Has anyone seen "Primer" in the theater?

[Mark Allen]

I'm very curious to know if anone on the forum has seen a screening of Primer which was shot super-16, scanned to digital files, then printed to film - a process I'm considering using.

 

I am wondering if the super-16 ends up seeming too grainey. I'm aware that City of God shot in a similar way - but I missed that one in the theaters as well and watching on Video was hard to tell - espeically since the lighting conditions were very different than what we will be doing while "Primer" was pretty similar.

 

Any thoughts are appreciated. Wish I wouldn't hear about these things until a month after they've left the theater.

[Alex Ellerman]

I saw it in the Landmark Chicago Theater at the Chicago film fest... it had grain in places. I remember some outside shots that had been color corrected and some nightime shots as being particularly grainy. It didn't detract from the experience for me, likely because i felt that the film had a "somewhere in time" quality, difficult to pin down, which was matched by the subject matter (time travel), sets & props, and the S16. I'm no DP though, so I'm sure someone else could give you their more technical impression.

 

I don't think Shane had extensive lighting packages, fwiw, there was a lot of available light shooting.

 

theturnaround

[Guest stickfigure]

I shot half of the film in Dallas with my SR2 package. Had to bail on the rest of the show for paying work being no one was getting paid a dime. On the 3 weeks I shot for him there were no movie lights at all, we did everything the way it naturally looked. exteriors at the fountain, pool exterior, resturant, garage, all anbient. The shots around the exterior fountain were test shots I did for him on some extra stock I had in the fridge so he could see the look of 200T. I told him i would not shoot any higher rated stcok for the grain factor. I then took him to Filmworkers in Dallas using the Spirit suite to show the test. I do remeber him getting some 500T from a short end place and shooting that also. There we times I remember shooting in a resturant with only available light dolling around a table 2 stops under exposed on a zoom and not being able to see any kind of focus what so ever.

 

Troy Dick, soc

www.stickfigurefilms.com

[Mark Allen]

Perfect - so - you certainly saw the film in the theater.... what are your feelings about how it looked? I've heard "grainy" said now and then - but also heard that there were some digital intermediate problems which caused the night time grain.

 

If you were given the choice of shooting HD to blow up or super 16 to blow up - which would you choose for quality sake? Is it truly more grainy? Does the enhanced range make up for that?

 

I've not seen it yet.... came and flew out of Los Angeles before I'd even heard of it.

[J. Lamar King IMPOSTOR]

I think it's still set for a wide release next year.

[Guest stickfigure]

I have not seen it in the theaters. all I can say is what I saw in the xfer suite on the stuff i shot. To me you have 2 ways of looking at it. The HD is going to be allot cheaper for a long format project, he would have been better off doing it that way to save money. I have seen some articles were he says he did it all for around 7000.00. That is way off, his xfer bill was almost that amount. I was giving him my camera free until I had a paying job to go on. I think he rented an SR3 from MPS in Dallas to finish it when I had a 2 week job in Louisiana and was not coming back on his movie until I got back. As far as him shooting film it may have helped him out by have that latitude to dig into the blacks for exposer being everything was so dark. I can post some stills from the test shots I did if you want to see them, I think I still have them.

 

Troy Dick, soc

www.stickfigurefilms.com

[Michael Struthers]

I saw Primer at a theatre in SF, that 7K figure is just marketing/publicity for the movie.

 

First of all, you've got the DP saying he shot in mostly available light. That's going to give you some grain, no doubt about it.

 

There is lots of grain, so much on some shots it becomes a slightly surreal reality -which works for this movie. For a drama, it might not work.

 

Anyway, it seemed to me he (director) "made" a film out of 1/2 a narrative and a lot of other footage tied together with voiceover - maybe that's why it took him 2 years to edit.

 

Anyway, lots of grain throughout, but enough "wtf is going on?" to keep you interested, and now the guy is getting every script in Hollywood thrown at him. So there you go. :rolleyes:

[Alex Ellerman]

If you do some research on the film (interviews abound)

you'll find that the 7k number DID NOT include the blow-

up; he raised funds for that after he was accepted to

Sundance.

 

He got alot of free stuff as well, and since he took a lot

of photo/storyboards ahead of time, showed them to

people, he was able to bargain for specific deals. I'm

not saying I can verify the 7k number, but I think it only

applies to principle photography.

 

Shane did a Q&A after the Chicago screening, and I asked

him what kind of opportunities were coming his way

post Primer. He said he was working on a romantic

comedy I believe, an orginal work of his own, about a

guy who was a marine biologist? Something like that.

Best,

theturnaround