Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Is it possible to run a long loop (several minutes) without special equipment?

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Posted by Justin Hamaker (Member # 2165) on 10-29-2008, 08:49 PM:

I'm wondering if it's possible to run a loop thats 2-3 minutes without any special equipment. Is there a way to do it using a Christie AW3 platter? The only thing I can come up with is using a series of rollers much as you would when interlocking. Unfortunately I don't have any interlocking equipment - no collector, no portable rollers.

For what it's worth. This is related to the thread about using a digital projector at our drive-in. We have someone that wants to shoot something at our drive-in and they want something projected on screen while they are shooting.

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 10-29-2008, 08:56 PM:

Can you make a shorter loop that would go from the top roller, through the machine, down to the lower roller of the platter, through the lower roller of the traveller, though the takeup arm roller and back to the roller traveller and back up to the top roller?

It'll look like a large triangle.

Use a good length of trailer in doing this.

-Monte

Posted by John Wilson (Member # 269) on 10-29-2008, 09:02 PM:

You can, but you'll need to get some rollers unless damaging the loop isn't a problem. That's a lot of time for a loop though...can it be shorter?

As a guide, check out this video . It shows a journey of film running 3 minutes and 10 seconds. It shows that at 3 minutes you're going to need a lot of rollers...and hopefully a pretty big booth.

A smaller loop (like one minute) would be much more managable and likely do-able including the rollers on your platter. At IMAX years ago, we had a 45 second commercial that ran every hour on the hour but they only gave us one print. I set up the machine so it played the loop negating a re-thread every time. I only needed the platter and from memory two more rollers strategically placed to accomodate the length

Posted by John Hawkinson (Member # 1135) on 10-29-2008, 10:28 PM:

You can also have someone trying to manage it in real-time, ideally wearing cotton gloves. Depending on how replacable the loop is, it's the quick-and-dirty solution.

Try to keep it off the floor, e.g. in a cardbord box or whatever...

--jhawk

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 10-30-2008, 03:31 PM:

What type of equipment is being used to "shoot" the drive-in? If it's videotape, the film projector won't sync with a standard NTSC video camera (the image will flicker). In order to have the image not flicker, you would need to do one of the following: a) shoot film at 24fps; b) shoot 24p video; c) run the film projector at 30fps or 15fps (or some other multiple of 30); or d) use a 5-blade shutter on the film projector at 24fps.

Still photographs will be fine if the shutter speed is 1/30th or slower.

This may or may not be an issue for you.

Posted by Justin Hamaker (Member # 2165) on 10-31-2008, 01:45 AM:

This is a question I really don't know the answer to. We were approached by the group who wants to do the filming and they seem to be professional documentary film makers so I'm going to assume they thought through the frame rate issue - but I do have a hunch they are going to be shooting in PAL rather than NTSC.

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 10-31-2008, 03:49 AM:

quote: Justin Hamaker
but I do have a hunch they are going to be shooting in PAL rather than NTSC.

The same thing applies, but it might be even worse. Since with PAL the difference in frame ratesis much less, 1 fps rather than 5.97, the flicker will be much slower. With interlaced video, and a two-blade projector shutter I think you'd probably get a 2 Hz. flicker, which would be very annoying, whereas with NTSC you'd probably get a 11.94 Hz. flicker, which they might think gave it a 'film' look.

Posted by Louis Bornwasser (Member # 3063) on 10-31-2008, 09:50 AM:

The long loop: use the roller on the makeup table; set it outside if needed. I run 100 ft loops this way for testing. Louis

Posted by Kenneth Wuepper (Member # 1174) on 10-31-2008, 10:02 AM:

Stephen,

We had the local TV station do a feature on our Art Films. They wanted to see the Carbon arc lamps and then they wanted to see the projectionist's view through the booth port. There was a really bad shutter bar in the picture on their camera. So I put the V-10 into 30FPS mode and the bar vanished. Looked pretty good on the evening news. (they didn't care about the sound)
KEN

KEN

Posted by Bill Gabel (Member # 1105) on 10-31-2008, 10:27 AM:

Watch out on what footage you are planning to put on the screen. Because of copyright image rights. They need to get a clearance for the footage used, even if it's a trailer. If they plan to show this film later, otherwise they and your company could get sued for not getting a rights clearance for the footage. Many documentry filmmaker film before getting the rights cleared.

Posted by Justin Hamaker (Member # 2165) on 10-31-2008, 07:41 PM:

Bill, I'm pretty sure this is their own material. My understanding is it's actually graphics rather than video.