Born Into Brothels

[James Lee]

Hi everyone,

 

I completed a one year graduate diploma at film school last year, majoring in documentary, it was mainly focused on film-making as a director, with some classes on the technical side of camera work, lighting and location sound recording etc. Having completed the course though, I've been trying to learn more about film-making from a cinematography point of view.

 

Anyway, the documentary Born Into Brothels is one of my all time favourite documentaries, and it still is. I remember watching it a number of times before I started film school, absorbing the editing, the director's/editor's narrative decisions.

 

At present I'm researching to purchase a prosumer camera so I was in this frame of mind when I watched it again last night. For the first time I realised how grainy the images are! I don't really have a problem with it but I was wondering if this was something forum members here noticed immediately and whether you knew what kind of equipment was used to film it (I haven't contacted the film-makers).

 

If you were the cinematographer in a documentary like BIB, how might you have approached the filming process, and would your decisions change if you were working with an HD camera?

 

- James.

[Ron Flex]

IMDB provides the following information on the film:

 

Laboratory

Alpha Cine Labs, Seattle (WA), USA

 

 

Film negative format (mm/video inches)

Video

 

 

Cinematographic process

Digital Video

 

 

Printed film format

35 mm

 

 

Aspect ratio

1.85 : 1

 

 

 

Maybe the grain is due to the transfer to 35mm?

[Adrian Sierkowski]

Not that I've seen the film, but the "grain," could also be noise from "gain," in situations where they had little light. Just another thought.