do the film justice at all. But I just want to share it with you all to show you how film can look in motion. Nothing compares to having this run threw the projector and seeing it on a 6ft screen. It's SO AWESOME!

You'll find that this is in the vein of silent comedies of the 1910's-20's. Have fun with it! :D

Cohen"The 16mm Kid"
 
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That looks great!
smiley_pac.gif


How often did you have to wind the camera up, on the one roll of film btw?

_______

(I can't believe you climbed in that barrel... those things are nasty) :lol:
 
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We wound the camera after every other take. Just to be sure that it had a good wind and we wouldn't run out. :)

Well....this one was pretty clean as I remember....:P
 
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Welcome to the 'dark side', Hail! When all the elements (cam, light, film, lens, etc) gel, film is a beautiful thing.

Re: wind-ups. You can purchase a motor to maintain a consistent speed. Sometimes wind-ups can be a little inconsistent, moreso towards the 'end' of the wind. Motors are also the only way to go sync with a film camera.

Here is an article which Indycine posted on another site. It may be of interest: it refers to the 'doping' of film emulsions (to make them even more sensitive with a possible greater resolution).

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1511/is_8_21/ai_63583781
 
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Really great stuff! Believe it or not I'm going to do a short in a month on 16mm in this keystone cops undercranked b&w comic style, this will be great to show to those involved.

Can you give us some specs? B&H model, stock used, fps shot at (or was it hand cranked?), exactly how you did the telecine?
 
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Thanks guys. I didn't think the responds would be this good! :lol:

Poke....we've beaten you to that idea. We have some already in the works and filming will happen soon. :D

WideShot, looks like we're thinking the same way lately! I would love to see your "keystone cops" short your going to be doing. Heck maybe we could play the films together at some festival? :yes: Silent films will make a come back.

Here are the specs that you guys requested...

Camera-Bell and Howell 240 with Electric Eye. I didn't use the Electric Eye for this at all, as it takes a different size battery(which I haven't been able to find) and I didn't know if it would give good exposure. So we just set it manually.

Film- Kodak Tri-X 7266. I've never shot Black and White film before and this just looks amazing! 2 places I highly recommend is Raw Stock for buying film stock. They got some great specials sometimes and that's how I picked up this roll. Pac Lab which did a great job with the processing. Cheap too! :)

FPS- We shot it at 16 FPS. It doesn't have an 18fps like Super 8, so I guess that is the standard silent speed in 16mm. For the slow motion swing of the fly swatter we were shooting at 48fps. For me trying to hit the fly we under-cranked at 8fps. I never thought about handcracking the camera....I suppose you could do that. I might try that next time and see what effect it would give me.

Telecine- Well...it's just alittle transfer unit that has mirrors in it that you shoot the projector threw and then you have your camera set up on the other end. It does flicker, but I took that out later on. There is still a slight flicker to the footage, but all in all not to bad. It's watchable.

Thanks again guys for watching and hope this answers some of your burning questions you had about this little test.
 
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So you had three different film speeds on the one roll?

Did you have to have to mention that when sending the film in to be processed with special instructions, or does the developing machine automagically know (or not care) about the several fps changes?
 
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Zensteve said:
So you had three different film speeds on the one roll?

Did you have to have to mention that when sending the film in to be processed with special instructions, or does the developing machine automagically know (or not care) about the several fps changes?
Click to expand...

Yeah devleoping is the same. When you undercrank(fast motion) or overcrank(slow motion) you should set the camera exposure so you can't see the switch. Being that this was my first time with 16mm I didn't notice that. But you can see the shot before I get up from the table become alittle brighter because we had switched speeds. Undercranking brings in more light, so you have to close the lens up a stop. Overcranking doesn't bring in that much like, so you have to open the lens up atleast a stop. I think I got that right. I'm still learning myself. But I suppose I could have told the lab that there was different speeds and they could have Pushed or Pulled that part of the film to make it brighter or darker.

Coot-Thanks glad you liked it. Yeah I think it turned out so good because I had my cameraman that I've worked with forever, Dan Phillips. My dad. He knows what he's doing. ;)
 
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Dragon, Thanks for the nice comments, I'm glad you enjoyed the short. I just applied a "shutter" effect to the video to get the flicker to go away. Some of it's still there though, so couldn't take it all away, but it works for the feel I was going for.

Zen...you sneeky little :devil: . It is true though I have a silent film in post right now. Next few weeks I'll give some updates.
 
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