The Blog

The Last Kodachrome

2011-01-27T03:49:00.001-08:00

Wednesday, 26th January.So, my last 16mm Kodachrome film has just dropped onto the doormat. Quite an emotional event. It somehow feels rather like the first time that happened way back in the 1960s. And as exciting.Posted to Kansas quite early in December, I had been getting a little concerned about the outcome, as I'd particularly taken shots to match the colours of other Kodachrome footage in a

Stopping the Fog

2010-12-07T11:03:00.000-08:00

If you use movie film on spools have you ever been unable to find a shady spot for loading ? It happened to me a couple of summers ago, with just my own shadow for shade... Result: a big chunk of edge-fogging. Luckily most of the picture area was saved, but only just... if it had been Super-16 the outcome would have been far worse. Whoever first called them 'daylight' spools had his tongue

Printing Special Effects In-Camera

2010-11-16T12:03:00.000-08:00

I think maybe I should explain more about the step-printing gadget I showed you last time.I now feel a little guilty sawing up that elderly Kodak, but at the time it was about cheapness. Maybe guilty's the wrong word, as this gadget has proved itself alot over the last few years. You can use virtually any 16mm spool-loading camera, as long as it can be persuaded to run two strips of film through

New Life for 16mm Antiques

2010-11-08T10:31:00.000-08:00

16mm film has been around since 1923. Many of those early spool-loading movie cameras are in surprisingly good shape. Are they still OK to use ? Well, if you see one you fancy the first thing to check is the spring motor. It's likely that everything is siezed up after generations in somebody's attic. If you're handy with such things it may be worth relubricating. More often than not, though,

Little Britain

2010-10-24T03:26:00.000-07:00

Well... no Rob. Not exactly. I'm sure the real lady will turn up soon.--------------------------------------------------------------------Note: In 'How the West Was Won' wagon train attack, the women were stunt-men !

No Spitting !

2010-10-21T03:37:00.000-07:00

We were filming a short scene meant to be outside an Edwardian pub. The character drinking down the road did a very convincing drunken look, and he also spits down beside him. A man and young lady passes, and the composition and timing all seemed to look pretty good in the Bolex viewfinder, though it would have been nice to have had a video-assist. Unfortunately, when I viewed the rushes it

A Couple in the Bath

2010-10-03T04:53:00.000-07:00

Autumn again.... And even bathtime has its problems. Especially for this couple.FOOTnote. Why have they only got seven ? Aliens maybe.

Walker Evans

2010-09-13T03:16:00.000-07:00

I had an unforgettable experience the other day... an exhibition of 1930s Walker Evans images. Amazingly, they were being shown in an old farmhouse near the Dorset village of Symondsbury. After an hour or so trekking along overgrown bridleways, armed with an Ordnance Survey map, we did manage to find the place. And what a reward... to see the photos that previously I'd only viewed in books was,

Post-flashing Your Image

2010-08-09T02:08:00.000-07:00

Let me say straightaway... Post-flashing is just not feasible with Super-8 in cartridges. This is because their design does not permit backwinding more than a few frames at a time. However, most other films can be easily treated... Double Super-8, Single-8, Standard-8, 9.5mm, 16mm, and 35mm in both movie and still versions. 120 roll-film is not really suitable, although 5x4 cut-film is. Nearly

The Art of Flashing

2010-08-08T09:39:00.000-07:00

I, like many others, use colour-reversal transparency film for still and movie photography. It looks great when projected which is, after all, what it's designed for. But when printed onto another film or indeed digitised, it can look far too contrasty. Bright areas show no detail and eyes disappear into their sockets. How can we deal with this ?One way is to avoid shooting in bright sunlight. In

My Hokushin

2010-07-16T12:55:00.000-07:00

If we are into 16mm each of us has our favourite projectors. For about 20 years now I've been regularly using quite an elderly Hokushin, and it's really proved itself in that period. It describes itself as 'Quartzlight'... must be before they started calling them 'halogen' so perhaps it's 1970 or so ? What I really like about this rugged machine is its simple threading path, so kind to the film.

Black Drapes

2010-04-06T00:57:00.000-07:00

Two thoughts have hit me recently:(1) I was doing something similar to this last set-up but using a slide projector for the backing. Using more slide projectors as spotlights, I was struck by how much light is reflected back onto the screen. Not from any white walls but from just ordinary objects nearby. So those black drapes came to the rescue. (But of course you might wish to intentionally

Volcanic Getaway

2010-04-04T10:57:00.000-07:00

The volcano is now in full eruption, and as ash and rocks begin to fall, our intrepid hero turns to make his escape. Luckily, we already have footage of a volcano, but now need a shot of hero interacting with it. How to do this with the method described in last month's posts ?Let's say the film is being made on Super-8 and the volcano footage is on 16mm. It's been taken obviously with quite a

Bolex projector runs Bolex camera !

2010-03-22T15:11:00.000-07:00

And here it is ! This is how I convert 16mm footage to more 16mm stuff in the camera, usually altering it a bit along the way.That old Bolex S.321 projector has been with me for about 40 years now. At one time I used it for compiling sound tracks. The great thing about this classic machine is that it's very kind to the film and extremely steady. The film can be laced as a silent projector

Copying Movie Film to Film

2010-03-01T13:23:00.001-08:00

For quite a few years now, I've been using simple home-made set-ups to copy my films onto other film. Why would anyone want to do this you may ask... Mostly, folks are busy transferring it all to digital. Making the apparatus in its simplest form takes only a few hours and it's cheap. It means that the original film is copied in 100% sync with no flicker or density fluctuation. But what are the

Old Harry

2009-12-23T13:38:00.000-08:00

Just to the north of Swanage you'll see Old Harry Rocks, and Bournemouth beyond.I took this last spring on one of the delightful boat-trips they run out of Swanage quay, with my 35mm Pentax Super A and Tamron 500mm mirror-lens. Ektachrome 100 film.We were hoping for puffins, which we later saw when the boat doubled back t'other side of Swanage, but the light had then faded rather so I wished I'd

16mm Does the Splits

2009-12-04T09:45:00.000-08:00

Faces of Sixteen Mil, part 3: HALF-SIXTEENHere's one to beat the credit crunch.... IF...Half-Sixteen can be adapted to ANY 16mm movie camera that takes spools of film. Conversion is straightforward: you mask the gate vertically, do the same with the viewfinder, and then tip the camera on its side and start filming. When the film runs out, turn the take-up spool over, plonk it on the feed spindle

Going Anamorphic

2009-09-29T13:42:00.000-07:00

Before we examine the third face of Sixteen Mil, perhaps I should tidy up one or two points about SCOPE filming.When you put an anamorphic lens onto the front of your camera lens, you hope to double the width of the image. (Nothing happens to the height, it's not like a fisheye converter.) The type of lens on your camera, though, is crucial. For one thing, the front element should be smaller than

Faces of Sixteen Mil, part 2: SCOPE

2009-09-02T13:46:00.000-07:00

All through the War the Cinema industry did rather well, and now it's all over the queues are as long as ever. For those lucky to be alive there are ever greater films to experience. Thrilling World War Two dramas for instance, complete with aeroplanes and all the other props lying about. However, as the fifties dawn a new enemy is beginning to emerge, more terrifying than Adolf. No, not the

Kodachrome is still being sold !

2009-08-31T11:00:00.000-07:00

I happened to look in my local Boots chemists the other day. There on a low shelf was old 35mm Kodachrome 64 Slide Film. Not "old" old. Well in date 2010 stock. What's more it looks process-paid. Thought you should know !

Faces of Sixteen Mil, part 1

2009-08-14T12:02:00.000-07:00

The 16mm film gauge has been with us a long while, and is responsible for many, many great documentaries and dramas. The actual strip of film I'm sure you know, looks something like shown above left, with the frame-line bisecting the perforations, sound-film having just one row. The image ratio is the classic 4 by 3.There have been quite a few innovations over the years to make new formats from

Normal service will be resumed....

2009-08-10T02:24:00.000-07:00

....as soon as possible !We've been having one or two technical problems lately, I won't bore you with the details. Filmcam website is also affected, so if you are waiting for the update please bear with us. Don't hesitate to email me in the meantime if you need any info on anything.The Blog will continue shortly.... I'm going to be looking at the various 16mm film formats, one or two of them may

A Kodachrome Christmas in 2010 ?

2009-07-07T12:24:00.000-07:00

Kodachrome-lovers... here's the latest news. Kodak has finally ceased manufacture of Kodachrome 64 slide film. That marks the end of the 74 year dynasty that, as I think I said in my earlier post, produced some of the world's greatest colour images.That last production-run will be bought up fast, so don't delay if you want to have a final fling. Steve McCurry will be using one of the last rolls,

Henri Barges In

2009-05-29T11:13:00.000-07:00

This picture bothers me. Cartier-Bresson's "Bargeman on the Seine River", taken as usual with his 35mm Leica. I'm looking at page 11 of "Great Themes" in that excellent Time-Life series on photography, badly shown here for obvious reasons. You've bound to have seen it in many other publications too. For me this image is absolutely extraordinary. The bargeman, not far from Henri's 50mm

Kodachrome... Alive or Dead ?

2009-05-13T03:33:00.000-07:00

Is Kodachrome still available ? Can it still be processed ? There seems to be a great deal of confusion around.Kodachrome is of course that legendary colour transparency film that first appeared in 1935. Amazingly, it was invented by two musicians who also enjoyed dabbling in chemistry, and their names were Godowsky and Mannes. The saying goes: "Kodachrome was made by God and Man !" What they

Saving the Palace in photographs

2009-04-26T13:17:00.000-07:00

Many of us in Bridport have fond memories of the Electric Palace Cinema which has been here since the 1920s.... with decor typical of that era. Gone are the days when queues would form along the street. During the past 20 years, various folk have tried hard to keep it going against the odds. One 60-something chap I remember appeared to run the cinema single-handedly, manning the ticket kiosk,

Afghan Star

2009-03-23T13:27:00.000-07:00

Last Wednesday I went to see the Premiere of "Afghan Star" at Bridport's Electric Palace Cinema. The film-maker Havana Marking was there also. She has made a remarkable documentary about a pop-idol TV programme that goes out in Afghanistan. You may have heard about it on the news. Around 2000 enter the singing competition, and 3 of them are women. Even though the Taliban are not in power, this

Mumbai film nearly ready....

2009-03-05T13:00:00.001-08:00

I just thought I'd let you know, 18 year old Rob's documentary film on Mumbai is in its final stages. I find the city kids' chatter really interesting, and for some of this he has added subtitles. A friend is composing an original score. I can't wait to see the finished film. I'll keep you posted...

Shopping for an 8mm Pocket Bolex

2009-03-03T07:34:00.000-08:00

Around 50 years ago, yes 50, Bolex sold their beautiful range of 'pocket' cine cameras. The B8, C8, D8... and then the design got rather less pocket-sized when they started adding reflex-zoom lenses. You still see these classics for sale. In their day, they gave excellent results with standard 8mm film. Like my beloved Bolex B8 (try saying that fast) that I told you about last time. But can you

Remember Your First Movie Camera.... ?

2009-02-03T05:56:00.000-08:00

Most of us can't remember our first experience of the magic of movies... But if you're a film-maker you'll very likely have vivid recollections of your own first movie creation. Your ecstatic grin as you saw those early images flickering onto the screen. And a short time before that life-changing experience, you'll no doubt have spent alot of time shopping for your first movie camera. Mine was

Indian Rail Travel

2009-02-01T11:10:00.000-08:00

Seeing some of Rob's India video footage has got me rummaging through those 35mm photos I took when I visited last. See my blog a few months back... in 'older posts' probably. One of the joys of travel through India is the Railways. The trains are great for photography. Open doors provide unhindered views, and you'll see and experience all of life onboard. But not so much if you travel in the

Mumbai film now in production

2009-02-01T07:57:00.000-08:00

My son Rob went out to Mumbai in December, not long after the tragic events there. He took personal video footage with a Sony mini-DV camcorder, and he showed it to me this morning.... I was bowled over. To me it captures magnificently and simply, how India copes with such a trauma. He's editing the film now and it should be ready later this month. I'll let you know on this blog when it's

AFGHANISTAN ? WRONG !

2009-01-10T11:33:00.000-08:00

On one of my blogs you may have seen a photo (taken by my late brother Rex) of some people and camels passing a parked Land Rover. I had assumed it was in Afghanistan, however I am now informed by the driver of the said vehicle that this was not the case. It was in fact taken in the Bolan Pass in Baluchistan.... That is in Pakistan quite a long way south of the Afghan border. My apologies

Will Film Disappear ?

2008-12-05T14:28:00.000-08:00

To many folks today, Film is practically dead. A quaint memory from the last century. Everybody it seems has done digital. When did you last see an advert for Film or film cameras ?Yet film is still being used, albeit in much smaller quantities. How long then before Film disappears ?Digital has certain advantages that have made it a runaway success, not least the speed in seeing your results. A

How to Dry Your Movie Film

2008-12-05T14:12:00.000-08:00

Many people who process their own cine film find the actual drying the trickiest part. How to avoid marking the film.... and get nice, clean professional-looking results ?Get a plastic-covered board about 2 metres long and screw on eyelets at regular intervals. Make a number of S-hooks out of wire, to support the film by its perforations. It's a good idea to use a file to taper one end to a point

Bolex Survives Afghan Waterfall

2008-10-24T10:46:00.000-07:00

I will never forget an incident that happened to me in Afghanistan, way back in 1969 when the King was still in power....In the central hills there is a series of stunning blue lakes, and the minerals in the water have created a dam, called Band-i-Amir. The water cascades over. This must be one of the relatively unknown wonders of the natural world.At the top of one of the waterfalls I was

To India with an Olympus XA2

2008-10-14T04:08:00.000-07:00

On a recent trip to South India I thought I'd travel really light, so took the little Olympus XA2 35mm camera.I found it great for all sorts of subjects. Here's just a few...It was nice not having to worry about which lens to use, and the exposure system performed very well. I used mainly Ilford FP4, and when I'd run out of film (India is that sort of place !) I bought some Indian Kodak

Telecine Without Tears - Film to video the cardboard way

2008-10-05T09:17:00.000-07:00