This is topic 16mm on a 35mm Tower??? in forum Film Handlers' Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.


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Posted by Michael Brown (Member # 890) on 03-27-2003, 01:33 PM:
 
I see in the photo section that someone runs 16mm from a 35mm platter. But how about 16mm from my existing 35mm tower. Is it just too much of a wacky and crazy idea?
 
Posted by Per Hauberg (Member # 529) on 03-27-2003, 01:36 PM:
 
I'm certainly not going to try it with one of my own prints. Those perfs are small and delicate - and there is only one raw of them... [Wink]

p
 
Posted by Sam Hunter (Member # 1119) on 03-27-2003, 01:40 PM:
 
If you can reduce the tension you may be able to get away with it.

By the way why are you purple?
 
Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 03-27-2003, 02:03 PM:
 
Why would you need to do that in the first place? Virtually every 16mm projector capable of being used in a cinema has 6,000 foot spool arms anyway, which is enough for all but the hardest core Bollywood. OK, some projectors designed for classroom use have a 1,600 foot or 2,000 foot limit, but the halogen lamps in those would surely be too dim for use in a full-size auditorium.
 
Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 03-27-2003, 04:03 PM:
 
Same wrote:

quote:

By the way why are you purple?
It's probably just an old Eastmancolor photo.

Leo wrote:

quote:
Why would you need to do that in the first place? Virtually every 16mm projector capable of being used in a cinema has 6,000 foot spool arms anyway, which is enough for all but the hardest core Bollywood. OK, some projectors designed for classroom use have a 1,600 foot or 2,000 foot limit, but the halogen lamps in those would surely be too dim for use in a full-size auditorium.
The only place I have seen a halogen projector used in a cinema, apart from a Pathescope 9.5 thing in MOMI with a picture about half a metre wide, was in screen 2 at the Picture House, York; it was used for some of the BTF material they ran there. It doesn't look good, particularly since about two-thirds of the programme was on 35mm, and the difference is very great. They also had to use a much smaller picture.

The picture is not very bright, and the colour is way off, but if it is that or nothing, then you can get away with it. I hope they don't try it in screen one, as part of a programme containing 70mm, that really would look bad. I haven't managed to get to any of their 70mm shows yet, I hope the do some more.

If you need to use a 16mm portable in a cinema, the old Bell and Howell 666 isn't too bad, it's brighter than a similar sized xenon machine, and, if the lamp isn't getting past its best, can look reasonable. They use one when they need 16mm in the Ahscroft Theatre, Croydon when they need 16mm, and that's quite a large screen, and I have used my ones in various places. A proper fixed xenon or carbon 16mm machine certainly looks better though.
 
Posted by Philippe Laude (Member # 79) on 03-28-2003, 02:43 AM:
 
Michael Purple,

I think if you want to run 16mm on a tower you should change your rollers and use rollers designed for 16mm, like the ones used on the Eiki LPP (long play pedestal), for instance. There has been some posting on this LPP recently.
You should also lower the tension, like someone already said here. On my tower (you'll see pictures under Philippe Laude's private screening room), you get this only by slowing down a little the rotation speed of the motor (turning the knob to the left).

Philippe
 
Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 03-28-2003, 03:03 AM:
 
quote:
I hope they don't try it in screen one, as part of a programme containing 70mm, that really would look bad. I haven't managed to get to any of their 70mm shows yet, I hope the do some more.
Darren and I did try it once when I was still working there - not in a public show, I hasten to add - and it looked pretty murky! With a zoom lens we managed to fill the screen in 1:1.38 using the Hell & Bowell portable. BTW, it wasn't even halogen; that machine still had its original tungsten lamp in it.

If the train spotter show you're remembering was the one in summer 2000, I think I probably showed it. There was one promotional film trying to drum up the tourist trade in Scarborough which had gone as pink as Michael's picture, another one about York which was very nice, crisp b/w print if I remember correctly and a couple of 16mm things.

I'd love to see that 1980s (I think) film in which a train was deliberately smashed into a nuclear waste container at 100mph in an attempt to demonstrate that transporting nuclear waste by rail was safe. The nuclear flask was intact but as for the train... bang went their no-claims bonus! After this morning's mauling at the hands of Grim Never-Ending Ripoff (all the Virgins were on strike, ergo standing room only) images of trains being violently destroyed would bring a smile to my face!
 
Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 03-28-2003, 07:07 AM:
 
Leo wrote:

quote:

Darren and I did try it once when I was still working there - not in a public show, I hasten to add - and it looked pretty murky! With a zoom lens we managed to fill the screen in 1:1.38 using the Hell & Bowell portable. BTW, it wasn't even halogen; that machine still had its original tungsten lamp in it.
The eyes do adjust to some extent, but switching mid show from the 35mm dosn't look good, they are doing another one of those shows soon, I don't know if there will be any 16mm in it though. If they are going to do this as a regular thing, couldn't they get a xenon machine from somewhere, or even borrow one, or isn't there room in the box? As an alternative, they could do a MOMI act, and run something on a Pathescope 9.5mm first, then the 16mm would look absolutely brilliant by comparison. [Smile]

I ran some 16mm in a cinema in Paris, using one of my 609s, put bigger carbons in it, wired it into the cinemas main rectifier, and ran it at about twice the normal current, and it looked great. I've never known nything as steady as the old style Bell and Howell mech. The problem is that you need a very good print if it is going to look good on a big screen, and most 16mm prints are not good.

NFT1 get quite a good picture from 16mm, do you know what lamps they are running in their machines?

I won't be at the next show, Mr. Farrows charter train is fully booked, and the normal fare is just too expensive. I haven't managed to get up to a 70mm show yet either, do you know if they have any more planned? Give my regards to Darren.

By the way, have you ever looked at some of the early Pathescope 9.5mm prints? The quality of some of them is very good indeed, it's a pity the projectors weren't better.

quote:

If the train spotter show you're remembering was the one in summer 2000, I think I probably showed it. There was one promotional film trying to drum up the tourist trade in Scarborough which had gone as pink as Michael's picture, another one about York which was very nice, crisp b/w print if I remember correctly and a couple of 16mm things.
I probably was at that one, was the York film 'This is York'? Most of the others I can think of, 'Yorkshire sands', 'North to the Dales' etc. are colour. I'm a fan of the BTF films, especially the older, black and white material. It's a great record of life in Britain fifty years ago, and how different things were then!

Some of the early BTF colour productions were made before Eastmancolor stock was widely available, and were shot on 16mm Kodachrome commercial, blown up, and Technicolor matricies made. The quality varied, some were much better than others. 'Yorkshire Sands' was one of the not so good ones. I think they made at least one film in 3-strip, but I can't remember the title. Later they used Eastmancolor, then switched to 16mm, and finally video, before they closed down. Most of the later films were for staff training etc. rather than public consumption, hence the move away from 35mm, and the subject matter was less interesting. They won a number of awards for their films, including an Oscar, but I still think most of the best stuff was made in the first ten years.

Some of the very early films were shot on old Newman Sinclair 'square box' cameras, and the picture quality is very good.

quote:

I'd love to see that 1980s (I think) film in which a train was deliberately smashed into a nuclear waste container at 100mph in an attempt to demonstrate that transporting nuclear waste by rail was safe. The nuclear flask was intact but as for the train... bang went their no-claims bonus! After this morning's mauling at the hands of Grim Never-Ending Ripoff (all the Virgins were on strike, ergo standing room only) images of trains being violently destroyed would bring a smile to my face!
It is available for download from somewhere on the Internet, but I can't remember the URL; do a search for it.
 
Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 03-28-2003, 07:34 AM:
 
quote:
If they are going to do this as a regular thing, couldn't they get a xenon machine from somewhere, or even borrow one, or isn't there room in the box?
There is a spare porthole for video and slide projectors in screen 1: it's between the left projector and the platter. If you're thinking along the lines of a Fumeo HL3000 or other full-sized beastie, I think it would be a squeeze to get one in. It would certainly have to be removed before any more 35mm or 70mm could be shown from the platter, because anything tall in that spot would foul the film path.

quote:
NFT1 get quite a good picture from 16mm, do you know what lamps they are running in their machines?
The machines were full-sized Eikis. I can't remember what sort of lamps were in there if indeed I ever knew. Those machines only racked up 100 hours a year or so (probably even less now), so they've probably never been replaced in ages.

quote:
I won't be at the next show, Mr. Farrows charter train is fully booked, and the normal fare is just too expensive.
If you're prepared to book in advance and commit to travelling on specific trains, try looking at GNER's website for advance-booked discount fares. From York to London the cheapest ones I've had are £38 standard and £57 first, but you do need to book a long way in advance to get those. Availability on weekday mid-mornings and evenings is usually pretty good, but for obvious reasons the seats on Friday evening and Sunday trains tend to go pretty early.

The main drawback with these tickets is that if your train is delayed, you can't just get on the next one: the train has to be delayed by at least an hour in order for the restriction to be lifted. I've been caught by this (and suffered 90-minute plus delays) a few times. But given that the full-price unrestricted tickets are £152 standard and £210 first, it's a risk I'm willing to take unless I'm not able to commit to traveling on a specific date and time.

quote:
By the way, have you ever looked at some of the early Pathescope 9.5mm prints? The quality of some of them is very good indeed, it's a pity the projectors weren't better.
We've got quite a bit of 9.5mm - mainly reversal originals, including some lovely Dufaycolour - in the collection. I agree, most of the projectors around at the time are pretty awful. Believe it or not, there is a group of 9.5mm obsessives who still shoot on the format. They even manufacture their own camera stock, by slitting the perfs off 16mm and punching holes in the middle! Here is a link to their website.

A still from one of our Dufaycolour 9.5mm elements can be found on our website, here, right at the bottom of the page.
 
Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 03-28-2003, 08:09 AM:
 
quote:
It's probably just an old Eastmancolor photo.
I suspect that Mr. Brown and Kodak low fade print film were born at about the same time (the early 1980's), so neither should have significant fading. [Big Grin]

http://www.kodak.com/country/US/en/motion/about/chrono4.shtml

http://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/about/chrono3.shtml
 
Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 03-28-2003, 09:09 AM:
 
Leo,

Even the cheapest fare you quote is at least 50% more than a typical Hertfordshire Railtours fare for that journey, and you get nice comfortable Mk.1 stock. It really is a bargain, that's probably why they tend to sell out. The railtours to avoid are the ones with a particular class of locomotice on the front - 'Farewell to the class xxx' sort of thing, they tend to attract drunken morons, but Hertfordshire tend not to run that sort of thing these days.

I used to be in Group 9.5, somebody in France was buying unperforated Fuji slide film, perforating and slitting it, and a man in Southampton was distributing it over here, you could get short lengths, 7 metres I think, for loading into P or H type chargers, 15 metres for loading into Webo magazines, 15 or 30 metre spools, or a full 100 foot roll, which was just over £100 pounds about four years ago.

Somebody else was converting Elf 16mm projectors to 9.5, but they still needed the track on the right, you could just about put a half twist in the film between the gate and the sound head.

Walton used to release 9.5mm colour package films, but they weren't proper 9.5, they were 16mm prints, reperforated with 9.5 perfs at the same pitch as 16mm ones, i.e. slightly longer than normal, end the edges slit off, so part of the picture was missing. They could slit an equal amount of each edge, for silent films, or more from one edge than the other leaving half the width of the track on the print, which as long as it wasn't unilateral, (most were V.D.) would still play. No, I'm really not joking! The track was on the right of course whereas proper 9.5 sound was more often on the left, but could be found on either side. A lot of the 9.5mm tracks were optical reductions from 35mm, some quite good, some wery poor, not helped by the fact that the position on the print varied considerably; the projector really need an adjustable sound head; and some of the tracks were negatives!

The Group 9.5 meetings in Pimlico were quite good, all sorts of stuff used to get shown, not just on 9.5, but on standard 8, Super 8, 16mm, 17.5mm, 28mm and 35 mm as well.

Some of the stuff on your site looks quite interesting, I used to have a lot of the 'Mining Review' films, most on 16mm, but a couple on 35.
 
Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 03-28-2003, 11:03 AM:
 
quote:
...and a man in Southampton was distributing it over here...
If you mean Graham Newnham, we get our 9.5mm consumables (spacing, leaders and cores mainly) from him. The Eiki projector conversions come from a company called Buckingham Film Services (believe it or not, based in Buckingham!); AFAIK, they don't have a website. We have a machine on order which, when it materialises (the order was placed in December 2001 so I've stopped holding my breath), is going straight to a retired engineer I know to be fitted with the CCD assembly currently in the Pathé machine we use for telecine at the moment. It's pretty brutal to the film, especially shrunken film, so I'll be glad to be rid of it. We're in the very fortunate position of not having any 9.5mm sound elements, though sooner or later we're bound to have to face that headache.

quote:
The railtours to avoid are the ones with a particular class of locomotice on the front - 'Farewell to the class xxx' sort of thing, they tend to attract drunken morons...
You don't need to go on a train enthusiasts' special to enjoy the company of drunken morons! Just try any evening rush hour commute from Newcastle to York. Actually, the train spotters you tend to see on Newcastle station are a pretty placid bunch, usually camped on deck chairs at the end of the platform with Thermos flasks (I'd be very surprised if they contained anything alcoholic ). They have all the latest gear, though - laptops, digital cameras, PDUs, mobile 'phones, the works. If the CIA or MI5 ever find themselves short-staffed, they could do worse than recruit some of that lot!

quote:
I suspect that Mr. Brown and Kodak low fade print film were born at about the same time (the early 1980's), so neither should have significant fading.
...and the Dufay film referred to above was also taken by a Mr. Brown who was also able to avoid significant fading! Actually, we have some Kodachrome I taken by him on the pre-1938 stock and needless to say, it's gone totally pink. But most of his '30s colour footage is on Dufay, and the colour balance has survived excellently. This example is from September 1934.
-
 
Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 03-28-2003, 11:08 AM:
 
Putting the dye-forming couplers in the film had early technical challenges, including image stability. But Kodak's technology has certainly evolved to offer the remarkable image quality and image stability found in today's motion picture films. [Cool]
 
Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 03-28-2003, 11:19 AM:
 
...and Dufay proved almost impossible to use in a negative-positive system (I believe there was one Dufay feature film made in '38 or '39, but cannot remember what it was or how widely it was shown), hence the fact that it was mainly restricted to the home movie market. But for the '34 to '38 period, it's probably the most durable three-colour subtractive system, IMHO.
 
Posted by Darren Briggs (Member # 1071) on 03-29-2003, 04:11 AM:
 
Stephen,
The only reasons we had to show 16mm tht year here in York was becasue we were expecting a 35mm print but had to screen a 16mm with a projector i brought in from hom ejust to get the films show. If we were doing a all 16mm show we have a few Xenon machines within the company and we would bring one to York to use.
70mm wise we are screening Raiders tonight and tomorow, as im sat here its just running through at the moment.
'Hello Dolly' on the 18th May and lots more.
We currently have 60 cases of the stuff we just picked up to inspect from Perivale. So lots more 70mm show coming, One every 6 weeks. Look out for promotions we hope to be doing late this year! Also we are scrrening 70 at the new Picturehouse in Liverpool and I went to show Lawrence last Sunday there. We had Alex Cox the director give a little talk in the intermission and my projection team did a 'Whats 70mm?' presentation before the show.
I am trying to get a 70mm in York website and email newsletter sorted in the very near future which i can put you on.

Hope you can make a show or two soon,

Darren
 
Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 03-29-2003, 05:01 AM:
 
Darren - if you want a hand with webshites I might be persuded in exchange for beverage or two. I recently had to do one for the archive because having one was a condition for one of our funders for next year. So, armed only with a £5.99 'HMTL for Beginners' job, I went to work!
 
Posted by Per Hauberg (Member # 529) on 03-29-2003, 06:09 AM:
 
Hey, Darren

Please give a word or two about print condition on "Raiders"

Per [eyes]
 
Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 03-29-2003, 02:09 PM:
 
Leo wrote, about Dufay:

quote:

it's probably the most durable three-colour subtractive system
Leo, Dufay is additive, unless they also produced a subtractive version which I haven't seen.

I find the reseau rather distracting on 9.5 and 16mm Dufay, but the colour can be good,

I did once see some 35mm, material, I'm not sure whether it was neg-pos, or pos-pos reversal, I assume it wasn't original camera material, It looked very good, but I've no idea how they got the reseau to line up on the print; it must have taken some doing.

Another impressive colour process I saw was a brief demonstration of a Fox lenticular process given by Grant Lobban. It was similar to the original Kodacolor, and used a stripe filter on the lens.

There's a problem with early colour, while a modern chromogenic copy can look good, it often looks different to the original, and original nitrate materials are not going to last forever, and are now getting very difficult to show. I did get to see just a minute or so of cemented technicolour recently.

You probably could run 16mm Dufay on a 35mm tower, but I wouldn't really recommend it. (desparately trying to keep on topic for the thread [Smile] )
 
Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 03-30-2003, 07:00 AM:
 
quote:
Leo, Dufay is additive, unless they also produced a subtractive version which I haven't seen.
In the context of comparing it with Kodachrome, I was referring to the subtractive system. AFAIK, it didn't work very well, hence its use on only one feature. I'll look up my notes on this at work tomorrow.

Raiders print condition: it's gone a bit pink, just enough to be a little bit distracting, IMHO, but nothing like as bad as some Eastman prints from the '60s and '70s. The odd tramline for a minute or two in places and the reel ends are a bit tatty for around 50-100 feet around each join, but otherwise in very good physical condition. Soundtrack lovely, very clear HF and sharp channel separation.
 
Posted by Darren Briggs (Member # 1071) on 03-30-2003, 03:24 PM:
 
Per,
Print contidion of Raiders.
Colour has started to fade pink a touch, there is a tram line on the right hand side of the image near the edge, and the odd tramline comes and goes, but compared to the 35mm prints available in the UK, the 70mm is immaculate.
SOund is amazing, no drop out's and is a great example of why its a good idea to blow 35mm up to 70mm for the amazing imapct of 70mm un-compressed sound.

Late show on Sat sold out and the sunday matinee was over half full.

Darren
 




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