American Cinematographer - January 1986 - 86

feel that the lens gives a
in the telephoto end and

sharper image
tried to avoid
using the wider focal lengths.
The only real problem we en¬
countered with the camera was with
the 200' cartridges. After shooting
about forty 200' cartridges we encoun¬
tered a registration problem. We had
the camera overhauled and pulled apart

sample 200' cartridge and found two
problems - both caused by the car¬
tridges. The cartridge has an internal
loop. Its upper and lower halves are
formed around a single sprocketed guide
roller which has nothing that locks the
film in place at any point - therefore
there is no guarantee that the size of
the loop will remain constant and in
place. This will sometimes cause an
intermittent jumping of the image.
A 50' cartridge, which is de¬
signed differently and doesn't rely on
the same type of loop, can be used
immediately after the problem occurs
and with good results. The registration
problem is in the basic design of the
200' cartridge - the interior of which is
a

Weston Lant, Neil de

that would

la Pena and

Wayne
Simpson work the
Tulip Crane. Right:
Gregoropoulos and
Phillips aboard the

meet

the needs of

a

feature

production. The Nizo 6080, manufac¬
by Braun of West Germany, has
the capability of shooting in sync at 24
fps, can accept 200' (or ten minute)
cartridges, and with a few customized
accessories, was ready to shoot a
tured

crane.

feature.

Super 8 Sound designed a
control for the Nizo. To
insure sync on our first shoots, we re¬
corded sound on both a Nagra and on a
fullcoat recorder that took its pulse from
crystal

the

sync

camera.

The

camera

has its

primitive sound system which

we

used with the 50'. However the 200'

cartridge

we

head

could get a higher quality image
shooting K40 and transferring to tape
than shooting in any tape format. They
weren't worried about the lighting re¬
quired by the slow K40 stock (ASA 40)
because as mentioned, we had lights
available to use on a professional scale
we

and

at no cost.

Their experience shooting
Super 8 in the past had put them in
touch with Phil Vigeant of Super 8
Sound who was interested in the project
and had

84

American

a

Super 8

designed for small cameras and,
using a dolly or a crane, a special
head adapter designed by George Fardy
of The Design Shop for use on the
Donny Thayer video. The head, camera,
and adapter are so light that when we
used an extender on the dolly, we had
to use a sandbag to add to their weight.
The Nizo has a permanently

camera

Cinematographer

available

mounted Schneider 7

to

80mm

zoom

lens with a macro capability. After ex¬
tensive camera testing we found that
the lens started performing well be¬
tween

f.8 and f.4 and that approx¬

imately

one stop

is lost in the camera's
beam splitter viewing system. We also

January 1986

with

own

when

i

(The Nizo, which is quite noisy,
a blimp but must be addi¬
tionally soundproofed. We used down
jackets for barneys.)
Although the Nizo has the
capability of accepting the 200' car¬
tridges it is primarily designed for use
with 50's. The 200' cartridge is coaxial
and is turned by the same torque motor
severe.

comes

used

could watch sound dailies (the
film is sound striped.)
We used a mini Sachtler
so

inaccessible to the camera assistant
and cannot be checked. The jumping
causes camera noise only if it becomes

means the motor is pulling
four times the amount of film as the
50'. This factor combined with the oc¬
casional loop problem can throw off the

torque. The camera must therefore con¬
stantly have torque and registration
checked. Phil Vigeant put us in touch
with other people doing extensive work
in Super 8 and all of them seemed to
have similar problems.
Our problem with the regis¬
tration was aggravated initially by the
fact that we could not get dailies back
from Kodak for over a week and a half.
With our schedule this meant two major
shoots before viewing the first one. Vig¬
eant, who was handling our dailies,

eventually got the lab to
day turn around if we

agree to a

least 10

time.

cartridges at

a

gave

five
them at
American Cinematographer - January 1986

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