Where are we at with film??

[Aapo Lettinen]

yes blimping would be possible if making a special project which would allow that kind of shooting style, should be perfectly doable for couple of short films if they are planned right and then having saved enough money to purchase a better camera.

there is the issue though of getting ANY 16mm crystal sync camera systems in the first place, whether noisy or silent ... often the ones available are the sought-after self-blimped ones which are expensive and often electrically unreliable and the "mos" cameras only have wild motors because the crystal ones were sold out years ago. Of the "affordable-ish" ones I think some Bolexes and such can still be got but a blimped Bolex would be really awkward to use for any kind of filming...   Oh there is Auricons too if using mains power or inverter with it. 

the best candidate could be the Arri16S  because they can be still get, crystal motors on the other hand are not. If having more money then the next step could be either the Eclair NPR or CP16R (if getting one repaired for cheap for it to be usable)

[Heikki Repo]

Back in the early-mid 2000s 16mm cameras were definitely quite expensive. Just go to the marketplace of this forum and hop to the last page, to 2004. Going from there a couple of pages, there's one Eclair ACL 1.5 and it says that "bidding starts at $3500". Aaton XTR $19,000. Arri 2C AUD15K. Arri SR2 with Super speeds $35k. Aaton XTR prod with lenses 20,000 €. 16BL with lens $3000. Eclair ACL 2 Super16 GBP £3590. Arriflex HSR1 GBP £6990. Etc. Granted, those cameras were also closer to two decades younger back then, but there's also the inflation of two decades to be taken into account.

[charles g clark]

4 hours ago, Heikki Repo said:

Back in the early-mid 2000s 16mm cameras were definitely quite expensive. Just go to the marketplace of this forum and hop to the last page, to 2004. Going from there a couple of pages, there's one Eclair ACL 1.5 and it says that "bidding starts at $3500". Aaton XTR $19,000. Arri 2C AUD15K. Arri SR2 with Super speeds $35k. Aaton XTR prod with lenses 20,000 €. 16BL with lens $3000. Eclair ACL 2 Super16 GBP £3590. Arriflex HSR1 GBP £6990. Etc. Granted, those cameras were also closer to two decades younger back then, but there's also the inflation of two decades to be taken into account.

Hard to believe I bought an Arricam lt 3 perf package from a seller who sold them for arri rental gb 7 years ago for £4250

[Heikki Repo]

1 minute ago, charles g clark said:

Hard to believe I bought an Arricam lt 3 perf package from a seller who sold them for arri rental gb 7 years ago for £4250

2014-2016 were wild.

[charles g clark]

4 minutes ago, Heikki Repo said:

2014-2016 were wild.

Yes. They also had 416’s for the same price, sr3 packages with base plates and matte box for £1.5k and 435’s for £1.5k. Wish I’d bought a 435 as well!

[Heikki Repo]

10 minutes ago, charles g clark said:

sr3 packages with base plates and matte box for £1.5k

?

[Tyler Purcell]

10 hours ago, aapo lettinen said:

I think the issue with most today's camera offerings is that they are either overly expensive known-to-work ones (pay from 4 to 5 times what the camera is actually worth), OR they are scraping-bottom-of-the-barrel unknown condition or known-to-be-broken-in-some-way ones (pay only two or three times what the camera is worth).

Oh 100%, this is a huge problem. I've noticed this more and more as time goes on. 

10 hours ago, aapo lettinen said:

This combination of overpriced cameras which are also in very bad condition at the same time hurts the whole film shooting community I think and is one of the biggest reasons why "young people" may not want to take the risk of trying to get a working 16mm sync sound capable camera setup and instead either go to digital or try to manage with some very simple entry level camera like K3 to be able to shoot even SOMETHING, anything, on film.

If K3's were still $250 bux, then I'd agree. But today a good K3 is like $1k, which is just a lot to spend for a person just trying to get in. 

10 hours ago, aapo lettinen said:

Maybe some co-op could restore couple of dozen basic sync sound cameras like NPR or 16BL or similar, maybe as a kickstarter project, to get ACTUALLY WORKING 16mm cameras to the new shooters for relatively affordable price and have some kind of guarantee and warranty that they indeed work and are serviced and tested.

Some people have tried this with Bolex's here in the US, but it's always an issue. Cameras break, there just isn't enough money to repair and they just sit. So the whole idea just kinda falls apart. NPR and 16BL's are even harder to deal with. At least in the US, Bolex's are everywhere and parts are pretty easy to get. NPR's/ACL's were not popular here at all. 16BL's are not attractive, young people just don't want to work with them. Bolex's are attractive due to their size/shape and ease of use. Even though they have major issues. 

10 hours ago, aapo lettinen said:

I mean, no one wants to spend his/her years savings to a camera kit which has been in storage for 30 years and needs a month of work and another camera body worth of spare parts to get working well enough to shoot anything with it? If not being able to repair it by yourself the risk is just too huge and it may become very expensive lesson without any guarantee that you would even have a working camera in the end, it can all go to waste too

Tell me about it. Honestly, nearly every SR I see these days has major issues from prism coatings going bad to board failures. I keep telling people not to buy broken cameras unless they have a source of optical parts that nobody else does. We just had an XTR Prod with a bad optic piece as well, which was scary. There is a guy we're talking to about repairing them, but I doubt he will be able to. 

10 hours ago, aapo lettinen said:

personally I like to try to repair my own camera by myself and can make new electronics for them so it is not necessarily a huge financial risk to purchase a unknown camera body but it is still a serious undertaking and I will still need to purchase two or three cameras to get a single working one mashed up from them.

Even then, the parts are all the same age. 

[Giray Izcan]

8 hours ago, Heikki Repo said:

Back in the early-mid 2000s 16mm cameras were definitely quite expensive. Just go to the marketplace of this forum and hop to the last page, to 2004. Going from there a couple of pages, there's one Eclair ACL 1.5 and it says that "bidding starts at $3500". Aaton XTR $19,000. Arri 2C AUD15K. Arri SR2 with Super speeds $35k. Aaton XTR prod with lenses 20,000 €. 16BL with lens $3000. Eclair ACL 2 Super16 GBP £3590. Arriflex HSR1 GBP £6990. Etc. Granted, those cameras were also closer to two decades younger back then, but there's also the inflation of two decades to be taken into account.

You can't compare the 2000s and now though. What's the s16 market nowadays? Artsy music videos that are mostly vanity projects or projects that shoot on x amount of film or low budget stuff whereas, back in the 90s and the 2000s, real projects with real budgets like the OC etc were shot on s16. You could actually go get real jobs with your s16 as opposed to shooting someone's vanity project that concern themselves with the format it is shot on solely than anything else.

[Tyler Purcell]

13 hours ago, Jon O'Brien said:

Yeah .... but, .... film was always expensive.

I mean, it's all we had. You either made content or you didn't. 

Initially digital was garbage as well. So you either made something that looked good, or you made something that people laughed at you for making. 

So film wasn't "expensive" per say, it was the only way to make anything that looked good. The cost was irrelevant because there was no alternative. 

13 hours ago, Jon O'Brien said:

It was when I started as a 12 year old. Almost no one shot movies because it was all so expensive. I had a good job in the school holidays so could afford to shoot on Super 8 every now and then.

I started at 9 years old and film. I would use my chore money to buy film and processing. Sometimes on bigger vacations, my parents would buy the film and processing, just so we'd have home movies. It was not expensive. I believe the cost was around $4.99 per roll and $3 bux to process, but don't quote me on that. We did get expired film from Spags, a reseller who bought outdated product and sold for discount. I filled our freezer with Kodachrome 40 Sound film just from Spags discount film, which I think was $3 bux a roll, a steal at the time. 

Looking back at my collection of super 8 films, I have 3x400ft of edited home movies and two dozen 50 foot rolls that were spiced together. So what is that, around 2400ft of super 8 shot between age 9 and 13, which was around when I got my first video camera.

It's true tho, most of our home movies were family gatherings, with the occasional walk in the park or vacation. Nothing like today where people spend most of their time shooting pets. LOL 

13 hours ago, Jon O'Brien said:

Virtually no one and I mean no one shot on 16mm unless it was a TV station .... or maybe at the Film & Television school at North Ryde in NSW.

16mm was unobtanium as a kid. I got a projector for free and my parents got me one film to play on it, which was Laurel and Hardy, not one of their best. Thats the only film I had until I was an adult and even today, I don't have many prints, only older B&W movies. I don't wanna deal with fading prints. But I did shoot some 16mm when I was a kid, I had a Bell and Howell Filmo, but sadly the three rolls of Kodachrome I shot, were accidentally lost on the way to the lab, so I never got results. I did start shooting 16mm in High School tho, as I went to college during my last two summers and took my basic film classes, which was all done on 16mm. The cost was not horrible. $97/roll of 400ft and .12/ft for processing. The scanning was the only expensive part and the school helped with that. 

13 hours ago, Jon O'Brien said:

I actually think there's more young people potentially able to shoot Super 8 today than there was years ago. But on the other hand there's a recession happening .....

I still say film will be fine.

You'd think so, but Super 8 is horribly expensive. It's like $80 bux per roll for film and processing. That's a lot of money for 2.7 minutes. Cameras are cheap sure, but do they even work? Today it's hard to get a good working camera. Even my Beaulieu 6008, is still not working that well. I don't have the tools to calibrate it, so I'm just experimenting with different things and wasting a lot of film in the process. It's unfortunate because I think my Elmo 1012X does a better job, with its integrated lens and everything. 

I agree, film isn't going anywhere anytime soon. 

[Tyler Purcell]

4 minutes ago, Giray Izcan said:

You could actually go get real jobs with your s16 as opposed to shooting someone's vanity project that concern themselves with the format it is shot on solely than anything else.

IDK the commercial work I've done on film has been no different then shooting on digital. 

But yes, there are a lot of vanity projects related to film, where the film aspect is the most important part. 

[Giray Izcan]

2 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

IDK the commercial work I've done on film has been no different then shooting on digital. 

But yes, there are a lot of vanity projects related to film, where the film aspect is the most important part. 

I mean the higher profile jobs on s16 is a lot rarer in comparison to the old days that I highly doubt you'd be making the camera investment back - considering the prices hiked up to the 2000s camera prices with almost  no real jobs to back it up. I don't know if it makes any sense to invest 20-30k for an SR3 or worse 60k plus for a 416 camera package to shoot some vanity projects. If anything, investing in something like an Alexa LF or an Alexa 35 would make sense for a working DP - definitely a lot better than a 416. I mean I would love to own a 416, sure,  as I love the camera but in terms of the ROI, it wouldn't make any sense at all. 

Every time I hear or read stuff like my 16mm short film etc, I just pretty much know the film won't be any good. I can pretty much expect to see something shot on film with no production value and crap locations as the majority of the "budget" goes to film related expenses. I would much rather shoot at great locations and have proper crew and rentals than to try to feed the camera. If you can do all those things and afford shooting on film, then yea sure, I am all for film. 

Edited June 21, 2023 by Giray Izcan

[Jon O'Brien]

2 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

Sometimes on bigger vacations, my parents would buy the film and processing, just so we'd have home movies. It was not expensive. I believe the cost was around $4.99 per roll and $3 bux to process, but don't quote me on that. We did get expired film from Spags, a reseller who bought outdated product and sold for discount. I filled our freezer with Kodachrome 40 Sound film just from Spags discount film, which I think was $3 bux a roll, a steal at the time. 

While not wanting to turn Daniel's thread into a "I remember when...", it's interesting that your experiences sound quite different to mine. I lived in what was then a relatively sleepy, provincial area and everything I did I had to come up with all the energy and research myself as my parents didn't know anything about movie cameras or filmmaking, and nor did anyone else I knew (my dad knew a lot about still photography and lenses etc). There was no internet and I didn't until some years later have any contact with other filmmakers. The only film to shoot on that I knew of came from a camera store and it was expensive. I posted the film away for processing and had to wait about 2 weeks to get it back. It was a difficult wait. I then studied Film & TV in high school and fortunately the public school I went to funded the filmmaking. We got to the point of shooting 30 minute long sound films and it was great that I didn't have to fund the filmmaking. Still very grateful for that.

But ultimately, after putting up with years of difficulty or funding and making movies myself I concluded that filmmaking was just too expensive and I decided to quit making movies. I'd earlier planned to be a professional cinematographer. But there didn't seem enough of a career in it back then and I didn't really want to move to Sydney to be a film student. I got back into filmmaking in 2016 when my ultimate dream, a 16mm and/or a 35mm camera, became affordable. The other thing that happened along the way is that digital cameras got good enough that the images didn't look like garbage any more. So, I was drawn back to filmmaking again. But basically I quit film because in my heart of hearts I wanted to shoot 16mm as a kid and I just couldn't. Way too expensive. I thought video back then was a joke. It looked awful, even on TV.

33 minutes ago, Giray Izcan said:

I would much rather shoot at great locations and have proper crew and rentals than to try to feed the camera. If you can do all those things and afford shooting on film, then yea sure, I am all for film. 

True. If film can't be possible for a certain project for whatever the reason, even if it's the obvious first choice for that project, shoot on digital. I'd pick the Arri 35. Or a Canon C300 Mk III which is less to hire.

[Jon O'Brien]

I will just add a bit more. I did have a Bolex 16mm in high school, as I was able to swap my still camera for my friend's 16mm. He was new to the school and I couldn't believe it when he said he had a 16mm camera and he tentatively asked would I be interested in a straignt swap. Would I??? But, yeah, too expensive to run back then so I didn't do much shooting on it. But I loved it. I remember the day the cheapo stills tripod I had it on, way too light, fell over, with the Bolex on it! Oh the distress.

The other thing I wanted to say is that lately I've decided to get back into Super 8. What for me was once a slightly despised, jittery format has now become, with the help of digital scanning and no longer needing an old rattly film projector, a great film format that looks so good when people watch it on their phones. The level of grain and slight imperfection is perfect for this viewing medium (and most videos are now watched on phone or tablet). So, it will be good to be back shooting Super 8. Just hope Kodak keeps making film!!

Edited June 22, 2023 by Jon O'Brien

[Tyler Purcell]

3 hours ago, Giray Izcan said:

I mean the higher profile jobs on s16 is a lot rarer in comparison to the old days that I highly doubt you'd be making the camera investment back - considering the prices hiked up to the 2000s camera prices with almost  no real jobs to back it up.

Yea, but people didn't own cameras back then. They were WAY too unobtanium. I remember looking at the Aaton catalog, salivating at cameras I could never touch, as we never could afford the insurance to rent them. More commercial cameras got into the hands of would be filmmakers today, which is a good thing sorta. 

I agree tho, outside of rental houses sending equipment to shows like "Winning Time", nobody is recouping the investment on a $90k 416, that's why the prices have suddenly dropped, because nobody is buying them. 

3 hours ago, Giray Izcan said:

I don't know if it makes any sense to invest 20-30k for an SR3 or worse 60k plus for a 416 camera package to shoot some vanity projects. If anything, investing in something like an Alexa LF or an Alexa 35 would make sense for a working DP - definitely a lot better than a 416. I mean I would love to own a 416, sure,  as I love the camera but in terms of the ROI, it wouldn't make any sense at all. 

I mean yea, I don't think anyone buying a $30k SR is being smart about their finances. I got my SR3 for $1500 bux and all it needed was a $600 display replaced. I regret selling it, probably could have sold it for 4x the amount today. Still, at those low prices, yea it was worth getting in, but today it's absolutely not. Even Bolex prices are insane.

However, buying a $80k digital package is also not smart unless you've got the clients. If you're busy and they want you and your package, then it makes sense. If you aren't busy, like a lot of us are thanks to the strike, then what's the point? I think having that huge lease nut over your head every month, just to own a camera you can very easily rent from a shop, is not smart. 

3 hours ago, Giray Izcan said:

Every time I hear or read stuff like my 16mm short film etc, I just pretty much know the film won't be any good. I can pretty much expect to see something shot on film with no production value and crap locations as the majority of the "budget" goes to film related expenses. I would much rather shoot at great locations and have proper crew and rentals than to try to feed the camera. If you can do all those things and afford shooting on film, then yea sure, I am all for film. 

Haha I mean there is absolutely some truth to that. I have fallen victim to the "must shoot on film" mentality many times in my life and we always made it work if it was possible. Heck, I'm in the middle of making a bunch of short form doc's on 16mm right now, it's costing me an arm and a leg, but it's good content and so far the films have been well received by the community they're about AND general audience. To me, story is everything and if you don't have any story, doesn't matter what it's shot on, it's not worth doing. So where I agree, so many people today "mess around" with film, they don't take it seriously. Their scans are shit and dirty, their cinematography is hand held and experimental. You'll find lots of "film" issues with the final product like out of calibration cameras/lenses and of course noticeable stock variations between takes/scenes. At the same time tho, the fact they did achieve something so many didn't, is a feather in their cap. If done properly, with a good story, good cast, well produced, it can add a bit of production value. 

[Giray Izcan]

Hey that's exciting Tyler, congratulations and good luck with your projects. 

As for an Alexa LF or 35 purchase,  that's assuming one has that kind of money laying around that they must spend on a camera purchase, then I would get those cameras over a 416. If anything,  you are still increasing your chances of booking a job or even a rental opportunity.  In my opinion,  high end cameras should be reserved for rental for the projects that make sense financially. No serious project will hire a dp with their own Alexa package... instead they will want the comfort and advantages of going through a proper rental house with technical support and spare bodies in case of  camera failures etc.. 

Also, as a side note, personal opinion of course, 7219 should be reserved for night ext or situations where you must use high speed stock. 7213 is the way to go for controlled environments. And if you can't afford that extra needed lights, you should be realistic about your budgetary limitations and shoot digital because you can't afford shooting on film. Then again, I usually choose to shoot on s16 because I can't afford to shoot on 35; therefore,  I would like to get the cleanest and the sharpest image possible to get as close as I can to 35. S16 is nicely soft and organic as it is that one doesn't need to further accentuate that by shooting on high speed stocks.. 

[Tyler Purcell]

2 hours ago, Jon O'Brien said:

While not wanting to turn Daniel's thread into a "I remember when...", it's interesting that your experiences sound quite different to mine. I lived in what was then a relatively sleepy, provincial area and everything I did I had to come up with all the energy and research myself as my parents didn't know anything about movie cameras or filmmaking, and nor did anyone else I knew (my dad knew a lot about still photography and lenses etc). There was no internet and I didn't until some years later have any contact with other filmmakers. The only film to shoot on that I knew of came from a camera store and it was expensive. I posted the film away for processing and had to wait about 2 weeks to get it back. It was a difficult wait. I then studied Film & TV in high school and fortunately the public school I went to funded the filmmaking. We got to the point of shooting 30 minute long sound films and it was great that I didn't have to fund the filmmaking. Still very grateful for that.

Sounds like my dad as well. He was a photographer and his stuff always looked great. My parents did not have any involvement in anything creative at all. My mom was a secretary and my dad was in the electronics field. Even in school, neither had the slightest inkling towards the cinematic arts. I was enthralled by it, tho I have no idea from where. Could have been from all the TV watching I did as a kid, I was the sit in front of the TV for hours sorta kid sadly. But I recall my parents renting a Super 8 Projector and films at one of my birthday parties, prior to VCR's being affordable and rental movies. I loved that experience. I also remember seeing the projection booth at our local cinema, which was also a hoot. My dad would take me to movies on Saturday afternoons, on a pretty regular basis. So he did enjoy movies, that I guess helped trigger my obsession. 

My first super 8 camera was a "sears" model with nothing that could be identified as a lens. LOL 

It was $5 dollars and my weekly allowance covered it, so I bought it. I also bought a roll of film from the local drug store and paid for my own processing. It was a stupid thing to shoot, just a wedding of someone I don't even know. But it didn't take long before I shot more rolls. I guess I wanted to be like my dad, who would show slides on a regular basis.

I was already in broadcasting in middle school, started when I was 14 years old. My dad saw how much I enjoyed it, so he got me in at our local town TV station by simply asking them on the phone for me. We had an A/V club at the middle school and I taught the other kids about cinematography and news gathering. We had a great time, but in High School, I worked at the studio and honestly stayed with them until I left Boston. Internet wasn't even a thing until I had graduated from High School, so I had to learn on my own or through the studio. I did get an opportunity to attend college early as I said before, two summers of that was great. But it was very costly, had to get a grant to afford it. Luckily my mom was a grant writer and clearly a good one at that. So all in all, I lucked out.

Tho until I moved to Los Angeles, I never had a decent mentor. My first mentor and one of my best friends, was a documentary filmmaker, so that's part of why I made so many doc's and still do today. My most recent mentor, I spent 7 years working with. That was an outstanding experience, going through through the trenches from script through distribution on 2 movies back to back and then I did two more jobs just editing for him. I think he's finally thrown in the towel and retired now. So those things have helped me a lot, but seeing as I'll be 45 in a few short weeks, I need to make use of this knowledge, which is why I keep shooting.  

2 hours ago, Jon O'Brien said:

But ultimately, after putting up with years of difficulty or funding and making movies myself I concluded that filmmaking was just too expensive and I decided to quit making movies. I'd earlier planned to be a professional cinematographer. But there didn't seem enough of a career in it back then and I didn't really want to move to Sydney to be a film student. I got back into filmmaking in 2016 when my ultimate dream, a 16mm and/or a 35mm camera, became affordable. The other thing that happened along the way is that digital cameras got good enough that the images didn't look like garbage any more. So, I was drawn back to filmmaking again. But basically I quit film because in my heart of hearts I wanted to shoot 16mm as a kid and I just couldn't. Way too expensive. I thought video back then was a joke. It looked awful, even on TV.

Feel ya. I kinda left the industry in 2003 and didn't get back into it until 2012. Even then, it was a long road before I was in a position that led to further growth. If you look at my IMDB, there is just a block of years with nothing, which is really sad. You're right, digital cameras just sucked for a while and I could not afford film. So I did little fun projects like a TV show pilot called "Behind the Net", about a Paintball team. None of those people cared if it was 480i quality. I never stopped shooting, my DV and HDV tape library is massive, boxes and boxes of tapes. But it was the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema camera AND getting a good job in the industry, which fixed everything for me. I was editing daytime TV commercials and doing color as well. It was my first full time Avid only job and I had to re-learn so much. That led me to be the Avid specialist in a small circle of friends and other filmmakers, which led to lots of work. I went full freelancer in 2014 and it all worked out very well. A friend of mine had submitted my resume to a friend of his who was looking for a broadcast engineer. I randomly got a call one day for a job interview and seeing as my last gig had just wrapped, I took the job. That set me off onto a whole new industry career, doing engineering for post and broadcast facilities. I still do all my freelance work, but now I have the freedom to experiment due to a good job. I think with a good job, it's easier to raise money and not be stressed. 

I will admit, I haven't directed any of my own feature narrative scripts because all of them are too expensive to make. I refuse to abuse crew with no/low pay, especially in Hollywood. I want people I'm going to work with forever, not having to build a new team every show after burning bridges. So I've got a great DP, great AC, great sound guy and such, we all worked together on my last short. Now its just about focusing on doing another narrative short and adding to the catalog, even though I have 2 train films finished, 2 more train films in pre-production and my Furry documentary which just needs a weekend or two of shooting to wrap, all on 16mm and 35mm. I hope to shoot our next short narrative on 16mm, I've got all the equipment and a decent stash of film, just need the money to produce it. I do know that my first writer/director feature will have to be digital, I've given up even trying to attempt that big of a project on film, it's stupid honestly. Shorts are easy, you have more control, you can spend more time, but on a feature when you've gotta rush from shot to shot, no way can it easily be done. 

Anyway, nice hearing your story. I hope you don't give up. 

[Tyler Purcell]

14 minutes ago, Giray Izcan said:

7219 should be reserved for night ext or situations where you must use high speed stock.

Agreed, I generally don't shoot 19 much at all.

[Jon O'Brien]

Good to read your story too, Tyler. Good memories on the whole, for sure. Film is just so much fun. Best wishes with all your filmmaking.

[Aapo Lettinen]

the digital cameras tend to be the "bread and butter" solutions nowadays and film equipment is mainly for passion projects with not much commercial value for anybody. Of course someone could pay you to shoot something on film but that it extremely rare here and I assume in most other parts of the World too...

for low budget shoots I basically need to choose if I will want to charge something for my digital gear + lighting kit and get a tiny amount of money back, OR if I want to try to get even a part of it shot on film but then the price difference is used on film stock and processing and I get nothing back from the project. So it is very tempting to shoot on digital because I often have the possibility to keep the price difference, even if small amount ?  

I have lots of expired stock in fridge from the days I was able to shoot lots more film a year (between about 2015 and 2018) and basically can't purchase new stock until the previous ones are used. This limits working a bit and I try to arrange these short film projects where I would just give away the stock if I get to shoot it on film and the director pays the processing. This is one way to try to lobby film usage on projects because buying fresh stock would add a lot to the costs but I can just offer these "fridge clearance" deals where stock is "free" and thus it is a bit easier for them to decide whether their passion for film origination is strong enough that they want to invest money on it ?  the biggest issue is finding a director who would both have a good script AND the tiny amount of money to process the film stock and pay for the rest of the costs of the short so that it can be made. indie directors here tent to be broke and those who have money may not have any good movie ideas and time so it takes time to find the ones who would actually pay for making their own short film. Financing short films from other sources is pretty impossible here so it is mostly about finding someone who both has money AND has good ideas what kind of film they want to make. rarely people have both ?

I buy relatively low priced digital gear and try to select ones which can be used for documentary style shooting too, not just short films. That said, all of them have earned their price back in less than a year when selected right from the beginning. so digital gear can earn you money back quite easily if you can charge anything from shooting with it but film gear is pretty much charity work where you have to donate the gear to the project to be able to shoot it in the first place

[Jon O'Brien]

I wonder if having all the digital gear (or hire and know how to use it) but being able to shoot film, and advertise yourself as having the digital gear but hey can also do film origination if you want it, gives you slightly more street cred than the average filmmaker/videographer. I do think people who regularly shoot film are at a slight advantage somehow. Or maybe I just like to think that that is so. One thing is that if you are used to film you will tend to produce 'video' that has more of a natural film look. That's how I see it. Why is that? Because if you are putting up with shooting on film you must have a good eye or you wouldn't bother. That's my theory.

But, as the saying goes, sure, I'm biased.

Edited June 22, 2023 by Jon O'Brien

[Giray Izcan]

Jon, from my experience,  nobody really cares whether you have film experience or not. People care about how the end result looks in terms of cinematography and not the format.

[Jon O'Brien]

Cool. Well that's good then. If you shoot good footage, people will want to hire you. And that's what I'm finding ?

[Aapo Lettinen]

by my experience, one of the differences is that people who have certain type of film background can be lots more effective on set, mainly because they are used to light and plan the shots by eye without using monitors and only taking couple of quick measurements. they can pre plan the ligthing setups too much more easily because they know how certain lights behave and how much exposure they will approximately get from this and that fixture.

there is tons of these "I know what I want when I see it" digital people who are very slow to work with because they need to test every one of their ideas separately with the full camera + lighting setup and can't pre plan much anything for always been relied on a calibrated monitor they can use for testing ideas on set

[Aapo Lettinen]

here it is quite rare for indie filmmakers to have any real film experience. even rarer that the experience would be on 35mm instead of just having shot one roll of super8 in the past and claiming that they know all about film ?

Film experience can be a way to promote your skills and to be remembered better but in the end all the paying customers want video anyway. They love to talk about film stuff though so it is a good conversation starter and offering film origination in pre prod is a nice way to show them there is multiple different ways to make the project and that we will always do our best to find the best possible solution for them. so it is important to show that the working style and shooting medium is not dictated by the skills of the DoP and the availability of gear, just only by what suits the project best ?

[Aapo Lettinen]

9 minutes ago, aapo lettinen said:

there is tons of these "I know what I want when I see it" digital people who are very slow to work with because they need to test every one of their ideas separately with the full camera + lighting setup and can't pre plan much anything for always been relied on a calibrated monitor they can use for testing ideas on set

this is one of the issues of today's world too. You don't need to practice and have skills because it is allowed to learn on the fly and waste everyone else's time on set for not doing your homework and needing to test everything on the actual shoot rather than pre prod.

one can learn to light and plan efficiently on digital too (without film experience) if needed but that is not considered mandatory because with digital one often has this attitude that resources can be wasted because it is somehow seen "free" to waste them... whereas with film you can't do anything without those planning skills so you need to have them first and THEN can start shooting great stuff.

Quite often when working with 'digital-only' persons I would want to switch off the monitor and hide its power cable so that they would stop running back and forth between the set and monitor to test simple stuff which could be adjusted in 5 secs if just looking at it with your eyes ?