How 16mm is handled

What we establish before a frame is scanned

16mm is a professional gauge and it does not behave like home movie film. Before anything runs, four questions decide the method, and getting them wrong produces a scan that technically works and quietly loses what mattered.

1. What element is this?

Camera original, print, or reversal. Original carries the most information and the most risk, because there is no backup behind it. A print is a generation down and more forgiving. Reversal is both the original and the viewable copy at once. The right scan settings differ for each, and so does how carefully it gets threaded.

2. Is there sound, and of what kind?

16mm carries sound two entirely different ways. An optical track is printed photographically along the edge and is read as light. A magnetic stripe is a physical band of oxide laid down the edge and is read as tape. They require different capture paths, and a lab that assumes one will silently miss the other.

Silent 16mm is usually double perforated, with sprocket holes on both edges. Sound 16mm is single perforated, because the track occupies the edge where the second row of holes used to be. That is often the fastest way to tell what you have before opening anything.

3. How much has it shrunk?

Acetate loses dimension as it ages. Past a certain point the sprocket holes no longer align with the transport, and forcing it tears the film. Shrinkage is measured, not eyeballed, and the result decides whether a reel can run conventionally or needs gentler handling.

4. Is it on a core or a reel?

Archival material often arrives wound on cores rather than reels, which is how it should be stored but not how it can be handled casually. Cores need winding onto a reel before scanning, and that is a step where damage happens if it is rushed.

Then, scanning

Each frame is captured as a separate image on Motion Picture Academy grade equipment, at true HD 1080p minimum and up to 2K. Not a projector pointed at a screen, which loses frame edges and introduces flicker no amount of correction removes.

Return and deliverables

Files on a flash or hard drive, with your originals back in the same shipment. For a catalogued collection we will match a file naming and format specification you supply, rather than handing back something you have to rename.