8mm Forum: Turning video into film... Crazy idea

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Posted by Jan Bister (Member # 332) on July 10, 2005, 10:15 AM:

Here's a random thought I've been having... how neat it would be to take your favorite DVD or video file, play it back on your computer and transfer the video frame-by-frame to super-8 using a camera pointing at the monitor... Crazy, I know [Wink]

But I wonder how well it would work - especially using an LCD screen instead of a conventional CRT monitor. For one thing, the LCD would have much more brightness/contrast, helping to expose the film correctly, AND you wouldn't have to worry about matching the shutter speed with the monitor's refresh rate because LCD images are static, rather than drawn line-by-line at high speed.
Plus... using good-quality video on a 1024x768 (or higher resolution) screen should yield pretty sharp film images.

What do you all think? Has this been tried before??

Posted by Steven Sigel (Member # 21) on July 10, 2005, 11:07 AM:

You are completely mad... :-)

1) it would come out terrible
2) it would take forever
3) it would cost a fortune.

Posted by Jan Bister (Member # 332) on July 10, 2005, 12:32 PM:

Yes, I'm mad. No argument there [Big Grin]

However...

1) Not necessarily - why would it?

2) Well, yeah... but I'm not talking about features, more like cartoons and other shorts [Smile]

3) Why? You just use equipment you already have...

Posted by Tom Photiou (Member # 130) on July 10, 2005, 12:55 PM:

You could always get a DVD projector. WOW [Mad]

cough

splutter

Posted by Jan Bister (Member # 332) on July 10, 2005, 01:05 PM:

Well, I.... um.... Suppose you.... What if.... Oh, bugger!

I guess you got me there Tom! [Roll Eyes]

Kevin or Doug... let's lock this one up and speak of it no more [Razz]

Posted by Tom Photiou (Member # 130) on July 10, 2005, 02:11 PM:

Sorry to mention the D word [Big Grin]

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on July 10, 2005, 02:35 PM:

Many years ago a friend of mine did some kind of modification to a cheap GAF camera that made it shoot at 30FPS and we transferred some short stuff to film. The only kicker was that film had to run through the projector at 30FPS for proper speed, but it worked with only a very slow "roll line", so it was pretty close.

I would think if someone had the patience, that the computer monitor idea would work quite well. Just get the biggest one you can and be sure to roll off a few seconds on a test roll before committing to anything of length.

Posted by Tom Photiou (Member # 130) on July 10, 2005, 04:00 PM:

All joking aside, for what reason would there be to actualy wish to transfer from Video/DVD to cine??

Posted by Jan Bister (Member # 332) on July 10, 2005, 04:20 PM:

Well, THAT one I can answer... there's the odd cartoon (or other short) that just doesn't seem to exist on super-8 - and how neat would it be if one happened to have it as a video file but wanted to see it on the big screen, via super-8... and not have to bother to convert it, burn it to DVD, and go the video projector route... it just would be neat... that's all... [Roll Eyes]

Posted by Maurizio Di Cintio (Member # 144) on July 10, 2005, 04:31 PM:

Hi.
I did this a few times. It's a great way to shoot titles with special effects. Also you can have a DOlby or a THX jingle to show prior to your features, which adds a touch of great showmanship. I also shot the opening rolling titles in Empire Strikes Back to splice before the beginning of the digest which, as everybody knows, hasn't got them. And it works really fine, provided your LCD is really bright. It works better by using a faster film stock like the now discontinued VNF 125 (but sharpness becomes a concern) and/or by projecting the image from the computer with an LCD videoprojector (never tried DLP but I suspect there might be problems with them, same for plasma monitors...). Going the extra mile: back projection from an LCD VPR through a fresnel screen and the movie camera on the other side: better saturation and contrast. Belive me, noth so much worth to have a rare film or something never relesed on 8 mm, but certainly worth for the purposes I described. Results are always decent at least, with proper set up and camera (I use a Canon 1014 XLS).
Try and enjoy.

Posted by Jan Bister (Member # 332) on July 10, 2005, 05:17 PM:

Ah! See? See!? I'm not alone after all! [Big Grin]

(Thanks Maurizio!) [Smile]

Posted by Douglas Meltzer (Member # 28) on July 10, 2005, 05:34 PM:

Jan,

Don't be discouraged! Yes, it's a bit.....er.....different, but that's where the fun is. There are many times I wished I had a scene that wasn't included in a digest or a proper finish to an abruptly edited cutdown. Go ahead and try!

What would you do for audio? Have the footage striped and then record the soundtrack?

Doug

Posted by John Saunders (Member # 302) on July 10, 2005, 06:51 PM:

I considered this before too.
It used to be done all the time years ago with kinescopes.
The fps is the problem because something that has been
telecined to video is close to 30fps while film would be
24 fps (sound film anyway).
But, there are supposed to be programs around (and not
expensive ones either) that can take a video file and
convert it back to 24 fps.
The process is called inverse telecine.

Posted by Chip Gelmini (Member # 44) on July 10, 2005, 08:53 PM:

Now there has to be a better way for this to work, through the labs, and optical printing machines. As someone wrote above, imagine how much stuff there could be on super 8 and it might not be faded!

I also believe that we could have a machine that would make digital negatives, from the 35mm master materials. From the digital negative the super 8 positive prints could be made. This would eliminate the 16mm internegative.

But of course, this is way beyond anything we could do at home. I may have built Towers for my HD's; but I'm not about to even attempt this one.

CG

Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on July 10, 2005, 10:03 PM:

Here's somebody that does it commercially if you can bear the price:

http://www.blackandwhitefilmfactory.com/video%20to%20Super%208%20transfer.htm

Of course it's not fair to espect them to do this on copyrighted material!

Posted by Jan Bister (Member # 332) on July 10, 2005, 10:21 PM:

You know, you bring up a point there I hadn't even considered: printing copyrighted material to film. Another big reason for doing it yourself, as you'd end up with a print you could screen in the privacy of your own home, perhaps to a small audience if not charged admission. Just like any other super-8 film [Smile]

The way the professionals do it, from what I heard, is like so... expose 35mm film through a tiny, high-resolution display that fits the dimensions of the film frame (a sort of contact printer) - and for each frame, expose the red, yellow and blue separately, then go on to the next frame. That's how they create computer-animated films such as Toy Story...

...And you know what? I just had ANOTHER cool idea - by inverting the colors of your source video material (thus ending up with a negative color display) you could use NEGATIVE film instead of REVERSAL film, and still end up with a projectable positive print!! [Big Grin]

Posted by Marc Marti (Member # 404) on July 11, 2005, 08:31 AM:

I have shot some titles from the TFT monitor and it worked for me too. Nice results. It enhances your presentations a lot.

quote:
...And you know what? I just had ANOTHER cool idea - by inverting the colors of your source video material (thus ending up with a negative color display) you could use NEGATIVE film instead of REVERSAL film, and still end up with a projectable positive print!!

Jan... What are you going to do with the orange tint of the negative? [Roll Eyes]

Posted by Maurizio Di Cintio (Member # 144) on July 11, 2005, 08:34 AM:

Hi, John Saunders and the others (I realy like your picture, Chip). John, here in Europe our films are transferred to video at 25 fps because both PAL and Secam (French) work at 50 fields per second and not 60 as is the case for NTSC.
Using a Leicina Special or a High-end Nizo or a Beaulieu 6008 (up) the problem is virtually non-existant: they all run at 25 fps. In fact I shot the opening titles of "Empire" with the 1014 XL-s, shutter angle at 220° and film speed of 9 (nine!) fps, after slowing down the playback of the DVD to about 1/3. I did this to gain some more brightness. No blended frames, no scanning bars, nothing unpleasant. And them - yes - I have striped the film (main & balance) and recorded onto it directly from the DVD. Amazing!

I'm not saying it's possible and plesant to sistematically copy whole scenes from DVD's 'cause colors might have some hue shifts and be not totally acceptable. But it's totally OK to obtain those particular special effect or opening opening titles to a digest wich is without them.

Bye bye

Posted by Marc Marti (Member # 404) on July 11, 2005, 08:41 AM:

Maurizio, I've always used the same system as you! [Wink]

Canon 1014XL-S, 220º and 9 fps. Cool results, isn't it?

Posted by Jan Bister (Member # 332) on July 11, 2005, 08:34 PM:

Wow, looks like I hit a nerve here with quite a number of people. Now if I can actually ever afford an LCD monitor, I'll try this out with my Eumig mini 5 camera (which I bought last year and have yet to even use!!) [Smile]

And, uh... I didn't know negative film had an orange tint... [Eek!]

Posted by Michael De Angelis (Member # 91) on July 11, 2005, 10:53 PM:

Hi Jan,

This is fascinating, but a little in the dark on this concept.
Does that mean that K40 film is Reversal film,
and we should purchase negative film to create this process
from a DVD and LCD screen.

Help me understand how this would become beneficial?
Is negative film cheaper in price, and can we run it through any Super 8 camera?

The second question is if we were to use negative film, then can an image be struck for many people to print duplicate copies?

I'm willing to try this at home. [Smile]

Incidentally, I think that Computer LCD screens have dropped in price significantly.

Michael

Posted by Maurizio Di Cintio (Member # 144) on July 12, 2005, 03:56 AM:

No, you don't have to buy neg stock for this system. You've to use reversal, like K40 or whatever will come after it's passed away.

Posted by Kevin Faulkner (Member # 6) on July 12, 2005, 04:46 AM:

Jan, Just like your std 35mm still camera film....neg film has an orange mask. This is there to help correct deficiences in the colour dye sensitivites and gamut. Right lets leave that right there. Just use an E6 process Ektachrome reversal film and be done with it.

Kev.

Posted by Jan Bister (Member # 332) on July 12, 2005, 06:38 PM:

Got it, Kevin - why make things more complicated [Smile]

Posted by David Michael Leugers (Member # 166) on July 13, 2005, 09:42 PM:

My mad scientist plan is to use my Auricon 16mm with optical sound recording and a TVT shutter (for doing kinescopes) to film off a LCD monitor to produce a projectable 16mm sound print. Since VNF is dead and there is no other high speed color reversal film available, maybe B+W will be my only choice. But B+W makes much better soundtracks anyway and the new Tri-X should be great. I could transfer 8mm or S-8mm film to DV, edit in my computer, add effects and soundtracks, then transfer to 16mm film. Crazy, I know, but I think it would be fun to try.

David M. Leugers

Posted by Jan Bister (Member # 332) on July 13, 2005, 10:05 PM:

Indeed! ... I think that's what it all boils down to anyway... the sheer fun of trying [Smile]

Posted by Joe Taffis (Member # 4) on July 13, 2005, 10:07 PM:

A while ago, one of our forum members(Lance A.)bought a super 8mm sound color feature offered on eBay of "House of Dark Shadows" which I guess was some kind of "boot". The seller suggested filming a few missing scenes with a super 8 camera off of the video, and then splice the missing parts into the film. I thought that was an interesting idea....don't know if Lance ever tried it? [Smile]

Posted by Jan Bister (Member # 332) on July 13, 2005, 11:13 PM:

And if he did, do you suppose that the resulting scenes amount to dark shadows and little else? [Big Grin]

Posted by Phillip Black (Member # 179) on July 18, 2005, 02:51 PM:

Hi
You should have no real problem doing this if you use a laptop. I have filmed video material off an LCD and had no roll bar problems.
NB This was continuos motion video PAL Format filmed at 24fps.
Using single frame should be better.

Posted by Jan Bister (Member # 332) on July 19, 2005, 10:22 PM:

ARGH!

I wanted this topic to be about frame-by-frame transfer of video to film... not realtime filming of video as it plays (and the frame-rate issues that result from it)... So, anyone done this before, and what were your experiences with it? Let's stick with frame-by-frame here... please... can we?... [Big Grin]

Posted by Michael De Angelis (Member # 91) on July 20, 2005, 11:36 PM:

Jan,
Are you asking about a frame by frame capture, due to the difference in the frame rate ratio from NTSC to Film?

Michael

Posted by Jan Bister (Member # 332) on July 21, 2005, 07:02 PM:

Well, I should probably ask... WHAT frame rate difference? [Big Grin]

I know what you mean, of course, but the thing is... much of what we see on TV nowadays (movies and current series), while filmed with video cameras, is actually shot at 24 progressive frames per second. Professionals have the choice to shoot 24p, 30p or 60i, and a lot of stuff is shot in 24p, then telecined back up to 60i for broadcasting... this is why just about any current series you can watch on TV these days has a "film" effect although it's not actually shot on film.
Now, if you display video files using a PC, on an LCD screen... these files will have been reverse-telecined back to their original frame rate... MPEG4 (XviD or DivX) rips of DVD movies are treated to this "3:2 pulldown", and DVD player software even does this in realtime. (Interestingly enough, when playing back such video files at normal speed, many frames have to be doubled up again because the refresh rates of monitors are typically much higher than that of TVs. Mine, for example, refreshes at 85Hz... or 85 progressive frames per second...)
So what's my point? Well, when you show video files one frame at a time, and capture them with a super-8 camera's single-frame feature, you will (in most cases) end up with a 1:1 transfer at the correct speed of 24fps. That's the whole beauty of it. [Smile]

No need to just film off a "running" TV image and hope that rolling bars and flicker stay at a minimum.
I hope I'm making sense... if not, feel free to clobber me! [Wink]

Posted by Michael De Angelis (Member # 91) on July 22, 2005, 02:32 PM:

Hi Jan,

This is very interesting information which I was not aware of.

Anywho, if you have software that permits you to save the captured material,
and convert it to 25fps for PAL, or 29fps for NTSC or 24fps, or 18fps. Then I believe that after the video is saved, you can open a file image sequence which will open each 'pict' frame by frame as you may see it on film.

To my recollection (from a previous experience a long time ago) when Adobe software made the Premiere version for Apple Macintosh systems, anyone could save the imported info at any frame rate that was standard to a Cinema system. (This included capturing soundtracks and saving at various framerates
too.)

By clicking on an exact frame in the timeline, the corresponding frame pict would display in the playback window, with the accompaning track in a separate time line below the picture timeline.

'Adobe', now only supports the PC Windows based Platform with versions of Premiere and it's junior version:Premiere Express.

This is due to, Apple's counterpart released versions of Final Cut, and junior versions of Final Cut Express.

I have Final Cut Express version 1, and I'm still trying to understand it.
But if I find out anything, I'll be glad to pass it along.

Michael [Smile]

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