Choosing Film Stocks

[Greg Gross]

For three years I've been working on a production in the dv format. The

title of the production is "A Latte Kind of Love". The cost of shooting my

production on film would be too prohibitive. The last three days I've been

thinking about how I would choose the film stocks if I was doing it on film.

I wrote the script so I know the story,some of it is story boarded the rest

is in my head. I decided to view some films for ideas about the lighting. I

viewed: The Day of The Locust,A Room With A View,Chocolat,The Royal

Tenenbaums,Closer. I looked through magazines dealing with art and

books with the works of artists. Finally after reading Kodak's literature on

film stocks,I decided to use 500T,320T,250D. 500T for outside of Border's

Cafe at night with neon lights in the background and lighted display windows,

street lamps. 320T for some romantic soft scenes and for a pastel look. 250D

for int. scenes with available mixed lighting and also 500T for some int. scenes.

I don't know how many times I've brought up 250D for int. scenes and profess-

ional have told me I could not use it. Kodak literature says you can use it. Then

our own David Mullen showed us a beautiful example of int. shot with 250D. He

was transitioning into a mood of daydreaming for the actress and was going

through maybe three different grades of diffusion to do it. His use of this film

is remarkable to me and his lighting was beautiful. I think its a beautiful film.

I only wish I could afford to shoot on film. Greg

[Sam Wells]

I've shot some 250D (7246) at night and it's nice (but wasn't David's example a DAY INT ??),

but the thing is, in my case the existing light was color temps all over the map i.e. sodium vapor, neon, fluoro electric signs. So probably Daylight stock was "even more wrong" than tungsten, but a stylized wrongness of my choosing B)

 

-Sam

[David Mullen ASC]

Yes, my example was a day interior lit with HMI's and daylight Kino's.

 

A good example of using daylight-balanced stock at night is the fire engine scene in "Gangs of New York", shot at night on EXR 50D (!). Just as with "Backdraft", which shot most of its fire scenes on 250D stock, it was to make the fire expose redder.

 

Also, Ian Wilson used 250D stock for night interiors for "Emma" causing candle flames to render very reddish.

[Greg Gross]

Actually I had in mind to try 250D outside the store at night. Light spilling out

from cafe windows, street lamps, light from display windows. I really figured

though that I would need 500T. However I wanted to do a test shot to see what

250D would look like and then analyze for any possibility of modifying to a dom-

inant light and try to correct at camera. Of course If I liked the original result

with just 250D I'd use but wasn't counting on it. Hard to put into words concern-

ing int. shots. They would all be done during the day in the cafe with tungsten,

daylight from two huge windows, and some fluorescent spill over from bookstore.

In one scene with boy and girl at table I want to try to modify light by using day-

light from window into gold or silver reflectors and try to make daylight the dom-

inant source. I wanted to light the girl here though with a practical on wall. I've

been watching Peter Andrew's work too much! I figured that I could have mostly

daylight and get away with it. I visualize dominant daylight with less contrasty

practical. Of course there is always 500T to use and it would spoil my creativity.

Well its all a pipe dream as I can't afford to shoot it on film. However it has been

a great experience in the the excercise of looking at film stocks. I even had my

girlfriend take the role of the director and oppose my ideas and also except some.

So I had to try to think about how to get the look she wanted. Actually shooting

tests on stocks would have been great fun and learning experience.

Greg Gross