Introductions and welcome

[David A. Goldfarb]

Welcome to the Analogue Cine User Group social group forum.

There are some people on APUG interested in analogue film making, so I've created this social group for those discussions. In the spirit of APUG, we're going to try to keep this 100% analogue and to offer a different kind of venue from the other excellent forums like filmshooting.com, cinematography.com, and onsuper8.org, which cover the same issues, but more in the context of hybrid production processes, where the final product is more likely to be a DVD than a projected film.

So let's use this thread for introductions, and maybe everyone can say what their involvement is in analogue film making.

I started to experiment a bit with 16mm when I bought a Krasnogorsk-3 in Poland in 1989. I shot a few hundred feet of film, and it was a beautiful medium, but I just couldn't afford to do much with it, so I sold the camera and put the money into studio lighting.

Then more recently I thought about trying movies again with Super-8, so I got a Beaulieu 4008, some lenses and adapters for my Canon FD lenses, an editor, splicer, projector, and other odds and ends and have started experimenting. I haven't gotten very far with it, and haven't processed my own film yet, but I've got a Lomo tank, and I'm thinking about where I'm going to go with it.

 

[JBrunner]

I started shooting Super8 when I was about 10 or so. I had a Canon camera. Can't remember the model offhand, or where I got it. It had a microphone, motorized zoom lens, and single frame capability. I would buy the cartridge at the supermarket camera bar and after I had shot it they would send it away to be processed. I believe it cost about $2 to do this. When I got older I went to work for local TV stations but by then everything on the TV station level was video, and I wanted to shoot film. I worked my way up to a production company that shot a fair amount of film for TV commercials, but they always hired it out, which reduced me to being a grip on these productions. I would hang back and check out the values and lighting methods the big time DP's used, sometimes I would even have time to scan around with my spot meter. I bought an Eclair NPR and started shooting the MOS projects that would come through. The management liked that because it increased the margin for the production company. Eventually I bought an Arriflex SRII and started doing the majority of the film production that came through the door, renting a camera when the project was 35mm. Thats how I cut my teeth, shooting TV spots on 16 and 35. In 1994 I went freelance, and after a few infomercials, etc. I shot my first TV movie on 35. Since then I have shot quite a few more TV movies, both first and second unit, on both 35 and Super16. I haven't shot a movie now for about two years, but I have turned down several. I'm looking for one I can really enjoy from a cinematic perspective, because just shooting whatever doesn't do it for me anymore. I still shoot lots of TV spots both on film and video, to pay the bills. To date I have shot well over 5000 TV commercials, good and bad, big and small.

 

[Fintan]

I'm going to be sitting on the sidelines in this group because I've very little experience with cine.

I do however, and am a little embarrassed to say, have a nice Super8 Braun Nizo 6080 which has a crystal sync module and my ultimate aim is to make some music videos and some silent 'installations'

I look forward to being inspired by you guys

Fintan

 

[tim_walls]

I'm in a similar position to Fintan!

I have a Braun Nizo Professional and a few rolls of Ektachrome 64T, but I've not yet used it in anger. This is partly because I haven't really picked up any camera in anger for the last 3 months (moving house == life in chaos,) but also because I really want to be in a position to develop my own film*.

That means getting the plumbing & water heater in my new darkroom sorted so I can start devving E6 again. And getting hold of a tank for 8mm, of course.

Inspiration definitely gratefully accepted, though!


* not because I'm planning on shooting porno, because it's outrageously expensive commercially .

 

[ic-racer]

Link to my Bolex thread : (there was a url link here which no longer exists)

 

[Alex Hawley]

Thanks for starting this group David. I'm just lurking about on film making so far. No equipment or anything yet.

 

[kraker]

I've been interested in giving super8 a try for some time now. Not that I have any big plans to film anything *useful*... It's more about giving it a try and having fun while doing so.

As for equipment, it's simple, but I hope it will serve the purpose. Found a simple Yashica 40K last week for EUR 1,50; motor works, just have to get a 1.35V converter (step 1: borrow one from a friend) to see if the metering works as well. Then get some film and give it a try.

So, there's my EUR 0,02 for joining this group.

 

[Greg McIntyre]

Hi. I have a box of 8 and Super 8 colour film but no projector to look at it. Is it possible to buy a new projector? Thanks.

 

[nick mulder]

Hello all,

I have a few Bolexes throwing round back home - Super16 EL, Super16 SB, RX4, lots of mutilated older models (intervalometer conversions) - all the lovely Switar-Presets except the 50mm - Hugy-Fot underwater housing that doubles as a blimp - Lomo tanks for reversal processing - about 70,000' and counting of various black and white 16mm stocks in the freezer ready for a few shorts...

Haven't played cine for a while as current fascination is ULF and Collodion and digital cine work (I own an EX1) but will get back into 16mm sooner or later - pretty much once a really nice idea (feature) or three (shorts, music vids) for all that stock comes about

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

Good to see a little more activity in this group. Welcome!

 

[hrst]

Hello,

I just noticed this group and joined instantly.

I specially interested in motion picture film just a few years ago. I've "always" been a video shooter, thus the film is quite a new thing to me, but it's so fascinating.......

I use a 16mm Canon Scoopic camera. In addition, I have bought a non-functional Bealieu which I "fixed" by changing the motor. It has quite low and unstable speed due to this but I have tried it on animation work.

I've been undertaking a massive project of building my own continuous 8/16mm cine lab for processes ECN-2, ECP-2 and E6. I just scrapped the version I had been building for two years and started over again, now with much more experience and know-how, I hope. My New Year's resolution is to really finish the lab this year. Then, my ambitious vision is to make a contact printer and produce analog prints from camera negatives.

 

[Ektagraphic]

I need to jump back into Cine. Great stuff. Love my 8mm Canons! I just need to find time

 

[Europan]

Friends, I'm perhaps a little excentric within ACUG because I've been a professional, run a motion-picture black-and-white film laboratory from 1999 to 2008. I have processed almost everything in black-white, Fomapan R practically daily, then the Eastman-Kodak products, russian stocks, Agfa-Scala, Orwo, Ilford, old old Gevapan found in a camera here or Fuji Acros for a photographer there. Been the first to use Gigabitfilm 40 for cinematographic purposes, in the 35 gauge from 2002 on, as 16-mm stock since 2005. I have an Eyemo, some Bolex, couple Revere 103, a spring Beaulieu R 16, a Folmer-Graflex 4" X 5", a Zeiss Ikonta 6 X 9, and an Olympus Pen F.

Now preparing for independence together with one of my former business partners, it shall be a mechanic workshop and a lab, later. Being a mechanic I want to built protoypes myself, I aim at motion-picture film equipment. Maybe that some day our products become catchy. The perfect camera has yet to be built.

 

[Marco Gilardetti]

I wonder how is it that only today I noticed the existence of this group. Was it hidden to non-subscribers before, perhaps?

Anyhow, I'm into double-8mm cine since the mid eighties, when I was first presented with an old and simple, but working, Bolex Paillard movie camera. I have never quit since then and have never changed format as cine is preminently "having fun" for me and I don't even think of reaching the level of accuracy to which I tend in still photography.

Lately I have upgrated to a more sophisticated Bolex Paillard D8 with 3-lens revolving turret (what a nice piece of camera indeed!), and have finally taken the step into fully developing and cutting B/W film all on my own, thanks to the films and kits made by Foma.

For colour, I usually buy the develop-by-mail films by Kahl Germany. Quality is unfortunately only so and so, but they remind me of the good old days when Kodachrome was still alive and I used to run to the mailbox every morning to see if the postman had brought my film back.

Let's keep in touch!

 

[siltec]

I have just found this group. Not sure how I missed APUG in the past.

Been into home movies for around 45 years. Still have the original Russian Quarz. It still works, which is more than can be said for some newer electric machines using Super 8!

Still got a few films in the fridge. Foma, cine-x in standard 8. A couple of Kodak S8 bw cartridges and a couple of single 8 cartridges.

Quite a few camera. As the rise of video reduced the price of old clockwork Bolex and B&H cameras I now have a few that I could never have afforded when they were new.

Posted a few films on YouTube and on my own web site at http://www.siltec.co.uk where there also links to YouTube.

I'm a hi-tec/lo-tec guy so happy to use film and video.

Wondering if I now have my five posts to allow links - although I included a link in my first post and no notice - weird.

Keep Winding.

 

[SkipA]

I also just found this group. I'm not a cinematographer by any stretch, but I do have a number of cameras and I enjoy using them from time to time. I have a couple of Bolex 16mm cameras, a Bolex H8, a couple of Bolex K2's, an Elmo 1012S-XL, a Beaulieu 6008S, Russian Quarz DS8, Russian Quarz Super 8 clockwork camera, and an Auricon Pro 600 16mm camera. Plus a few others that don't work. It's been a few years since I've used any of them, but discovering this group has got me to thinking about shooting some more cine film.

 

[cmacd123]

Just found this group while looking for something else - ain't it aways the way.

I first became interested in 16mm film when a relative loaded our family (basicaly me) an old at the time Victor Animatograph 40, I must have been 9 or ten.

I loved to play with the projectors in High school, (early 1970 era)

In the 1980's I fell into the lure of eastman colour short ends processed as cheep slides

Flash forward to the invention of E-bay, and low and behold I could buy a 16mm projector (or 5) and sure enough there were Cameras, A DeVry, A Victor, and a B&H Filmo. - and low and behold, the world wide wait let me find a lab or two in Toronto (Now down to one) who would process B&W reversal, or even make a real Movie print from Eastman Colour Negative in 16mm. My Movie making has been a bit sporadic, I have to really plan to have something of interest when 3 -6 minutes of film is a 50-100 buck project.