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Dark room filming


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Hey guys,

 

I have a shot coming up on S16mm in a dark room.

Basically we are filming a photographer's reaction when she sees a print being developed.

I'm planning on using a magenta gel on my lights, since I think using a red gel will only affect the red layer of the negatine, and the picture won't be as sharp as with the magenta gel, where the blue layer will also react to it. The director wants to have a very contraty feeling, with deep shadows, so i think i won't be adding much fill there.

 

Now the tricky shots are the ones for the print actually being developed.

I have come up with an idea, and I'd like to know if someone has done it before.

I'm hoping to develop a print normally and place it on tray of ferrocyanide bleach, so it will bleach the picture away while I'm filming this and then in post we'll reverse the shot. The effect should be there.

Aslo, this way I can use more light in the room and I'll just print down later.

Another alternative would be to bleach the picture away and then re-develop it again so there won't be a need to reverse this.

 

I'd like to know if someone has tried this before, and also if someone has used a magenta gel for this kind of shots before.

 

We'll be filming on 7218.

 

Thank you in advance.

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Hey guys,

 

I have a shot coming up on S16mm in a dark room.

Basically we are filming a photographer's reaction when she sees a print being developed.

I'm planning on using a magenta gel on my lights, since I think using a red gel will only affect the red layer of the negatine, and the picture won't be as sharp as with the magenta gel, where the blue layer will also react to it. The director wants to have a very contraty feeling, with deep shadows, so i think i won't be adding much fill there.

 

Now the tricky shots are the ones for the print actually being developed.

I have come up with an idea, and I'd like to know if someone has done it before.

I'm hoping to develop a print normally and place it on tray of ferrocyanide bleach, so it will bleach the picture away while I'm filming this and then in post we'll reverse the shot. The effect should be there.

Aslo, this way I can use more light in the room and I'll just print down later.

Another alternative would be to bleach the picture away and then re-develop it again so there won't be a need to reverse this.

 

I'd like to know if someone has tried this before, and also if someone has used a magenta gel for this kind of shots before.

 

We'll be filming on 7218.

 

Thank you in advance.

hey

I shot a movie using red gels and magenta. it was for a night club scene. i find magenta to be to pinkish its definatly not red!

I understand your concerns about sharpness.But every one knows darkrooms are red.

I would maybe try using calcolor reds,you can get them in different intensitys, maybe even mix some red in the magenta, try calcolor red15 or 30, that way theres more red but you still wont just be exposing the red layer?

As for the print developing, thats a great idea, Ive never tried that technique but it makes sense to me.

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hey

I shot a movie using red gels and magenta. it was for a night club scene. i find magenta to be to pinkish its definatly not red!

I understand your concerns about sharpness.But every one knows darkrooms are red.

I would maybe try using calcolor reds,you can get them in different intensitys, maybe even mix some red in the magenta, try calcolor red15 or 30, that way theres more red but you still wont just be exposing the red layer?

As for the print developing, thats a great idea, Ive never tried that technique but it makes sense to me.

 

 

Hey Daniel,

My idea is to time to red in post the pinkish colour given by the magenta to emulate the look of the dark room.

 

Thanks

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Just a sidenote. I've never seen a red darkroom. That may have been true in the way back past. But all the darkrooms I've been in and used myself were more amber. If you look at safelights, they are a sort of yellow/amber to the eyes. I think that darkroom red is more some old overused stereotypical convention.

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The type of safelight to use is dependent on the type of photographic material a person is working with. Some safelights are red, green, yellow, amber, etc. According to Kodak, a red safelight is actually safer for BW photographic papers but they recommend an amber safelight because it is easier to work/see with.

 

As for bleaching the print, in my experience, it takes longer for a image to dissappear, then when it appears in the developer. The emulsion disintegrating can (usually) cloud the bleach solution.

Edited by David A Venhaus
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The director wants to have a very contraty feeling, with deep shadows, so i think i won't be adding much fill there.

 

We'll be filming on 7218.

Hi, could you tell me why you are shooting 7218 if you need very contrasty feeling with deep shadows? Have you already picked 7218 for the rest of the movie which is not going to be contrasty with deep shadows? Any discussion would help.

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Using magenta gels instead of red and then timing the image red in post is something that Mark Woods wrote an article about in International Photographer (ICG Magazine.) The idea was to improve the sharpness by having some detail on the other color layers. Sounds good to me as long as you never need a tungsten light bulb to be switched on during the scene.

 

I've heard there are special printing papers for shooting the classic "picture develops before your eyes" shots under red lights.

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Hi, could you tell me why you are shooting 7218 if you need very contrasty feeling with deep shadows? Have you already picked 7218 for the rest of the movie which is not going to be contrasty with deep shadows? Any discussion would help.

 

7218 is the stock the producers already had before I became involved in the project. There are short ends now that they want to use for these scenes. There isn't a lot of budget, and I have already asked for a more contrasty stock...

 

thanks

 

Using magenta gels instead of red and then timing the image red in post is something that Mark Woods wrote an article about in International Photographer (ICG Magazine.) The idea was to improve the sharpness by having some detail on the other color layers. Sounds good to me as long as you never need a tungsten light bulb to be switched on during the scene.

 

Hi David,

Yes, that is the same reason I had for thinking of a magenta filter. I will try to run some tests because I also want to try to use primary red gel and then add some other light sources in the scene.

 

I've heard there are special printing papers for shooting the classic "picture develops before your eyes" shots under red lights.

 

Yes, but I thought of bleaching away the image so that I could have more light for theses particular shots and get a better exposure on the negative.

 

Thanks for your reply.

 

Using magenta gels instead of red and then timing the image red in post is something that Mark Woods wrote an article about in International Photographer (ICG Magazine.) The idea was to improve the sharpness by having some detail on the other color layers. Sounds good to me as long as you never need a tungsten light bulb to be switched on during the scene.

 

I've heard there are special printing papers for shooting the classic "picture develops before your eyes" shots under red lights.

 

Hi David,

Yes, that is the same reason I had for thinking of a magenta filter. I will try to run some tests because I also want to try to use primary red gel and then add some other light sources in the scene.

 

thanks

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