film running times

[Mark Nornes]

Jasper,

Kodak has a handy tool for this:

http://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/filmCalculator.html

But if you want to get fetishistically precise like an archivist, it  
gets complicated fast. I recalled a thread from the AMIA list. I'll  
paste it below.

Markus






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Re: [AMIA-L] meters = minutes (continued)


To: AMIA-L at LSV.UKY.EDU
Subject: Re: [AMIA-L] meters = minutes (continued)
From: Martin Koerber <makoerber at WEB.DE>
Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2006 20:44:08 +0200
In-reply-to: <20060816171458.81045.qmail at web32404.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-id: <25F8A936-7F88-49FB-B34F-DCD8CCE589F6 at web.de>
References: <20060816171458.81045.qmail at web32404.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Reply-to: Association of Moving Image Archivists <AMIA-L at LSV.UKY.EDU>


Dear Prof. Hill, Jos?. Richard and all who are interested -

meters is in my opinion the best way to describe a film length,  
recording minutes is bogus because of the various projection speeds  
that are possible, especially with silent film, but also because of  
the 24/25 fps changes made (not only) between presentations in "real"  
projection or television.

Thus minutes tend to tell you not the film length, but the lenght of  
a particular form of presentation of the film you want to know more  
about.

That is why film length is recorded in meters (or feet, for that  
matter) in serious filmographies.

My 0.877 calculation factor was simply taken from a piece of paper  
next to a projector many many years ago. I have no source for this  
formula other than telling you it was a piece of paper in the booth  
of the famous old "Arsenal" cinema in Berlin, some of you may know  
this place, since moved to the new Filmhaus at Potsdamer Platz. I   
found the formula worked for my purposes, and never questioned it.  
The Arsenal play a lot of silent films, with variable speeds, and  
thus they needed something to figure this out.

Richard and Jos? have found out that it is not quite correct. In fact  
Richard pointed out to me (off-list) that my formula is 0,3% off.  
Thus I apologize (for 0,3%) for having suggested it and share  
hereunder Richards calculations, which may show you how precise some  
people want to be - Thanx Richard!

Martin Koerber

Martin:     regarding use of 0.877

I've now found a small discrepency between your 0.877 (for seconds),  
and my 52.48 (for minutes), because 52.48/60 = 0.8747.

The Kodak online tool uses something very close to 0.87485 (because  
10000 meters of 35mm comes up as 6 hrs, 4 min, 31 sec -- which equals  
364.52 minutes.  So we don't agree on the third digit.  I've checked  
my calculations (based on 16 frames per meter; I hope that is exact!)  
and the difference could simply be the factor used to convert meters  
to feet:  3.28 or 3.280839895013123... or whatever.

Meters * Feet_per_meter * (16 frames/ft) / frames_per_second  = seconds
Meters * Feet_per_meter * (16 frames/ft) / frames_per_second * (1  
minute/60 sec)  = minutes

3.2808 * 16 = 52.493, so that's accurate to 5 places, whereas I used  
3.28*16 = 52.48 = 3 places accuracy, and slightly off in the 4th digit.

But 52.493/60 = 0.87488   so 0.877 just isn't right: it's off in the  
3rd digit.

I'm sorry to be so pedantic, but I felt I had to look into the  
difference between what you used for seconds and what I used for  
minutes.  My conclusion is that if you want a 3-digit conversion  
factor, you should use 0.875, and NOT 0.877.  I know this is a  
difference of about 0.3% and is irrelevant in all cases where the  
practicalities are that people may only know the initial value (the  
meters) to, say, 10% -- but nevertheless the correct factor is  
0.87488 which round to 0.875.

By the way, 0.875 is of course exactly 7/8, for what that's worth as  
a rule of thumb.

Regards, Richard




Am 16.08.2006 um 19:14 schrieb Jos? Llufr?o:
Dear Prof Steven, and all,

There was no difference in projection speed for theatrical use in  
Eastern Europe (so called "Socialist Countries").

Looking up the historical use of foot, you find many definitions,  
which have different equivalents to the meter.

For example, in pre-revolutionary France (up to 1800) the French  
"Pied du Roi" or "Pied de Paris" was 32.48 centimeters (the standard  
English foot is 30.48 centimeters).

In Spanish speaking countries there is also a Pie, which is of  
different length in different countries. Lots of interesting data  
about measuring units and systems in  http://www.sizes.com/units/ 
index.htm

For practical purposes any figure that does not depart more than 1%  
from the 27.44 can be used. The head and tail leaders would amount to  
close to 1% of the film length, and that would only mean one minute  
in a standard feature film with an hour and a half screening time.

Sometimes the projectionists, during changeover (if running smaller  
reels with double projectors) skip much more than that.

Jose Llufrio
Technicolor
New York




On Jan 18, 2007, at 12:51 PM, J.sharp wrote:

> Sorry for all these questions, but I have another more general  
> quickie...
>
> Can anyone inform me of a reliable equation for transferring film  
> meters to
> minutes. I know how to do feet per minutes, but again the jmdb list  
> all
> their film lengths in meters, so if anyone has a reliable formula  
> it would
> be much appreciated!
>
> Thanks,
>
> Jasper
>
> --
> Midnight Eye: The Latest and Best in Japanese Cinema
> www.midnighteye.com
>
> ===
>
> Available now in bookstores everywhere:
> The Midnight Eye Guide to New Japanese Film (Stone Bridge Press)
> by Tom Mes and Jasper Sharp
> http://www.midnighteye.com/features/midnighteye_guide.shtml
> "Easily one of the most important books on Japanese cinema ever  
> released in
> English."
> - Newtype USA
>
>
>
> --------- Original Message --------
> From: KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
> To: KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu <KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio- 
> state.edu>
> Subject: The Real Best of 2006
> Date: 18/01/07 06:39
>
>> Since people are posting their best/worth lists of 2006, I thought  
>> I'd add
> some more data to the mix. As Aaron always points out, these lists are
> mostly interesting as representations of a given publication's  
> collective
> take on the state of Japanese cinema (or an individual's, should  
> you wade
> into the numbers). But a more crucial data set comes out of the  
> industry,
> and 2006 proved to be a significant year?statistically speaking. In  
> the Dec.
> 28 Variety, Mark reported that the market share for domestic films was
> expected to hit the 50% mark for the first time since 1985, and  
> production
> may have exceeded 400 titles for the first time since 1973. He  
> adds,Although
> no Japanese film has crossed the Y10 billion ($88.6 million) line  
> this year,
> the number of titles grossing Y5 billion ($26 million) or more --  
> the local
> measure of a blockbuster -- has hit six, an all-time high.As a  
> result, total
> B.O. for the year is expected to surpass last year's $1.71  
> billion.To give
> you a sense for how significant these numbers are in the global  
> scheme of
> things, German B.O. for last year was a bit over $706 milliion;  
> that is for
> a year of double digit growth, thanks to some domestic hits. By way of
> contrast, Japan doesn't look as impressive next to South Korea.  
> After a
> decade of growth, South Korea has cracked the $1 billion mark in  
> total B.O.,
> and domestic films pulled in 61% of the grosses (in comparison to  
> 34% for
> U.S. films). The numbers, at least, bode well for the 2007 film  
> season.
> Markus
>
> ________________________________________________
> Message sent using Hunter Point Online WebMail
>
>
>

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