From: Myron Ort (email suppressed)
Date: Tue Jul 15 2008 - 20:28:14 PDT
I hear you. I felt this way for years and still have lots of fun with
R8. In addition to a collection of cheap and reliable primitive
little R8 cameras (Keystone, Revere, B&H) I still have an early
Beaulieu R8 (reflex + variable shutter + Angenieux zoom...and it too
is a wind up !). Another rare item I have held onto all these years
is an R8 Moviscop viewer (believe it or not).
The Craig viewers are good too. Many of the MH Hot splicers were
convertible between 16mm and 8mm, eg. if you like to make cement
splices.
Myron Ort.
PS. I just remembered an elaborate "secret" (cement) splicing
technique (for single roll editing of original) that I stumbled onto
many years ago which involved first making a splice to the back of
black leader then flipping the film around and making another splice
to the second shot. This put a little black patch only over the
splice area of both shots, thus hiding the splice completely and not
being a problem at the printer (the black leader is never scraped).
Sounds impossible but it works. (eg. shot A and shot B are actually
not themselves overlapped, but only to the black leader, in both
cases to the back side of the black leader), thus it is never greater
than the two layers you have in a conventional "visible" splice.
Twice the work, but at that time it seemed well worth it. Maybe
someone out there can still find value in this little technique. Is
anyone still making cement splices??
(This was assuming you were not going for the "aesthetic involvement
with the seen splice" ala SB's then soon to be published discussion
of such.)
On Jul 15, 2008, at 5:21 PM, D. Mark Andrews wrote:
> I've been hesitating to respond to this post since I'm afraid I'll
> just get into rant mode, so let me say calmly: friends don't let
> friends buy super-8 cameras, they encourage them to buy regular-8
> cameras. Super 8 SUCKS!
>
> This point comes from a newbie to film. I'm currently editing my
> second film and shooting my third, so take everything I say with a
> grain of salt. But I truly wished I had done more research into
> this subject before starting out in small gauge filmmaking. Over
> the past 8 months I have been utterly frustrated with super-8
> cameras, projectors, processing, etc. and the significant decrease
> of funds in my bank account attests to it. It wasn't until I found
> a pristine Bolex B8L regular 8 camera for 20 bucks that I found
> jesus. Let me tell you why:
>
> Economics: Regular 8 (r8) is significantly less costly than Super 8
> (s8)
> * High quality cameras are more plentiful and less enticing to most
> filmmakers thereby keeping the costs down. I'm currently dedicated
> to Bolex D8Ls, three of them in fact. A sweet camera with a three
> lens turret, variable shutter, multiple fps settings, built in
> light meter, lap dissolve crank, pistol grip. I paid less then $50
> for two of them and just shy of $100 for another. They came with
> multiple lenses, filters, cable releases, and even a few rolls of
> 50 year old film. Both my B8Ls with everything mentioned here
> except the lap dissolve function cost less than $20 bucks
> * R8 film is less costly. I pay about $10 for BW and $16-18 for
> color (50ft)
> * Processing is either the same price or cheaper than s8, depending
> on the lab
> * R8 projectors are also plentiful and cheap. My current favorite
> is the Bolex M8. Have two, paid less than $40 for each. Sold a nice
> Keystone this morning on CraigsList for $20 ($15 more than I paid
> for it).
> * R8 film editors plentiful and I haven't paid more than $20 for
> any of them, a couple off CraigsList for $5 each
>
> Creative: Creative potential is significantly higher with R8
> (unless you can afford a $500-2000 S8 camera)
> * My second film is almost entirely double exposed. Easy in a R8
> camera, just run the film through twice. Nada for S8, even the high
> end cameras limit the number of frames you can do this with.
> * Manual aperture, fps, variable shutter etc. give me creative
> control. This is huge for me and will be for anyone who wants to
> control the look of their film rather than leave it up to
> happenstance.
> * Manual filters, rather then a built-in "daylight" filter let me
> change the look of my film--red, yellow, blue -- all good.
> * Fades are a breeze with r8. Even if you don't have a variable
> shutter, you can open and close your aperture for the same effect.
> * Lap dissolves
> * Don't split your film when processing and you can project your
> film as 16mm, 4 frames simultaneously
> * Etc.
>
> This post is getting long so I'll stop here, but this list could go
> on and on. In short, get your friend to buy a Bolex B8L (try to
> find one with variable shutter) or Bolex D8L. You'll get all the
> trappings of a high end super-8 for $50 bucks, most likely less.
>
> BTW, I would be remiss is I didn't mention the downsides to R8.
> * You have to wind the camera, most are not battery driven. I
> actually like this, but everyone doesn't. They continue to work in
> central american jungles and antarctica, however :-)
> * You get more image in terms of real estate on an 8mm frame of S8.
> Only in rare circumstances will this make any difference in the
> finished product.
>
> Mark
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jim Carlile [mailto:email suppressed]
> Sent: Tuesday, July 15, 2008 2:38 PM
> To: email suppressed
> Subject: Re: looking for super-8 camera in NYC
>
> DuAll Camera Repair-- most reliable but not cheap-- guaranteed
> though. All rebuilt before sale.
>
>
>
> Get the scoop on last night's hottest shows and the live music
> scene in your area - Check out TourTracker.com!
> __________________________________________________________________
> For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.
>
>
> __________________________________________________________________
> For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.
>
>
__________________________________________________________________
For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.