Digitize 8mm Film
Making an 8mm movie has never been easier. There are many easily available digital editing programs and relatively low-cost ways to transfer 8mm film to video. This makes the editing process exponentially easier and more flexible than traditional 8mm film splicing. Digitizing film is done after shooting, processing and transferring it to video.
Instructions
Process and Transfer
1. Find a lab to transfer your film to video. There are many types of film-to-video transfers, ranging from inexpensive low-resolution ones to high-end transfers done with lasers. You will need to research the costs and types of services as they vary widely.
2. Take or mail your exposed film to the lab for processing and transfer to digital video. Most labs that develop 8mm film will also transfer it to video.
3. Make sure to transfer your film to a type of digital video compatible with your particular computer and editing system. The most common is miniDV. Other possibilities are Digital8 and HDV.
Digitizing
4. Patch your deck or camera to digitize from using Firewire or USB. Launch your editing software--common ones are Final Cut Pro, Adobe Premiere, Vegas, iMovie, and Windows MovieMaker. Firewire--or "ieee1394"--connections work much better than USB for digitizing. Turn on your camera or deck and connect it before launching the software, or your computer may not find the device.
5. Turn on the capture function in your software. Some programs call this the "log and capture" function; other programs may call it digitize, import or some other term. If you cannot find this command use the help function in your software.
6. Rewind the tape to the beginning. Some systems allow you to control your camera or deck via the computer; on others you may have to do this manually.
7. You should see your footage on screen. Before you digitize, set a scratch disk, save location, and file name so you can find your file later. If you can control the camera and deck from the computer, you can easily play the footage and stop to make notes on your shots. If you must manually control the deck, use the play and pause buttons on the camera.
8. Digitize your footage by hitting the digitize command in your software while the footage is playing. In Final Cut Pro, this is the "capture now" button in the log and capture window. Look for a similar "capture" or "digitize" function for other software.
You can digitize the entire tape as one file if you have enough hard drive space, or you can break up your footage into shorter shots and name each one separately.
Tags: camera deck, your footage, your software, capture function, digital video, Digitize Film, film video
