What about shooting negative film using the workprinter and inverting the film?

[Vespasian]

Would this work. I did some test with some scanned negative 35mm slides and results where favorable. Has anyone done this if you have please enlighten me! I saw a couple of film stills on the shootingsuper8 website, and the colors looked a little off but nothing that I couldn't fix in Premiere. If this worked it would be awsome! The pssoblities are limitless, and the money saved, FORGET ABOUT IT.

[MovieStuff]

You can use the WorkPrinter to transfer negative. The easiest way is to put a piece of unexposed, processed negative (which is all orange masking) into the unit and white balance. This will effectively negate the orange masking and leave you with nothing but inverted color. If you have a camera that has a pos/neg switch, then use that to create a positive image. Otherwise, you will need to do tests to see what exposure works best for each clip as it is hard to judge exposure when looking at a negative image. Once you capture, then Premier or other NLE effects filters can be used to invert the image into a positive image.

One thing that can make this all easier is to use an old MX-1 video effects unit to create a positive image. The MX-1 is not good enough to record off of but it is good enough to create a positive image to judge exposure. Run the firewire of your camera into your computer but run the analog output of your camera through the MX-1 and then to a monitor. Switch the MX-1 to negative mode and, presto, instant positive image. You'll still be recording a negative image on the computer but at least your exposure will be correct and you won't get bogged down doing exposure tests on each clip.

Now, having said all this, we stopped doing negative a year ago because it was just too complicated to keep clean. The tiniest speck that would go un-noticed on reversal glows as a white blob on negative. A real nightmare, if you ask me, but several people have done it successfully.

Roger Evans

[Vespasian]

Thank you Roger that is very good news to me. Now I can buy a Workprinter and use negative film and k40, not to mention how much money I am going to save!

About the white blob nightmare thing, if I get it back from the lab and throw it on the workprinter directly do youy think that would give me a better chance of not getting the white blob. Or should I just clean the film?

Thanks again

[Vespasian]

One more question Roger what brand is the MX-1? Is it Videonics video mixer?

[MovieStuff]

Yes, the MX-1 is the Videonics digital video mixer. Great little box for cheeze effects and handy for chroma-key positioning of actors and stuff for real compositing later on. The negative function works just great for determining exposure. They also made a proc-amp that had negative effect, as well. Both are cheap on ebay.

Regarding the white specs: If the lab really cleans it well, that will certainly help. However, the thing to remember is that negative just isn't as dense as reversal, even if the negative were totally over-exposed. As it stands, reversal is mostly dense, unless one is shooting snow, sky or sandy desert. Most small specs will get lost in the density of the reversal image. However, that same image on negative will be very thin and that is where the specs will show up the most.

Roger

[Vespasian]

I understand about the white spec stuff. I think the lab that I am going to use will clean it well. About the negative to positve stuff though I think I am going to go with the sony vx2000 which has a negative shooting mode, which will make the negative super8 film a positive, right? Thats how I will determine the exposure, and I don't even have to change it in Premiere. I didn't even think about that, but I wonder if the vx2000 will do as good of a job as Premiere does with the neg. to pos. change. Well I guess I will find out. Thank you Roger

[hmc4me]

Anyone know if the Canon Gl2 can do the negative process. Thats the camera I want to use but if it does not have the negative feature I might not buy it.
Thanks
Anthony Collins

[Vespasian]

Go to www.canondv.com that will tell you everything about the gl2 I was going to purchase the gl1 until i found out it didn't have the negative/positive effect. I think I am going to go with the sony vx2000. It has it all 12x optical zoom, negative shooting mode, 16:9 shooting mode, and an analog input.

[hmc4me]

I just got a call tonight and I got a job at my local tv station. They have a few Panasonic AJ-D610WB's, I wonder how these cameras would turn out with a workprinter. I might can rent one for a day and use my laptop to turn out some killer transfers. I am going to be a Production Tech.
Thanks
Anthony Collins