Celluloid Dreaming's first student shoot

Tyler Purcell · February 16, 2016

Well, it's been a solid few months since I started Celluloid Dreaming with the hope and desire to get student filmmakers on board. We had a lot of false starts on various shoots, but in the last few weeks we've really gained some traction. We have back to back shoots for the next three weeks, with potential to go into March as well.

This past weekend was our first "real" shoot. Working with the students from LACHSA, a local creative arts high school, a bunch of students from the junior year film class wanted to shoot something on S16. Thanks to Kodak donating stock, my extremely low-priced rental gear and free on-site support/mentoring, they were able to shoot something very nice. It was a tough shoot though, wrangling 6 teenagers is hard enough, getting them to focus on doing ONE THING was even harder. They struggled the first day, but after a long meeting after the shoot, day two went much better. They learned what each position on a film set actually does and seeing them work as a more professional group was very nice.

It was also very rewarding to teach the cinematographer Charlie a few tricks about lighting. His grandfather is a cinematographer (forgot his name) and he's learned quite a bit up to now, though even he admits it was mostly theory. I tried to hang back, only giving him pointers here and there. It was great just chatting with him about different concepts and then showing him some magic to make them happen. We had some pretty complex lighting setups for his first movie shot on film. He was so esthetic to run a film camera finally, it was fun seeing him learn how to load the mags and run the camera. The smile on his face the first take, listening to the whirr of the camera was priceless.

Here are some pix from the shoot. If all goes well, I'll post a video of the final product when done. :)

We did some training outside of the school to test some of the wireless focus/video assist products they needed for some steadicam shots.

Our main interior location with smoke and 2 1k's illuminating from outside

The director Harry, first time using the Aaton

The food table, 3 1k's with smoke and beautiful streaks.

Our cinematographer Charles, he really fell in love with the Aaton by the end of the shoot. He can't wait to shoot more film at 15 years of age! :)

Final setup of the shoot, we wanted light facing the camera, so I figured out a way to make it streak through clothing, I think it will look pretty sweet! Harry does the final slate of the shoot.

Carl Looper · February 16, 2016

Great stuff Tyler.

C

Robin R Probyn · February 16, 2016

I guess it was just for the stills picture.. but I see that only one shot does the operator have their eye actually to the viewfinder.. I wonder if thats a young generation thing,used to looking at screens.. obviously when shooting they would have to be looking right into the finder.. just wondered..

Great what your doing..

Brett Allbritton · February 16, 2016

This looks great! I would've been in Heaven if I had this opportunity when I was taking Television Production classes in high school. Good work, man!

Tyler Purcell · February 16, 2016

I guess it was just for the stills picture.. but I see that only one shot does the operator have their eye actually to the viewfinder..

Ohh, they were posing for pictures. :)

Shawn Sagady · February 16, 2016

Looks awesome Tyler.

Manu Delpech · February 16, 2016

Awesome Tye !

DavidKlaus · February 19, 2016

That's pretty awesome! I would have loved to take your classes! I only did one project on film in cinema school here in Switzerland. It really had a taste of magic.