Red Ruination Blue - a production blog

taormina said:
Slowly falling in love with 3 perf Super 35....
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Check out the 2 perf Techniscope. I think Able Cine has an Aaton, and Panavision has 2 Perf movements. Plus it will save you bank on processing, raw stock, and scanning. Those costs really can add up.

Otherwise go anamorphic, you have more data, and the image is LUSH!

Anamorphic is a small headache for VFX to sort out, but they can do it, and your images are much larger and cleaner to start with.

Chris
 
the main advantage of originating on 35mm is that when you finish editing, your movie will be accessible to 1,000,000 theaters worldwide

but if you're going to do a DI, then you might as well shoot digital, because it costs the same going from DI to 35mm as HD to 35mm

bon voyage
 
filmman said:
the main advantage of originating on 35mm is that when you finish editing, your movie will be accessible to 1,000,000 theaters worldwide

but if you're going to do a DI, then you might as well shoot digital, because it costs the same going from DI to 35mm as HD to 35mm

bon voyage
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:thumbsup:
 
taormina said:
It's one of the cheapest ways to shoot 35, which RRB will be shot on no matter what.

For those who are fuzzy on this, 3 perf 35 provides a savings of 25% over 4 perf, which is the standard.
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Correction, the Abel cine Aaton can be 3 perf, not 2 perf. But the Panavision Platinums have a 2 perf movement available.
 
filmman said:
the main advantage of originating on 35mm is that when you finish editing, your movie will be accessible to 1,000,000 theaters worldwide

but if you're going to do a DI, then you might as well shoot digital, because it costs the same going from DI to 35mm as HD to 35mm

bon voyage
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Dynamic range can be a big issue too. If you are shooting anything with pyro, bright skies, or lights sources in the scene it's going to clip with Digital. The exceptions to this are possibly the Red, the Phantom, or the Dalsa.

With a $300K film this isn't as much of a concern, but with a $3mil feature it should be. You're competing with the big boys and going theatrical at that point, so any edge you have, you want to take advantage of.

Chris
 
3 perf Super 35 more or less makes you committed to doing a DI. Why? Because there aren't any 3 perf projectors in theaters. So you do a DI, grade the movie, then film out to 4 perf film.

Why film?

I've got a ton of outdoor panoramic style vista shots. HD sucks outside. It totally sucks ass. That's just my opinion.

Also, Film is the look I want for this movie. It's much easier to shoot film on the crew, far more so than digital. There are no zebras. There is no fiddling with a zillion camera settings. There is no applying a gamma curve to the footage during or after. There are no archival problems. I could go on and on. It has it's disadvantages, namely cost, but it is easy to shoot.

On Corrado, I spent $25K in post production to make my footage look more "filmic". It's ironic.

Yes I've shot 35 before. I love it.

At this budget level, with the "epicness" of the cast and story I'm trying to paint, it's just right for this project.

It may not be right for other projects, but it's right for this one.
 
Adam said: On Corrado, I spent $25K in post production to make my footage look more "filmic". It's ironic.
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Thank you, I always did say that film is cheaper than digital.

I sell short ends ... and long ends :-) so here is the way to originate on 35mm film and beat the cost of shooting on digital and end up with a professional ... er ... I meant Hollywood standard movie. LOL

50,000 ft of Eastman Kodak film at an average price of 15 cents per foot -- 5:1 ratio on a hundred minute feature film = $7,500.

Developing negative 50,000 ft at 10 cents per foot = $5,000.

Telecine selected takes at $150 (Magic Film, Burbank) ~ $1.000 - $2,000

-- Therefore, shooting 35mm film will cost you less than half the cost of making your digital movie look like 35mm.

-- You already have your digital camera and you don't want to spend money on rental -- ok, buy yourself an Arri BL 1 on eBay for $7,500 (I sold one for a friend of mine a few months ago).

Now you have a professional 35mm camera as well as your digital camera, which you can use for BTS coverage.LOL

You want more details, http://www.releasing.net
 
filmman said:
Thank you, I always did say that film is cheaper than digital.

I sell short ends ... and long ends :-) so here is the way to originate on 35mm film and beat the cost of shooting on digital and end up with a professional ... er ... I meant Hollywood standard movie. LOL
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Well this topic is going to get short shrift on this forum, but since it's part of the process for RR, it may as well be discussed. Hollywood standard is the truth. Besides all the no budget stuff on digital, I'd say probably less than 20% of features in Hollywood are shot on digital.

There's just something that can't be duplicated about film.

filmman said:
50,000 ft of Eastman Kodak film at an average price of 15 cents per foot -- 5:1 ratio on a hundred minute feature film = $7,500.

Developing negative 50,000 ft at 10 cents per foot = $5,000.

Telecine selected takes at $150 (Magic Film, Burbank) ~ $1.000 - $2,000
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This is where you and I digress on our philosophies. Sure, you can do a movie with all short ends (I did my feature that way), and save a bundle, but on a real budget pic you're going to use brand new cans, do camera tests, shoot way more than 50,000 feet (remember this is a two camera shoot) and telecine everything.

There is no way in hell that that scenario will result in a show that's cheaper than digital. HD is way cheaper than all this. If you want to do it right, it will cost more, anyways.

Like I said, I shot a 15 minute short on 35 and used 7000 feet of film. I still have 1200' of 5297 left over in my garage - 6 cans of 200' short ends! So yeah, I've done that but we we're loading more than shooting.

filmman said:
-- Therefore, shooting 35mm film will cost you less than half the cost of making your digital movie look like 35mm.

-- You already have your digital camera and you don't want to spend money on rental -- ok, buy yourself an Arri BL 1 on eBay for $7,500 (I sold one for a friend of mine a few months ago).

Now you have a professional 35mm camera as well as your digital camera, which you can use for BTS coverage.LOL

You want more details, http://www.releasing.net
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Only in that scenario. Done properly, I still believe film will cost much more. But the results will be better as well, and you're ready for theatrical.

My DP actually owns a BL3. We used that and a cooke zoom to shoot my short. In the case of RRB, however, we can't dick around with those old boat anchors. We're probably going to rent a couple Panavision Millenniums a set of primes, and maybe a zoom. This way we can fly a lightweight (compared to a bl3!) camera from a steadicam, and have the full backing and support of Panavision if something breaks. Plus we need a quiet camera, not like those lawnmower loud BL1/2/3s and something with a real nice video tap to set up a video village with playback.


We'll sub out the BTS this time, and it will obviously be shot on HD.
 
this may be a dumb question....i've never shot film, but when shooting film don't you have to wait for dailies to come back before you even know what your footage looks like? does that cost extra? what happens if you realize you haven't captured what you after once you get the dailies back? just reshoot the entire scene?
 
^^ that's what i would like to know. also, adam you mentioned there are no fancy buttons on film cameras, you basically just start shooting. i was wondering how do you know when you overexpse/underexpse your shot? is it like digital where highlights blow out very very easily? is it as simple as buying daylight stocks and not using a light meter? i know there are books and such on the topic but if someone could give me a small brief run down, as im on my phone i dont have much time to be looking up stuff hehe.
 
you'd have a video tap for monitoring and reviewing takes, guys. as for exposure, that's what a little math and an experienced DP are for.
 
Exactly, Zak.

As for the monitoring, each camera has what's called a "video tap" which is a small CCD video camera that's inserted into the film camera mechanism so that you basically see on a TV screen what it being displayed in the viewfinder.

What you see is NOT what you get - other than the framing! The color and exposure are not accurately displayed on the video tap! It's only for framing purposes. The color and such is inherent to the type of film stock used. The exposure is set by the DP with a light meter.

My DP shot film for over a decade before going to video. You need to find a good film guy to shoot this stuff, because you really are shooting "blind" without one.

As for getting everything you need, you should:

1) know that as a director
2) The DP should be aware of this in the form of a shot list
3) Script Super follows this as well....

Film is sent to the lab nightly and processed, returned to you the next day in the form of "dailies" burned to DVD or sent over the internet. At the end of the day you watch the previous days footage to ensure you like what you see.

You have a series of playback monitors on the set, a "video village" that have playback capability through a VCR type setup as well as a playback operator to run it all. For critical shots, you basically hit "rewind" and watch them over, seeing everything the video tap has captured through the viewfinder (minus the accurate color info).

The benefit here is that you aren't tying up the camera for replaying functions like with an HD camera. The camera is free to move to the next setup without having to replay the footage .

I know it feels like you're running blind, but with experienced first ACs focusing, a gaffer who knows lighting, and a competent DP there is seldom anything that goes wrong other than you just don't like the performance.

Exposure in film is a topic that could fill a book, but the short answer is that the look of the film is dependent on the stock, the lighting chosen, and the competence of the DP, gaffer and crews.

Plus coming from the digital world, the whole film thing seems foreign, but keep in mind film has more or less been shot like this for the last hundred years!
 
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All this talk of 35mm makes me nostalgic. Here is a clip of my first short - the 35mm "The Ensnaring". We shot this over four days back in early '06 in a little cabin type house in Laguna Beach. The short is 15 minutes long...what's posted here is the final scene in the bathroom.

It was supposed to be a little horror / thriller deal. We shot it on an Arri BL3 (that belongs to my DP) on Kodak 5279 stock.

The short kinda sucks, It has it's moments but it's too slow for my liking. I don't like many of the shots, I've learned so much.....the ending really is the best.

In any case, here's the ending in all it's glory.

Warning: If you cut it up too bad I'm going to ask to see your first short!!!:)

http://www.vimeo.com/3033966

Yes, it's very weird!
 
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