Tom,
Great web page!
I live in Hawaii and am going to shoot a music video with 16mm and Super8.

Cool! How's the weather in Hawaii?

I own a video production company but I want the film look (So does the band). Can you give me some advise on the production process. I am using silent cameras so I'm wondering about the syncing problems. I'm going to edit with Adobe Preimere. I've searched the entire web for music video production how to's but no luck. Your help would be greatly appreciated!
Aloha
Jeff Mahon
Lahaina Hi

Okay Jeff,
it's true you can do almost anything with super8. It's such a good film. The only hitchs you'll find with super8 (against 16mm and up) is:

1) The cameras are usually second-hand so always perform a test on any new camera to make sure it actually works. Also, most super8 camera's have rotary shutters, which means a fixed shutter speed. Therefore 18 fps will give longer exposures than 24 fps, and with slow motion (36 fps+) you need more and more light. 16mm and 35mm cameras have "variable shutters" so you can do cool tricks with "depth of field" effect, exposure, and better stop-motion animation.

2) The best film to use for delicous colour saturation and fine grain use Kodachrome 40 ASA. But it is a very slow film, so you need BIG lights for indoor stuff. The problem with K40 is that the bulbs used to process/print the film are copyrighted by Kodak and there are only a handfull of facilitires left in the world. Don't let this put you off. K40 looks amazing! Kodak will provide you with a postage-paid envelope which you take to your nearest Kodak head-quarters. They'll then send it to Dallas, Texas, or whereever the nearest Kodachrome lab is. It's free, it takes 6-8 weeks to get the film back.

3) Kodak TXR 160 ASA (Reversal) can be processed with normal B/W film processing chemicals. I'll try to find a link to a page that describes this, it's very difficult to do.

4) I have never used Ectachrome, but it is also common. Can be processed anywhere, but ask first.

5) Finding a good projector, and getting it transferred to BetaSPII or whatever for TV broadcast. Make sure the projector doesn't eat your film, like mine did. Don't watch the film too many times... trasfer it to video straight after getting it developed, and then watch the video.

6) Regarding syncing problems... Unless the camera being used has a (quartz) crystal-sync, or some way of keeping time, you usually get a bit of drift. Note that this also becomes apparent when transferring to video, the action may appear to speed up (some transferrs are done at 24 fps, some have a variable speed knob), remember those old films of people woddling off trains, and they look too fast? That's becuase it was filmed slower than 18 fps.

Jeff, becuase it's a music video they probably don't mind the wait, right?

How long have you got to make the vid? In New Zealand, B/W has a faster turn-around than K40. TXR-160 is to be used for live gigs, 'cause it's faster. The only other thing I can think of is to get a nice wide-angle lense (or even a fish-eye), as this will add natural largeness to your pictures.

Hope some of this has been useful. I have posted a copy of this message on my webpage, hope you don't mind. I can put a link to your email/homepage if you want.

Aloha!