Moderator: Andreas Wideroe
Me, too! Let's turn this whole conversation around and start over on a more positive note. Tell us about what camera you used, the stock, lighting, etc. I like the humor (and the wig!). How did you transfer it? (the film, not the wig) What did you use to edit with?Scotness wrote:Why don't you kick off the conversation with some of your ideas on lighting and film -- or this hiss reduction......
I'm interested
I agree 100%. However, if a problem exists, then it is up to the owner to contact me to correct any problems. If they don't bother to do that and/or the machines are not maintained or set up correctly, then the results are reasonably beyond my control. And this is no small point. We get units in on a regular basis for refurbishing that are worn and beyond filthy because of misuse or because the owners did not follow instructions for proper use or simply did not bother to even clean the film and/or replace bad splices. No mechanism lasts forever and these units are designed for easy maintenance but they do have to be maintained, as does any machine.switar king wrote:To Roger,
I just posted a list off all the problems that I encountered on a consistant basis with your Workprinters. I worked for the past year at a shop that had four of them. I just deleted the post because I wish you no bad will. I will instead say this.
The issue is not if a machine is good, but if the flaws accepted by the owner. If the flaws are accepted, then this doesn't make the machine technically good.
Regards,
Al
But, you're right, just because a customer accepts something doesn't mean it is working correctly. On the other hand, I know that my units produce perfect results when implemented correctly and that has been proven over and over by transfers posted on this and other forums. Obviously, with 3000+ satisfied customers out there producing quality transfers with our units, it is highly likely there will be a few that have problems. However, at this point, I have no customers experiencing any un-rectified problems that I am aware of. If there are, then they need to contact me. If they don't, then there is no way for me to deal with the problem, even if that customer is satisfied with the quality of a product that is not working as it should.switar king wrote: I've been on this website for a while now, and I've really started to notice a lot of people making (or attempting) to make their own super 8 video transfer machines (including myself). They all seem to have their own slight variations, and all seem to work to some degree. I believe that a lot of this knowledge and drive has been a result of Roger and his brilliant insights and contraptions. All the different transfer ideas that various people have seem, to me anyway, to take a little something from Roger. I don't think much of this would be going on if Roger never existed.
Thanks for sharing, Roger.
With all due respect, Al, I hope that this is not the sum of your "great wisdom" on shooting and lighting super 8 stock.switar king wrote:My advice on lighting:
Don't use Kodachrome for an indoor scene.
Regards,
Al
With all due respect, Al, I hope that this is not the sum of your "great wisdom" on shooting and lighting super 8 stock.
1. DO NOT shoot with a noisy camera! Find a way to silence it, make a good barney if there is not one made for the camera. I have over 20 years experience in audio recording, and I'm telling you, YOU CANNOT TAKE OUT CAMERA NOISE LATER USING DIGITAL AUDIO TECHNOLOGY, or whatever. I have killer audio editing software, and I was not able to get rid of all the camera noise. I made this mistake, and not only did it ruin the fidelity of my dialog, making it hard to understand what people were saying, but it made me move the camera away from the actors, which made the film much less personal: not enough close ups! So remember, if you can hear it when you're shooting, it's going to be even MORE noticeable in your film. Try to completely deaden the camera. Other things that help, but do not negate what I've just said are: directional mics, (a must) bring sound deadening blankets (those nifty moving furniture padded blankets work best) and if you're shooting indoors, put them on the floor if it's not already carpeted, gaffer tape them to walls, windows, or any other hard surfaces. Hang them on bars attached to light stands close in to the actors, but just off screen. I'm telling you, if you don't heed this advice, you will be plenty sorry.
2. Shoot nothing but Kodachrome. Do not listen to anything anyone else tells you, trust me. Kodachrome is the only Super 8 film that has fine enough grain to be able to make a decent film in super 8. The Pro Neg from super 8 sound is a great concept - except it just doesn't work! It's too grainy! Also, if you do a blowup to 16mm or 35mm later, the quality will suffer greatly if you shoot on Neg stock. Here's why: when making prints (or blowups) you can't go from negative to negative, you have to go neg-to-pos, or pos-to-neg. So, if you're blowing up from anything to 35mm, if you shoot using reversal film (Kodachrome) you can transfer to 35mm negative, which is what they need to get to, to make the print to project in the theater. If you shoot on Negative, they have to make an interpositive, THEN make a negative, THEN make the print from that. So it's an extra generation copy, and this is a significant degradation in quality when using Super 8. It's fine when they shoot on 35mm, because the frame is so much larger than Super 8 that they don't have to worry about it. So only shoot in Pro Neg stock if your sure you will never screen on anything other than a TV set or through the internet.
P.S., you can buy your film directly from Kodak for about $11 American (I don't know if this is cheaper than what you're paying). Get on their website to find out how. http://www.kodak.com.sg/US/en/motion/su ... ucts.shtml
3. Shoot a focus chart and a gray card on about 1 minute of film, & put that on the front of your footage when you send it to be telecine'd. I didn't, and I ended up with a slightly out of focus transfer, which I didn't know until I shot 2 extra scenes & had it transferred by someone else, who told me that the first guy didn't focus the gate properly! So 99% of my film doesn't look as good as it should. So make a chart with thin lines & circles on it, etc. so they can be sure to focus it exactly. And then shoot a person holding an 18% gray card next to their face. That way the transfer tech can dial in the color exactly using the gray card & the flesh tones. These hints will save your film in the long run.
4. Underexpose Kodachrome by 1/2 - one full stop. Kodachrome (on any format, even 35mm) looks best underexposed. That "home movie" look is from the way it looks at, or above exposure. If you underexpose a little (I tried for 3/4 stop - a stop) it looks beautiful, sharp, with nice contrast & color saturation, without the highlights blowing out. I will attach a frame from my film to show you what I mean. It looks like at least 16mm, if not 35mm!
5. Shoot close ups. Not only is this a good idea from a dramatic standpoint ( the audience is more involved in the characters emotions if they can clearly see facial expression, etc.) but in Super 8, sharpness falls off dramatically with distance. Partly from film grain, but also because of the size of the image. Don't make this mistake, I did, and it's a big deal. Also, it makes for a nightmare of editing, trying to match continuity on 2, 3 or more people in the frame from cut to cut. When you have someone in a close-up, it doesn't matter if the person off camera crosses their arms, etc. but when they're all in frame, it does matter, and forces you to cut in places that are not optimum for pacing, etc. It usually results in over long scenes, bad pacing, and a boring watch for your audience.
6. Learn how to light properly! Buy books on lighting. Here are my quick lighting tips: Keep the light off the walls. Start with lighting objects in your scene, preferably somewhat from the side, to highlight the depth. Then light your actors (a little more from the front, but not dead on). (Use soft, diffused lighting). Then set up your fill light on the room for ambient light. A good, quick cheap way to do this is to aim a nice bright light at the ceiling. Even the pro's do this. (American Beauty for instance). Try to keep all light off the walls until this last step, and don't light from the direction of the camera. Flat lighting in Super 8 looks amateurish, and lots of light on the walls, or big flat objects & spaces will show the grain like mad! If you have to light a wall, try to hang a painting on it, or light only part of it, and make it a stop or two under the rest of the scene. If you just throw light all over the place evenly, it will look really stupid and non-movie like. I call it K-Mart lighting! Flat is boring! This is not a home video, its a movie! Take your time, and be careful about blasting out any one part of the scene, especially the actors. Super 8 has a very limited latitude, so what you see, is NOT what you get! The highlights will blow out, and the shadows will drop off to black much more dramatically than what you're looking at with the naked eye, so put your camera up to your eye, zoom all the way in, and look around your scene & see what the light meter is telling you. You have about 3-4 stops in Super 8, so if the dark areas are showing 5 stops under the bright areas, you're in trouble! (Unless you want it that way) I'd say that it looks better to have the shadows go black, than to have your highlights blow out. (Another benefit of underexposing). In shooting negative stock, the opposite holds true, you overexpose.
7. Shoot one scene as a full test of everything before proceeding on the rest of production. Shoot it, transfer it, digitize it, edit it, & show it to people involved in the production, AND regular people not involved at all. (Preferably strangers, NEVER friends or family members who will be biased). This is to make sure that all everything is going as it should. The worse thing you can do is assume that everything is going to be great, and find out that your entire film suffers. If only you had known! This way, you WILL know! Use this test to make sure your actors are up to par, your audio is good (no camera noise?), how to best prep for your telecine session, and so on. Someone gave me this advice early on in my production, and I figured it was too costly to do this. Big mistake! There are things you are not going to know until you actually shoot and edit, so it's best to be able to correct at the beginning. This is also a great way to audition your cast & crew. Like a dress rehearsal. If you are on the kind of budget like I was, that means you're using friends and relatives as volunteer crew. This is when you will find out that your buddies that have wanted to be involved in making a film for years, are not as committed as you thought. When you talk about making a film, everyone wants to do it. When you ACTUALLY BEGIN SHOOTING, you will find that so and so can't show up, because their college roommate is in town this weekend, or they have a hot date, or they promised their aunt they would help them build a fence, or God knows what other activities that you assumed would be way down the priority list, compared to actually making a film. Believe me, if you are not hiring a professional crew, this WILL happen to you. Better to find out on this test shoot than 1/2 way into the film, when you will have to shitcan footage that you shot. (I had 4 actors move on me during the production, & I had to re-write, & re-shoot) Of course, you think I must be an imbecile, and this will NEVER happen to you! Just take this advice, do the test shoot, and whoever can't make it, FIRE THEM RIGHT THEN! It will save you countless amounts of money & time later!
8. 3:1 ration is just too low. If you don't get enough coverage, you will want to commit suicide when you edit, and your film will suffer. Get lots of close ups, cutaways, reaction shots, etc. I made this mistake. Don't make the same mistake! It's not worth it. Super 8 film stock is pretty cheap, & it's so difficult to set up a shoot, that once you're there, you might as well get the best footage you can. You don't have to shoot a scene 5 times, just a few seconds of random close ups on actors for reaction shots, etc. will make a huge difference in the quality of your film, your choices in editing, and it won't take that much more film. Shoot CU's of hands, feet, (only if their actually doing something relevant, of course, even if it's opening a door, taking a drink, etc.). Even a minute of this per scene is going to really help, and that's not even 1/2 a roll of film!
9. Storyboard EVERYTHING! Even if you abandon the boards, at least you know where you're going, and have a clear idea of how each shot will edit into the next (VERY important). This will save you tons of time, and tons of film stock. If you don't storyboard, everyone will be standing around while you go "hmmm, let's see, maybe I could put the camera there, no, that won't work" etc. And you will be in editing finding out that there is all sorts of footage that you can't use (wasted film $$$$) because someone walks into the scene the wrong direction, or there are continuity errors, or all sorts of other crap that you won't notice until you are editing!
10. Mark EVERY roll of film with a unique number. While shooting, have a someone writing on the script which roll numbers you are shooting. That way, when you are editing, you can know exactly which roll of film is covering which part of the scene, etc. Then when you send them in for processing, put that number on the little tag that gets mailed back to you, & when you get the developed roll, have a log that you enter them into. Always label every roll throughout the entire process. You do not want to try to figure out this stuff later. It's impossible to tell from what people are doing. Sometimes you will not be able to read the slates on film, especially if you have volunteer crew who have not done this 1,000 times. ALWAYS use the slate though. Very important. Trust me. Also, shoot at least 5-10 seconds of the start of every roll of either black, or just let it roll, but don't need that few seconds of footage. I got back quite a few rolls from Kodak that had the first few seconds or so fogged. This happened quite frequently. It was a big problem.
I hope this helps. Feel free to email me with more questions if you have any. I'd be glad to send you a copy of my film if you'll give me your address. Are you guys NTSC over there?
Thanks!
Matt Pacini
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Hi. Glad you can use the advice. It's very difficult to shoot a film, and I only wish I knew some of this stuff when I started! A lot of advice out there is tainted with personal bias, or meant to get you to buy something, sign up for some course, etc. And much of it is written from people who have not even done what they say they have! And it's really rare to find someone who has shot a feature on Super 8, and there are considerations that do not apply in 35m or even 16mm. It's much harder, actually, but it's cheaper, and more rewarding in some ways. (Especially when you hear "wow, that's Super 8? It looks at least as good as 16mm!" Of course, I only heard that about the shots I made after learning the hard lessons. Some of my film looks bad, bad, bad! So take heed!
You can post any or all of my advice wherever you want. I guess I would hope that you would maybe credit me for it, but I'm not going to be mad if you don't. I like having my film mentioned though, & when I get my website up & running, maybe we could each put a link to each others site, eh? (That's my Canadian impression...)
One thing I forgot: Shoot your actors about one stop over the rest of the scenery. In other words, meter correctly for them, then let the background go slightly darker. It won't be noticeable (as in, a mistake). Stories are about people, not things, and if you don't do this (which I only learned late in my production), your characters will be competing visually with the scenery. It's a subconscious thing, no viewer is going to actually realize this is happening, but as they are watching ,their eyes will be scanning the picture for things of interest, and you want to make sure that your actors are what they are concentrating on! Sounds like a minor point, but it's not!
thanks, & good luck! Feel free to use me as an unpaid remote consultant if you run into problems or questions during your production. I'm glad to be of assistance. Who knows, we may even end up on the same production someday! (I would LOVE to go to Australia someday... Just hide all the snakes before I get there, OK?)
Matt.....
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I think I should add one more thing, or make it more clear.
When shooting Super 8, try to get as much light as possible, THEN stop the camera down 1/2 to one stop underexposed..
When I said to underexpose one stop, I didn't think about the fact that some beginners may think I mean to put less light in the scene..
Just the opposite. The sharpest area of the lens is at around F4.5 to F5.6. In super 8, this is extremely important to make images as sharp as possible to make up for the problems inherent in having such a small frames size, namely: lack of sharpness..
I've found that even up to F8 it is sharp as a tack. However, you need ungodly amounts of light to get that F-stop on Super 8 using Kodachrome 40. (Like the sun!) Don't make the mistake of getting faster speed film to balance this problem out, because the grain will be unacceptable. So, get as much light as you can afford to, watch your lighting ratios (between the darkest and lightest areas of the scene, trying to keep them within 3 F-stops, unless you want very black areas in the scene), THEN stop down 1/2 to 1 stop. You have to get used to thinking about the fact that what it looks like to the naked eye, is not what the film is going to look like finished. A camera lens and film is not an eyeball. They are completely different optical devices. It will of course look much too bright to the eye. I always bring a pair of sunglasses to the shoot, just to get a closer idea of what it may look like after developing the film. Crude, but it works..
When filming indoors, I reflect sunlight in through the windows to get as much light as possible..
If you want soft light, then keep the curtains closed, especially if they're those wispy white things. Or hang gauze over the glass..
If you can't afford nifty photo reflectors, then get some of those circular sunshades for car windshields with the foil reflecting surface. And if you can't afford the light stands & arms to angle the reflectors, you can use those wooden easel things they use to display paintings. They do exactly the same thing for a fraction of the price...
God luck!.
Matt
why not? in my experience ektachrome needs to be properly exposed if not a bit overexposed while k40 looks fine even a full stop under. for lighting a huge set with a 40 asa stock you need lots and lots of light, but for a small room it doesn't take much.switar king wrote:Don't use Kodachrome for an indoor scene