Shooting 16mm from a flat-screen monitor

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2lb

Hi, thanks for having me, it's good to be here :)

I have a Krasnogorsk K3 wind-up camera and tripod which I have been given to prepare some loops for 16mm projection in a night-club setting. I have some experience with digital video and after-effects, though mostly I design for the web and occasionally print, flash animations and the like so I'm a total newbie when it comes to this stuff. I'm probably going to create about half a dozen (6) different animations to run on 4' loops, and I'll need to print mutiple copies of each, so if I print a 100' reel I'll have four of each, at least that's the theory.

I'll be shooting on tungsten colour negative, can anyone advise me or point me to resources that will tell me how to shoot with the right exposure from a flatscreen lcd monitor?

I've been advised it's best to measure the distance between lens and panel, and to create a few seconds of a test screen at the beginning of the reel, and to use a light meter (I have an old Ikophot meter which I'll have to figure out) to get the screen brightness correct, although to be honest I have no idea how to do any of this right at the moment. I need to choose a film speed too, 200 or 500 I think the guy said...
 
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Have you considered simply doing a filmout instead? In other words, you output your animation as individual frames and it gets recorded onto film. It will look a lot better and you might be able to find a local film school or lab willing to donate or give you a very good deal.

If you wanted to shoot your screen you'll be dealing with some frame sync issues- you'll wind up with a rolling bar on your screen. Higher end cameras have the ability to compensate for this, but yours probably doesn't. You'll also need a spot light meter to figure out the exact amount of light the screen is putting out to set your exposure properly. And yes you want a fast tungsten film. This link might help you understand the issues:

http://graffiti.virgin.net/ljmayes.mal/var/tvsync.htm

-Noah
 
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Thanks Noah for the advice. I've had a quote from a company of £600 - their minimum, which puts it out of my budget, I'm donating my own time and I don't think the guys I am doing it for have that kind of money to spend. I've rung a couple of film schools and am waiting for a call back.

I was aware of the problem with the rolling bar for old style crt monitors but I have been told a modern lcd flat panel doesn't produce the same flicker, is this duff information? The guy who told me works for a film lab and sounded as though he had seen it done successfully, or done it himself.
 
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The TFT monitor would be different from a CRT, and a high refresh rate on the monitor (75-85hz) may help, but I would presume that sampling any display at a specific frequency (24 times/second), while it changes frames at some other frequency is going to result in some sort of temporal distortion.

I think you could use a digital camera set to the same ISO as your film selection to test exposure, but I'm not sure how you can test for sync issues without running some footage and having it processed.
 
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2lb

Thanks fellas,

It looks like I'm better with a film out scenario then. I've found a film school that will process the animation frames to a digibeta for me today, and I've been told there are places in Europe significantly cheaper than in the uk for this kind of thing, I need to find some numbers I guess.
 
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