Student Options For Getting Into Film
- Thread starter Dan_ETP
- Start date
Oetam
Active member
If you have a way to be able to spend some time in the NYC area without breaking the bank, Mono No Aware does pretty affordable analoge workshops - and in general they're really helpful and motivated to help aspiring filmmakers out and keep traditional filmmaking alive. I interned with them for a month in January and learned lot in the process. They also sell surplus film for cheap (which they ship out) so that could be an option.
There are lots of these events around the county, and many will lend you a camera. http://onetakesuper8event.blogspot.com/
Ok So Film is not as $$ as it used to be, HD scanning has come down quite a bit.
I recently bought Aaton LTR 7 Regular 16mm great working camera - $700
paired it with Zeiss 10-100mm Regular 16mm coverage
If that is too much look up Russian Made K3 - I bought one for $45 brand new practically.
I always had a sweet spot for the Eclair ACL although the LTR is quieter.
Why so cheap? First of all everyone wants Super 16mm cameras so if you get Regular 16mm, it saves a lot of money. Also can use R16mm lenses. And the secret about R16mm is now it looks better because you can keep the 4:3 edges of the film in the 16:9 output and it gives it even more of a "film look". You gotta hunt on ebay for the auctions, but they are out there and you will find really nice Regular 16mm cameras complete with all parts going much lower than the super 16mm counter parts if only because no one is going to pay in this day and age to get a r16mm camera converted to s16mm, it's just not worth the cost vs. finding used kit.
If you really need widescreen do what they used to do, mask the viewfinder and crop the film to 16:9 in post and then you have wiggle room on top and bottom. Or get crazy and lookup "Ultra 16mm conversion" all you really need is a jeweler with a fine file to widen the gate 1.5mm on each side and you get more real estate onto the film.
Pro8mm in Burbank CA has really good deals on film/processing and scanning. I had a collection of 16mm stock already but they processed and scanned to 2k prores for me 400 ft of film for around $400. This is not bad considering this type of scan used to be thousands to even get in the door. I gave them the un-processed film and a hard drive and 4 days later got it back ready to edit.
They offer a really cool scan called open gate where basically it shows all the way to the edges of the perfs. I love this because it is cool to mix in both the imperfect rounded edges and also you get the edge code if you want to get crazy and use that in a music video type project. In any case it is a really cool option to be able to get the full piece of film delivered into an easy to edit video format. I did not have them color the footage but this is part of the learning process and the fun for me.
I know a lot more people have shot Super8mm and it will be a bit cheaper, but if you start looking into Regular 16mm cameras and stock, you will see it's not $$ and it's also enough quality to stand up to a lot of modern cameras if paired with the correct lighting and lens. Super8mm will always have a bit of softness once transferred to digital format.
need to save more $$? Get creative with limiting scans. Find video tap or build your own out of a go pro and edit your dailies.
hunt for old stock on ebay, i get lots for super cheap when people put it up for auction. Old Vision and Vision 2 100ft rolls still sealed in containers always seem to produce for me so 1995 expiration does not worry me at all. Get your hands on all the Vision 3 you can, Vision 3 is soo nice, by far the greatest stock invented right before the decline in popularity of 35mm.
I recently bought Aaton LTR 7 Regular 16mm great working camera - $700
paired it with Zeiss 10-100mm Regular 16mm coverage
If that is too much look up Russian Made K3 - I bought one for $45 brand new practically.
I always had a sweet spot for the Eclair ACL although the LTR is quieter.
Why so cheap? First of all everyone wants Super 16mm cameras so if you get Regular 16mm, it saves a lot of money. Also can use R16mm lenses. And the secret about R16mm is now it looks better because you can keep the 4:3 edges of the film in the 16:9 output and it gives it even more of a "film look". You gotta hunt on ebay for the auctions, but they are out there and you will find really nice Regular 16mm cameras complete with all parts going much lower than the super 16mm counter parts if only because no one is going to pay in this day and age to get a r16mm camera converted to s16mm, it's just not worth the cost vs. finding used kit.
If you really need widescreen do what they used to do, mask the viewfinder and crop the film to 16:9 in post and then you have wiggle room on top and bottom. Or get crazy and lookup "Ultra 16mm conversion" all you really need is a jeweler with a fine file to widen the gate 1.5mm on each side and you get more real estate onto the film.
Pro8mm in Burbank CA has really good deals on film/processing and scanning. I had a collection of 16mm stock already but they processed and scanned to 2k prores for me 400 ft of film for around $400. This is not bad considering this type of scan used to be thousands to even get in the door. I gave them the un-processed film and a hard drive and 4 days later got it back ready to edit.
They offer a really cool scan called open gate where basically it shows all the way to the edges of the perfs. I love this because it is cool to mix in both the imperfect rounded edges and also you get the edge code if you want to get crazy and use that in a music video type project. In any case it is a really cool option to be able to get the full piece of film delivered into an easy to edit video format. I did not have them color the footage but this is part of the learning process and the fun for me.
I know a lot more people have shot Super8mm and it will be a bit cheaper, but if you start looking into Regular 16mm cameras and stock, you will see it's not $$ and it's also enough quality to stand up to a lot of modern cameras if paired with the correct lighting and lens. Super8mm will always have a bit of softness once transferred to digital format.
need to save more $$? Get creative with limiting scans. Find video tap or build your own out of a go pro and edit your dailies.
hunt for old stock on ebay, i get lots for super cheap when people put it up for auction. Old Vision and Vision 2 100ft rolls still sealed in containers always seem to produce for me so 1995 expiration does not worry me at all. Get your hands on all the Vision 3 you can, Vision 3 is soo nice, by far the greatest stock invented right before the decline in popularity of 35mm.
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JPNola
Veteran
One option is to buy an old 35mm DSLR and, well, shoot film. Doing so would allow you to learn to expose film and also learn about film stocks. You can purchase short ends of motion picture film stock and bulk load it yourself into canisters that will allow you to shoot the film with a DSLR. There are labs that will process motion picture film that has been bulk loaded-
see this article:
http://www.stevehuffphoto.com/2014/...cinema-film-in-a-still-camera-by-brett-price/
35mm motion picture film short ends available here:
https://www.facebook.com/ReelGoodFilm/
http://www.reelgoodfilm.com
35mm DLSR's are dirt cheap on eBay. Here is a CanonT-50 with a 50mm lens for $42.00-
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Canon-T50-3...505903?hash=item21223036ef:g:3nkAAOSw5HJXKTes
The purpose here would be for you to learn how to best expose motion picture film and learn, first hand, the characteristics of motion picture film. Now, all of this will take a bit of work and a modest investment...but you WILL be shooting film and I doubt you will ever regret the experience.
jamedia.uk
Well-known member
How would you shoot film in a DIGITIAL SLR? The D in DSLR stands for, well... Digital
The problem is that film is on the way out. It requires an industrial process and a factory to make it. We are getting to a point where all the worlds film will be made by one factory (no matter the branding on the box). IT's almost there now. Eventually, as Kodak found, it is jut not economical to run the factory. The other problem is you will need your own dark room and equipment. commercial places are disappearing very fast.
The local chemists (part of the UK's largest chain) used to do a 1 hour turnaround, then a 1 week, then a two week turn around and all the films were going to s central regional location. Eventually that will stop. The shop still has the machine but it has not been turned on in many months (this was the regional processing machine) and the don't have the chemicals there any more. They are just waiting for it to be taken away.
Glass plates on the other hand can be produced at home...
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Ben_Ericson
Well-known member
Are you talking about still or motion picture? In Seattle, a lot of the drug stores still do 1 hour photo. There are 4/5 photo labs that will do really nice processing and scans.
16mm, there a few good places that process in California. It never takes more than a week for 16mm, you can rush if you have the $$$. Stand by you can save a lot of money as well.
jamedia.uk
Well-known member
Stills. Consumer motion film processing disappeared a long time go except for a few specialist places you have to do via mail.
In Europe that sort of thing stopped a fair few years ago. "everyone" has had a mobile (cell?) phone with a camera for about the last decade and that killed film. Along with the photo-journalists and sports togs going to digital as soon as it arrived.
The big thing now is digitising old prints but I Would not know where to go to get anything developed now. There were 6 pro stills labs in Birmingham UK (UK2nd city apparently) but they disappeared down to 1 over 5 years ago. No idea if the last one is still running.
Probably only a few in the UK but you would have to search for them. Again not seen any matures using motion in about a decade.
Hello, haven't been here in a while, but wanted to thank everyone for their replies. And yes, I have been shooting film photography, so at least I've worked with film/exposing for film in some capacity.
I may also speak with some rental houses about the possibility of an educational workshop. I know one that still has an arriflex...
I may also speak with some rental houses about the possibility of an educational workshop. I know one that still has an arriflex...
Ditto on that. These days, even 35mm is not out of reach, if you are as lucky. I went straight to 35, never shot a single roll of 8 or 16 mm
Ditto on that. These days, even 35mm is not out of reach, if you are as lucky. I went straight to 35, never shot a single roll of 8 or 16 mm
I think reelgood tends to have 6 to 12 month old unopened cans of 35 for 250-350 per 1000' roll IIRC. Though you do have to email/call them since they arnt a modern shop or anything. no affiliation btw http://reelgoodfilm.com/ great deal, especially if you're shooting 2 perf
Cinelab (http://cinelab.com/) and video film solutions (http://www.videofilmsolutions.com/) seem to be good bets for cost. One of my pals swears by Cinelab's soup as the best next to fotokem, and another DP I frequently work with has always had great results from VFS. As long as you mark your boxes as unexposed film and talk to the shippers to make sure it wont go thru x-ray, you should be fine. Hell USPS flat rate boxes have been known to work just fine.
Fotokem will give you spectacular results, but they are the big hollywood lab with a big hollywood building to pay for so they arnt the cheapest. The Kodak lab in NYC is supposedly technically open, and they now own the big Atlanta lab too.
Pipeline wise, depending on your budget and if you know how to work with color systems like davinci, you may want to get your film done as a flat pass 1080 telecine initially (or if you dont want to color yourself, you can have them do a "best light" color correction on the fly). 2k scans will give you much more range to play with, but they are a bit more expensive. 4k is... more expensive lol. Both cinelab and VFS post rate cards online, though you'd want to talk to them ahead of time to get a more specific quote to your needs.