Please help me on my first movie.

[CJ Santos]

Im a theater actor and i believe that theres a BIG difference if im gonna compare theater to film. I dont have any backgrounds in photography though i love taking in pictures. I got some ideas on basic video editing and made couple of music videos for my relatives, friends and even my love one.

 

Now, im facing another challenge here and im gonna need your guys help. Our troupe leader has given me a task to direct a digital film using a 16mm camera. Its not a commercial film because it will be donated to a youth charity. I have no ideas on lightings, sounds and features of the cam that im gonna be using.

 

Ive read the script and it seems preety easy if im just using my imagination.

 

Most of the scenes will be taken from;

 

EXTERIOR

 

A hill that would show a tree for some lonely scenes.

A grassfield for the running scenes.

A 100-year old spanish house

A barn

 

INTERIOR

 

Inside the church

Dining Hall

Piano Room

Bedroom

 

If you remember the movie A WALK IN THE CLOUDS by Keanu Reeves, most of the scenes would be preety much like that.

 

Now im gonna need your guy's help on how i can make my film more professional and good looking. What lights should i use, improvised equipments (since its a low cost film), techniques and a lot more. I know that some of you guys are very much pro's and as newbie, im hoping for your assistance. I would appreciate all the advice that you can give me. :-)

 

Thank you and more power.

[Ira Ratner]

CJ, you're asking way too many questions to expect a serious response.

 

Let's start with the first question:

 

You said 16mm digital. What's that?

 

Are you shooting on 16mm film, or digital video? One has nothing to do with the other, unless you're shooting 16mm film and having it telecined to digital format for editing in your computer.

 

Let's start with your answer for this, and we'll take it from there.

 

Y de donde esta? Mi espanol no es tan bueno, pero mi esposa es venezolana y aprendi hablart espanol, mas o menos, de ella.

[CJ Santos]

You said 16mm digital. What's that?

 

Are you shooting on 16mm film, or digital video? One has nothing to do with the other, unless you're shooting 16mm film and having it telecined to digital format for editing in your computer.

 

im sorry if i got you confused sir. i really dont have any knowledge technically whatsoever, on my first meeting with our producer, she mentioned that the film will be shot on a 16mm film and will then be transfered to digital format for distribution. :-( sorry again. i modified my prev message to avoid further confusions.

 

moving forward, i still dont know what kind of equipment were gonna be using. ill update this thread as soon as get into the production stage.

[Ira Ratner]

Cool! Once you post what equipment you'll be shooting with, people will start answering your questions one by one.

 

For example, now that you said it was FILM, that makes a big difference--since there are different film stocks (that means types) to choose from, and each has a different "look" depending on what you want to accomplish. There is negative film, which then becomes a positive (normal) image when transfered to digital (like everyone used/uses for still film photography for prints).

 

And then there is what's called Reversal form (called slide film for still work), which develops as a POSITIVE image. And it stays positive, normal looking, when it gets transferred to digital.

 

And one more thing for this post:

 

Different film types have different "speeds," meaning sensitivity to light. It's called ASA, and the higher the number--200, for example--the LESS light you need to expose it properly, which is a good thing. The BAD thing about it is with this higher speed and sensitivity comes more grain, teeny dots. This could be FINE for the look you're going after, but film choice is a MAJOR decision to make.

[CJ Santos]

thank you for that wonderful input sir. ill have it noted. :) i really want to focus on cinematography and techniques on shooting like panning, tilting and so on. btw, can you give some advise on better outdoor shooting tecniques? like good blending with sunlights and something like that?