So today I installed the PCU, mother board, CPU, heatsink and memory. Terrifying for me to say the least. All went smoothly and as far as I know I didn't short anything. Hit a bit of a snag which stopped play today. That is to say my case has 5 fans but the mother board only has three fan headers. Also my case is pretty massive (incase I need to upgrade in the future years) so the fan wires are a touch on the short side as well. I'm sure turning the fans around will make up the distance wire wise. Also there is bound to be some adapters to get all 5 fans working. I'll report back when more progress has been made.  

You may have noticed it's been quiet on the blog front recently so I thought you might enjoy a little telecine update. The telecine unit itself has yet to arrive but in the meantime I've been gathering the parts needed to build the computer. As you can see my desk has been taken over with glorious computer hardware. Hopefully the rest of the bits and bobs will have arrived before the week is out and I can start looking into building options. Part of me wants to build it myself so I know exactly how everything works and goes together (just incase I run into problems whilst I try and get the telecine machine working in unison with the system) but the sensible side of me tells me to leave it to the professionals.  

 

Winter has somewhat subdued the tutorial process. That is to say every time I get a couple of hours free it's usually raining outside. I'm limited to a DSLR with a 50mm lens so shooting indoors is rather difficult (rooms are small). Luckily we've found  little space for over the winter and we're going to start kitting it out to make these tutorials. I already have 2 new tutorials down on paper so after I've sorted out the space I'll record them. The first tutorial will go over how to use a Super 8 camera again (in more depth) because I've had a lot of messages through youtube about it. It'll still be a basic tutorial but will cover a wider range of subject matter and will use a couple of cameras to clarify how different cameras might operate. The first tutorial also illustrated how I test cameras. The new tutorial assumes your camera already works and takes it from there. The second tutorial will introduce the Super 8 film cartridge in some depth (little bit of a history lesson). Hopefully I should have these two tutorial up by the end of the month.     

I'm very pleased to announce we have ordered the Moviestuff HD Workprinter! We are going to remove the mirror, condenser lens set up and replace it with a HD camera, macro lens and a four way slider to scan directly from the film gate. Take a look at the units specs by clicking on the picture opposite. The service will take a while to materialize yet because moviestuff has to build it from scratch. This takes them between 45-60 days. In the meantime we've got a computer to build! I'm glad things are finally in motion though (no pun intended)!        

I'm pleased to say enough Tri-X film has finally come back in to justify mixing up the D-19 soup again. So next week I'll be developing a Tri-X batch of films. It has been the longest period between Tri-X development since the service began in summer. For the last three months the turnaround has been pretty much bang on four weeks. Unfortunately this batch has taken a little over 5 weeks to materials and I didn't get to develop Tri-X at all last month. I do hope people use the service as often as they can, purely because when services start reaching over the month turnaround bracket I start worrying about their viability. Obviously I want to keep developing Tri-X but at the same time I don't want some filmmakers waiting over 5 weeks to get their films back. One such filmmaker I have to thank for his patience. 

Here are some of the film goodies that are on offer throughout November. Quite a healthy selection of film cameras and accessories I think you'll agree. Canon's have made a bit of a comeback this month after being in short supply for a stint. All our film services are business as usual but I would like to add we are completely depleted on the Super 8 100D side until next wednesday (the 7th). On the 7th we get a fresh batch of film  delivered from Kodak. Any orders you make before then will be dispatched on the 7th. Sorry if this causes any inconvenience. We had a bit of a 100D feeding frenzy at the end of October.