Film projection is a delicate process in which the scanner takes the film mounted on its supply reel and passes it through the film gate by using its sprockets. The gate is an opening in the machine where light shines through onto the film. Sprockets are small holes on one side of the film strip to guide the film through the gate.
As each still frame passes the gate, the light shines the frames at high speed (24 frames per second), it then projects it onto the screen through a series of lenses and the user can adjust the focus. When this happens, it appears as if the image is moving. The take up reel will then spool up the film after projection. Once the entire process is completed, the operator rewinds the film back to its original reel. More about film projectors >>
At our location, we inspect and clean the film before each transfer with compressed air and splice them as needed. Our machine is modified (Fig 1), a camera is mounted where the lens is originally placed, thus instead of a projection on the wall, it projects directly into the camera. The images feeds into a wire that attaches to the computer using the 1394 Firewire connection which creates superior quality as the computer records the images directly from the source as seen in Fig 1. In addition to a quality controlled transfer, the film scanner uses LED light technology so that if there is a jam, the film will not burn the content making the transfer safe.
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The camera also has built in auto white balance and exposure, once the images are recorded in the computer, we are able to further fine tune the exposure and saturation with a tool called video scopes (Fig 2). This allows us to insure that the footage captured displays properly on a screen and that the brightness and darkness levels in the picture are not over or under exposed. After these adjustments are made, we will export to the appropriate file format such as AVI, MOV, DVD, MPEG2, or MP4 which is then possible to be shared online with your family.
Fig 2. Video scopes help measure exposure and saturation.
Film projection is a delicate procedure as it requires hours of experience and knowledge in understanding how to splice, clean and handle the film. At the same time our technician needs to know how to manually focus the camera to get the sharpest picture for each film being transferred. We understand how precious your films are, we know how to give you the best possible experience when you watch your memories. Contact us if you have anymore questions on film projectors and how they work, in the mean time check out our sample below!