A camera magazine is a light-tight chamber or pair of chambers designed to hold film and move motion picture film stock before and after it has been exposed in the camera. In most movie cameras, the magazine is a removable piece of equipment. Many still photo cameras also have removable camera magazines. A film cartridge serves the same function, but is usually not reusable.
In 16 mm filmmaking, most magazines are designed to accommodate up to 400 feet of film stock, which usually is the longest standard roll size available from film manufacturers (longer rolls can be made upon special request sometimes, but require special magazines). In 35mm filmmaking, there tend to be three common magazine types - 1000 foot magazines, which accommodate the longest standard roll size of 35 mm film; 400 foot magazines, which are often used when the camera is handheld in order to minimize the amount of weight upon the camera operator; and 400 foot Steadicam magazines, which are specially designed with a pair of moving spindles that gradually change position as the film rolls through the camera in order to maintain a steady center of gravity, which is advantageous for Steadicam operation. While this last magazine is not strictly necessary for Steadicam, usage of other magazine types may require frequent rebalancing of the rig in between takes due to weight shifting as the film progressively moves from one side of the magazine to the other. Use of 1000 foot magazines on Steadicam tends to be rare due to the larger amount of shifting weight and the greater total weight of the camera. [1]
All magazines are composed of a "feed" or "pay-out" side, in which the film is held before exposure (when it is "fed" into the camera) and a "take-up" side where the film is held after exposure. Furthermore, in between these two sides there are always two separate slots or throats where the film exits and then re-enters the magazine. These must also be designed to be light-tight enough to allow the film to exit the magazine without letting any light into the magazine itself, where it might fog the rest of the film inside. Various types of magazines handle the film in between the two sides differently. Aaton and Arri 16 mm cameras, as well as most 35 mm Arri models, require a fixed length "loop" which must be a certain number of perforations long and which moves the film with sprockets inside the magazine. Some more recent 35 mm cameras from Arri and all Moviecam and Panavision cameras, however, do not have any required loop size, and the film is not controlled with any sprockets in the magazine at all. Instead, the film is pulled through the camera solely through the power of camera sprockets until the end, at which point springs or belts in the camera magazine pull the film back to the take-up side. [2]
Another major categorization is the type of design: is the magazine one chamber or two chambers? If the latter, are the two horizontal or axial to each other? Most 35 mm camera magazines are one large chamber containing both spindles - usually the spindles are close enough together so that the feed and take-up rolls will just miss touching each other when the maximum length of film for that magazine is at its halfway point. Cameras with the single chamber magazine design include all Panavision and Moviecam cameras, most 35 mm Arri cameras, and all older 16 mm Arri cameras. Some old cameras, such as the Mitchell, have two separate chambers horizontal to each other, which looks very similar to a one chamber design. More popular today in two chamber design, however, are two chamber axial magazines, where the feed and take-up rolls (and thus chambers) are "stacked" one atop the other. Cameras with this magazine design in 16 mm include the Aaton and Arri SR models, and in 35 mm include the Arri BL and 535 models.
The camera magazine tends to be held mostly in the charge of the clapper loader on set, who is in charge of loading and unloading the magazine, labelling it properly, securing it as light-tight, and delivering and receiving magazines from the focus puller, who attaches and detaches them from the camera and handles the threading of the film in the camera (certain magazines require no camera threading). [3]
Because of the length of motion picture film, the film usually is wound around a core, with no other exposure protection aside from its packaging or the magazine itself when loaded. Therefore, the loading of motion picture film must be done in a dark room or light-tight changing bag by the clapper loader. As the loader cannot see what (s)he is doing, the loader must already be familiar with the magazine prior to loading a "hot" (in usage) roll and able to go through with the loading operations only on touch. When learning, usually a loader will start by practicing with unusably fogged rolls ("junk" or "gash" rolls) in light and then try with junk rolls in a changing bag after feeling competent enough.
The advantage of using a two chambered roll becomes most apparent when loading. Since each chamber is light-tight, a loader only needs to load the feed side in darkness - once that chamber is secured, the remainder of the loading can take place in light. The small amount of film which is exposed on the take-up side would not be used for exposure under any design, and thus is not considered a significant loss of stock. Most two chambered axial magazines have fixed loop sizes, which adds some extra time to the loading procedure, but allows for magazines to be attached to the camera with minimal or no threading required. This can be a great advantage when filming requires reloading that takes only seconds.
Virtually all magazines are designed for the feed side to contain film stock wound with the emulsion facing inwards, which is the standard manufacturing wind. However, different magazines will takeup the film either with the emulsion facing out or facing in. Most magazines are emulsion in; Panavision magazines are a notable exception. Emulsion in and emulsion out are sometimes called "9P" and "99" respectively, referring to the relative appearance of a thread of film emerging from one side of core or the other.
Magazines which are loaded then need to be labelled properly in order to indicate what type of film is inside, how much is loaded, which magazine it is, and what the roll number is. Although different regions and types of filmmaking may have variants as to how this is done, generally larger budget feature films follow the following labelling convention:
1000' NR 5219 117 049.01 (27.4) M# 2314 R# C54
Where 1000' indicates the amount of film loaded (this can be indicated in meters instead, region depending); NR indicates "new roll" - otherwise it must be SE "short end" or RC "re-can"; 5219 is the manufacturer's stock code (in this case 35 mm Kodak Vision3 500T color negative film); 117 049.01 (27.4) are emulsion code numbers indicating the exact information of what batch of emulsion, printer, and cut the film came from - they are written on the film can and act as a "fingerprint" for the roll; M# 2314 is the serial number of the magazine itself; and R# C54 indicates that this the 54th roll of the "C" Camera.
Magazines are designed to be light-tight in and of themselves. However, usually this is buffered by additional precautions made to maintain light-tightness, against both fault of equipment and humans. The latches used to open the magazine usually lock when closed and require non-casual fiddling to trip their locks. They are then furthermore protected by being taped up when loaded. Sometimes the entire edge of the magazine door is taped as an extra measure of light-tightness, although for newer properly maintained magazines this is not strictly necessary.
Magazines must also be checked thoroughly before usage against the creation of scratches in the emulsion. This is usually done during camera checkout at a rental house with what is known as a scratch test, where junk film is run through the camera and then examined against light for scratching.
On-set, cases with loaded magazines are often placed on standby near active cameras in order to facilitate fast magazine reloading with minimal lag time. Cases containing magazines often include an indicator of what is inside through the usage of colored stickers or magnets. The color indicates which type of film stock is inside. If the tape is normal and blank, it is a full magazine; if it is less than a full magazine, it will have the length loaded written on it. When a magazine ready to be unloaded is placed inside, the sticker from the new magazine freshly loaded is ripped and replaced as a sticker X to indicate that the magazine is "dead". If the magazine is pulled off with the intention of being put back on the camera without the take-up side first being unloaded, then the appropriate colored sticker will be placed on the case, and written with the amount of film left, followed by the word hot (to indicate that it is still in usage).
Film stock is an analog medium that is used for recording motion pictures or animation. It is recorded on by a movie camera, developed, edited, and projected onto a screen using a movie projector. It is a strip or sheet of transparent plastic film base coated on one side with a gelatin emulsion containing microscopically small light-sensitive silver halide crystals. The sizes and other characteristics of the crystals determine the sensitivity, contrast and resolution of the film. The emulsion will gradually darken if left exposed to light, but the process is too slow and incomplete to be of any practical use. Instead, a very short exposure to the image formed by a camera lens is used to produce only a very slight chemical change, proportional to the amount of light absorbed by each crystal. This creates an invisible latent image in the emulsion, which can be chemically developed into a visible photograph. In addition to visible light, all films are sensitive to X-rays and high-energy particles. Most are at least slightly sensitive to invisible ultraviolet (UV) light. Some special-purpose films are sensitive into the infrared (IR) region of the spectrum.
135 film, more popularly referred to as 35 mm film or 35 mm, is a format of photographic film with a film gauge of 35 mm (1.4 in) loaded into a standardized type of magazine for use in 135 film cameras.
Medium format has traditionally referred to a film format in photography and the related cameras and equipment that use film. Nowadays, the term applies to film and digital cameras that record images on media larger than the 24 mm × 36 mm used in 35 mm photography, but smaller than 4 in × 5 in.
Sheet film is large format and medium format photographic film supplied on individual sheets of acetate or polyester film base rather than rolls. Sheet film was initially supplied as an alternative to glass plates. The most popular size measures 100 mm × 130 mm ; smaller and larger sizes including the gigantic 510 mm × 610 mm have been made and many are still available today.
Cinema Products Corporation was an American manufacturer of motion picture camera equipment.
Panavision is an American motion picture equipment company founded in 1954 specializing in cameras and lenses, based in Woodland Hills, California. Formed by Robert Gottschalk as a small partnership to create anamorphic projection lenses during the widescreen boom in the 1950s, Panavision expanded its product lines to meet the demands of modern filmmakers. The company introduced its first products in 1954. Originally a provider of CinemaScope accessories, the company's line of anamorphic widescreen lenses soon became the industry leader. In 1972, Panavision helped revolutionize filmmaking with the lightweight Panaflex 35 mm movie camera. The company has introduced other cameras such as the Millennium XL (1999) and the digital video Genesis (2004).
Techniscope or 2-perf is a 35 mm motion picture camera film format introduced by Technicolor Italia in 1960. The Techniscope format uses a two film-perforation negative pulldown per frame, instead of the standard four-perforation frame usually exposed in 35 mm film photography. Techniscope's 2.33:1 aspect ratio is easily enlarged to the 2.39:1 widescreen ratio, because it uses half the amount of 35 mm film stock and standard spherical lenses. Thus, Techniscope release prints are made by anamorphosing, enlarging each frame vertically by a factor of two.
The original camera negative (OCN) is the film in a traditional film-based movie camera which captures the original image. This is the film from which all other copies will be made. It is known as raw stock prior to exposure.
Super Panavision 70 is the marketing brand name used to identify movies photographed with Panavision 70 mm spherical optics between 1959 and 1983. It has since been replaced by Panavision System 65.
The Arriflex 435 is a movie camera product line created by Arri in 1995 to replace the Arriflex 35-III line. The number reflects its position as a successor camera to the Arri III and the fact that it is designed for 35 mm film. The 435 cameras are specifically designed as MOS cameras, which means that they are conventionally considered to be too loud to record usable location sound. However, this also frees the camera up to be optimized for non-sync sound uses, particularly any filming which either doesn't require sound or shooting at non-sync speed, shooting in reverse, or ramping between different speeds. As such, its potential applications are widespread, and thus it is regularly used on music videos, commercials, second unit work on features, special effects work, and motion control, among other usage. Rival Panavision even owns more 435s for rental than Arri's own hire houses; Panavisions, however, can be converted to Pan-Arri 435s where they are modified to accept Panavision lenses and accessories. In recognition of the achievements of the 435 system, AMPAS awarded Arri a Scientific and Engineering Academy Award in 1999.
A short end is a partial roll of unexposed film stock left over during a motion picture production and kept for later use. The short end may be sold to a film dealer who will resell it to productions who are in a position to use it.
Hand-held camera or hand-held shooting is a filmmaking and video production technique in which a camera is held in the camera operator's hands as opposed to being mounted on a tripod or other base. Hand-held cameras are used because they are conveniently sized for travel and because they allow greater freedom of motion during filming. Newsreel camera operators frequently gathered images using a hand-held camera. Virtually all modern video cameras are small enough for hand-held use, but many professional video cameras are designed specifically for hand-held use such as for electronic news-gathering (ENG), and electronic field production (EFP).
In cinematography, bipacking, or a bipack, is the process of loading two reels of film into a camera, so that they both pass through the camera gate together. It was used both for in-camera effects and as an early subtractive colour process.
Arricam is a 35 mm movie camera line manufactured by Arri.
The Arriflex 35 was the first reflex 35mm production motion picture camera, released by German manufacturer Arri in 1937.
Anamorphic format is the cinematography technique of shooting a widescreen picture on standard 35 mm film or other visual recording media with a non-widescreen native aspect ratio. It also refers to the projection format in which a distorted image is "stretched" by an anamorphic projection lens to recreate the original aspect ratio on the viewing screen. The word anamorphic and its derivatives stem from the Greek anamorphoo, compound of morphé with the prefix aná.
In bipack color photography for motion pictures, two strips of black-and-white 35 mm film, running through the camera emulsion to emulsion, are used to record two regions of the color spectrum, for the purpose of ultimately printing the images, in complementary colors, superimposed on one strip of film. The result is a multicolored projection print that reproduces a useful but limited range of color by the subtractive color method. Bipack processes became commercially practical in the early 1910s when Kodak introduced duplitized film print stock, which facilitated making two-color prints.
Cold camera photography is a technique used by astrophotographers to reduce the electronic noise that accumulates during long exposures with the electronic sensors in DSLRs and dedicated CMOS or CCD astro-cameras. Cooling is usually accomplished with a Peltier thermo-electric cooler. By cooling the camera's sensor one can take longer shots without the worry of the chip heating up, thereby reducing thermal, shot and read noise.
The Arriflex 235 is a lightweight 35mm MOS movie camera released in 2003 by ARRI.
The Arriflex 765 is a 65 mm movie camera created by Arri in 1989.
