I've built a number of special purpose film scanners (mostly for some type of restoration project) It is very similar to the old days of slide copying. You are basically re-photographing a photograph that has a transparency component. So you need to think about all the elements in the image chain:
- the back light source (color temperature, field evenness, intensity)
- film carrier, needs to be in some type of rig that is holding the film flat and parallel to the camera's sensor
- optics of the imager
- the imager/sensor itself. (area array sensors make life easier, but are more costly)
- the image processing routines of the scanning software
The scanner is essentially an analog device and each element in the chain is important.
Here is an interesting open source project:
Kinograph v0.1 - DIY Film Scanner/Telecine - Machine Assembly