16 m.m. cine equypment

nokia2010 · Feb 12, 2021

I don't know if I do open this in the right place. But I do have an intrest in 16 m.m. cine film, so a general subject I think is useful.
I did get some 16 m.m. films, but finding spools in Romania is very hard. Not too much of that format around here. Got 2, but they where bad. I intended to buy me a projector, but I didn't. Dind't had the money. My dream projector is "Siemens" 2000, since it seems to be well built and don't have too many belts (I wonder why the projectors had to be filled with belts). But since I don't know the condition of the films, I think before I get me a projector it's better to inspect them, so a movie editor will be more of a help. I did see some editors like "Zeiss Ikon" Moviscop, but still didn't find any in Romania. Those vertically postioned editors had generally small diameter spools, but I think you can get "colums" that you can mount bigger diameters spools and just use the editor with them.
How hard is in your country to process 16 m.m. cine film? In Bucharest there was a lab that did black and white one. "Kodak" processes colour... contacted them twice, but now answer reguarding the price.

AgX · Feb 12, 2021

One of our fellows at Apug is not only specialist in cine processing but from Bucharest too.

nokia2010 · Feb 12, 2021

But do you know how many belts or how relaible was the "Siemens" 2000 projector?

davela · Feb 12, 2021

I don't claim to be an expert, but I have made 16mm films of my own many years ago and sort of follow what's happening with the technology since then to a limited extent.

There are labs in the USA that routinely process 16mm - it's still a viable format. Self processing should not be too hard either. I live near Hollywood so there's more of this around here than most places. Large cities seem to have film labs available.

I own a Bell and Howell 16mm projector - very old -- and it is an optical sound projector. I paid $15 for it at a charity junk sale, but the quality of the projection is similar to a movie theatre - very good. One can find 16mm editors for small money on eBay. I recommend cement style splicing, but it's better really these days to digitize the processed film away and then edit it on a computer. Final Cut Pro (Apple) was popular for this at one time, and may still be.

The Bell and Howell Filmo is a fantastic and reliable inexpensive camera for 16mm. Anything made by Arriflex incredible if you can afford it - it's more affordable now than in the past. One can shoot a feature film with an Arriflex if the skill is there. Untethered double system synchronous sound is easier these days with digital recording, but a blimped camera is still very desirable for serious use - many are available on the used market.

Don't give up - video will never match the look and quality of film!

AgX · Feb 13, 2021

Nokia, why don't you resort to a Lomo Kinap processor? Likely better available locally.

awty · Feb 13, 2021

Im doong the same.
Have 4 projectors, but the only one that still works is an old bell and howell 601. Really well built, nothing is plastic.
I have Bolex reflex 4 getting serviced.
Been fixing an old reel to reel developing tank that can handle 33 meter spools.
Will be just black and white, either foma or trix.
I will be using reel to reel tape recorder and anolog mixers for sound.
Still looking for a 16mm editor.
Im no great hurry, will spend all year getting everything organised.

Good luck with your venture and keep us updated.

Dan Fromm · Feb 13, 2021

awty said:
Im doong the same.
Have 4 projectors, but the only one that still works is an old bell and howell 601. Really well built, nothing is plastic.
I have Bolex reflex 4 getting serviced.
Been fixing an old reel to reel developing tank that can handle 33 meter spools.
Will be just black and white, either foma or trix.
I will be using reel to reel tape recorder and anolog mixers for sound.
Still looking for a 16mm editor.
Im no great hurry, will spend all year getting everything organised.

Good luck with your venture and keep us updated.

What are you doing to sync sound and image?

awty · Feb 13, 2021

Dan Fromm said:
What are you doing to sync sound and image?

I was thinking avant-garde, more sound effects than lip syncing.....but am far from working everything out.
Believe there are ways to sinc the two together all analog..
Building a studio/darkroom/sound room, be very simple.

Kino · Feb 13, 2021

Sync sound in the pre-digital age was always a real issue unless you had a crystal controlled camera motor and recorder. There was pilot tone and neo pilot tone, but those required a cable between the camera and the recorder and you had to have a special resolver to play the tape back at synchronous speed when transferring the sound to fullcoat magnetic tape for editing.

Some cleaver work-arounds were if the camera had a flash sync port that closed on every frame advance (mostly on Super 8mm cameras), you could wire a standard flash sync cable to take a sine wave signal signal through the PC cable to be interrupted 24 times a second (25 in Europe) to be recorded superimposed over the audio signal. The audio would be recorded as normal but the sync signal was recorded with a second head that was rotated 90 degrees out of phase with the audio recording head. When you played back the sound, it sounded like a normal recording, but the sync signal could be picked off the tape with the 2nd head and fed into a resolver to govern the playback speed of the tape deck.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilottone

I ran a 16mm Mono mixing room with 8 playback fullcoat recorders mixing down to one 16mm fullcoat master that was electronically interlocked to a projector so you could mix as you viewed the film in real time. The system was massive and required about 5 seconds to get all the machines up to speed and synchronized. The recording console was in a sound proof booth with a mixing board with a projection port in the side that allowed the image to be projected into the booth, onto a screen and the mixing tech had a large nixie tube display that showed feet/frames from the start sync punch. All cues were timed from the punch and you had to hit your fades and drops exactly in real time or the mix had to be stopped. We could back up prior to the screw-up and punch in to continue the mix, provided the faders were still in the same exact position as before (minus the screwed up cue), but it was very difficult to do gracefully.

Once the mag master was mixed, then we could send it to the lab to have an negative optical track made on a light valve recorder, but it was very expensive.

awty · Feb 13, 2021

Kino said:
Sync sound in the pre-digital age was always a real issue unless you had a crystal controlled camera motor and recorder. There was pilot tone and neo pilot tone, but those required a cable between the camera and the recorder and you had to have a special resolver to play the tape back at synchronous speed when transferring the sound to fullcoat magnetic tape for editing.

Some cleaver work-arounds were if the camera had a flash sync port that closed on every frame advance (mostly on Super 8mm cameras), you could wire a standard flash sync cable to take a sine wave signal signal through the PC cable to be interrupted 24 times a second (25 in Europe) to be recorded superimposed over the audio signal. The audio would be recorded as normal but the sync signal was recorded with a second head that was rotated 90 degrees out of phase with the audio recording head. When you played back the sound, it sounded like a normal recording, but the sync signal could be picked off the tape with the 2nd head and fed into a resolver to govern the playback speed of the tape deck.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilottone

I ran a 16mm Mono mixing room with 8 playback fullcoat recorders mixing down to one 16mm fullcoat master that was electronically interlocked to a projector so you could mix as you viewed the film in real time. The system was massive and required about 5 seconds to get all the machines up to speed and synchronized. The recording console was in a sound proof booth with a mixing board with a projection port in the side that allowed the image to be projected into the booth, onto a screen and the mixing tech had a large nixie tube display that showed feet/frames from the start sync punch. All cues were timed from the punch and you had to hit your fades and drops exactly in real time or the mix had to be stopped. We could back up prior to the screw-up and punch in to continue the mix, provided the faders were still in the same exact position as before (minus the screwed up cue), but it was very difficult to do gracefully.

Once the mag master was mixed, then we could send it to the lab to have an negative optical track made on a light valve recorder, but it was very expensive.

Sounds like a pain.
Most cameras with quality sound sinc are super expensive. Seems people are digitalising their film, then digitally impose sound, post on YouTube, done.
Time and quality is not very important for me being a hobbyists, will see what I can come up with.

Kino · Feb 13, 2021

If you want very brief sync sound sections (digital or film based editing), you can record "wild" (unsynced) and slip the dialog on a separate track of the mix, cut and resync for several seconds, but it will begin to drift very quickly. Just remember to record ample ambient sound for your location to disguise the edits. A shotgun mic helps here to lower any peripheral audio signal on dialog and ambient sounds of birds chirping, traffic or even "room tone" can be layed adjacent and slightly boosted to disguise the cuts.

This was a very common technique when a sync camera/recorder combo could not be used or afforded...

davela · Feb 13, 2021

My understanding is that one modern approach to lip-sync quality double system sound is to drive the camera with a crystal synced motor, and record the audio with a digital recorder. This is done with no wires between the recorder and camera, but of course a clap board sequence is necessary at the start of a take. The audio recorder can be an MP3 recorder, an iPhone, or a studio quality digital audio recorder - it just need to be digital and of acceptable quality for audio to the extent one desires or needs. Digital electronics are inherently crystal synced. In post production, the film is digitized and brought together with the sound track (already digital) in a video editor such as Final Cut, and easily synced up. The clap board provides the reference mark for syncing. This is sort of the digital version of what they used to do with Moviolas and such on advanced film editing tables.

Crystal sync motors were never all that common, and are probably even harder to find today, but I do see them on the surplus market for sale often sold with high quality cine cameras. The above scheme might also be workable with cameras driven by synchronous AC motors as these, in theory, keep a constant speed - possibly good enough to hold lip sync for normal length takes at least. In the "old days" we used cine cameras driven with crystal sync motors, and Nagra crystal synced tape recorders to record the audio - untethered operation. The Nagra's were also quiet - and absolute gems of technology (made in Switzerland - no surprise there). These were the finest small tape recorders ever made and they cost a fortune! Current technology allows this to be done at lower cost now.

A few years ago I watched a high-end television commercial being filmed (at my then workplace) and they were using essentially this technique, with a Super 16 Arriflex and using high-end digital audio recorder for the sound. I've seen double system sound lip-synced demo videos on YouTube as well shot with high-end Super 8 cameras and iPhones to record audio - they looked fabulous too - in fact I think one of them even just used the stock motor on the camera (a Canon high end late era model Super 8 camera of some sort).

Kino · Feb 13, 2021

If the crystal motor will sync with HDMI lights, it probably will work for all intents and purposes, but if it is a "add-on" motor running a camera that hasn't been serviced in a decade or two, I doubt it.

However, you won't know until you try!

davela · Feb 13, 2021

Kino said:
If the crystal motor will sync with HDMI lights, it probably will work for all intents and purposes, but if it is a "add-on" motor running a camera that hasn't been serviced in a decade or two, I doubt it.

However, you won't know until you try!

Well yes I agree with you. Anyone putting the money up for cine film stock these days should ensure their cameras (sound or not), are really in good working order.

BTW there are tons of old, but still very good (some classic even) low budget films from the past that had dialog added by dubbing in post production. Some had sound recorded on the set too, but not necessarily lip-sync sound. These films used various low budget shortcuts (wild syncing falls into that category) and if done skillfully, this can certainly work. This is one of the amazing and fun aspects of small film making. Films like the Blair Witchcraft Project, or Night of the Living Dead, both shot on a shoestring with corners cut everywhere, if done artfully, can outperform (at the box office) a big studio film with a 100 million dollar budget, big stars, and shot in Panavision.

Kino · Feb 13, 2021

davela said:
Well yes I agree with you. Anyone putting the money up for cine film stock these days should ensure their cameras (sound or not), are really in good working order.

BTW there are tons of old, but still very good (some classic even) low budget films from the past that had dialog added by dubbing in post production. Some had sound recorded on the set too, but not necessarily lip-sync sound. These films used various low budget shortcuts (wild syncing falls into that category) and if done skillfully, this can certainly work. This is one of the amazing and fun aspects of small film making. Films like the Blair Witchcraft Project, or Night of the Living Dead, both shot on a shoestring with corners cut everywhere, if done artfully, can outperform (at the box office) a big studio film with a 100 million dollar budget, big stars, and shot in Panavision.

Agreed! And with software like DaVinci Resolve that has integrated Fairlight Audio Post Production Tools, digital ADR is SO much easier than cutting and running loops on a projector!

I don't mean to sound dismissive of the prospect of working low budget film nowdays (I am really in favor of it), but the need to do a hybrid workflow is inescapable.

It's only for those who want to work strictly in the photochemical domain that I regret the herculean effort they face. It will be most daunting...

davela · Feb 14, 2021

Yes well also in still photography, the hybrid workflow as you call it is not only practical, but has significant advantages. I develop film for instance, but always scan the results, post process, and print with an quality inkjet. If I had the time and space, I'd probably be printing some of my negatives, but even if so I'd employ the hybrid approach at some level.

Europan · Feb 14, 2021

Rodrigo Ruiz-Tarazona has taken over Cinelab Bucharest in 2013. Cornelia Popa is general manager. They need orders, so be frank and honest about your project. If it’s only a couple camera spools missing, they will lend you some.

Pick a camera with a short film gate and one that’s well serviceable. My recommendation is a Bell & Howell Filmo 70-DA, DL or DR, a Revere 101 or 103, a Victor 3/4/5, an ETM P. Do not combine Fomapan R with an Arriflex 16.

A Filmo 57 projector will do the job nicely. MOVISCOP are okay, a Filmo editor-viewer will serve you as well.

Kino · Feb 14, 2021

Europan said:
Do not combine Fomapan R with an Arriflex 16.

What's the issue with this combo? Is it the film thickness?

I remember shooting an independent film with an Aaton LTR and was shocked to find that we couldn't just shoot a test roll of Tri-x reversal as a test because the gate was tuned to negative. We would have had to send the camera to Able Cine Tech to have it tuned for the test roll and then back again to shoot our intended stock for the production. I loved that camera, but it was certainly finicky about stock thickness!

I never encountered that problem with any Arriflex S, M, SR or other model; they always ran anything we put in the chamber...

Europan · Feb 14, 2021

Fomapan R 100 has a naked TAC base, no lubricant, and a non-hardened gelatine coating. It tends to become sticky with raising relative humidity and temperature. The Arriflex 16 Standard has such a long film canal that friction forces can become inacceptable. Kodak ciné films have a very thin Carnauba wax layer on the back as well as hardened gelatine top coats.

nokia2010 · Feb 23, 2021

How are the Soviet made 16 m.m. cameras?
I did find a "Beaileau" 16R for sale... it does haves sound sync, but the price is exagerated.
If the sound is recoreded separetely (for eg on a cassette recorder), how hard is for an amateur to put sound on film?

AgX said:
Nokia, why don't you resort to a Lomo Kinap processor? Likely better available locally.

What's that?

AgX · Feb 23, 2021

Sorry, I meant Kinap projector.
(Was in my mind already in the darkroom.)

nokia2010 · Feb 23, 2021

Because we have the "I.O.R." (Întreprindera Optică Română = Romanian Optica Enteprise/Factory) version
I shouldda gues the Romanian made one was a copy.
Found a newer Romanian one at a nice prices, but I missed it. So if I do have to spent money, I preffer something better.

btaylor · Feb 24, 2021

There was the Soviet Kinor 16mm camera. I believe it was for news gathering. It was a professional camera unlike the Krasnogorsk, which was terrible.

nokia2010 · Feb 24, 2021

'Krasnogorsk', why it was terrilble?

Kino · Feb 24, 2021

The Krasnogorsk was an amateur 16mm camera and it was very cheaply constructed. You could, with a lot of effort and great care, modify, tune and use the camera with decent results, but most people didn't have the patience or skills to put forth the effort. We had 2 of these cameras to check out to students at Ohio State University and they did not fare well with constant abuse. Constructed with plastic and thin stamped sheet metal, they quickly fell out of service unless you took pains to treat them gingerly and gently. The lenses were fairly good though and you could get decent results if you knew the limitations of the camera.

16 m.m. cine equypment

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