SHORT: Forty Below - Super 16 Student Project

filmismymedium

filmismymedium

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"A young family's visit to relatives in the cold Minnesota wilderness turns deadly when their car is forced off the road and into a tree."​

Just completed my second short 16mm project. It was shot in 5 1/2 hours in a warehouse in Long Beach and we utilized poor man's process for the majority of the piece. It was shot using only 400 feet of film stock. It was the 6th of 7 short 16mm films that our class group accomplished as a team over the course of 3 months. The total run time of the piece is just under 5 minutes.

It was a significant learning process for all of us and solidified my love for traditional filmmaking.

NOW ONLINE - Forty Below Full Film:


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Behind the Scenes:
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Tech Specs:
Aaton XTR
Kodak 7219 Stock
Laboratory, Telecine and Transfer: FotoKem, Burbank


Mikael Gustafson - Adjective Noun Productions
 
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It looked really good man. It had a good pace and the sound was very clear and crisp. Keep them coming. Congrats!
 
Nice work man. I see a lot went into that. The acting was professional and the you guys did well with making such a dramatic scene.

-Nate
 
wow very nice. highly impressive. only question is why is the grain so strong and doesn't look like film grain but almost like the digital grain that you see when you add the fake grain filter via adobe premiere etc? I mean I know 16mm is grainy but I was just watching arronofsky's The Swan trailer and it's 16mm and has a lot of grain but looks alot more natural and not as strong. Just curious why
 
Homunculus said:
wow very nice. highly impressive. only question is why is the grain so strong and doesn't look like film grain but almost like the digital grain that you see when you add the fake grain filter via adobe premiere etc? I mean I know 16mm is grainy but I was just watching arronofsky's The Swan trailer and it's 16mm and has a lot of grain but looks alot more natural and not as strong. Just curious why
Click to expand...

Thanks for watching!

What you are seeing is indeed the natural film grain. The reason it looks different than Black Swan is the difference in film stocks. We shot on 500 speed kodak tungsten stock, which can produce a fair amount of grain even with a hi-res telecine and transfer. Black Swan used a 160 speed Fuji stock. Generally, the slower the stock, the finer the grain. As a result however, Black Swan probably required A LOT of light to properly expose the interior scenes.

The advantage of the film we used (7219) is that it has incredible range and small grain considering the speed. If you haven't checked out Kodak's new line of Vision3 stocks, I'd take a look. They have a new 200 speed Tungsten film (5213/7213) which has similar range as the 500T and yet a much tighter grain.

For a good comparison, check out The Wrestler. It was shot on Kodak stock, some of which was 7219. Watch the HD trailer to really see the grain up close. Wrestler Trailer
 
Great job. Well shot, well cut, wonderful performances, the dialogue felt natural.

My one and only problem is probably with the over-all film. It's a moment I suppose, but it felt like it didn't really go anywhere. If at first it was established that he didn't care for his baby, or that perhaps it wasn't even his... something... to show growth in the main character, then maybe it would have worked better. Right now all I see is a couple arguing about being in a storm and going to an event, car crash, mother dies, father warms up baby... then what? How's the first half connected to the second half? I didn't feel it.

Anyways, great job, especially for a student film. Keep going!
 
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