Phil Connolly

Icing sugar and water - lets you decide on the thickness by adjusting the water quantity It looked pretty convincing on a short I shot back in the Day: A Tale of Two Girls (2007) - IMDb We used it sparingly on a quite a dark scene depicting sexual abuse and rape. It added to the yuck factor, which helped make the scene more harrowing. Not a fun thing to shoot, but the film made some interesting points. Can't find it online and I lost my copy or I'd post some images.

Have you thought about expanding the search to the Digital Bolex. Very similar look CCD - but the with advantage of the larger SSD's. Also its 2K rather then 1080 With the Ikonoskop you burn through the card's quickly and they take a while to back up and they are mega rare

You could use a tilt- shift lens - that would allow you to angle the plane of focus to match the varying distances of the coffee beans.

Four Lions is great Your friends may be idiots, but if you call them idiots on a public forum they might not be your friends much longer. Still, enjoying the work of Chris Morris is far from idiotic, the opposite in fact.

Sky Captain and the world of Tomorrow. In the UK the HDC750 was more popular then the f900. It was about half the price but same quality its only limitation was it only shot 25p rather then 24p. Lots of films were shot 25p in Europe because it simiplified post a lot. E.g you could use Avid MC rather then more expensive Film composer. Workflows were a lot more restricted e.g progressive scan was only sort of supported and you had to deal PSF formats etc yuck... I don't miss interlace Tristam Shandy: A cock and bull story was a good example of a film shot on 750. Wolf Creek was 750 The 750 was also a bit shorter in length - so easier to shoot in tight spaces. I think with good lenses your going to extract a nice image still out of the son HDCAM fleet. I would just avoid using tape - the 3:1:1 colour sampling, 8 bit 1440x1080 image and compression did limit your control in post. We tested HDCAM at C4 a bit when I worked there and moved up to HDCAM-SR pretty quickly. I did a green screen shoot on the 750 and even though the greenscreen was lit very carefully it was a nightmare to pull a clean key, even using Flame. Prores HQ is mush better and probably cheaper to shoot - the tapes could get expensive.

I guess 4k focus is doable on small chip cameras. Studio broadcast work is usually lit to a deep enough stop, same with sports. The kits getting pretty cheap, so when upgrading no reason not too, Black magic do a perfectly good 4k switcher for less then 10k. It may ore may not be needed. But since you can't even buy large HD TV's these day's, more and more people will have 4k screens and will be looking for content, even if they can't usually tell the difference.

Most OB's are kitting out with Sony- HDC4300's they look pretty decent and guess 4K is doable on a 2/3" camera if your using 3 RGB sensors rather then bayer. I don't see that much point in domestic 4K broadcast yet, until they up the bit rate. Take Netflix 4K it does look way better then their HD streams. But thats because the HD is about 5.5Mbs and the 4K about 15Mbs. The 4K images don't look as 4K as they could since they are so compressed. Neflix 4k dosen't look as good as professional HD. I used to QC HDCAM-SR movie masters and I've yet to see a 4k image on Netflix that matches say the HDCAM-SR of Alien in terms of visual quality.

Nothing like doing the Master on a 300mm if you've got the space for it.

show your working out

I think you would struggle to find a film workflow to be cheaper then digital. You can produce and edit digital images for almost nothing. With film your going to have Stock, processing and transfer costs and they always cost more then nothing... Now which gives the best visual results...thats up for debate. Its a no brainer that film outperforms cheap digital aesthetically. But if we are just talking about recording a moving image, that you can then edit of sufficient quality to tell a story there is no way film is cheaper. It might be possible to shoot film relatively cheaply by getting deals etc... but it will still cost 10X more then digital...but will it look 10x better? Another thing to consider is the level of digital camera your using the 70D isn't bad, but leveling up an hiring a mid range digital camera eg. Ursa, Raven, FS7, C300Mk11. Would improve the look way beyond what a DLSR can do, while still costing less then film. The day rental price on an FS7/Ursa Mini in the UK is only sightly more then purchase price of a 400ft roll of 16mm. I would also argue that 16mm (at least) isn't drastically better then good digital. Especially if your working in low light. The 2000ISO rating of the FS7 means you can get away with a smaller lighting package. With super 16 - you really need to be working with slower stocks. I've always found 500ASA stocks in 16mm to be way too grungy. Pain is temporary, film is forever. Shooting film isn't vastly more difficult then digital - it just costs a bit more. If your budget can stretch to film and you prefer the look - then you should shoot film. It should be a straight forward calculation. Film isn't crazy expensive but the costs can be significant when your working with a micro budget. The last short I made, I wanted to shoot on super 16mm. After I'd crunched the numbers for the running time/shooting ratio - it added £2.5k to the overall cost (with the deals I could find at the time). I didn't have £2.5k spare in the budget - so I went digital, the choice was made for me. Maybe I could have found the savings to shoot film... but in the end the production went £2k over budget as it was and if I'd got film costs on top of that overspend - I would really have been in trouble. Otherwise shoot on what you can afford, remembering that the shooting format these days is one of the least important elements of a film. Audiences will accept film or digital, but the won't accept poor storytelling, sound, lighting, editing, acting...etc.... I can usually tell a film is going to be rubbish when the director introduces it as "My 35mm short film..." or "My Red Dragon 6k short film".

Post production looks daunting when your starting out and workflows can be complex, especially if your using different software for different elements (sound, colour, offline etc...) and the complexity of moving the project between those. Or it can be quite simple, if you pick a multi-purpose package: Avid MC, Resolve, Premier and learn one of those (personally I'd avoid FCP, but it has its fans). Then your workflow can be as simple as import rushes...edit...export film. Would it be as polished as a more advance system? Probably not, but with care it can get the job done. You don't need to run before you can walk. Learn the basics, keep it simple and as you develop more skills you can incorporate more advanced tools and workflows. You can actually do a lot within a single application - I only started using on-line/offline workflows and pro-tools for audio when I found myself getting frustrated with the limitations of FCP. But it took me a while to get to that point. A simple process can be interchangeable with film or digital. If you get the lab to do a HD prores transfer of the 16mm - once the material is transferred you can treat it the same way in your edit as you would with digital originated footage. Are you going to hire an editor or do you plan to cut yourself?

I don't think a super 16 workflow is going to save you money over digital. As others have said most shot on film projects are post produced digitally - so if your shooting super 16 yours costs are for both - Film Stock + Lab Fee's + Transfer fee's + plus editing and post production = to result in a digital file you can project. Super 16 isn't a projection format - so if you wanted to stay photochemical - you'd need a blowup to 35mm. These aren't cheap and it maybe cheaper to post produce 16mm digitally. The venues that can screen 35mm are getting rarer... So the point of shooting on film is an aesthetic decision - its not going to save you over digital money. Now it is possible to manage the costs of shooting on film so that its achievable on a low budget - e.g using short ends, low shooting ratio etc... Theres a filmmaker in the UK that make's micro budget 16mm films and hand processes all his footage to save money (and provide an interesting look). http://film.britishcouncil.org/broncos-house But to work with film on v low budgets it does risk compromise in other areas. For affordable post software - Resolve as Tyler states is good. Or you can look at Adobe Creative suite - that has the benefit of being available on a monthly rental plan. So you could rent Premier for an month or two to complete your edit.

Thats a big shame - the most useful thing about my film school experience was getting a team of collaborators to work with. 9 years later, I still use a lot of film school contacts. Its not the only way to find collaborators of course, but its a good kick starter.

Depending on what you attempt 10k should be able to go quite far on a student production. As a student if your school is providing; equipment, insurance, studio space, other students to crew, post production facilities etc... Then you budget should be able to go quite far. My grad film cost about £9k cash, but it would probably have cost about £100k if I was paying full whack for everything. The school provided studio space, some props, lighting, postproduction, kit, insurance. In the end most of the budget when on cast and production design - we did a self build and it took quite a lot to furnish it. I ended up spending close to £1k on food for the 6 day shoot. Most the crew were other students who were unpaid but I hired in a Make-up artist, Gaffer and 1st AD. The time saved paying for a professional Gaffer and 1st AD was worth it- but as a student I was able to negotiate good rates. The point of going to film school (esp if your paying 100k fee's) is to get as much stuff out of them as possible. I'm gearing up for a short film at the moment in the low budget bracket - my spending priorities are going to be: Actors, Sound recordist and production designer. A short needs good actors, good sound and convincing set - get those things right and most other things can be fixed in post. Post can be very cheap if you throw a lot of time at it...

Looks interesting, will give it a watch, hopefully iPlayer won't mush it up too much...

What Bruce said. If they like the film as long as it looks OK and they actually want it they will buy it. Even the expensive new star trek series is 1080p only on UK Netflix In addition to 720p stuff on Netflix theres quite a lot of standard def Digi-Beta and Beta-SP. Plenty of very rough looking old BBC sitcoms. They made a big deal of acquiring the monty python catalogue, most of that is a mash up of 1"C format and 16mm. Format isn't barrier to purchases. There's usually a minimum technical quality they will accept - but thats not just in terms of resolution (since they will take SD). Sound quality, chroma and Luma levels, blanking etc.... I used to work in QC for a UK broadcaster/film distributor and have rejected many many television programmes and films for technical reason's. 90% it wasn't because of a substandard camera format - but usually it was due to audio problems and mistakes made in the edit. The choice of camera is far less important then your choice of sound recordist and post production team in getting a film/show past QC. If you have a C300 and the film looks good - it won't be the lack of 4k that prevents a Netflix sale, more likely lack of stars and the plain of numbers game of it being a real long shot. Blue Ruin (shot on C300) was on Netflix 4k is only needed for a commission, at that point if they want 4k, they will give you enough money to shoot 4k and tell you what cameras are allowed. As others have said use the best camera you can afford for your project. If you already have a C300 then shoot on that. But if your hiring in maybe check out the Ursa mini and Sony FS7 as well. They rent for similar amounts and may give you a bit more latitude for colour correction. I'm a bit fan of the C300 - but the 8 bit files do limit your flexibility in post. Stretching to FS7 or C300 Mk2 might make your life easier on the shoot - regardless of the Netflix rules.

Depends on the print - also you have to factor it its anamorphic scope or flat 1.85:1 - the negative area of scope is much larger then flat. The converse is true with digital 2.39:1 scope film's are letter boxed and use fewer pixels then 1.85:1. At the time when you could see 35mm and 2k digital at the same time. I often felt of your looking at a really good show print 2.39:1 scope prints in 35mm often looked sharper then then 2 k digital. But the 1.85:1 digital films looks looked sharper then then the flat prints. The quality of prints made a huge difference - I'd watch a film in the west end in London, it was likely a "show print" printed slower since its used for the press and premiers and then the same movie in a local multiplex would have a softer print. 35mm often looked sharper then digital early on - not because its higher resolution but because the blacks were deeper and higher contrast increases perceived sharpness. I think contrast is the bigger issue with digital projection - I did see Attack of the Clones on the early prototype 1.3K DLP projectors. I was shocked how close the resolution was to many 35mm screenings - I was expecting it to be mega soft, but it wasn't. But the contrast and black levels on those projectors was terrible - with very milky blacks and thats what let the side down. More then resolution. But in general in most cinemas 35mm projection wasn't good. I used to see most films in London and they would be usually look good because you had high end west end cinemas projecting them properly. But as soon as you went out side the capitol, away from the independant cinemas your typical multiplex cinemas thrashed the films. Pints were poorly made, printed quickly, soft with different colour casts real to real, prints would be dirty, scrached etc... The late days of 35mm didn't look good. Once cinemas went over to multiplexes with one "projectionist" using automation to run 12-15 screens. The quality dropped off. I used to always try and watch films on opening weekend because after that the scratches would be too distracting. Perhaps something has been lost on the move to digital and if everything is perfect 35mm can look amazing. But in most cinemas it didn't and in general digital projection has vastly improved the quality of projection for most cinemas

Do you work in a post house that does documentaries? If so having conversations with you clients might allow you set up some work experience. It can be hard to move up in a large post house. So maybe look at getting a job at a prod co that does its editing in house. You could leverage you post house experience to get in the door. I would say a smaller prod co (that does doco's) would probably give you more opportunities to do different things and learn. I got stuck at a big post house because I was good a QC's - so I was booked on QC's and nothing else. I had colleagues that had been stuck at Edit Assistant level for year. An edit assistant at a big prod co - could be doing broadcast off-lines within 1 or 2 years if motivated.

Nope, you multiply crop factors (not divide). So an 18mm lens on a super 35mm camera has the equivalent field of view of a 27mm lens on a full frame camera. 18 x 1.5 is 27 (not 75 or 12) Since super 35 is pretty much the standard format for film production. You don't really need to think about crop factors or need to compare it with full frame. Just work on getting used to the FOV offered by different focal lengths on super 35.

What about the Chronos? http://www.krontech.ca/chronos-14-demos.html Not phantom quality - but able to do 1000fps at 1280 by 1024 - which is slower then sony and red and maybe doable resolutionwise. More affordable too. Or if you can shoot at around 200-250fps - time remapping tools like twixtor start to work quite well and with a 2x slow mo could probably simulate 500fps quite well.

Is the ride owner the client? i would have thought locking it off an poor mans process would be an option on a drama. But if they want to show the experience of the ride it would have to be real. Do they want to look like it does look in reality? If its supposed to be dark, then you can't put too much light in there. Whats the priority we see - the riders reactions? Then maybe a couple of small light panels on the car itsself would do it. Keep it black with just enough light to read facial expressions. If you light up the space and reveal the track then its no longer a dark ride and would probably look underwhelming. Dark rides are scary because you don't know whats going to happen, but if you compared them to a more conventional outdoors roller coster - its less exciting. For the POV shot if your getting 2.1 on props - that might be enough. Raising the ambiant light takes it away from darkness. Also whats it going to be like rigging lights in that space? Are the areas you need to light easy to reach. I think with fast lenses and car mounted lights - that would get you the "dark ride" look. But that might be quite boring, the dark ride look, is quite dark. So you could ignore that - get a load of PAR 64's, colour gels, disco chasers, strobes and go to town.

The isn't really a "Red" thing. But a film/video production thing - when you have an industry thats perceived as glamorous its going to attract a lot of people of varying skill level. The frustrating thing is a lot of these guys only focus on the gear and having the correct (expensive) gear is the short cut to success. Clients also don't know any better and will assume because a person rocks up with a shiny 6k camera, they must know what to do with it, otherwise why would they have spent all that money. Red cameras do play well here. Production is increasingly a rich persons playground. Clint's want high end gear, they don't want to pay for it. Unfortunately there are too many trustafarians spending 100k on gear and then working for free (because they don't actually need an income - parents will be paying for the east London pad). It gets very hard to make a living in many film production fields - you cut you price to the bone, even though you've got 15 years experience. Only to loose the job to an idiot Red user working and providing the gear for next to nothing. If the client can't tell the difference in quality any many will prioritise cool drone shots over a video that makes sense. Your kind of stuck... I kind of gave up. I did a behind the scenes for a Ben Sherman shoot and it was very depressing watching a bunch of "Nathan Barleys", cocking it up because they were clueless but in the right set. But as others have said the hipster dudes could be really talent - I'm not against talent and don't want to discriminate according to background. Its difficult making it even if your rich. But the Red effect is a problem, that it devalued production work. Too many people working and giving gear for too little. It makes a hard job harder. My frustration has always been that I've always had to have a day job. I make films but that have to fit round paying the bills. I have friends that were at film school at the same time as me. The ones that were independently wealthy were able to focus only on film, work on building a reel - maybe doing full time unpaid jobs for a number of years. It was still tough for them - but they are a lot further up the ladder then I am. My career is in slow motion in comparison. Still thats the way the world is, but I think the best way to try and level the playing field is work against unpaid internships and unpaid production in general. It does give those that can afford to do it a leg up, thats not wholly to do with merit

To add confusion American Cinematheque commissioned a new print in 2016 http://www.film-tech.com/ubb/f1/t012067.html I wonder if its significantly different from the Nolan effort.

There was a new 70mm print in the UK for the 2001 re-release in 2001. I believe it toured the UK - I saw it on the Cinerama screen in Bradford. I remember it looking very nice and very crisp and sounding fantastic. It did have more tape hiss then the new prints The new print (as screened in London) was quite a lot softer with much more visible grain (closer to a 35mm look at points) and the sound had lost the low end. Maybe that was due to how the cinema patched in the sub bass crossover - but I doubt that - since its one of the best screens in London, technically.

https://www.frame24.co.uk/ Frame 24 sell stock and do all inclusive packages of stock, processing and digital scanning. You'd probably be in the ball park of just over £200 for a 400' process paid roll of 16mm, which would run about 11 minutes The also have clearance stock short ends or re-cans which can be cheaper. I think film is very difficult to do on an enthusiasts budget, particularly if your shooting drama. You have to have a very specific reason to want to work on film. Personally, I'd keep working on digital, since trying to do film on a shoestring is stressful and expansive. I'd only really work on film, when I'm not personally paying for the production and I can convince the client/funder its worthwhile. But when your starting out you can end up paying large sums for a film workflow, with minimal improvement on the final output. I don't think its the case that film automatically looks better. For instance high 500 ASA Super 16 looks pretty grungy next to high end digital like the Alexa.