Is there such a thing as "dummy/practice" 35mm film?

[Sultan Thahir]

Okay bear with me. I am shooting on 35mm for the first time, and basically I want to teach myself how to load the camera in the dark, but not waste any actual film in the process of learning. Do they sell practice rolls anywhere? (Rolls dedicated to becoming familiar with loading/unloading etc.)

 

Worse case scenario: I steal some forgotten roll of film from my school's splicing lab.

 

 

 

Thanks!

[David Mullen ASC]

Generally you'd use short ends that are too short to be usable or really outdated stock, but some rental houses also have dummy rolls. Some camera assistant might have a roll you can borrow.

[Satsuki Murashige]

To further clarify, dummy rolls are just regular "straight from the can" rolls of unprocessed film that have been exposed to light (usually by accident) and are thus unusable for anything other than loading practice and scratch testing magazines. Your school ought to have some. Ask around in your film dept, professors, other students.