Rio Grande 476 to Silverton, Tye's new Documentary finally released.

Tyler Purcell · June 25, 2023

Hey everyone! The time has come to finally start publishing a few of our recent films. I have to say for the record, it’s been a long journey, taking a substantially more amount of time then I initially expected. It comprises not just one, but footage from four different shoots, spanning nearly an entire year. The journey started in Summer 2021, with a little vacation that led to making a film: https://cinematography.com/index.php?/forums/topic/88782-story-about-my-new-documentary-the-giants-in-the-hills/

We got hooked though and we’ve now been back to South Western Colorado 4 times since our first trip and have two more planned visits this year already, to make 2 more movies. I figured it was worth the opportunity to make a few films about a century old steam engine, which has never been taken out of service and of course on the very year, the 16mm format hits it’s centennial as well. What a perfect combo!

Our first film entitled “Rio Grande 476 to Silverton” started production in October 2022 during a special rail fan photoshoot weekend. This event allowed us to very easily film with our standard kit, deep in the woods instead of having to hike in, which would be impossible.

After our first film “Giants in the Hills”, we learned a few things that changed on the new film. First off, 250D was never going to work without serious filtration and that wasn’t something we could carry with us on the train easily. So the thought was moving our production over to 7203 50D, which would allow us to run the stop around F11 in broad daylight without filtration. Where I prefer the color science of 250D, technically I didn’t have much of a choice, plus having the lower grain, meant we could punch in a bit more if need be and hide it. So the benefits were pretty high and we did a bulk purchase of new film from Kodak right before we left Los Angeles. We store the film in a cooler with ice packs on our drive out to Colorado.

Of course like last time, my boyfriend Hayden was excited to shoot stills with his R5 and Rebel T2 film camera.

(I know it says 7207, this is how we pack our film tho)

Our standard kit is a Aaton XTR Prod with Canon 11-165 F2.8, which is perfect for this type of work, where you maybe very far away from the subject. Being able to do extremely long shots, is a trick I really like and it’s something that isn’t really seen in the full frame imager world, which is what most people use (DSLR/Mirrorless) on their train films these days. So right away I knew based on our last film, that our “look” just composition wise, would be vastly different than anyone else. Of course, what we can carry on the train is limited and my Tenba 21” backpack would be my camera’s home for the entire journey. The zoom lens fits vertically in the bag, two mags, two batteries, camera and ONE prime. Generally I bring the Optar 9.5mm T1.3 only, so that if I NEED something fast and wide, I’ve got it. On this shoot, we also brought the Optar 50mm T1.3, which I had just had re-built. Sadly our 11-165 has some issues that can’t be fixed, so we kinda have to run it at F8 in order to mitigate the issues. This makes it a bit tricky to shoot with it outside of broad daylight. Not a problem for this film, but it can be an issue in certain circumstances. Our tripod is a Cartoni Focus F100, which is light weight and allows us to keep the camera on it all day, which helps with moving it around getting on and off the train funny enough.

(XTR Prod on bridge with our Mattebox)

Edited June 25, 2023 by Tyler Purcell

Tyler Purcell · June 25, 2023

The shoot was 4 days straight. Started with a Friday evening shoot, which included the engine we’d be riding on the following day and around 80 other photographers. It’s very tricky coordinating these things, all the photographers want the perfect spot, so it’s all about getting in, getting the shot and lining up for the next shot before they take over and ya don’t have any inch edgewise. As a professional, this process works great, we were able to nail all the shots I wanted very fast without much intrusion from the photographers. Unfortunately, the lighting did suck and not much of this initial shoot result was in the finished piece, more about this later. We shot with the Optar 50mm mostly, with a few shots using the 9.5mm, both shots all the way open with 7219 500T. I did some long exposures (3fps) in order to get a better exposure in some dark sections and then in post, I matted the two shots together so it looked like the thing was properly lit, but wasn’t. I used this trick twice in the film and it worked very well, you’d never know since the shot was stationary. Sadly, I didn’t bring enough 500T with us, so we were limited on what we could get.

(Digital still from iPhone)

(Screen grab from finished film with a composite mask to clean up the dark areas)

The next morning was a 7am call time and we left Durango right on time. I tried to shoot some material of the engine waiting to leave, but I was worried about it being too dark since it was a cloudy morning.=

(Too dark for 16mm this morning)

The ride to our first stop was around an hour, so we had time for some to eat our breakfast, which we brought aboard and drink some railroad coffee. The train only had 60 people, but there were 6 cars total, so it was very sparse. We hobnobbed with some train folks, several who had seen our last film, which was fun. When we arrived at our first stop, I believe I had shot pretty much nothing leading up to that moment, but again I only had three rolls of film with me for the entire day.

So every single frame was going to be precious. For every stop, we had two run-by’s, but they were the same location of course. So I knew I could get probably two focal lengths per run-by, which meant I could move to a different location for the 2nd run-by and get 2 more focal lengths then. This process is how I attempted to shoot out the day. Sometimes I was able to do this, sometimes not.

I kept my XTR Prod on the tripod all day since we had room for it to sit in the coach assembled. I’d just pick it up, rest the magazine on my shoulder and carry it down like that. It was funny as the day went on, other people started copying my methodology. It allows both hands to be available. I also had my boyfriend with me, so he could help if need be, but he was mostly doing stills. The day went really well and we shot out both rolls in no time at all.

(We had to climb up this hill to nail the shot)

(Final shot in film)

(476 In Silverton with XTR Prod)

(Final shot of 476 arriving in Silverton, I just love that dusty western feel)

(476 heading through Tacoma power plant area digital shot)

(Tacoma from film film, notice the work done to the upper portion to keep it exposed properly)

(The daily train meets our train. This was taken with the XTR on a piece of wood I found next to the track and the engine almost hit me, very cool shot)

(Needleton Water Tank stop)

Day three was spent in Silverton (the end of the line) which we drove to by car and caught some phenomenal fall scenes, including the tilt up shot of the depot and the mountains surrounding it. We also got the daily passenger train arriving and leaving, which was critical to telling our story. We shot another two rolls that day, catching as many shots as we could, including back in Durango around the town. I’d just setup the car with the camera in the Tenba bag, lens sticking out the top and off the tripod in the boot. When we stopped, I’d just quickly assemble and get to work. We did chase the train quite a bit on day three as well, the first few miles of the railroad is on the highway 550 leading out of Durango, so it’s very easy to get some driving shots.

Edited June 25, 2023 by Tyler Purcell

Tyler Purcell · June 25, 2023

Our final day was met with a winter storm. Durango was beautiful weather, but Silverton was snowing. We decided to take the trek over to Silverton and get some shots of the train. This was unscripted, totally freak storm and it fit in so well with our story. We got very lucky and the railroad ran the same engine 476 that day, even though it wasn’t a special photography train. So the idea was to shoot similar framing from the day before, so we could show some contrast between a beautiful sunny, golden leaves day, to a snow storm. Unfortunately we did not bring the right clothes with us and it was damn cold. So the best I could do was one similar framed shot of the depot. This worked perfectly and in the film its one of the highlight transitions. We shot a few more quick shots and man, they all came out great, even though I was frozen solid and so was my poor camera. Getting back to Durango during the storm was like living in Boston again, visibility was very poor, but our BMW X5 with X drive did a great job, even with all weather tires.

(Getting a close-up of the cab)

(476 as it wades through the snow)

But that sadly ended our quick trip and the following day, we headed home and straight to Fotokem for processing.

When we received the film back the following day and threw it on the scanner, I noticed something horribly wrong. There was a waterfall effect in many shots, looked like micro cinching, something I had never seen before. I talked to Mark over at Fotokem and he didn’t really understand the problem. I was furious because some of the best shots of our 9 roll shoot, were entirely covered in this pattern, which made them useless in my eyes. I tried fixing it digitally with Resolve and our first edit had those fixed shots, but it removed the grain entirely and any motion looked weird. It was so sad and incredibly frustrating. I reached out to a few people and they suggested using a restoration software like DVO Phoenix and that’s what we wound up using to fix it. The tools in there are stellar and with just a tiny bit of Dry Clean, bam the problem was gone. It did take SOME of the grain with it, but the results were ok. The pattern can still be seen in some of the worst shots, but only by someone who knows it existed in the first place. I was elated that things were fixed, but I was still angry this issue happened in the first place. So after digging, I found out that Kodak had a bad batch of film. They didn’t tell anyone of course, they knew I bought it, I’m friends with the guys there, but said nothing. They did compensate me by replacing those rolls, so that was good, but in the end, I will never be able to go back to that negative without needing to restore it once more, which is a real shame. The detail in the negative will forever be lost thanks to the digital software used for cleanup. We also know the formula for the anti halation coating was the issue, it changed and the labs were not up to speed on the new process. This is also frustrating, but since then, we’ve not seen this problem happen again.

Edited June 25, 2023 by Tyler Purcell

Tyler Purcell · June 25, 2023

We started cutting in early November, those early versions were just music and imagery, without even the sound of the train. The general cut didn’t change much from November through February 2023, but the film was just not working. It was missing a lot of footage that was required to tell a proper story. So when the railroad invited us back for another shoot in February, we jumped on it and using that time, we were able to shoot a bit more footage for this film AND of course a whole new film. Still tho, I was not satisfied. There just was not enough story for me. I tweaked the film for months, but never found what I was looking for. We had to go back, we had to shoot the missing material and that happened in May 2023, during a visit to see a sick friend in Denver. We drove through Durango on our way home and got the missing footage. This time we brought my just serviced Zeiss 12-120 since we didn't need the focal length. It only took two rolls as well, which was surprising because I think percentage wise, more film from those two rolls was used in the finished piece then the initial shoot’s 9 rolls. I’d have to do the math, but it does take up quite a bit of the film.

The credit sequence was actually shot for an entirely different film over the summer of 2022 and the footage was of the same engine, so we decided to wrap the film up with some nice alternative footage from the summer. It's a departure from what I had originally done in the first few cuts, but I think it puts a very pretty cherry on top. The final shots always have to be some of the best.

(XTR Prod in the Silverton cemetery)

(Final cemetery shot from film)

The scan was done by us at Narrow Gauge Films, using our Film Fabriek HDS + 4k scanner and posted with DaVinci Resolve, with cleanup by DVO Phoenix. Our narration was recorded on a Sennheiser 416 in 32 bit and all the finish sound mix was done in Resolve as well. The music was from Audio Network Music, which is my GO TO resource. The credits were done using a cool trick where I create them in Resolve, export them as an Alpha key, re-import them and add a few "film" effects. This gives me gate weave, some softness and of course, that cool fade up/fade down aspect. We didn't quite get the redness you see in analog credits, maybe we'll do that on the next film.

The maps were shot in my garage with a makeshift table setup. It kinda worked, but not really too well. It was a good start, but I think on the next film we do this trick, we'll use bigger maps and setup a proper stand. It took a lot of work to matte out the table and get it smooth, even though I shot all of the map shots at 48fps on 7203 50D.

(Shooting maps in the garage)

We matted the film to 1.85:1, which is the same aspect ratio as my cameras ground glass. I do prefer the wider screen format over 1.75:1, it just looks more cinematic for some reason. All of our displays are also 17:9, so we’re always looking at it in 1.85:1 without bars on the side. Every frame has been stabilized, every frame has been worked through quite a bit. I build grading templates based on day of shooting and then we tweak those templates slightly to bring consistency to the footage. The trick of course is that, it’s from 3 different shoots, using 3 different stocks, so it can be tricky to find consistency. I didn’t try to make the stocks match, I only tried to make the individual parts work cohesively in a visual way. We did some mattes, so we could alter the sky a bit and I love using the curves section of the coloring tool. Using that tool section alone, allowed us to boost the skies a bit, make them more contrasty and also highlight some of the beauty which can be lost a bit when you’re exposing for a darker subject like a train. Some shots the clouds came in and covered my subject mid shot, so we couldn’t do much about that. Other shots we had issues with our location, it was tricky climbing up hills to get away from the other photographers on the train, so we were a bit hamstringed. However, over-all I’m pretty happy with the finishing of the film, it’s gone through many iterations, I think 17 since we started cutting in November 2022, which is a lot for me.

The finished version of the film was something I didn’t want to let go of. I know I can do a lot better, I know I can shoot more, edit more, work for another two years on it, but would it be any better? Letting go is one of the hardest things to do, but we posted the “final” version on YouTube this weekend and now the journey is over and we can look forward to our next film, which should be out sometime in July or August, depending on how the VO guy gets along with our script. He’s been an invaluable resource, as he knows the railroads well and fixes many of my novice mistakes. In the end, it was a team effort to get this done. Not only was the railroad involved with script ideas and edits, but we are also connected to the town of Durango’s tourist board, who also suggested ideas. Without all of them, this film would be pretty lame. Now that I know them tho, it’s been a lot easier to get notes for future films and productions around the same subject matter, which is wonderful. The goal of this film and the next two, is to help raise money for a feature about the mines in Silverton. My research for that project just started and I’m hoping to start the fundraising process in August. It’ll be an expensive film to make, we’ll probably shoot it digitally as well, but there really isn’t a modern re-telling of what happened there and why the railroad exists in the first place. More about that subject for a later date.

Now that I've put you all to sleep, here is the finished version of “Rio Grande 476 to Silverton” Enjoy!