Film to Digital to Film

[mattiec]

Has anyone transfered super 8 or 16 to digital, edited it on a computer and then transfered it to 35mm film? If so... any observations would be helpful.

[WUXflooble]

I've also considered this technique.
We need a filmic look, but we've got
a lot of CG and composite stuff to do
which will look crap if I try doing
it using traditional optical effects.
So the only way around it would be to
get the footage on to DV, edit on PC
and process all the effects. On top
of that you've got to match the grain
of the film footage otherwise the CG
stuff will just look like its been
cut out and stuck on.

Getting to the point...

Shoot yer film. Telecine to DV.
Do yer post-prod.
Now here comes the funky part->
Get hold of the biggest- highest res
monitor you can afford. Hook it up to
yer PC. Align yer 16mm Camera with the
monitor and build a matte box between
the two so that the camera only sees
the screen. Play the footage from the
DVcamera through the firewire(make sure
its played fullscreen with no borders)
and start the 16mm rolling just before
you start the DV.NOTE-experimentation
maybe required, as I've only ever attempted
this technique with still photography.
All being well, you should have a crystal
clear 35mm\16mm print of your original
footage. The results I've had with still
photography have been laser printer quality,
so I'd figure the same will hold true with
CineFilm.





[This message has been edited by WUXflooble (edited May 29, 2000).]

[This message has been edited by WUXflooble (edited May 29, 2000).]

[WUXflooble]

Sorry, just remembered something
very important...

The monitor will create a strobing
effect unless you speed up it's
refresh rate.

The alternative is to photograph
each frame individualy using your
cinecam's single frame mode.
That would be a better bet.
Either way it's still cheaper than
giving thousands'o'pounds to
some hoighty toighty Soho posthouse
to do it.

[eddie]

That sounds like a good idea. BUT you will need to experiment with the refresh rate of the monitor to try and match 24 fps for the film camera. Also make sure you experiment with exposure settings on the camera and the brightness/contrast settings on the screen.
I guess if you have a massive monitor this is as good as you'll get without spending 10's of thousands of pounds.
Has anyone actually tried to do this?

[vansgirl12]

My advice is..if you are going to put it on the computer, do it DV or DigitalBETA..then transfer it onto 35mm or 16mm..this rather expensive tho...so if you want to go directly to tape and still get the 35mm look you can buy this type of software that will install an addon for Premiere or Final Cut Pro and when you use the effect it will give your film a 35 mm look..I believe the software is called CieneLook...I'll have to look it up.

------------------
"Rhode Island is neither
a Rhode or an
Island...Discuss!" - S

[mattiec]

Has anyone tried this and transfered back to 35mm professionally. If you just film your monitor - what about sound? How would you successfully sync that up?

[WUXflooble]

Errrr, I'd figure that you've got your
sound track on DAT or MiniDISC with
timecode data encoded. Sounds not my
department, so as far as I can tell that
would have to be done the expensive post
house way.

[WUXflooble]

If you just wanted to make DV look like
film, simply tweek the Brightness\Contrast
settings in Premiere. It only has to be
done very slightly, and gives washed out
video footage a very convincing film grain
look. You could also tint the footage by
tweeking the RGB channels which creates
some very interesting effects.

[This message has been edited by WUXflooble (edited May 31, 2000).]

[mattiec]

I don't want to shoot video. I really want to shoot on film- super 8 or 16mm. However I don't want to jump through hoops and spend alot of money in post - work prints, remixing, foley, I want to shoot wild or without sound and drop it in later using the computer ala Fellini. Then I want to eventually transfer to film for exhibition if its good enough. I was wondering if there is any technical limitations in doing this - 24fps to 29fps back to 24fps etc.

[AnnaCarrington]

Let me know how you get on; I wanna try this too! (not for a while yet though - so I wont be researching it probably until next year.)