8mm Forum: Coming up to speed: Several Questions

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Posted by Pete Holzmann (Member # 889) on August 20, 2007, 08:35 PM:

Hi all, this looks like a GREAT little community! I'm new here... and I guess the best way to introduce myself is to give you some challenges to chew on. [Smile]

Of six kids, I'm the one who followed in Dad's footsteps... so as a pre-teen my dad taught me how to edit and splice our growing collection of regular and super-8 movies. I added a bit of organization as well, creating a hand-written directory of what eventually amounted to about 20,000 feet of home movies (!)

Forty years and several moves later, with dad in failing health, we siblings descended into his packrat basement to see what family treasures could be recovered. Lots of laughter, lots of tears.

I was particularly horrified by the state of our movie collection. Dad's basement had suffered through a decade of dank Virginia summers, with mold and mildew growing everywhere.

Fortunately, the boxes of movies only smelled bad -- they don't appear to have visible mold.

The Elmo FP-A projector (dual mode, adjustable speed) is worse off. Good news: it turns on and runs. Bad news: I see lumpy gray mildew shadows on the screen.

And the old preview/edit box? The translucent viewing screen is opaque with grunge.

OK, so that's the background.

What I wanna do (probably no surprise) is preserve our family movie treasure. With 20k feet to go through, and a background as a pretty capable engineer (especially with computers), I'm looking at doing it myself. (Oh by the way, a good friend has another 10k feet, just to help make it really worth a DIY project!)

In addition to the Elmo FP-A, I have a very high quality Sony 110 true DV-cam, plus high end computer video software (Premiere Pro 2) capable of on-the-fly aspect ratio conversions, noise removal (www.neatvideo.com), etc. (I run a small non-profit; friends have donated some nice stuff to this cash-poor guy!)

My questions fall into three obvious categories: cleanup, projecting, conversion.

CLEANUP

* Any hints on the mold/fungus? I'm guessing the projector blobs are on the bulb. But with no FP-A manual, I'm cautious about getting in there even to check.

* FilmGuard. Somewhere I saw a mention of using this miracle liquid on all film, including 8mm. My little projector doesn't come with dry web media cleaners... so what do I do? And if that's the right thing to use, how can I get it? (I can resell computer HW/SW, but I'm not a film pro.)

PROJECTING

* Can my equipment do the Film->DV-Video job? I'm cautious about the Elmo as a flicker-free video source. Help, Hints, Advice much appreaciated!

* As an alternative, it's been suggested I could go buy a Cinemate projector, made for the purpose. After the job's done,
I can presumably sell the projector again. Realistic? Is the (low end) Cinemate good enough, given my other equipment?

CONVERSION

* If I project it using the Elmo, what's good to project on / shoot off of? I'm imagining a brilliant white foam-core board. Maybe something else is better?

* Do you just zoom-n-crop a bit to remove the inevitable parallax? It would slow things down, but I could set Premiere Pro to undo the parallax effect (or, I could shoot through a reverse-display screen of some kind, and reverse back electronically??)

I don't have a huge budget, but I want to do this right. Doing it right is a LOT better than doing it twice. :-)

THANK YOU for any help you can offer!

--MrPete

Posted by Knut Nordahl (Member # 518) on August 21, 2007, 02:44 AM:

Hi Pete and welcome to the forum.

First off that is alot of film you have there between yourself and your friend. The equipment from Moviestuff.tv is highly regarded, and they give you great customer service for your product. He is member of this 8mm forum: www.filmshooting.com
I do not think you would have any problen selling the machine again.

If your old projector is dirty, mouldy and full of fungus dont bother with it. You mentioned you were pretty capable with technical stuff, and this is a very good method of DIY telecine: http://homepage.mac.com/onsuper8/diytelecine/

http://www.wittner-kinotechnik.de/katalog/03_verbr/b_kitt.php
This shop has both vitafilm and filmrenew. You'll need that for cleaning the films before telecining them.
http://www.wittner-kinotechnik.de/home.php

Also search www.filmshooting.com for "diy telecine" to get some more ideas

Posted by Pete Holzmann (Member # 889) on August 21, 2007, 06:00 PM:

I guess I overdid it [Wink]

"Dirty, moldy and full of fungus" is a bit overkill.

The projector is clean and runs well, yet has something blobby in the way of getting a uniform, bright picture.

That may not change your answer... I think I'm hearing:

"with 20-30,000 feet of material to work through, you might as well make your life easier. Get a professional unit for a while"

If so, then here's my followup question:

Is there a significant difference, and advantage, either to using my own DV Cam or one of the telecine units with a built-in cam?

What I know about my DV Cam:
* True DV quality
* Excellent optics
* Does *NOT* have real-time flow through to firewire. That came one generation after mine. To do this, I would record to a set of mini-DV tapes, then go from there to the hard drive. That may or may not be a Good Thing [Wink]

----------
ALSO...

You mention FilmRenew but not the FilmGuard I asked about. Is FilmGuard for large-format film only? It sure sounds like wonderful stuff!

Thanks so much for your experienced perspective!

Posted by John Whittle (Member # 22) on August 21, 2007, 07:46 PM:

The methods of doing this are many and you may be happy with some of the cheaper easier methods (until you see what a professional can do).

You can do this as cheaply as projecting the film onto a matte white card and shooting it with your camera. With careful speed adjustment you can reduce the effect of the shutter bar (a black line that will roll through the picture) caused by the speed difference of NTSC video (59.94 fields per second) and a three bladed shutter in a projector running at whatever speed it runs at.

The next step is a home brew telecine which might include one of those rip off boxes with a translucent screen and mirror. Same problems.

The next step is a telecine with an aerial image and a synchronized projector to the video frequency. This is the way movies were shown on local television for years and years. Better than all the previous.

Next is a professional film transfer service that uses either a flying spot scanner or ccd scanner. They normally charge by the foot and can deliver you a digi-beta tape, DVD or HD tape of your material. The advantage is they have $100K color correction circuits and can really brighten and color correct old films. They usually charge by the foot but you would need to cost out what every you would buy to do the job and then if you're done try to sell it.

There is a good system in one of the links above that does a frame by frame capture to a computer, then you have to use software to color correct and render out your pictures into video. This works, but if you've ever transcoded video, you know that simple operations can take a couple of hours of computer time.

Various film cleaners have both proponents and opponents, but suffice it to say, you'll only get one chance on your personal films--you won't find another copy on ebay next week or next year--so if you make a mistake, that's it.

I've done all of these methods over they years, but after doing 35mm film professionally at a post production facility, I haven't fired up any of my home based aerial image devices--it just isn't worth the time to me for results that are less than satisfactory.

But that's a personal decision, and you may be very happy with results from a projector on a wall and shooting with your DV cam. If you do, and you have the engineering ability, I would recommend you build a solid state speed control for the projector that has some sort of feed back (like a rotating disc wheel to a phase lock loop) to lock the speed once you find the magic sweet spot.

John

Posted by Pete Holzmann (Member # 889) on August 21, 2007, 08:18 PM:

quote:
The next step is a telecine with an aerial image and a synchronized projector to the video frequency...

Not sure I understand "aerial image". Is that what the Cinemate does, by any chance?

(edit) I now realize... it's been a while since I first looked at these units. I was pondering my navel about going with the "real time" (Cinemate-style) conversion, or doing true frame-by-frame. I'm guessing I'll need to look at a sample to decide which one is good enough for our purposes... Hmmmmm...

quote:
Next is a professional film transfer service that uses either a flying spot scanner or ccd scanner. They normally charge by the foot and can deliver you a digi-beta tape, DVD or HD tape of your material.

Given nice clean film, I certainly can see the value of direct-to-digital scanning. They're also quite pricey for 30k feet [Frown]

The low-end units linked to above seem pretty close... I don't need speed, just quality...

quote:
The advantage is they have $100K color correction circuits and can really brighten and color correct old films.

This is where I'm guessing I can add value. By devoting my CPU to performing the same thing they do... hopefully even *better* than what they do, I'm hoping to get true professional results on a budget. Costs me learning time and waiting-time, but gains the results I want at a price I can pay.

I'm confident about my ability to brighten, color-correct, and even remove graininess and add sharpness.

But as always, the result is heavily dependent on what I start with. My Elmo interest is:

a) for preview to decide what material to keep (but only if it will not harm the film!)
b) for telecine, only if it will do a good job. I think I've heard loud and clear the answer to this is "Not really, sonny" [Wink]

quote:
There is a good system in one of the links above that does a frame by frame capture to a computer, then you have to use software to color correct and render out your pictures into video. This works, but if you've ever transcoded video, you know that simple operations can take a couple of hours of computer time.

It says 8fps for the capture -- that's not TOOO bad... I do like the idea of DV quality digitization.

quote:
Various film cleaners have both proponents and opponents, but suffice it to say, you'll only get one chance on your personal films--you won't find another copy on ebay next week or next year--so if you make a mistake, that's it.

That's why I'm asking up front! I want to treat this film carefully; no room to mess up. (I do have probably 1k feet of garbage material for practice, but even so...)

As always, THANKS for the help! I can see that whatever I do, there's a good chance (if I enjoy the process) telecine conversion could become a nice side hobby to help friends...

Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on August 21, 2007, 08:48 PM:

quote:
I guess I overdid it

"Dirty, moldy and full of fungus" is a bit overkill.

The projector is clean and runs well, yet has something blobby in the way of getting a uniform, bright picture.

I bet you have a mess of hair and dust in the gate.

Can you get to it?

Posted by Chris Smith (Member # 132) on August 22, 2007, 05:09 PM:

Pete-- Larry Urbanski sells Filmrenew. Just Google "Urbanski Film" and you will find it on his site. He states it immediately kills mold on film, as well as making the film more pliable. I have used that product for years, mostly on old 16mm prints that are on the brittle side. The only thing, when working with that stuff, make sure your films are on metal reels, NOT plastic. Good luck with your project.

Posted by John Whittle (Member # 22) on August 22, 2007, 07:12 PM:

Aerial image is forming an image which can be photographed that doesn't have a screen. This was widely used in cartoons when you have Donald Duck with a live action actor. The life action would be projected one frame at a time thru the base of the animation stand where an aerial image would be formed at the focal plane of the animation cell and then the camera would photograph the two images onto the new negative.

To see the aerial image, the cameraman could place a piece of tissue at the cell stage and check for focus and framing and then remove it to shoot. The advantage is you get a picture that is free of any screen pattern or ground glass pattern with perfect focus and contrast.

It's possible to do this at home, but it's a little complicated to explain here. The frame by frame transfer device guy sells an aerial image unit. The Elmo telecine units are doing basically the same thing. There is a lamp where the lens would be and then a piece of diffusion glass out of a focal plane. Then the lens of the CCD camera is focus on the film frame. The aerial image makes it possible to use one camera with two projectors and a slide source thru a series of mirrors--this is what television stations did when they used film for origination.

Good luck, just remember one thing, your film will last longer than any transfer you make (that's why Hollywood retransfers features on at least a seven year basis). Also the transfer and display technology continue to improve so what you do today is vastly superior to what you could do five years ago and in five years you'll be able to get color and detail out of your film that you can't do today.

John

Posted by Pete Holzmann (Member # 889) on August 22, 2007, 07:50 PM:

Thanks **sooo** much, everybody! Now I just need time to move ahead...

"Also the transfer and display technology continue to improve so what you do today is vastly superior to what you could do five years ago and in five years you'll be able to get color and detail out of your film that you can't do today."

That's for sure. I was in a big accident a decade ago. The key photo taken of me afterwards was useless -- washed out grainy gray nothingness. Fortunately, it was not tossed. Using today's tools, it only took a moment to convert it into a sharp, full color image.

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