Digitizing film

Basic Steps

Every film needs to be inspected prior to being scanned (but this may not need to be done by you). Once inspection has been completed, proceed with the steps below.

1. Power on the computer, speakers, overhead monitor, and scanner itself. The scanner power switch is on the rear face of the scanner, on the right side, at approximately waist-level. It is a rocker switch.

2. Visually inspect the scanner to ensure that it was cleaned at the end of the last scanning session. Pay special attention to the gate, the rollers (including the PTRs), and the sound readers.

3. Place needed adaptors and gate onto the scanner if they are not already on. There are different reel adaptors for the different gauges of film (and adaptors for using cores only, which we do not do), and gates for each gauge. Optionally, the universal rollers (steel with interval notches that fit all gauges) can be swapped with gauge-specific black rollers (stored in the scanning room desk) if the film has minor curling or warping. Typically, only the rollers closest to the gate need to be swapped, but there are enough for all to be switched. More information on digitizing warped film can be found here.

4. For 16mm, remove the film from its can by placing the back plate of the split-reel (the one with the nub extruding from the surface near the center), and place it over the top of the film. Once the notch locks into one of the partitions of the core (this can be checked by rotating the film until you feel that it is locked in), the whole assembly can be flipped over. Remove the bottom of the can (which is now on top), and place the other split-reel half on top, screwing it in until you feel a moderate amount of resistance. For 8mm and Super 8mm, the films should already be on plastic or metal reels.

5. Identify whether the film is wound heads or tails out (ideally this is notated on the leader) and place the reel on the appropriate side of the scanner (left if it is heads or right if it is tails). If you notice after watching part of the film that you put it on the wrong side and the film is playing in reverse, you will need to remove it and re-thread the film. The sprocket side (if the film is single-perf) should be closest to you and furthest from the scanner.

6. Open the scanning software on the computer, and use the threading diagram that appears when you first launch the software to thread the film through the rollers and sound reader if needed (note: the film will always wind through the optical reader, but winding through the magnetic reader is optional). When you attach the film to the take-up reel (or the supply reel if wound in reverse), ensure there is several feet of leader already wound around that reel before you proceed, as the scanner will pull some out for calibration.

7. Click through the film loading dialog in the software, noting your gauge of film and again confirming the perf location. The scanner will buzz and calibrate the tension of the film.

8. Once loaded, you can ready all job settings. Go to File > Open, and open one of the jobs from the tytom-templates folder based upon what you know about the film (is it color, is the sound magnetic, etc.). Any of these settings can be changed later, so if you're unsure about one, just pick your best guess (note: we do not use the Black and White [enabled] option anymore in job settings, as this only desaturates the film unnecessarily).

9. File > Save As to save the file as the unique ID within the jobs folder, not the templates folder. Back within job settings in the program, change the reel name to the unique ID as well. Scan through the other job settings and confirm everything is correct, paying special attention to scan rate and shuttle rate. Shuttle rate should never exceed 100, and scan rate should never exceed 30 (but is preferable at 24 for 16mm, and 18 or 16 for smaller gauge, so that it plays at real speed while setting up the scan). For more fragile films, consider decreasing these by half or more. Turn on all outputs (DPX, ProRes, and audio if needed).

10. Click the play button to advance the film. If the film's sound setting is set to magnetic, the magnetic reader will have to be closed shut before you can play. Let the film advance until you get to a true image (not leader or a title frame).

11. Right click on the image in the software and choose Set Focus. Within the Focus dialog, just choose Autofocus, let it run its calibration, and then save its focus settings to the job as long as they look normal.

12. Check your frame lines. In the DPX output, it will just be the entire image area the program can display unless it's 8mm or Super 8mm, in which case you will pull it in a little tighter to show about half of the perf and half of the other negative edge. In the ProRes output, you want to change the Image Area and Position to be entirely clean with no frame lines. You can set this on this early frame, but if it is something like newsfilm with a variety of stock in one reel, you will likely have to keep an eye on it and adjust it as needed as the frame-lines fluctuate, making this final image area smaller and smaller.

13. Staying on the ProRes output, check your histogram and set a base black and white level. For the entire film, you don't want blacks to get much lower than a 5 (on a 0-100 histogram scale) and whites much higher than 95. These are set by moving the All slider in the bottom left when you are in either the Blacks or Whites range selection. Set your levels on this early frame to get a baseline, but unless you have deep shadows and strong highlights in this single frame, you will likely have to keep an eye on them for the first few minutes at least.

14. Let the film play, and stop it to readjust your frame-lines and levels as needed. Allow at least 10% of the total film to play so that you get a good sense of the variety of values that could be in the scan. Once you are satisfied that your blacks, whites, and frame-lines will hold up for the rest of the film, save the file again. Ensure that the motion and action appears true to life. If it does not, stop, and adjust your scan rate lower or higher until it does. 16mm film will almost always be 24fps, but could be 16 or 12 if it is older, amateur stock. 8mm and Super 8mm will almost always be 18fps, but could be 12 or 24. Other settings are unlikely, but not entirely impossible.

15. Find your zero frame on the timeline of thumbnails. This should be the last bit of archival leader before an image, title segment, or original leader begins. Right click this frame and set it as your zero frame. This will be the beginning of the scan.

16. If the entire film has played through already and is in the cache, go to the end of the timeline and notate the frame number of the last frame (where archival leader begins again). Go into the clip settings, and set this as the last frame number. If the entire film has not been loaded into the cache, set the final frame number as 99999.

17. One more time, double-check your job settings. You will need to change the scan rate to 12 or below before you begin the actual scan (this is all the storage writing can keep up with). You will also need to confirm that the frame rate of the output file is correct in job settings (this is a dropdown). This will be whatever speed made motion and action look true to life, or, the speed that film was originally shot at.

18. Click Run Job in the bottom middle. The scanner takes care of the rest. Stay in the room to monitor the scan.

19. Once the scan is complete, the software will take some processing time to create all of the output files (a lot of this time is stitching the audio to the image correctly). Once it's complete, do a quality check on the ProRes file to make sure everything looks okay.

20. Enter all information of the film scan into proper documentation.

21. Unload the film (leaving it tails out) and place it back into its can, simply doing the reverse of what you did when loading it earlier.

22. Clean the scanner following cleaning guidelines.

23. Return the film based on logistics guidelines.

Color Correction

This section is a stub.