Getting started with film.

[yommytacoe]

Maybe I'm completely crazy, but lately I've found myself very intrigued with the idea of shooting on film, and I'm considering making a few shorts on 16mm, and possibly eventually shooting a 16mm feature.

My question is, how do I get started? With my XHA1, I just went out and started shooting, and it didn't matter how much I shot because tape is cheap, but celluloid is much more expensive. Are there any good websites, articles, forums, or books that anyone can recommend in which I can learn the ins and outs of shooting on film without just picking up a camera and shooting? Basically what i want is "film for dummies."

Any Suggestions?

[Casalen]

16mm is pretty cheap. Cameras can be had inexpensively as well. You'll need a light meter for exposure, an understanding of color temperature if you're not doing black and white... and that's about it. It's not so expensive that you can't take some time to learn with it, beyond the book learning you do online. At least is my understanding, I haven't actually checked prices.

[Tim Joy]

I'm venturing down this path too.
It's been helpful to find a DP that has shot on film and is willing to teach me the basics and guide me through the process.
I think it will be less likely that I'll show up at the lab with an expensive paper-weight that way. :)

[yommytacoe]

Ya,
From the reading I've done, I feel I have a decent understanding of basic concepts such as exposure, and filters and such, especially since I've done some 35mm SLR photography. I've also seen some used 16mm bolex and arriflex cameras selling for under 500 dollars. What is the post production workflow like? Is it just transfered to a digital format into an NLE or is it more complicated than that? And once again, any links or books to get me in the right direction would be greatly appreciated. There are a million books on amazon and such, but I would rather not just buy one arbitrarily.

[Ryan Patrick O'Hara]

Ya,
From the reading I've done, I feel I have a decent understanding of basic concepts such as exposure, and filters and such, especially since I've done some 35mm SLR photography. I've also seen some used 16mm bolex and arriflex cameras selling for under 500 dollars. What is the post production workflow like? Is it just transfered to a digital format into an NLE or is it more complicated than that? And once again, any links or books to get me in the right direction would be greatly appreciated. There are a million books on amazon and such, but I would rather not just buy one arbitrarily.

Yes. Your film, after the development and print stage, can be scanned by a tele-cine machine which will either transfer your footage to tape or hard drive. The scans vary from SD, 1K, 2K, 4k or 6k. The last two are really only for major motion picture use. The first three are your basic options. If SD, try to get a DVCPro tape transfer, it's way better then DV or miniDV

[mctimc]

Public Enemies movie has my friend and I wondering if you can really light 16mm with highway flares (dillinger arrives at airport in Indiana). How did news cameramen in the 30s really light on-the-spot night scenes for 16mm? The idea of highway flares sounds like a cool effect.

[Ryan Patrick O'Hara]

Very Very true! This is possible and was done for many early films in the 'wilderness' in the early 20th century. They, the cinematographers, of course would be clawing for exposure, considering film stock sensitivity was much more demanding then the film stocks we have today.

Check out the May 1985 American Cinematographer magazine. There is a wonderful article in there called "Danger in God's Country" (it is actually a chapter from 'The Light on Her Face' a book by Joseph Walker ASC')

It tells of his amazing and eventually tragic experience shooting a silent film in the Canadian Tundra wilderness in 1919 (35mm Film). He (Joseph Walker ASC) hires the local Native Americans (Inuit types) to help with the night exterior scenes. He had them light some flares for the scene, and as soon as they ignited, the natives would freak out in fear, throw the flares into the snow and run away! They had never seen such things!

It's a wonderful story, but I'm using it to prove that it is possible and quite common... although I think those flares were for ship use, as in 1919 there were not many highways.


Also, Welcome to the boards Mctimc!

[Ryan Patrick O'Hara]

I was just re-reading the book, and I'm upon the chapter. Here is an excerpt:

With a night scene coming up to film, most of us dreaded it. I tried to talk Nell (lead actress & financer) and Bert (director) out of making it, but they insisted the sequence was essential. Wellington Playter refused outright to work in the grim sub-temperature of an Arctic night. Therefore the action had to be changed to a medium shot and we'd use the half breed driver for a double.

"Nothing to it! We can get it in one take." Van Tuyle assured me in his confident way. "All I want is a quick shot of the dogsled as it swings toward us then heasds out across the lake. We've got plenty of magnesium flares to light it."

I couldn't talk him out of it, so I dismissed my reservation about workin in a probable sixty-below. After all, wed made good headway lately; things had been going unusually well. But not for long...

We hired Indians to hold the magnesium flares aloft. When we lit the flares they made a loud hissing sound which immediately scared the Indians. Into the snowbanks went the fiercly sputtering flares as the scrambling Indians disappeared. We peered after them in the darkness, knowing that no amount of enticing would bring them back.