The LONG and WINDING ROAD ..

xberk wrote on 3/9/2017, 10:53 PM

Couldn’t let this go quietly. I’ve been working on some old 16mm, doing frame-by-frame digital transfers with my RetroScan Universal. I had one roll where the splices kept coming apart. So I couldn’t do the transfer.

After about a month, I had rounded up all the necessary stuff, rewinds, cores, split reel, take up reel, splicing tape, splicing block, razor blade, some leader, and some 3/8” artist tape and set to work. It took me about 2 hours to do about 40 splices. Each representing what we use to call a “butt cut” or “straight cut”. Dissolves would require an optical effect (maybe a week or so to get it back from the lab). That’s another story. This was not actual editing with a moviola, just repairing the dried up splices. This was just the PICTURE. The sound (16mm mag) was another few hours with a similar number of splices.

Oh baby how far we have come on that LONG and WINDING ROAD.

Comments

ushere wrote on 3/10/2017, 12:00 AM

i remember doing it with 2" tape ;-(

JJKizak wrote on 3/10/2017, 10:47 AM

i remember doing it with 2" tape ;-(

I liked using the glue better.

JJK

JackW wrote on 3/10/2017, 1:53 PM

Brings back a memory of doing this in 1961, holed up in a San Francisco hotel room editing audio tape with a razor blade and splicing block for an Actor's Workshop production. Digital is a great improvement!

xberk wrote on 3/10/2017, 4:25 PM

Everything's better -- but amazingly there are still pockets of our youth who fancy themselves "filmmakers" in the old sense of the word and want to use actual FILM. I made a visit to Christy's Editorial in Burbank .. still in business .. movieolas for rent. Astonishing.

ushere wrote on 3/10/2017, 5:57 PM

i still have artist clients who insist i shoot medium format film for their artwork. doesn't matter to them that the slides are eventually scanned for reproduction, etc.,

that said, there is something nice about looking at a tranny (no, not that sort).

EricLNZ wrote on 3/10/2017, 6:50 PM

They are physical and stored in good conditions could still be around in hundreds of years. Somebody picking one up and holding it to the light can instantly see what it is. Whereas digital.........

ushere wrote on 3/10/2017, 8:01 PM

very true, can't argue with that at all - but you should see how some of these artists store them! dust / speckle remove in ps isn't enough, bit of wire wool might be better ;-)

xberk wrote on 3/10/2017, 9:45 PM

Can any of you old guys remember if 16mm Mag film could be recorded either as edge stripe or center stripe? I've got a reel of 16mm mag that is giving us a very weak and noisy transfer. The system we were using was apparently has mag heads set for edge striped mag. Any one know what I'm talking about?

JJKizak wrote on 3/12/2017, 10:57 AM

They are physical and stored in good conditions could still be around in hundreds of years. Somebody picking one up and holding it to the light can instantly see what it is. Whereas digital.........

After 35 years my 11,000 feet of 16mm color Kodachrome II and Ecktachrome MS film lost most of the color and I had to spend about 4500 dollars to have it professionally converted to Betacam SP tape. So I cannot agree with your assumption of how long it can last in the real world.

JJK

xberk wrote on 3/12/2017, 1:47 PM

I agree -- excepting I have about 800 feet of Kodachrome from 1945 that has survived nicely -- while I have some other 16mm from 1976 that has shifted way to the red. Storage conditions do matter.