From: Jeffrey Scher (email suppressed)
Date: Fri May 09 2008 - 06:31:37 PDT
Hey Greg,
Pip wrote about my Auricon experiments. It's true, you can do amazing
stuff with an Auricon. The one I used takes hundred foot daylight
spools internally and has a 400 mag on top. By putting the raw stock
in the camera and the print/shoot through material in the mag you can
run both stocks through the camera at the same time with incredible
registration. It might have to do with the unique Auricon
registration system, a row of beveled "gemstones" that fit the perfs
as they go by under the pressure plate. I think these cameras are
rather amazing. The only rub is that the motor only runs at 24 fps.
But then you can shoot live action with bi-pack. Ah, think of the
possibilities. I've also used it as a printer, doing multiple passes
on the same film with different starting points.
You can do similar things with a Mitchel camera and have more motor
choices, but the best bipack camera I ever used was an Oxberry Pro.
It takes a bi-pack magazine and the registration is flawless. Natch,
this is a dedicated animation camera and as big as they come. They
are getting harder and harder to find. I made this film with an Ox.
http://scher.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/11/06/yours/
I have heard that the Kodak pro (I think that's what it was called-
not to be confused with the Cine-special or K-100) also had a bi-pack
mag. I've only seen this camera once, and it was on
an animation stand, but it was very impressive. I believe it could
shoot bi-pack at different speeds too.
I experimented with Bell and Howells (using a mag and internal load
combo) but only succeeding in making long accordions out of the
stock. Bolex too failed to keep the loop and would jam up.
Oh yeah, in 35mm the legendary Bell and Howell 2709's do great bi-
pack work too. Although you need the bi-pack magazine.
Oh, and there's also the Century Duplikin, you can bipack it too, but
you have to shoot frame at a time and it gets messy quick. I shaved
the registration pin off mine in an attempt to find a short cut, but
didn't take it very far experiment wise before shelving the idea.
Best of luck
Jeff Scher
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For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.