Film transfer - removing flicker

I am currently working on a film transfer project. I have a Bell & Howell dual 8mm projector with variable speed control. It's been working fine until recently...regular 8 film looks great, but when I switch to Super 8, there's something wrong with the way the film advances and the image is kind of jumpy. I'm not sure how to fix that, I tried everything I knew how to do.

I have another projector that doesn't have the variable speed control, so when I shoot it with that projector, I would get a flicker on the video.

I'm wondering if there's any way to remove that flicker using some new, radical FCP filter or technique of some sort.

Thanks!
Casey Petersen

not really.
there are some plugins for After Effects that can do this, or so i'm told.

this is just a guess,
but i reckon they'd cost about the same as (or more than) sending your film somewhere for a cheap telecine.

buying another projector on ebay would be the cheapest solution.


nick

another option for you (courtesy of Ben King)

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The Foundry Furnace filters for FCP has DeFlicker that will work - they are expensive to buy but you can rent them very cheaply.

Very powerful Plugins but quite slow to render.

www.thefoundry.co.uk

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Thanks Nick, I tried the demo of the Furnace filters, and yes, they were very slow to render...I have a quad-core Mac Pro and it took 20 minutes to render 3 seconds of footage in standard def. It didn't seem to take care of the flicker enough to make it usable...although, maybe if I played around with the settings more, I could get it better.

I went on ebay and bought another projector...identical model in mint condition and in original box for $150.

I also have a 16mm projector that doesn't have variable speed control. I've never needed it for an official transfer, but I was thinking that a possible software solution would help that as well.

I tried hooking a rheostat up to the 16mm projector to try to remove the flicker, but that only controls the power from 0% to 100%, and to remove the flicker, it would need more than 100% power, so that didn't work either.

Thanks!!!
Casey

"I tried hooking a rheostat up to the 16mm projector to try to remove the flicker, but that only controls the power from 0% to 100%, and to remove the flicker, it would need more than 100% power, so that didn't work either. "

have you tried getting the projector to run at 15fps? (Half your video frame rate)
some 16mm projectors had a 16fps setting for silent films.
if you had that you would only need a small slow down.

either way, you might be able to go slow,
and get a flicker-free recording,
then you could speed that up to 200% in FCP.


"it's a crazy plan, but it just might work"
nick

Actually, after I went below about 85-80%, the bulb shut off.

I'm not smart enough to know how to adapt the rheostat into the motor alone...nor do I have the time or motivation at this point...none of my 16mm films are critical.

Casey

hey, Casey,

been doing a little super-8 web surfing of my own this weekend.
ran across this article you might find interesting

here's a quote:
"For NTSC users you could project at 20fps (60/3) for both 24fps or 18fps footage but the audio pitch difference might be very annoying, "

a bit of an understatement re the sound,
but interesting idea re a flicker free capture.
then you can deal with getting it back to a decent speed in post....


nick