Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Advice needed on film to video transfer

This is topic Advice needed on film to video transfer in forum Film-Yak at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Daniel Fuentz (Member # 1684) on 05-21-2003, 07:07 AM:

My situation is this: I have an early 80's policy trailer on 35mm film that I would love to get on videotape, since I have no access to a projector. Most of the places I found through a search only do 8/16 mm film, and the ones that did 35mm were WAY out of my price range. Is there somewhere I could have this sent that would do it affordibly, or do I just have to be happy with holding it up to the light? [Big Grin]

Also, would there be any copyright issues involved? It's for "Festival Enterprises", which was eventually brought under the same ownership as Mann Theatres. Would I have to get permission from them in order to have it put on tape? (I don't want to sell or distribute it, I just want to SEE the darn thing!!)

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 05-21-2003, 08:49 AM:

Station youself outside a theatre, and when you see a film pirate walking in with a camcorder... [Big Grin]

Seriously, Kodak has a directory of film-to-video transfer facilities on its website:

http://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/industry/dyn_TH.shtml

Posted by Ray Bernardi (Member # 1615) on 05-21-2003, 08:55 AM:

Off topic I know but worth telling....

John - Don't laugh. I had someone try to take a video cam into Matrix the other night. I told them I'd hold onto it for them during the show and they didn't want to give it to me. I asked them to wait a minute, I refunded their tickets and they were asked to leave the theatre. Suddenly I was able to "store" the camera during the show if I wanted to, but as I explained, your tickets just got sold to someone else. You'll need to try for a different show and don't ever bring a video cam here again, I'll call the police.

The "kids" that tried this were in their early twenties it seemed to me.

I'll be damned if anyone is going to bootleg out of my theatre. Not gonna happen.

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 05-21-2003, 09:02 AM:

Ray: I'm NOT laughing. Film piracy IS a real problem that can happen at anyone's theatre. I'd hate to have to explain to the FBI and distributors why the MPAA tracked a pirated video to a print shown in my theatre:

http://www.infocusmag.com/02December/builtby.htm

http://www.mpaa.org/anti-piracy/

http://www.mpaa.org/anti-piracy/press/2003/2003_02_13.pdf

Next time, take names, there may be a reward:

http://www.mpaa.org/anti-piracy/contact/index.htm

At the very least, the FBI or MPAA Anti-Piracy office might like to contact your would-be film pirates. [evil]

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 05-21-2003, 11:44 AM:

I don't think you'll find any reputable post house that would do a film to tape transfer of something that's obviously copyrighted by someone other than the customer, unless you can prove to them that you have permission to do the transfer (even though there is little chance that the copyright owner would care in this case). They do this to protect themselves, just as Kinkos won't xerox copyrighted books, etc. unless the customer either owns the rights or shows proof that the copyright owner permits reproduction (though, of course, at Kinkos, there are self-service machines where you can copy whatever you want, at your own risk).

Also, Rank telecine machines don't have optical soundheads, so you'd have to pay to have the optical track transferred to mag and then have an interlock transfer done. None of this would be cheap.

I'd suggest making friends with either a local film collector who has his own equipment or a manager or projectionist at a local theatre (try to find a small independent venue where the people actually care about film) and borrow a video camera and tripod to record the on-screen image. There will be flicker in the picture, but it shouldn't be a big deal if it's just for your personal amusement.

Posted by Sean Weitzel (Member # 244) on 05-21-2003, 11:53 AM:

I've had very good luck with these folks. I've had many of my early policy trailers and some feature trailers transferred with no questions asked. They do a wet-gate transfer to whatever tape format you want.

http://www.thetransferstation.com/

Posted by Daryl C. W. O'Shea (Member # 1303) on 05-21-2003, 11:53 AM:

Got a flatbed scanner and a lot of spare time? [Smile]

Don't you work at a television station? Any telecines stuck in storage somewhere?

Posted by Daniel Fuentz (Member # 1684) on 05-21-2003, 05:51 PM:

Thanks for all the assistance, everybody!

Nope, there's no telecine stuff left at any station here in town. If we need to get something off the film we still have, they just shoot it on the wall with the one 16mm projector left and they shoot it with one of the news cameras. However, since it's 16mm that's of no help to me. [Frown]

Posted by Bruce McGee (Member # 131) on 05-21-2003, 08:48 PM:

Wow. Film shot on the wall and copied with a camera.

I used to work at a station that ran all their film on the air that way. Looked horrible, but at least they were on the air.

After they made some real money, they got an RCA TK-28. Wow.

ON TOPIC: Crawford Communications in Atlanta GA does some nice 35mm work.

Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 05-23-2003, 12:47 PM:

Scott,

As mentioned in a copyright thread I started a couple of weeks ago, Kinkos will also not copy professional photographs after they faced and lost a litigation initiated by the Professional Photographers of America when they were copying our photographs without permission.

-Claude

Posted by Don E. Nelson (Member # 1049) on 05-23-2003, 03:42 PM:

................seems like people in the Movie Biz are now bootlegging their own films. I saw a perfect copy of X-Men 2, and LOTR-The Two Towers, the other night at a friends house. It was widescreen and had excellent sound, no extras of course.
The guy said it cost him 10 bucks, and he got it off the internet.
Four times during the film, at the bottom of the screen, it said," For your consideration" .....it stayed on the screen for 10 seconds and then was gone.
He said the master was a DVD SCREENER DIRECTLY FROM THE STUDIO .
Obviously these are the DVD discs sent to the Acdemy members so they can vote on the nominated films.
He said he could get any newly released film on DVD, even some before they are released to the theater.
Sounds like Jack Valenti needs to have a good "takin' to" .......his academy members about bootlegging, this is much too easy!
I always thought the uniqueness of a bootleg tape was its lower recording quality and post production or lack there of, ( like my bootleg video copy of several Springsteen concerts I got back in 1980, with the sound mix coming right off the main mixing board,it was a little raw but this was before MTV) but these DVD's boots are 1st generation copies off the studio screener. Can't get much better than that.
What do you think will happen when we go 50% digital projection in the next 5-7 years and the movies are beamed down to the theaters, ? Somebody better figure out now what do with those pirates and bootleggers out there.
...can you say "encryption".

[dlp]

Posted by Daryl C. W. O'Shea (Member # 1303) on 05-24-2003, 01:11 AM:

If I tried real hard, I could probably say 'decryption' too! Not that I would ever bother, or want to.

Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 05-24-2003, 02:08 AM:

The real "stickler" would be if Mann (or whoever) gave you written permission to do so. If they did, then it is just a matter of whether or not you wanted to invest in what you wanted to do and still maintain the quality. If Mann says "NO", that's exactly what they mean. That's how I would read it.

But beware...

I ran across something similar to this....we had some 35mm ads made about a video store we had in one of our theatres. Even though we had them done, the company that did them would not redo them because of some copyright snafu. I never heard of the outcome, as Plitt bought us out before it was resolved.