8mm and 16mm Film Transfer in LA?

[Sheldon Charron]

I know there are plenty who do this in LA, but I'm looking for someone who does a good job but not at movie studio prices. I'm transferring some old home movies of my father to do a documentary style short movie about him. He was an inventor and outdoorsman up in Canada, and I this is footage of him fishing and testing some of his prototype lures. The lures are no longer sold and he passed away in 2006.

I live in Sherman Oaks now and am looking for a place I can drive to and have it done fairly quickly. I don't feel comfortable mailing the film. Thanks.

 

[cyclone]

Sheldon,
I was in the same situation. I researched that question for an answer for literally a year. I visited many places in person. I work at an ad agency so I know all the high end places and, even with the deal they would cut me, it was still WAY too expensive for my personal stuff. Eventually, sent my film out of town (I'd tell you the place but I was not happy with the results). Wait, yes I will tell you the place so you don't pick them: videoconversionexperts.com. The 2K transfer was excellent. The 1080 down rez was a mess. Had to redo it several times. The other weird thing is that they give you a 24p option, but in reality it's 25p! They can't do 24p.

 

[kplo]

Have you tried calling PRO8mm in Burbank? Don't know what medium you want the films transferred to, but they can provide files on a hard drive after HD scanning.
Hope this helps.
Ken

 

[arniepix]

You're going to want to do this sooner, rather than later. Small labs and telecine houses are going out of business, so the price is only likely to go up as the number of options goes down.

I've never used them myself, but I've heard that Cinelab in Massachussets is good: http://www.cinelab.com/

Color Lab in DC was pretty good, last I did business with them (2009): http://www.colorlab.com/services/kinoton.html

 

[iunknown]

Why not do it yourself? With magic lantern and raw video, your camera is going to beat any of the older telecinc machines. Here is my setup and results (not raw on this one). Slap an ND filter, super 8mm is 35mm around 2 inches from projection on full frame.

https://vimeo.com/57890367