I'm off now to see if I can find you some links, but it would be helpful if I knew what you need to know. Any specific question will do... just as a start. There are so many ways to answer your question.

"On a good gate, that's a wrap."

Here's a link for Arri SR2 and SR3 manuals, available as PDF files. There are also some prep checklists and other useful stuff there.

?url? http://mis15.ncarts.edu/film/manuals/?/url?

Again, feel free to ask some specific questions...

"On a good gate, that's a wrap."

I was wondering about the actual controls of the camera, like what starts the film rolling, where can adjustments be made, and what parts it's made up of, like the motor, or the shutter or whatever. Thanx

Here's a link that'll give you the basics on how film cameras work (it's a PDF file). If you're interested, truncate the link after "chomyn" and check out the entire ebook this guy has online.

?url? http://cinema-tv.usc.edu/instructors/chomyn/pdfiles/mpcam1.pdf?/url?

I'll also give you a link to a Bolex manual, which is a camera you're more likely to run into as a beginner.

?url? http://www.bolexcamera.com/techspecs.html?/url?

Keep in mind you've asked a very broad question, one I could spend the weekend answering. Check this stuff out and feel free to ask follow up questions.

"On a good gate, that's a wrap."

Thank you very much! Now I have a few questions, open to anyone, doen't matter. Basicly these are stupid littles questions, but they had me thinkng so I thought I might as well ask. When you film at the standard 24 fps, I presume that when you play it back it plays in real time. But when it's gone through the telecine process, and you later put it into slow motion in some program, can you then tell the difference between the frames (it flickers, has a small strobe effect)? If it does let's say, and then you decided to film instead at a higher frame rate, when you play it back, does it play in real time, but it appears to have a more seamless motion, or does it play back at 24 fps, making the original motion appear slower? And after that is gone through telecine (how do you pronounce that anyway?) does it play in slow motion so you don't have to slow it down in the program? And another question, what is the actual visual difference between digital and film, refering to resolution or color or whatever. In snowboard movies, it's obvious what is digital and what is 16mm (and 16mm looks by far better) but what differs between the two. I just don't know how to explain it, other than 16mm looks like Hollywood and digital looks like home video. Thank you to every one (or one) who takes the time to read and answer my qustions. I know it's kinda a lot, but I want to learn. Thanx again!

Good questions.

First of all, to the speed issue. If you shoot at 24fps and transfer to telecine, and then decide at a later date that you want to slow motion, then yes, you will have a strobing effect. When you want that slow motion you generally shoot at high speed. A look that has become common lately is a "ramp"... a 24fps shot which suddenly switches to slow motion, sometimes coming back to 24fps again. This can be accomplished "in camera" through the use of special controllers which adjust the exposure seamlessly... as the speed ramps up, the shutter opens up wider. This requires directors to plan ahead. It is becoming common to shoot an entire scene at high speed (usually a multiple of your telecine transfer speed, i.e. 96fps for a 24fps transfer). Then when the director wants to see 24fps, he simply prints every 4th frame. He can then ramp up and down to his heart's content, not having to rely on the whims of crew and the vagueries of the set. If he wants high speed, he prints every frame, or every other frame as required. These ramps are not as smooth, because you cannot print partial frames, so there is a jump through each speed (24-48-96) as opposed to the smooth transition that can occur in camera. However the ramps can be faster, because they are not limited to the physical restraints of a camera trying to speed up or down (which takes about 1 second in real time, translating to about 3 seconds screen time). And because the film is moving faster, the image appears a little crisper than it normally would at 24fps, but most people do not notice this unless they are looking for it.

Telecine is pronounced tel-a'-sin-ee and rhymes with ninny or whinny.

Your other question regarding the difference between film and video is more of a controversial one and I've got a honey-do list as long as my arm. I'll get back to you on that, or perhaps someone else will be able to help in the meantime.

"On a good gate, that's a wrap."

Sorry it took me so long to get back to you on the second part of the question... I really thought someone else out there would have covered for me.

Some basic differences between film and video:

1. Video has a very short range of contrast as compared with film. If you imagine that each level of contrast is a step, film has more steps than video. This means that in video, white things (like wedding dresses in sunlight) will lose their detail (blow out) faster than on film. Black things (like hairs on a black labrador, or a dark haired person against a shadowy wall) will be harder to differentiate... they will "block up" faster than on film. Additionally, video has a lower resolution than film. Resolution is a measure of the smallest line that a media can register cleanly. Even HD video does not approach the resolution of film.

2. Because video is electronic and not chemical, when video gets more light (or signal or information) than it can use, it has nowhere to store it, so it just lops it off and throws away the excess. Film needs only a tiny bit of light to begin storing an image, and will continue to store it, beyond the latitude (or range) of the print stock. Because of this, it is possible to change the way you process or print film and get more information out of the blacks or whites as needed (this also helps to compensate for mistakes with lighting or camera settings). This limiting factor of video is what caused almost all of the useful information of the Challenger disaster to be lost forever. When the video cameras were overloaded by the brightness of the explosion, they just chucked away huge bits of data. A film camera happened to be at the site tracking the launch for a private company, and this film is where a lot of the data were preserved even though the film was initially over-exposed by the blast as well.

3. Video cameras (most of them) have a very small chip in relation to the focal length of their cameras. This relationship affects the depth of field of the lens and determines when focus starts to "fall off" and get blurry. Video cameras, even with a wide open t-stop, have a great depth of field. This helps account for the crispness of the images that you see with most videos and makes them look like "home video". Film has a very controllable depth of field which can be altered to fit the needs of the cameraman.

By the way, ski movies don't help video look any better. They are high contrast environments with lots of white (which video does not handle well).

Which is better, film or video? That's like asking watercolor or oil; painting or photography. The photorealists strived to make painting look like photography. It worked, but was so time consuming that it became more a technical excercise than an artisitic one... like "Look how many balls I can juggle", or "Listen to my Howard Cosell impersonation". Many people go in pursuit of the "film look" with their videos, only to fall short. I think a better solution would be to capitalize on video's strengths while hiding its weaknesses.

Hope this helps.

"On a good gate, that's a wrap."

Holy cow. Thank you very much for your time and energy answering me. Thank you very much.

Sid

Dude, no problem. That's what this forum is about.

"On a good gate, that's a wrap."

The American Cinematographers Manual has plenty of tech. specs on various 16mm and 35 mm cameras and how to load them etc., plus you get aload of other cimematography technical info which fills the manual.
Pricey if You by new yet available from amazon second hand, and it's book you can read it anywhere.