LIFT’s Aaton XTR Plus - The camera of the FUTURE!

LIFT’s Aaton XTR Plus - The camera of the FUTURE!

By Brian Stockton

One of the newest and most exciting additions to the LIFT equipment arsenal is the Aaton XTR Plus for 16mm and Super-16mm filming. The switch between 16 and Super-16 can be made in a few minutes, but so far all LIFT productions have used it in Super-16 mode. For those who don’t know, Super-16 is a production-only version of standard, single-perf 16mm film. The camera uses what would normally be the optical sound area of the film stock to record more picture information in a wide-screen, 1.66:1 ratio. Because of this, the finished product cannot have an optical sound track, so the film must either be blown-up to 35mm, or transferred to video for finishing. A 35mm blow-up for a feature-length film will cost you somewhere in the neighbourhood of $50,000.00.

There is also a place called Colorlab in Rockville Maryland ((301) 770-2128) that will perform a Super-16 to 16mm blow-down. The finished 16mm print has optical sound and appears in a letterboxed format. This sounds like an excellent, and cheaper, alternative to a 35mm blow-up, particularly if your film has not been picked up by a major distributor. Aaton cameras are the indirect descendents of Eclair’s NPR and ACL cameras. Eclair cameras were very popular in the sixties and seventies, particularly among documentarians (LIFT has an Eclair NPR, and it’s a wonderful, inexpensive sync camera.) The Eclair, and now the Aaton, are perfectly suited for hand-held filming, with great balance and relatively low weight. LIFT’s Aaton weighs in at a mere 13 pounds with an on-board battery and a loaded 400 foot magazine. The XTR’s 35mm sibling, the Aaton 35-III, has the same basic design as the 16mm camera, and weighs in at an astonishingly light 16 pounds. I bring all this up because I believe the Aaton’s low-weight and all-around great design make it a very "low-budget friendly" camera, and therefore very suited to LIFT productions. When time and money are a concern, a versatile, portable, light-weight camera can make a huge difference. This will particularly help documentarians, but should help all low-budget filmmakers by providing them with a camera than can easily be used in studio, or hand-held in the field.

I worked with a Betacam recently, and even though they are designed for hand-held shooting, a Betacam feels awkward and heavy compared to the Aaton. Betacams even have those built-in shoulder pads which, you’d think would make them comfortable to hold, but the camera always felt too heavy and too bulky. With its superior industrial design (and admittedly higher price tag) an Aaton feels much better, and of course can deliver incredible pictures, particularly in the Super-16 format. For people interested in the latest trend of shooting on digital video and transferring to 35mm, don’t discount Super-16 as an option. Obviously you’ll have to have a lot more money to shoot film, but the Aaton is extremely lightweight, versatile, and can deliver incredible high-resolution film images. An 800 foot magazine is also available for the Aaton (although not from LIFT), for a full 22 minutes of filming on one mag. Although digital camera technology is very good, it’s still at an interim stage in its development. Current feature films shot digitally and transferred to 35mm are going to look quite dated in a few•years, when higher resolution digital options become available. I’d prefer to stick to film until the options in digital have much higher resolution.

The XTR Plus also has the capability to provide on-board time code with Aaton’s Origin C time code device, for a variety of syncing and post-production options. LIFT doesn’t currently have an Origin C, but hopes to add one in the future, particularly if members express an interest in the technology. The Origin C plugs into the time-code socket of the camera, and allows for automated syncing between the camera and any time-code based device The camera physically burns the time code onto the negative while the film is being exposed. The time-code numbers appear visually on the edge of the negative next to the edge code numbers. This means easy syncing to a time code Nagra or DAT recorder. During transfer of the negative to video, the audio can be automatically synced to the picture because of the matching time-code. And because the matching time-codes are generated automatically, no slate is required when using the Origin C.

In the higher budget world of feature-film production, this has meant that projected 35mm rushes can be synced to audio material on a Macintosh running Pro Tools digital audio software. An addition to the film projector can read the AatonCode as the projector runs, and the Pro Tools system can chase and sync to this code, giving you 35mm rushes with perfectly synced digital sound. Previously, all sound had to be transferred to 35mm mag for rushes to be screened with audio.

But back to reality. Even without the Origin C, there are still a multitude of options for working with the Aaton and Super-16. You can cut a Super-16 workprint on LIFT’s Super-16 capable Intercine flatbed, and sync the rushes on mag the old-fashioned way. This sometimes seems like an archaic thing to do in this digital age, but this system has worked since practically the dawn of cinema, so don’t discount it automatically. If you prefer to cut digitally, you can transfer the negative to video and cut on the Media 100 for either a film or video finish. During the video transfer the keycode numbers on the edge of the film can be read onto the tape and used later as a reference for the neg cutter. The rushes can be synced on the Media 100 or in the Pro Tools room without too much difficulty. While I have never used the Aaton myself to make a film, I’m dying for the opportunity. I have always been a fan of the Eclair NPR, and the Aaton is like the perfected version of that camera. It’s small and lightweight, but when matched with ever-improving 16mm film stocks and the Super-16 option, it’s a powerful image-making machine. Time to get to work on that script I’ve been putting off...