Although abrahms chose to shoot Star Wars on film i think al else being the same, lighting, acting, post production, etc. it would have been just as successful if shot on almost any high end camera.
Although abrahms chose to shoot Star Wars on film i think al else being the same, lighting, acting, post production, etc. it would have been just as successful if shot on almost any high end camera.
Curtis Mack
Active member
This sounds like an argument over values. It's enough to say that you either like or don't like Super 8. In this new incarnation, the tactile part of its appeal is gone, since the output is digital. Editing camera original is a unique experience, especially when sync sound is involved. It's one of those lost arts that, when you work within its limitations, has an authenticity very difficult to recreate when you have the fine control we have now in our NLE's. For those who see no value in Super 8, I would recommended The Invasion of the Aluminum People.
However, the Luftwaffe gun camera footage would have looked much more real in 8K. It looks scary because it was real and it would be just as real on digital. You may want to check some recent Afghanistan/Iraq combat footage online.
PS. As a side note, a few days ago I found a 720p copy of "Harry met Sally" and a ton of shots in it look "digital" by today's definition. They're very clean, very non-grainy, very - dare I say, DSLR, very 5D MKIII Magic Lantern Raw hack. By comparison, those Ursa 4.6 Mini clips of Motley Crüe look more like "film".
MeesePiece
Carbonite Member
I think Ida was shot on 35mm film. It was shot on the alexa. That's the start of when I became more interested in digital. The colorist is the most important piece of the puzzle. Film is the best, but poorly timed film can also look bad as well.
G
Guest
Guest
I would agree with that. Few video cameras have a tone curve, or even colors i find aestheticly pleasing. Every shot requires post work to correct this.
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16mm never went away. The current feature film Carol is shot on 16mm. It is just too expensive for most of us to shoot for hobby or indie personally funded projects. A modern super 8 camera optimized for HD and wide screen formats with on board synchronized digital audio recording is brilliant. A resurgence in small format film might help keep more labs open. That is the current weak link in the film production chain.
G
Guest
Guest
You love film from the ground up. That is important. But i wonder, and this is a serious question, why you don't mind video on News and Sports? Do you have any ideas about that? The simple answer would be the associative nature of the content. Aka, sports gets a free pass since we can't watch live film. But if video is acceptable for live events, wouldn't video look more real by that associative nature?
I believe the fact that Cartier-Bresson's (CB) images are good, is intertwined with the medium, because it is the medium he used. Debating the value of the medium is a reverse engineered debate. Although, i wonder what kind of discussions he got into with painters and other photographers about his choice of camera/film. An artist is limited and liberated by their "palette". The medium dictates certain perimeters. There is a great liberty in shooting grainy black and white, and there is great limitations. The brilliant engineers who crafted a camera that allowed CB to walk around and snap* the decisive moment, were amazing people. Was CB lazy for using the medium instead of more traditional ones that lent more traditional quality? Or was his use of cutting edge tech a wise choice? And is CB crazy for going back to painting? Because afterall, painting is like digital, it is not real, you can paint whatever you want.
Saying digital is bad, or even "not as good as" is no longer a valid argument in all facets. ( I am not accusing anyone on this thread of saying digital is bad.) I feel like there are some cameras that are beautiful. I love the colors at night, and only digital allows me to shoot that without extra lighting. Film gets grainy and looks "retro" pretty quickly as the light dims. I still wish i had the tone curve of film in general though, but as long as i can manipulate in post, i am fine. I also shoot very long hours with a completely silent camera of mostly pointless time while i wait for the decisive moment. Film would never allow me to work that way. But, if someone loves film from the ground up, they love the process and generally believe that long takes and running time out waiting are lazy. There is truth to that too. Some people like long strolls on the beach, others want to run up a mountain, sure, laziness can be an issue, but it is certainly an aesthetic as well. There is definitely a lost sense of urgency in shooting digital, and that is sometimes very bad.
My lack of enthusiasm for 8mm aesthetically is not to say i am not happy about the conituationnof the medium. I am very happy it is being continued! But it is a bit like saying an iphone is great because you can do the same workflow as an Arri 65. From an aesthetic stand point, this are very different mediums that give very different results.
anyway, thank you for a good long reply. I really do enjoy hearing your thought process, and while there are some tangents in my post here, i hope you can also see my appreciation for your sincere reply, and trust that some of my questions are honest questions.
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Barry_Green
Moderator
It's not necessarily gone in this new iteration. Sure, you'll get a digital scan back, but you'll also get the film itself, and you can shoot reversal film, so you can edit the old fashioned way with splicing tape, etc. It will still be possible, it just won't be necessary any longer.
Some of the videos are claiming 4k scans, does that even make sense on a frame this small? Never worked with 8mm, no idea if it even holds that kind of resolution.
This camera is a neat idea, but the styling is mighty ugly. I also question the lack of eyepiece viewfinder which helped to stabilize the camera (another contact point). Since the LCD is just a standard video monitor, I hope they left a video jack to plug in an accessory VF. I see a hack in the making.
This camera is a neat idea, but the styling is mighty ugly. I also question the lack of eyepiece viewfinder which helped to stabilize the camera (another contact point). Since the LCD is just a standard video monitor, I hope they left a video jack to plug in an accessory VF. I see a hack in the making.
Of course it does not hold that 4K kind of resolution,or even HD,how people can say this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQjPAnSQgzc looks good baffles me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cn-AwhYOHZE about 3:30 from the beginning.
puredrifting
Major Contributor
I owned numerous regular 8, Super 8 and Super 16 cameras back in the day, even an Arri SRII HS. Shooting film was cool and sometimes I miss it. But Super 8 to me was always a "toy" format, it never looked good enough for real projects for me unless you were going for a retro or specialized sort of Impressionist kind of feel. To me, this effort seems aimed squarely at hipsters, I don't think it will spark any kind of mass movement back to shooting film. Not bad that they are doing it but I can't see this movement having any sort of significant effect on production.
I came along too late to shoot moving pictures on film (stills is a different story). I'd like to try this just for the challenge, but I agree that I wouldn't charge anyone to shoot on 8mm. Now if they did another tier of this with s16 and I'd be really excited.
combatentropy
Veteran
A few wedding videographers would shoot cutaways in 8mm.
I think I would more enjoy using 8mm to shoot: a short, fun film like from my school days, a poetic or experimental film, or a different flavor of vacation footage.
The 500T impressed me the most. It used to be that 8mm in an ISO as high as 500 looked grainier.
Finally, I think it's instructive for makers of digital cameras. Altough lower in resolution, some aspects of these Super-8 images look better to me than digital cameras, especially the colors and tones.
Watching another video from that same channel, of the film factory, I think I would be like Kodak and try my best to keep from having to just shut down all that machinery that seems to still be working just fine.
Mitch Gross
Veteran
Almost all the film manufacturing equipment is gone. Production lines and whole factories have been retooled for other industries, like one company making tomato sauce. Kodak still has some other industry, such as photographically printing touchscreen films for monitors. But many of the old factory buildings were sitting empty which became an insurance liability, so they were imploded.
I'll have to check, but I think all the buildings in Rochester are still standing, though many are no longer Kodak.
As far as hipster goes, some of that is right on the money. And as for fun projects, how about this:
http://onetakesuper8event.blogspot.com/
We have a local part of this organized by a friend of one of my coworkers, they manage to raise enough money that entering is generally free. With Kodak only a short ride away, it wouldn't surprise me to see them outfitted with brand new cameras for this year. I tried to get some coworkers to organize something, maybe a faculty team and a student team, but no progress towards this end.
And I agree, an s16 version of this camera with around 3 to 4 minutes per cartridge and ability to shoot several frame rates up to about 48fps would be killer.
As far as hipster goes, some of that is right on the money. And as for fun projects, how about this:
http://onetakesuper8event.blogspot.com/
We have a local part of this organized by a friend of one of my coworkers, they manage to raise enough money that entering is generally free. With Kodak only a short ride away, it wouldn't surprise me to see them outfitted with brand new cameras for this year. I tried to get some coworkers to organize something, maybe a faculty team and a student team, but no progress towards this end.
And I agree, an s16 version of this camera with around 3 to 4 minutes per cartridge and ability to shoot several frame rates up to about 48fps would be killer.
TheTrickster
Well-known member
I can't see this gaining any sort of traction when released. It's gonna be a massive flop.
Okay, so initial NAB response was good, had a few A-listers say how cool it is. Lots of people remembering the good old days. But once you have one of these in your hand, once the youngsters have one and they will be like wow this old stuff is cool! But after hitting record and saying 'no snapchat!?' It's game over.
Kodak, must be getting desperate. $50 per cartridge - for a few minutes of footage. No idea if it looks okay. Got to wait a few days for the turn around. There was a place and time for super8 cameras. I love the look of the low frame rate, the Kodak colours, but these we can replicate.
Sorry for the downer, but just can't see the market.
Okay, so initial NAB response was good, had a few A-listers say how cool it is. Lots of people remembering the good old days. But once you have one of these in your hand, once the youngsters have one and they will be like wow this old stuff is cool! But after hitting record and saying 'no snapchat!?' It's game over.
Kodak, must be getting desperate. $50 per cartridge - for a few minutes of footage. No idea if it looks okay. Got to wait a few days for the turn around. There was a place and time for super8 cameras. I love the look of the low frame rate, the Kodak colours, but these we can replicate.
Sorry for the downer, but just can't see the market.
It's also possible they didn't ave any ND and just closed the iris causing diffraction, or that the op could tell where focus was, or that they set it to f8 and hoped depth of field would cover everything. Lots of ifs, and I'm pretty sure I've seen better from other projects. They basically need to get the damn things out so real people can do things with them, then we'll see if it can have a decent image, or if everything is junk.