Hi,

couple of movies here i) Avebury, ii) Ridgeway, shot in 8mm ciné film, then digitally transferred - the first commercially, the second DIY. i use celluloid film as a starting point, because i like the soft quality it gives to landscapes

these are experimental films - and the narrative content is more in the way of 'stream of consciousness' than logical progression: film to me is a dream medium

i use Pinnacle Studio 9 av/dv for transfers - and digital editing, since these films have been edited down for web upload, and the originals are slightly longer than what you see here. i like Pinnacle, but it will crash if you look at it sideways [lol]; i have edited on iMovie too, but still prefer the Windows platform, to date

both films have soundtracks recorded by pro musicians (credits with films), although obviously i needed to edit these as well, when i reduced the films for the web: i really enjoy soundtrack work (ciné is basically a silent medium, in the 21st century). i use a mixture of Sony Sound Forge and MixCraft softwares for working on audio files, which i then upload to Pinnacle, in mp3 format; on other film projects, i am starting to experiment with my own soundtracks

enough of that

here we go ~


Avebury

YouTube - Avebury


Ridgeway

YouTube - Ridgeway



bests,

Ric

loved it. I think that may be the first s 8 film posted here.

Technical criticism appears irrelevant as you are clearly using film in a different way.

Any work in post or is the look of the film totally from the camera?

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I have two prejudices - I am anti HDV for consumer camcorders, and I eat mooks who claim to be pro wedding vidders and ask dumb questions.

www.zaskarfilms.com You tube channel 'zaskarfilms'
JVC DV5001e (big cam), Sony PC6E (tiny cam), Vinten pro5, PAG light, SM58, Sony ECM50, Sony C-76, 0.5x convertors for sony, Rode video mic, Vegas 7.

Hi Mark,

thanks: just watched your exploits in wonderful Wales! like the way you use a lens - like the approach

there's a lot of post production on the web videos, because i had to edit the longer movies down to 9-10 minutes, for upload; but most of what you see is what the camera saw: Canon 814 for Avebury, and Nizo S800 / Fujica Z-2 for Ridgeway > hardware off the bay - all the shops have gone :o The Nizo has a built-in lap dissolve (which has now stopped working), but the simpler Z-2 has manual lap dissolve, so that effect is still in business, as i start to move more towards Single 8 format

ciné-to-dv is expensive - or tricky, if you do it yourself. commercial results are 'perfect', i should think - with the latest technology - but i have experienced indifferent pro transfers, in the past. at length, i prefer to do it myself, because i value the home-made effect: and it's actually more fun than trauma, at the end of the day - just! [lol]

thanks again for your kind comment

bests

Ric

814 & Nizo, two iconic super8 cameras!

It took me a couple of looks to get into "super8-mode", it's so rare to see, which is a huge pity.

In my opinion (notice that I don't do IMHO, nothing about me is humble) super8 looks magical when projected, yet loses that special something when transfered to video. I could imagine that your two films would be captivating when projected onto a screen and I don't think this comes across on the postage-stamp size of youtube. It's hard to say anything about the quality because I'm not sure if the loss of highlight detail in Avebury is due to overexposure (reversal film is very unforgiving), the cine-transfer, or the you-tube compression.

I found Ridgeway more impressive somehow, although the images were technically much "softer" than Avebury. I think it's a real pity that I only saw the films on youtube, not in a projection theatre. There's a lot of work and effort gone into these films and it shows. The aesthetic of S8 can take a bit of getting used to and is very much a personal taste, a bit like Marmite, you either love it or hate it, I love it.

I really liked the way you used the characteristics of film, like the white noise of the television and the acceptance of grain in some shots. There's a mind-set about working with film which is lost when originating on video. Knowing that you've got three minutes of material and it's costing you thirty quid a roll tends to make you approach shots differently. There's also more of a feeling of "exposing" film when you can actually feel the camera whirring.
Last weekend I met up with a friend who's been working on a super8 film for yonks. She's scanning in the film herself, on a frame by frame basis and putting it together in FCP... you don't get that sort of dedication nowadays... I moan if I have to digitise footage in real time!

The music was a bit Frippatronics for my liking but it fitted the images superbly.

Edit: Let us know if you ever intend to project the films!

The nizo looks cool - I was bidding a while back on a Bealieu (how ever you spell it) but thay still go for serious money. I ahve never shot s8 but will some day.

How much does it cost ? What range of film can you get ? B/w ?

__________________
I have two prejudices - I am anti HDV for consumer camcorders, and I eat mooks who claim to be pro wedding vidders and ask dumb questions.

www.zaskarfilms.com You tube channel 'zaskarfilms'
JVC DV5001e (big cam), Sony PC6E (tiny cam), Vinten pro5, PAG light, SM58, Sony ECM50, Sony C-76, 0.5x convertors for sony, Rode video mic, Vegas 7.

Motion picture division — The Widescreen Centre

www.wittner-kinotechnik.de

had no idea celluloid was still an option - but film is still made and cameras are available on the bay the Nizo has a great lens and the 814 was solid and dependable, if more basic than the Nizo

good points: as you can see from the film dates - 2002/2006 - i was very iffy about loading these shorts to the web, and delayed till 2008, it has taken me that long to discover how to achieve a reasonable level of web quality for the films. Avebury started out in celluloid only, and was projected in a cinema club, then it was shown on a large screen, to an audience ~ dvd/digital projection - and was okay quality - no worries. Avebury was the first film i ever made, and i am experimenting with film stocks throughout; neither Kodachrome K40 and/or Kodak Ektachrome liked bright sunlight, i learnt the hard way round, hence the overexposure in bright conditions

thanks; i have never seen Ridgeway on the big screen, although it has been screened to an audience and appreciated - sadly i was not able to attend the event. Ridgeway was almost entirely a home project, apart from the film processing; it has been through many stages of digital processing, including anti-flicker filtering, and it is a miracle the digital film exists at all: mixing all those layers of dv processing does some pretty weird things to the resulting video file, which started to freeze all the computers working on it, in the latter stages of editing; even in the web edit i did, from disc, all hell broke loose, at one stage - again - down to the fact that there is so much going on in the file, i think - you can compare this 'tension' in the image to the 'Rhiw Bowl Stone' short on YouTube, which was aerial transferred to dv, without any 'special effects' filters, it is visually calmer; but i like the effects in Ridgeway, nonetheless, and it is a record of where i was at technologically, in 2006. yes, the films are story-boarded, at least, as a rough guide - i start out with a definite idea - but obviously i cannot really control the multiple exposure scenes in these films, they are filmed 'blind' because you cannot see the end result till it is processed, weeks or months later, if you are sending your film away

the tv is a sort of in-joke at my own expense, with its flickering, and the lengths amateur filmmakers (c'est moi) must go to, in order to obviate this effect; it is also the record of an unbelievably hot, uncomfortable night in a motel, beside a major road, with articulated lorries droning by the open window; in the longer version there is actually footage of the M4 + lorries - since the Ridgeway is interrupted by the motorway, which cuts directly across it - today you must negotiate a lofty footbridge, to follow the ancient track. oh yes, shooting film concentrates the mind wonderfully, when an entire roll lasts but 2.5 minutes! :-o [lol]

your friend might be using something different, but i know of machines that scan celluloid, one frame at a time - the ones i've heard of do this via some form of computerised scanner, so the process is probably quite automated, once you are satisfied with tonality, and so forth. i am about to start experimenting with a frame-by-frame technique, but this will be something different, called 'optical printing' - something i am looking forward to trying out. [i have edited on iMac software but not FCP - the worst thing i've encountered with Mac software, is that there are so many versions of the one basic video edit program]: FCP looks like the deluxe version, i would love to have a play with it!

yes, thanks - the Ridgeway soundtrack technology was as involved as the film - so the two complimented one another, in more ways than one: it took me about a solid week of evenings to edit the soundtrack down, to fit the web video, whilst maintaining the audio intelligibility.

yes indeed - i have a new(er) ciné projector now, which is an improvement on my old one - so there may well be a *non-virtual ciné evening* coming up, at some stage in the future?

bests

Ric

Nizo S800 and 801 are very, very nice cameras, and the 801 has a light-sensitive cell setting, which can yield amazing effects; there are always one or two of these around on the bay, mostly - though not always - from the Continent. But this is, for the most part, old technology - and that must be taken into account when working with these fine cameras - and always get a written assurance - should be stated - that the light meter is functional and that the camera is in working condition

Beaulieu are the only people still making ciné cameras, and they have a high reputation - so a warranty for several years would presumably be an added bonus, on a brand new camera? apart from this, i don't know much about Beaulieu - and i am moving more in the direction of Fujica Single 8 cameras + film type: but here is a link for Beaulieu

Beaulieu Images

These cameras take Super 8 cartridges. There is probably a greater range of filmstocks available to the ciné enthusiast today, than in the heyday of ciné filming, but a reliable workhorse has got to be the new (yes new!) Kodak Ektachrome 64T, which replaces the much loved and sorely missed K40 - of the Paul Simon song!

the Widescreen Centre (London) always has a good stock of this film, Jessops also, plus there's a very knowledgeable ciné site in Bristol, i think?

Motion picture division — The Widescreen Centre

Cine

Beaulieu cameras seem to be going for around £50-£500 on the bay, at the moment

bests

Ric

I loved it.Its great discussion form.
Thanks for it.

Great forum - yes

here's some ciné sites:

Super 8 Guy
The 8mm Film Format Metadirectory
Filmshooting | Com

bests