miniDV vs Telecined Super 8

Comparison Stills

On our first day of filming Alan Beale accompanied us and shot some footage with his JVC GRDV-1 miniDV camera. Alan didn't shoot every take and so in some instances it was hard to line up exactly corresponding captured stills. The first 3 pairs are all of the same take and all with in a second or two of each other, however I'm not sure if the last 2 pairs are of the same take, and (if they are) even of a similar time point within that take. Because we took prime position with our camera the angles and positions of the two aren't the same, but are close. The Super 8 images were telecined to miniDV with a Rank Cintel, and then captured via firewire, as were the miniDV originated stills as well. They were both then converted to jpg's from bit maps, and had the same amount of compression applied to each - interestingly the miniDV originated stills came out to be larger file sizes. If you click on each still they will enlarge in hi-res in a new window.

In my opinion the video came out alot better than I was expecting it would (but maybe that's just in experience on my part) it has a clarity the Super 8 doesn't and a certain presence - but what it doesn't have is the texture and feel that the film has - when I look at the miniDV it looks like now to me - but when I look at the film it looks like it could be 1938 - or another world and time and place ~ which to me is more important. And of course it's not really comparing apples with apples because the film undergoes some image loss in the tranfer to video (be that miniDV or whatever) - there is *nothing* like projected film - but since this project is going to be finished on video - that really doesn't come into it for us. For me the visual look of film is preferable, and the difficulty of shooting on it was a very important experience for all of us, as we all want to go on and shoot projects on 16 and 35mm so as a learning tool it was much more valueable than if we had shot it on miniDV. However the cost and ease of miniDV can also be beneficial - given the particular project - it's just horses for courses really - and I'm still much happier that we shot it on Super 8 and not miniDV for this project.

If you'd like to contribute to this discussion or hear what others have said about this you can go to these threads on these forums:

http://www.hostboard.com/ubb/Forum239/HTML/001479.html

http://www.8mm.filmshooting.com/scripts/forum/general/index.phtml?subject=view&msg=752