Daylight film indoors

[Cillian Daly]

Howdy.

 

I'm hoping to shoot a short film in August on 16mm, here in Ireland, using Fuji Reala 500D, as I'll probably be shooting early moring until late evening, and I wanted as much exposure latitude as possible. I see on the Fuji website, that the Reala stock can be used with normal fluorescent lights with no need for a compensating filter. Since i have some indoor scenes that start the story, i was hoping to stick to the Reala for these scenes and light it via fluorescent lights, if need be. The only thing I'm worried about is whether or not I'll get any colour cast from these lights, or is this the sensible option, as i can't really afford an extra can of 400T or 500T just for 3 short shots. Any tips would be very welcome. I am studying film production at college, but as we've only finished first year, of four, they've only given us the basics when it comes to the expensive art of shooting film! Myself and my DP are confident we can shoot it this way, but I feel it's no harm asking those with more experience if they've been in similar situations.

 

Thanks in advance for your time answering any of the above questions.

 

Regards,

 

Cillian

[David Mullen ASC]

You're aware that Reala 500D is a rather soft & grainy stock in 16mm?

 

Eterna 500T would make more sense, being a newer finer-grained emulsion.

 

Anyway, yes, you could use 500D for night interiors ("Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" did) but you'd get better results lighting with something closer to a daylight balance, like HMI's or Kinos with daylight tubes. Or if you have to light with tungsten, at least try and gel everything for a half-blue correction to take some of the redness out, otherwise that's a lot of warmth to try and correct in post.

[Cillian Daly]

Thanks David, I wasn't aware that the 500D was soft and grainy in 16mm. Although I wouldn't mind grain, as I love shooting B&W stills on my SLR using Neopan 1600. Would it make more sense to use the same fluorescent lighting set up using Fuji's 250D film? I know that loses alot of stops, but would it remove the softness from the image? And would overexposing the 500D, or indeed, the 250D, by 1/3 of a stop effectively reduce that softness, under available light or flourescents? All the daylight shots will be in a woods/forest, so that will also reduce the amount of light falling on the scene, hence me leaning towards the 500D. I know I keep mentioning Fuji stock, but in Dublin it's easier to get, cheaper than kodak, and they'll give me a student discount. I'm not really in a position to complain!

 

Thanks for your quick reply.

 

Cillian

[Raffinator]

And would overexposing the 500D, or indeed, the 250D, by 1/3 of a stop effectively reduce that softness, under available light or flourescents?

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Overexposing a 1/3 of a stop gives a "healthier" negative, generally improving the grain structure, not necessarily reducing the "softness" of the image.

 

To quote John Pytlak, kodak's technical specialist:

 

"Slight overexposure generally helps reduce the graininess of color negatives, since more scene information is placed on the finer grained mid and slow emulsions. With more exposure, the image captured by the larger grained fast emulsions are the deep shadows, so they print darker making the grain less visible."

 

Raffi

[David Mullen ASC]

If you have enough light to use Fuji F-250D, then use it, although the new Kodak 7205 250D is even sharper and finer-grained (Fuji will be updating F-250D in a few months.)

 

Or overexpose F-500D, it would help a little, like by 2/3's of a stop (i.e. 320 ASA.)

 

Or try Fuji Eterna 500T with an 85 filter, or partial correction like an 81EF, or an LLD filter (no light loss) and correct in post.

[Cillian Daly]

Thanks for all your tips guys. If we ever get to shoot the film, I'll let you know how it looks. Thanks again.

 

Cillian