8mm Movie film

Christopher Walrath · Jan 19, 2007

I love my cameras. I have been invited to particpate in a WWII reenactment/operation this fall in Lewes, Delaware as the OWC (Official War Correspondent). I am going to accompany an 'insertion' team from their drop off point, hump it overland to our camp three miles away within attacking range of the defender's fort (Fort Miles). I will then be picked up and taken to the RIO's (Radio Intellenge Officers) and then be taken to the fort's barracks. The idea to be to get about 10-15 rools of photogrpahs and about 50 or so interviews of the participants and 'officers' to do a mock-up newspaper/periodical type report including some images. I intend to cover the invaders, the defenders, the RIO's and the attack on the fort and the run to the invaders' extraction point over a two day period. I have all of thi pretty firm in my mind what I want to do.

The tonight I realize I have my grandfather's old Revere 88 Double 8 movie camera upstairs in the closet. Would some movie clips of the engagement be SO COOL! Does anyone know if 8mm film can be purchased for this camera anymore and if so who might be able to develop it? Any tips would be apprecaited. Thanks for all of your help.

Dan Fromm · Jan 19, 2007

Start here http://members.aol.com/Super8mm/Super8mm.html to find out what's available and where.

Reconsider. I wasn't there, but AFAIK combat cinematographers in WWII shot 16 mm, not 8/8. You wouldn't want to commit an anachronism, would you?

removed account4 · Jan 19, 2007

hi chris

i am not sure if this guy is still in biz, but
you might give him a call.
http://www.prepfilm.com/

i used to buy film from him. he processes it too.

good luck!
john

sjperry · Jan 19, 2007

If you are talking about regular 8mm film - it is still available. In case anyone doesn't know, it is actually 16mm film on 25 ft. spools. You shoot on one half and then turn the spool over and shoot the other half. In processing it is cut down the center and spliced together. Try www.spectrafilmandvideo.com. A good source for all movie films. Or are you talking about the old Fuji double 8, which is different than either regular 8 or super 8. But is you are talking about an old camera (Revere was it?) that would use regular 8mm. The spools will be wide enought to accomodate 16mm film. Hope this helps.

reellis67 · Jan 19, 2007

This site might also help you out...

http://onsuper8.blogspot.com/

- Randy

Christopher Walrath · Jan 20, 2007

I would assume that it is 8mm film as this is about the inner width of the spool (about 5/16"). There is some good info here so far. Keep it coming. Thank you.

Helen B · Jan 20, 2007

"I would assume that it is 8mm film as this is about the inner width of the spool (about 5/16")."

Christopher,

Is that the distance between the flanges of the spools for the finished film, or the distance between the flanges of the camera spool? If it is 'Double 8' then it is almost certainly 16 mm wide going through the camera. There should be an empty spool inside the camera.

The only '8 mm' loads that I'm aware of that came on 'daylight' spools (ie spools with solid sides - no openings except for the spindle) are Double 8 (aka Regular 8, Standard 8) and Double Super 8 (much less common) - all 16 mm wide when going through the camera. Either 25 ft or 100 ft nominal length. Most amateur cameras take the 25 ft spools.

All other '8 mm' loads were in cassettes - either side-by-side coaxial (Kodak's Super 8 format in 50 ft cassettes, and in the 200 ft cassettes if my unreliable memory serves me) or Mickey Mouse ears coplanar (Fuji's Single 8 format in 50 ft). All of those went through the camera 8 mm wide. I mentioned the two film manufacturers as the originators of the format, not as the sole manufacturers of film in that format.

If you look inside the camera and see a gate that is for 16 mm wide film with an opening that is about 5 mm wide then you will have confirmed that you have a Double 8 camera.

Double 8 film, as already mentioned, is double-perforation 16 mm film (in this case 'double-perforation' means perforations beside each edge of the film), but with extra perforations to reduce the frame pitch by half. It can be processed by labs that process the same type of 16 mm film.

You can get Fomapan R100 B&W Double 8 reversal film from Freestyle. They call it 33 ft long, because that's how much there is on a nominal 25 ft spool.

In WWII 16 mm Kodachrome was used to a much lesser extent than B&W.

Best,
Helen

sjperry · Jan 20, 2007

Super 8 and regular 8 are quite different actually. The finished width is the same, but there the resemblance stops. Super 8 is not cut down the center like regular 8 - it starts out 8mm wide (or so). It has smaller sprocket holes than 8mm, and as a result, 25% larger image size. Additionally it is loaded into plastic casssettes. For regular 8, as I said in a previous post, the spool width in the camera will accomodate 16mm width, because it starts out that wide. One advantage of many the old regular 8 cameras is that they are spring driven. Hence no batteries to die.

Christopher Walrath · Jan 20, 2007

That's why I love this camera. At 16fps I get about 17 seconds of running time before tension on the spring slows the speed of the film. At this speed it passes about 5 feet of film. And it has 8mm thick spools (the space between each side face of the spool).

Helen B · Jan 21, 2007

flash19901 said:
That's why I love this camera. At 16fps I get about 17 seconds of running time before tension on the spring slows the speed of the film. At this speed it passes about 5 feet of film. And it has 8mm thick spools (the space between each side face of the spool).

Something very strange there, Christopher. These spools that you are measuring, do they have solid sides (no cutouts) or do they have spokes? If you have a Revere 88 that takes 8 mm wide film on spools rather than in cassettes then you have an oddity. That's not Double 8, Super 8, Single 8 or Double Super 8.

Seventeen seconds is actually quite short for a single wind: the spring is probably showing its age. Most cameras should manage at least 30 seconds, and some do 50 seconds on a single wind while maintaining a steady 16 fps.

Best,
Helen

Dan Fromm · Jan 21, 2007

Helen, I wish I had your patience. Since I don't, I went a-Googlin' and found references to the Revere 88, some with pictures. Here are a few:

http://auctions.yahoo.com/i:VINTAGE REVERE 88 CINE MOVIE CAMERA + BOX GR8 FIND:100227525

Dead Link Removed

http://communication.ucsd.edu/bjones/Moviecam/CineCollection/box01_01-03.html

http://particle.physics.ucdavis.edu/Graphics/Cameras/revere_88.jpg

It is a regular 8 mm camera made to shoot double run 16 mm film. AFAIK, there were only two loading systems for regular 8 mm cameras. Double run 16 mm film, as seems to be used in the Revere 88, and single run cartridges.

AFAIK, combat cinematographers in WWII shot 16 mm and 35 mm, not 8 mm. Helen, do you think I'm mistaken?

Chris, the words used to discuss 8 mm cine film are a little confusing. In the beginning there was just and only 8 mm and that's what we called it. In 1965, EKCo introduced Super 8 film, a single run cartridge with smaller perforations, different perf spacing, and a larger frame than 8 mm. Fuji countered with Single 8, film to the the same specs in a different cartridge that allowed easy backwinding. Oh, yeah, Kodak also made double Super 8, double run 16 mm film perfed for S8 but very few cameras were made to use it. Anyway, at this point people started calling the old 8 mm regular 8 or 8/8. 8/8 because it was usually double run. That's what your camera should take.

Cheers,

Dan

Helen B · Jan 21, 2007

Dan Fromm said:
AFAIK, combat cinematographers in WWII shot 16 mm and 35 mm, not 8 mm. Helen, do you think I'm mistaken?

Dan,

I suspect that you are correct.

Best,
Helen

Wayne · Jan 22, 2007

I dont know about combat cinematographers but my Navy father shot 16mm during his time in the Pacific during WWII.

Christopher Walrath · Jan 23, 2007

O.K. I feel like such a schmutz. Yeah, it's 16mm. And I sell auto parts. I'm supposed to know this stuff. Duh. (Yeah, a photographer just said duh)

removed account4 · Jan 23, 2007

flash19901 said:
O.K. I feel like such a schmutz. Yeah, it's 16mm. And I sell auto parts. I'm supposed to know this stuff. Duh. (Yeah, a photographer just said duh)

chris:

the person i linked to before sells/processes 16mm as well ...

good luck!
john

PHOTOTONE · Jan 23, 2007

Standard 8mm film, while 16mm width, had twice the number of perforations, therfore you cannot just respool 16mm film into 25 ft. rolls.

Kino · Jan 23, 2007

US Signal Corps cameras at the beginning of WWII were mostly silent era 35mm cranked cameras and newsreel cameras already in the pipeline; Akeleys, B&H 2709s, Universals, Walls, Neuman Sinclairs, Moys and Bell and Howell D series 16mm cameras.

If you want to be totally authentic, grab a DR-70 B&H 16mm off of Fee-bay for a song and go to it. My mentor in college, one Charles Nedwin Hockman, filmed in Burma and India for a couple of years using a D series camera. Hockman said it was a great camera because you could shoot film and then bash some bastard's head in if you needed to and the camera would keep on working.

The cunningham combat and Art Reeves Reflex cameras didn't get into WWII until the very end and very few saw active duty, but they were/are great cameras and hard to find.

Steve Bellayr · Mar 4, 2007

I studied with two former WWII film guys. On 16mm they used Bell & Howells with 3 lenses. I used those cameras. They are like rocks. One prof. said that at Normandy the Seabees did not have enough hammers and used the B&H cameras instead. (I don't know if that is true but it certainly could be done.)

ic-racer · Mar 5, 2007

I shoot a lot of double 8 B&W. I have been getting the film from various sources. Sometimes Chambless (http://www.chamblesscineequip.com/) has the film and other times I use International film(http://members.aol.com/Super8mm/JohnSchwind.html)

I have had almost all rolls processed and split by Prep Film Services.
(http://www.prepfilm.com/)

In terms of 8 vs 16mm, it may depend on how you want to view the final footage. It is probably going to be less trouble to get a regular 8 projector (many super 8 projectors could also project regular 8) rather than a 16mm projector. Also, for 'recreational' use, the price of shooting 16mm will be 4 times as much. This can be considerable. I think you will be pleased with the 8mm B&W, it will certainly have a vintage look.

Also, if you are planning on projecting with a 'modern' projector (70s or so) then they run at 18fps. I don't know if your camera has variable speeds like a Bolex. The difference between 16 and 18fps is not great and a little speeding up of the action will probably add to the vintage effect.

Sound like a fun project.

nick mulder · Mar 14, 2007

PHOTOTONE said:
Standard 8mm film, while 16mm width, had twice the number of perforations, therfore you cannot just respool 16mm film into 25 ft. rolls.

it actually has 4 times the amount of sprockets if you are comparing to the 16mm stock you get nowadays (or even the older mag striped stuff)

Helen B · Mar 14, 2007

That was mentioned back in post #7, but I guess that it was easily overlooked.

Just suppose that you saw some old Kodak film for sale. How many rows of perforations? If you look at the can it will have either 1R or 2R on the label. That's the number of rows of perforations. The next numbers are the perforation pitch in thousandths of a millimetre (and ten-thousandths of an inch), so normal 16 mm film would have '7605(2994)' on the label.

Best,
Helen

8mm Movie film

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