Post-flashing Your Image

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 all types of emulsion can be flashed, and even the not so contrasty colour-negative could benefit on occasions.

I am sure there are many different ways of flashing. This is the one I use. It may seem a bit hit-and-miss, but it has always worked for me. Here goes !

First I select a nice sunny day. This is perhaps the most difficult part of the exercise, here in Britain. We just need a few minutes of absolutely clear unbroken sunshine. I prefer the sun instead of artificial light, simply because it's not prone to sudden power-cuts or lamp failure which could ruin your precious footage. And dull or cloudy/bright conditions have a habit of changing their exposure alarmingly... our eyes don't always notice it.

OK. The exposed film has been backwound either in a darkroom or the camera (a lens cap might be handy !) With 35mm film the first frame must exactly synchronise for the second pass, otherwise you'll get a dark bar in the picture. So before you start, you must mark the frame in the gate. Still-35mm film has 8 perforations per frame and cine has 3 or 4... lots of possibilities for error here. All other cine-film sizes have only one perf per frame, therefore no danger of mis-framing.

The camera is set up near a window. In the SHADE, I very securely fix a sheet of matt black card. The camera is angled a bit so that no sheen on the card is visible in the viewfinder. Only a small portion is filmed in close-up so it should look evenly lit. The lens is now defocused to infinity giving just a blurred void. Now I take a meter-reading off a GREY card, then open up an extra half-stop to one and a quarter stops according to the dose intended. Now start filming the BLACK card, with one eye on that next cloud approaching !

Using this method with different coloured cards, it's possible to get some interesting tone effects. Sometimes I may do a bit of fading of the flash within the shot if I remembered to note the frame-number reading. (Footage counters are notoriously inaccurate.) And if I'm flashing odd bits of footage, I usually allow a bit more at both ends, perhaps fading the flash in and out, using the iris of the lens.

Volcanic Getaway

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 long lens, is well-exposed and acceptably steady, though maybe not rock-steady. A 16mm projector is set up with an old super-8 camera connected to it by a flexible shaft. It doesn't matter what speed the camera normally goes at, the projector will run the camera at its own speed, let's say 24 fps. We project onto a decent normal screen say 4 feet wide. This should be possible with fast lenses and film. Certainly 3 feet is no problem for brightness. Scotchlite screens are not necessary for this type of set-up. The camera is positioned some distance to the side. Our hero begins his turn in a position that just misses the projected rays. He is lit by two or three spotlights so that no light falls on the screen. Slide projectors with defocused lenses will work just as well. Some ambient light on the screen doesn't usually matter. Hero starts to run towards camera with polystyrene or papier mache rocks etc falling about him. A medium tele lens setting on the camera enhances the feeling of danger as the volcano appears nearer to the character, as well as matching the perspective. Hand-holding the super-8 camera will add realism, also helping to mask any unsteadiness of the background shot. You could maybe overcrank the camera a bit ? ie. say if the rest of the film is being shot at 18 fps, 24 fps will slow the action somewhat. The main thing that is so important to get right for any effects shot like this, is the colour filtration on the foreground lighting. It must match the background projected plate, or the audience will smell a rat.

Two more points worth mentioning...
When you copy a film there is always some loss of quality, so it makes sense to have the background plate made on higher resolution film-stock than the filming stock. In this example the problem is easily overcome by using 16mm versus the smaller super-8 format.

What about focusing ? Using wide apertures there will be less depth of field, but probably enough to play with. This is one of the unsung virtues of Super-8, so much depth of field... it's a godsend (especially when working with miniatures). However, if you did have a focusing problem you could perhaps do a fast focus-pull from the volcano to the hero.