Completely Off Topic...

P

ptalsky

Veteran
...but at least I'm not asking how to get great audio for $.50. ;-)

I was asked to record sound for a super 8mm project this weekend, so I started doing a bit of research on how to best approach this...

And now I'm buying a super 8mm camera and some film and going out and shooting stuff in the next week or two. I've done some DP and directing of video projects, but have never done any film work (other than sound) and so I've got the bug.

We'll have to see what happens. I don't have a lot of hope, based on my research, of ever doing any real synch sound, but who knows. ;-)

Interesting trivia: Did you know that Kodak used to make a film cartridge that also recorded sound? There are several different models of super 8mm cameras that also have sound recording capabilities built in.

Who knew? Unfortunately, the film for those cameras is no longer available...that would have been fun...hooking a Sennheiser 416 into a super 8mm camera. Or even better, a G2. ;-)

Phil
 
The magnetic striping on Super8 wasn't all that.

If you're interested in buying a Super8 camera, I have several Beaulieu 4008 cameras and a few others (Canon).
 
This probably seriously dates me but some of my early childhood home movies were on a sync 8mm. It was brand new and very few people had it. Finding equipment that can play it back is very difficult. My parents ended up paying a handsome figure to get the movies transferred over to VHS (pre DVD' rise).

And yeah the audio was really poor. About as good as an early cassette recorder.

Cheers
 
wabbit said:
This probably seriously dates me but some of my early childhood home movies were on a sync 8mm. It was brand new and very few people had it. Finding equipment that can play it back is very difficult. My parents ended up paying a handsome figure to get the movies transferred over to VHS (pre DVD' rise).

And yeah the audio was really poor. About as good as an early cassette recorder.

Cheers
Click to expand...

I have my projector set up right now. All of our super 8 home movies had synch sound.

Ptalsky-Is there a way you could record sound onto a mini dv camera, since that's good quality and rip it straight from the tape? Then you could theoretically mix the sound from the mini dv with the super 8 footage.
 
Hey Wabbit, we already knew you were old...said the really old guy. ;-)

If your family still wants to convert those old movies, I've found a couple of telecine houses that could do it...not cheap, but not terrible either. ;-)

Alternative, if I were going to actually try to do synch sound, I would do it with my recorder...unfortunately/strangely, it doesn't have a setting for 18fps. ;-) Nor does my slate....you'd think Tascam and Denecke would be more with it, wouldn't you? ;-)

Actually, the problem is that the cameras are notorious for not holding a constant speed...very few support crystal synch. And even then...not good.

Phil
 
Reminds me of my days recording synch sound on a short shot with a spring-wound bolex. Head slate, tail slate, and hope that the speed difference stays consistant. As long as you have a slate on either side of the shot, you can correct for the "pretty much 24fps" frame rate. It makes synching the dailies a bit more labour-intensive, but isn't that what "time compression/expansion" is all about?
 
Yeah, but with the limited size of a super 8 reel (50') you'd burn a lot of film slating both ends (kind of like 1-2 takes per reel). Would get very expensive very quickly. ;-)

Phil
 
Phil,

I had for a while a Bolex double super8 camera ( you shoot one side flip it over and shoot the other side). They were used for news gathering before 3/4" portable decks made them obsolete. The Mag stripe is about the quality of Cassette tapes. With some projectors you can record on the balance stripe also giving you two tracks. S8 came back for a while as a music video shooting format. I would just use a slate just like the good old days before TC made everything complicated.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top