Poor Man's Digital to Film Transfer

[StopMoWorks]

Elsewhere, I have read brief mentions of this in the past and I also an article awhile ago about it (vaguely remember it now):

Using a high quality computer monitor to display your edited finished movie (on computer monitor), 'single frame'..... then simply use your movie camera (e.g. 16mm format), and also via single frame, just shoot off the monitor.....like an optical printer setup. One can first, adjust through your NLE program and do wedge tests, to reduce contrast build-up or adjust colors to compensate for discrepancies when you do the transfer back to film. The results certainly would not match the quality of the very, very pricey scanning-type transfers that's done for professional work or for mainstream big budget films (like special effects segments). I am guessing.....no way Super 8 blowup transfer would look as good, if it were orignally shot on 16mm or 35mm. To me, Super 8 has an "exaggerated" film look, which I really like....kind of distant/surreal feel.

I am sure there are other things to consider, like whether original transfer, was done with (or without) pulldown compensation then sound sync issues. Also, I am guessing the bigger the monitor the better, to reduce pixel size? Probably a regular CRT monitor (clearer image) rather than those flat ones? I don't know if this would have to be an automated setup (like MovieStuff's WorkPrinter) ....where the film camera, triggers a micro-switch to advance to single frame advance the images on computer monitor (switch in mouse). I am thinking that the film camera would need an animation motor (to revolve slowly, like the workprinter). Also, I would think that one can do this manually.....just shoot off one frame of film, then click the mouse to advance monitor image to next one....and so on, & so on, & so on.....

Lionel

[MovieStuff]

Hi, Lio!

The ideal way to print back to 16mm from NTSC would be pretty much as you described with a few specific inclusions.

1) Use a moderately long focal length on the 16mm camera. This will reduce or eliminate distortion off the curved CRT monitor. However there are some new flat screen CRT's out there. I would avoid using an LCD monitor as the pixel size is visible to the naked eye and really won't look any better than if you just projected with an LCD projector directly from your computer for direct viewing.

2) Use a capping shutter on the 16mm camera to make your exposures and keep them at about 1 second each. This will totally eliminate roll bar patterns from the CRT scan. Also, exposures shorter than 1 second are more likely to have minute variations that can lead to some minimal flicker. And finally, the longer exposure time will make getting a good exposure off the CRT easier with fine grain film in the 16mm camera. The nice thing about using a film like 50 tungesten or the like is that you could load a Nikon or other 35mm still camera with some 50 tungsten slide film for your wedge tests. I use to do that all the time for stop motion set ups. It worked perfectly to determine relative exposures and you can get your results back in about two hours from a local lab.

There is another reason to use a capping shutter. Ideally, you would not use a color monitor at all. Instead, you would use a black and white monitor and do three different exposures per frame; one for red, blue and then green, each with a corresponding color filter to build up the full color image on the 16mm frame. The black white monitor would offer a higher resolution image than the color monitor would as there is no color masking but the color monitor would be much more convenient.

3) Most (if not all) NLE systems have a ">" button that will advance the timeline by one frame every time the mouse button is clicked. The standard synch mouse that I provide with the WorkPrinter can be used in conjunction with that feature to advance the time line one frame at at time if it is activated by an intervalometer or other outside sequencer.

4)In an ideal world, you would tranfer your footage to computer with no 3:2 pulldown and edit at 30fps. (Actually, in an ideal world, we'd all be using PAL. Dam.) Anyway, it would take some getting used to but is completely do-able. By leaving out the 3:2 pulldown, each frame of video merely needs to be transferred to a frame of film and no doubled frames have to be accounted for and "skipped out".

(NOTE: Yes, I know there are programs like After Effects that will remove the 3:2 pulldown but ONLY from footage that is singular and has not been recombined with other footage for comps, dissolves or other transitional effects, which is pretty much the reason for using NLE in the first place. If the doubled frames of two overlapped clips just HAPPEN to line up, then you're home free. If they don't and are "out of phase" then the 3:2 removal program won't work.)

Now, short of working at 30fps, you COULD be very careful about your dissolves and transitions and make sure that the 3:2 pattern of the overlapping segments line up with each other. That way, you could render out the transition as a new clip that the After Effects 3:2 removal program could successfully handle.

Actually, I think this could work quite well. It would be a blast to shoot in super 8, edit in video and then have a 16mm projection print to view, complete with sound. It would be fun.

Roger

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ April 22, 2002 07:27 PM: Message edited by: MovieStuff ]</font>

[plattino]

So when is the "Moviestuff Film Printer" coming out Roger? An automated device that we could hook up to our computers and cameras that did all the work perhaps?

[MovieStuff]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><table border="0" width="90%" bgcolor="#333333" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="0"><tr><td width="100%"><table border="0" width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" bgcolor="#FF9900"><tr><td width="100%" bgcolor="#DDDDDD"><font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by supa_ate_sixteen:
So when is the "Moviestuff Film Printer" coming out Roger? An automated device that we could hook up to our computers and cameras that did all the work perhaps?</font></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></BLOCKQUOTE>

Not any time soon, I'm afraid. However, if I thought there was a real market for doing printbacks to film from video files, I might offer that service but I think that most people like to dream about these things but don't really have the money for it. It's kind of like the whole ongoing discussion on another forum about scanning super 8 film with a flatbed, the idea being that one could capture your film at high resolution and do a print back to 35mm.

35mm? Give me a break! Who operating in super 8 has the dough to even pay for the film and processing for 35mm, not to mention how can they afford to have the computer files printed back to film in the first place?

I think the idea of shooting in super 8, doing a really good transfer to video for editing and then printing back to 16mm or even super 8 is *just* workable enough to be practical. Now, I don't think for a second that it will look the same as blowing up directly from super 8 to 16mm or even printing directly from super 8 to super 8 but it could still yield a pleasing and practical product if handled properly and would be a blast for festivals.

What is needed is some software that can "flag" the 3:2 pulldown frames and post an alert when you are overlapping two clips for a dissolve or transition. The idea is that you could jog the next clip to the side by one or two frames to get it "in phase" with the preceeding clip's doubled frames. That way, the 3:2 pattern won't be interrupted and can be sorted out after editing. That would go a long way toward making the entire process more practical for the super 8 user.

Roger