film stock breakdown

[freddie bonfanti]

hi

 

what is the best and most accurate technique to choose how much film is needed? is there a ratio or formula conventionally used for this?

[Stephen Williams]

hi

 

what is the best and most accurate technique to choose how much film is needed? is there a ratio or formula conventionally used for this?

 

Hi,

 

It's up to you and your budget! Many people work around 10 x running time. Stanley K used nearer 100 times!

 

Stephen

[David Mullen ASC]

For narrative work, most scripts are written in the page per minute rule roughly. You have to figure though that you'll burn more stock covering a scene with a lot of people talking as opposed to just two people.

 

But generally for low-budget people, a 7:1 ratio is about as low as you should consider and be comfortable. 5:1 if you're really good about doing as few takes as possible. 10:1 is the most common ratio (and it's the easiest to calculate.) These days, the films I shoot budget for 20:1.

 

So for a 100-page script, aka 100 minute movie, a 10:1 ratio would be 10 minutes of film for every one minute of final screen time or for every script page. If you are shooting in 35mm, that would be a little less than 100,000' of stock (a 1000' roll per page roughly, although 1000' is really 11 minutes of film.)

 

So for 16mm, which uses 400' rolls instead of the 1000' rolls of 35mm for the same time, that's more like 40,000' for a 100 minute feature.

 

For a 5:1 ratio, cut those figures in half: 50,000' of 35mm or 20,000' of 16mm for a 100-page script. But the lowest I've done it on is 72,000' for 35mm for a feature.

 

Like I said these are pretty rough estimates.

[freddie bonfanti]

thanks for the accurate and helpful replies, now things are much clearer