INCREDIBLE 6,5K DPX 16 BIT LOGARITHMIC SCAN, FOR FIRST TIME IN SUPER-8!

I am a person of challenges. To the perfect madness that is filming in Antarctica with film my full lengh documentary "Perfecta Locura Antártica" (using Single-8 cartridges! with a minute and a half of lenght each, being the film previously transplanted by hand, in a dark room), I obtain a new achievement when digitizing the negative material from Kodak, thanks to a new development, exclusive for this project, done by my friend José Luis "Speed", from Ocho y Pico: 6.5K DPX 16 bit logarithmic in Super-8!!!, for first time for a Super-8 feature.

Each frame size is 184 megabytes!!!, and there are 24 every second. All of this while preserving that characteristic organic aspect and textures of the Super-8 motion picture film, so important for me. Does anyone wonder why this format not only refuses to die, but also gains followers among the new generations every day?

Why scan Super8 at 6.5K? My friend Marc Martí, film director, film editor and professor, has the answer: Scanning at higher resolutions gives better quality even if you downscale the footage in a later stage of the process. Besides, it’s better to have your work in the best possible resolution instead of relying on the upscale capabilities of the 4K TV or projector. Certainly, 8K is overkill for super-8 but 4K gives benefits over 2K.

Daniel Henriquez told me: regarding Digital Picture Exchange (DPX) file format, it is the best format IMHO for digital intermediate. I have used both 4K3112 DPX RGB 10-bit log and 4K3112 DPX RGB 16-bit log film scans. Yes it makes sense to go up to 16-bit log per channel however there is another consideration to overcome on most scanners: unfortunately most are bayer based; they do not scan true R,G,B (except very few scanners). As long as the scanner provide true R,G,B scanning (no Bayer mosaic filter involved) then the spatial resolution and bit depth claimed will match real performance. A bayer mosaic filter affects color separation, not only spatial resolution.

PROCESSING OF "PERFECT ANTARCTIC MADNESS"

Another challenge is the processing. For certain reversible material, like the Fuji 64T and others, I chose the expertise of Frank Bruisma, from Super 8 Reversal Lab in Holland. Frank is a person who enjoys his work, methodical, orderly, and quite fast. Frank was kind enough to take pictures of my footage when my parcel arrived (you can see my custom-made Single-8 cartridges, which are not for sale!, they are for shooting on my projects only), and another picture before shipping the fruit of my work back to La Coruña, in the NW region of Galicia, in Spain. Fujichrome 64T was, in my opinion, the best colour reversal film stock for accurate skin reproduction: it´s a pity that all the expertise of Fujifilm manufacturing a film stock as excellente as the 64T, among others, have thrown into the dustbin of the history by the current directors of the Japanese company.

(photograph by Frank Bruisma)

To process Fujichrome R25N from the last batch from 2013 (a gift of Shigeo Mizukawa, designer of the ZC1000 camera) and RT200N (provided by my friend Tak Kohyama, of Retro Enterprises in Tokyo), which comes with an remjet layer, the best expert in Europe is the Italian Riccardo Pascucci, capable of successfully removing very old remjet Fuji layers that, on 10 years expired materials like this, is as hard as a granite. Riccardo achieves this thanks to an ingredient that can only be found in a fountain in the Secret Gardens of the Vatican.

The bulk of the fresh negative material, recently manufactured by Kodak just prior the expedition to Antarctic, was processed by Andec Film, in Berlin, the only one in European Union with industrial facilities that can offer consistent quality on big projects. Certain negative material was processed in Spain by a highly recommended firm: Retrolab, capable of process in 24 hours! with scan included.

A part of material in black and white, and older types of reversal slited from 35 mm slide film and with splices, ore extremally old, Álex and me are processing it, every weekend, little by little,  with a Lomo tank from the Soviet era: it is a job that cannot be entrusted to anyone because sometimes the splices break during processing.

SOME SUPER-8 MILESTONES IN MY LIFE

The super-8 is my life because I've been with this format since I was a child, even in the days of the "desert crossing" in the 90s, when it seemed that it was going to cease to exist. It wasn't, however, until 2009, when I started using it professionally, with the advent of a new generation of scanners; with the proliferation of video in mobile phones,  Super-8 film productions was able to reach mass audiences in the highest quality.

Among the milestones, I had the honor of shooting the last film with commercial diffusion in Kodachrome, just before the closure of the last processing plant for this system: “2010: La Coruña in Super-8 Kodachrome” (English subtitles), with more than one hundred thousand views on Vimeo and broadcast on various televisions. Kodachrome was self loading in Single-8 cartridges!

2010: A CORUÑA EN SUPER-8 KODACHROME from IB CINEMA Motion Picture Films on Vimeo.

In 2013, "La noche de San Juan", shot with Kodak Vision film on Single-8 cartridges, was digitized in 2K, broadcast internationally by Kodak, also broadcast on television and blow up to 16mm.

LA NOCHE DE SAN JUAN - Pleasant Dreams. SUPER-8 KODAK from IB CINEMA Motion Picture Films on Vimeo.

In 2017, "Camino de Vuelta" was scanned at 4K, at a time when most commercial theaters were still showing at 2K.

In 2018 I tested for Kodak the brand new Kodak Ektachrome 7294 film, prior to its commercialization, with the documentary "Ferrol 7294", en cooperation with the German magazine SilverGrain Classics (formerly Photoklassic International )

FERROL 7294 (First Kodak Ektachrome 100D 7294 Super8 4K ever) from IB CINEMA Motion Picture Films on Vimeo.

CAMINO DE VUELTA (Pleasant Dreams). KODAK SUPER-8 4K from IB CINEMA Motion Picture Films on Vimeo.

In 2021, my Super-8 feature film "Spitsbergen, O Gardián do Ártico" was blow up from Super-8 to 16 mm and 35 mm and released in commercial theaters, in addition to being broadcast on television, and won relevant awards, such as the special XXV anniversary prize of the international Ourense Film Festival, in competition with multimillion-dollar productions shot by large teams of videographers. 

PS: 

1) Out the European Union, in United Kingdom, CineLab London and Kodak Film Lab in Pinewood Studios can process big projects fast and with consistent quality in Super 8.

2) In Hollywood, Pro 8mm can, also, process big projects and, even,  scan the Super-8 footage too at 6.5 K!!! American readers can contact here:  Pro 8mm