The Pod Race

[Graham Ritchie]

Its been thirteen years "2007" since I did a review of the Scope extract from "The Phantom Menace" This is the complete 14 minutes or so, of the "Pod Race". This particular print came from Derann and is excellent in both picture and mono sound.

This is one film where the Scope format suits this type of full on action release. Its been one of my favorite Super 8 films over the years. Lately I took some screen shots, so thought it would be worth adding them here.

[Edward Nicielnik]

I have this too great Film.Also I have Pearl Harbour The Attack Scope goes about 18 minutes and Gladiator Scope Colosseum Extact and End of Days Arnold Schwarzenegger SCOPE 600 Feet the last half hour of the Feature all nice color Prints

[Bill Phelps]

Looks great Graham! I have the Pod Race also and I put the scope trailer at the end of it...a nice way to end the reel. I just last night set up my screen for scope so I will be going through my scope stuff for a while and this may be screening soon!

[Mark Mander]

Nice screenshots Graham.

This is a very repeatable title, I bought this new from Derann, rerecorded the sound with superb results which lifted the film, I must run it again soon, Mark

[Graham Ritchie]

Thanks Bill and Mark

Bill I also have the trl added.

[Osi Osgood]

Mark, how did you go about doing that re-record? Was it straight off the DVD? I'm not good with recording on super 8, but I do have an ELMO GS1200, so I would love to hear this as good as possible.

[Lee Mannering]

Did mine of the 4KUHD with beautiful results. The 4K disc is respected as a good demonstration of sound quality so the one I went for being a stickler for sound reproduction. ***** for sound.
These Derann prints did have the grey humpy bumpy mag stripe so its worth removing the high spots by hand before dubbing to get a more perfect result.

[Phil Moors]

One of the greatest bugbears for me with super 8 scope is the cropping at the top and bottom of the frame. Panavision prints being cropped to conform to full Cinemascope proportions, this leaves actors heads dangerously close to the top of the frame and in the illustrated Pod Race sequence poor old Liam Neeson loses the top of his. Only Cinevision provided a proportionately reduced frame illustrating what the director and cameraman intended. I assume a lot of this would apply to Derann’s scope out put such as Star Wars. For me I never felt that I was getting the film I intended, being cropped, edited, with mono sound and frequently with variable print quality. But whenever the film was originally in Cinemascope it was great, Derann’s Bearly Asleep, Ben Hur, Fall of the Roman Empire, El CID etc. I am curious about other collectors feelings about this cropping and wether it bothers them

[Graham Ritchie]

Hi Phil

I totally agree about the not being able to get the full Scope frame onto the screen due to the limitations of the aperture plate with the GS1200. On the film print, you just need to use the projector inching knob, wind up or down and the Scope image is all there. You just can't get it onto the screen.

I have been thinking for years, how nice it would be to have a manually adjust top and bottom aperture plate, and a lens that can take it as well. Another thought just of late, was to measure if other projectors like the old "dual gauge" 800 serious Eumig, how they might work with a scope lens.

[Lee Mannering]

I tend to use the Eumig 822 or 824 HID lamp machines I converted for scope. Its bright, wide aperture top bottom and of course dual gauge. The 822 has a 2 blade shutter so beats the GS1200 HID for illumination hands down plus the frame is pretty open. Mine date from 1976 so a fair old age now for a teeny projector but miraculously still going full steam. I'll run pod race again and post some pictures next time.

[Phil Moors]

Thank you for the replies. However, I was under the impression that it is the actual print that is cropped and nothing to do with the gate aperture, I feel that if you turn the frame knob for instance on the scene where Liam Neeson’s head is cropped you will just see the top of the frame line and the top of his head is still not on the print. I have seen screen shots of the blu ray for the same scene and his head is fully comfortably in the frame. A screen shot of that would be interesting. Thank you for your comments.

[Brian Fretwell]

From a review of "Gold" that I remember the quote was "Not only is the picture cropped to 2.66:1 but the lab has over-scanned the print so much that one actor losses almost all his head". So not only the ratio change but the set up of the printer making the negative. I assume they had not adjusted to full frame off the 35mm master from making negatives from non-anamorphic widescreen 35mm so possibly cropped at the sides to for that one.

You are at the mercy of the person making the negative.

[Lee Mannering]

Pod race being projected on a Eumig 822 HID Hope it helps :-) I did a comparison following my HID lamp conversion experiments last year and did find the Eumig gate aperture more optimal for scope top and bottom, but please make your own mind up.
Love my Elmo GS1200's by the way!

[Martin Davey]

I'm not a fan of scope on S8, one reason being the cropping of the top and bottom. I mainly have scope trailers and you can see that text often gets cut off. I do prefer the Cinevision process.

The super 8 frame is 1.33, but the 35mm frame (for scope) is 1.18, so if that image is reduced down to the S8 frame while keeping the frame sides (L, R) constant then that chops off the image at the top and bottom. I don't have any 16mm scope but with an image area of 1.33 the same would happen if the reduction is made the same way.

I do tend to stick to flat films for my film projected entertainment!

[Brian Fretwell]

As the Lone Wolf and many of the Derann scope prints were made form existing 16mm negatives the result would be exactly the same for both.

Unfortunately the Cineavision prints had an extra stage in production which added grain problems (I think they were all before the improved internegative stock came out) and were mainly on SP so have faded.