16mm to Digital, how's it done?

cshelton

cshelton

Active member
I recently purchased one of those Russian K3 16mm cameras and I've been wondering if I could somehow incorporate some 16mm footage into my DVX projects. The lens on this K3 is pretty good, as well as the fact that you can overcrank the camera to 48+ FPS for nice slow motion.

The question is.. how do you get 16mm processed film to digital? I've been calling around here in LA and I've been quoted about $200.00 an hour to take 16mm to TAPE!! then tape to DVD. 3rd generation footage is not what I had in mind.

Barry included some 16mm footage on his DVX DVD and it didn't look like it was from tape. So can anyone shed some light on a good way to get this done?
 
Think Barry used a Cintel Rank transfer from 16mm to MiniDV tape.

The progression of cheap to good goes like this:
1) Projecting positive film onto a wall and videotaping it
2) Old style Film Chain
3) Rank Cintel telecine
4) Phillips Spirit with DaVinci telecine

Try www.pro8mm.com, I think they use the Cintel..
Or, www.videopost.com, they definitely could do a Spirit transfer
Or, www.bonolabs.com transfers uncompressed to hard drive, but they have
weeks long wait times.

There are all sorts of options in all sorts of price ranges.. Just know that film looks terrible by
by itself, and the beauty of it is better with a top-notch transfer. My 0.02

Time for others to chime in.
 
You go to a telecine facility and get it transferred to miniDV tape, and then edit that footage (just like as if it was DVX footage).

A slightly less expensive transfer could be done by http://www.moviestuff.tv. But no matter how you slice it, 16mm isn't very inexpensive -- it'll end up costing about $30/minute to shoot 16mm.
 
A follow up question for Barry -
If I want to incorporate Super 16 footage into my Final Cut Pro timeline and intercut it with footage from the DVX that was shot with the anamorphic adapter...
do I have the telecine facility also squeeze the Super 16 image so that it also requires unsqueezing like the rest of my footage when I edit with the intention of bumping it all back to 1.85 film? How's that for a convoluted question?
 
Yes, you'd have the S16 transferred to video as anamorphic 16:9. Then you could cut it on the same timeline, etc.

However, transferring S16 film to video and then transferring that video back to 35mm film will result in significantly inferior quality than if you had blown the S16 negative directly up to 35mm. So make sure you have your workflow sorted out -- if you're intermixing S16 with DV footage and want it to all look reasonably matched on the final blowup, then yes, transferring the S16 to DV might be the best overall solution. But if the goal is to extract the maximum image quality, you'd want the S16 negatives blown up directly to 35mm.
 
Wow, thanks for all the great answers thisiswells and Barry! I've done some research based on some of the links provided and yes it's true, the prices vary quite a bit. I'm half tempted to buy a projector and just do the "project on wall" method to see what I get.

It seems that a lot of the film to video service providers out there promise you'll have flicker problems if you attempt to do it yourself (due to the difference in video frame rate (60i) vs film frame rate(24)). I'd imagine the DVX with it's 24p could probably prevent the flicker all together. Anyone have any idea if this is possible or not with the DVX?

I also imagine there is quite a bit of loss when you DIY, you're projecting onto a screen or wall as opposed to directly onto the CCD's (which seems to be the optimum way with the highest end transfer methods, but man it's expensive).

Regardless, I don't know what I'm doing with 16mm, so I'm not ready to throw down a lot of cash to find out if it's good enough to use. I guess that's the problem with film eh, you have to wait to see what you have, and you have to pay to see what you've got.

One more question, how many minutes of footage does a 100' reel equate to?
 
In 16mm? 100' should be 2 1/2 minutes. Practically speaking, you'll lose a little bit on the
front end of the load and a few seconds in between each time you stop and start the camera.
 
Personally I would go to a big TV station nearby. They are bound to have sth. like Da Vinci Reneissance and may transfer it to BetaCam for some silly money or even for free. I don't know will work in US but it works here in Poland :)
 
Trust me--TV stations in the U.S. do not offer public access to telecine and color correction.
Are you serious they do in Poland? Geez, let's all move to Poland, guys!
 
Serious.. They transfered some of my 35mm to Betacam. I even got a Betacam cassette coz I forgot to take one with me. So I invite :D
 
Holy Smokes!! That service in the states costs $750/Hour...
Luka_Brazzi must be stiff arming these folks in Poland to be getting these deals!!

So, what's up..... Are you making Godfather Part IV?
 
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