Robert Hughes

Limited Liability? That means you don't have to pay back your creditors when you go bankrupt, right? :unsure:

The 35mm print I saw was clean and sharp. This movie made very effective combined use of in-camera and CGI effect. I loved the room of mysteries; all those racks of globes crashing down in disastrous waves of glass, and the Voldemort/Dumbledore duel where shattered windows fly like shrapnel through the air, to be turned to dust and sand before hitting their mark. And Harry definitely should get better acquainted with Luna; she's more his type than Cho is.

So, Matthew, if you're shooting 16mm or Super 8 we recommend you use 72xx film. And bring along a short strip of unprocessed or processed film to show the security guard so they see what you're talking about. If you've got a black bag available bring it along so they can open up a can and feel up your product. :lol: Also, see if you can have your film processed in Paris and shipped back to you so you don't have to fly it again. I believe Eclair Labs are in Paris.

Hi, hippy. This forum guidelines call for poster to use their actual first and last name. Please go to your account preferences and update. Don't worry, we won't report you to MI6. As for filming on extremely tight budgets, you basically need to put yourself and all your coworkers on rice and beans for the next several months. And shoot MiniDV, because the film processing and transfer costs will break you before you're even into editing mode. There are lots of useful "guerilla filmmaking on a shoestring" books out there; go read up and find out what all is involved. If you truly mean "feature" film as in 90 minutes of tight, action packed and emotionally rivetting material that's intended for big public showings, you're going to have to dig deep into your physical and psychological reserves to fill in for the lack of funding. Question #1: Who is your audience? And all the ancillary questions: How will you get them to see your opus? Will they be so inspired they'll tell all their friends to see it? What if nobody shows at your opening - what's your plan B? and C, D, E? Can you accomplish more by putting your idea up as a series of YouTube episodes? How can you convince some Hollywood or Indie hotshot that you're the biggest, bestest unknown on the scene (because sure as hell everybody else is saying the same thing)? And more questions: Are you and your friends so jazzed on your idea they will drop other committments to help you? Some people have to work, some have family obligations, others are fair weather friends who get bored easily - you don't want one of your lead characters decide to pack up and split halfway through the shoot. How can you reward the people on your team for all their hard work? Or is this just a pipe dream? That's not a bad thing, it's fun to dream big, even if you're not ready for prime time. If you think it's all too much, scale back your efforts to something you can handle without driving yourself and everybody around you crazy. Start making video blogs, or join the local film coop and crew on other folk's shows, develop your network. Best wishes. And get your name straight. Nobody listens to hippies anymore.

Hello Suresh, and welcome. You should just jump right in and start shooting with some inexpensive format, like miniDV video or Super 8 film. Make films of your friends, family, interesting scenes, the world around you. After you've played around a while and gotten familiar with basic shooting, you'll want to edit your material; the easiest way is using a computer video editing program like Final Cut Pro or Adobe Premier - they have lots of bells & whistles in those programs, but the only editing function you have to know is the "cut". If you want to get into the technical aspects of image exposure, get a 35mm or 6x6 manual focus, manual exposure still camera and learn how shutter speed, f/stop and focus all work to get a picture. Take pictures in different kinds of lighting - direct sunlight, shade, cloudy, nighttime, indoors, etc. You'll learn how light and shadow work to create different moods, and help to tell the story. Lots of things to learn, and your whole life to learn them in. Have fun!

Vision 200T will cut well with your 500T but may be overexposed in direct sunlight. You can use a neutral density filter to control it, or get one of the Pro8/Spectra stocks to work more in the "sweet spot" of your camera.

The jury is still out about the metal pressure plate. Some people report improvements, others say the stock cartridge works better. It seems to be camera and film lot dependent - try it on yours and see. I've had good luck with the stock cartridge on my S8 cameras (Bauer S715XL, S207XL and Nikon R8). Of course DS8 will give you better consistency, and 16mm better still (as the tolerances aren't as critical). If your only criterion of photographic quality is a super stable image you'd be better off with video any day - but of course no one in his right mind would use a video camera when the RED camera is only 8 years from availability :P Oh, where was I? Oh, yeah, Super 8. It's an amateur format from over 40 years ago. Don't worry about getting the last 0.01% of quality out of it, any more than Lindsey Lohan would fret about putting a 1963 Beetle in a NASCAR race.

If you really want to use that Ektachrome you can process it at home as b&w negative, but I believe it has the antihalation backing so you'll want to prewash the film to remove it prior to running through the developer.

I have an Angenieux 10-150 on my CP-16R, both from South African news stations. At present the lens is very soft on this camera, and needs collimation. What it will look like matched to the camera is the question - my impression is that stopped down to f/8 or more it will look fine (for a 35 year old zoom lens). I've seen noticable vignetting on closeups, more than expected; this wouldn't be a good S16 lens.

7218 is ASA 320 with an 85 filter. And it's available directly from Kodak. Keep in mind you're shooting Super 8 format. Sure you can get Pro8 to cut down some daylight stock, but your thread title seems to indicate you're not happy with Pro8.

Keep in mind that most Super8 is telecined for editing on computer, and most modern telecine machines don't care what speed you shoot at - you can telecine at 24, or 18, or 9, or any other speed and get proper timing.

The Super Baltar was a high end lens back in 1960, but after almost 50 years it probably shows age and wear artifacts, and may not cut very well with images from modern lenses. I have a 25mm Super Baltar that has yellow glass, probably from radioactive metals used in glass manufacture. The good thing is I don't need an 85 filter for outdoor shooting, the bad thing is my film gets exposed whether I shoot or not :lol:

Here's a great thing about public critiques. I disagree 100% with the previous posters. I loved the extreme tight shots and the frenetic, jarring movement; it fits the claustrophobic, disorienting mood generated by the band's music. I particularly liked the rapid vertical tilts, which looked like framing misregistration. There's plenty of room for improvement, though... - Too many frontal shots of the bass player's fingerboard; they seemed taken from a uniform distance. Get more variation in framing; if you want close, nail him down and put the camera on his pinky. - Staging. There's some furniture in the shot that doesn't contribute to the mood; the table lamp at 1:30/1:36/3:41, the eggcrate sound baffling at 3:05, they shriek "rehearsal studio". But the fluorescent lights are crucial, and provide an appropriately ghastly tone to skin color. - The color scheme gets too familiar after awhile. You might consider mixing it up with some Tri-X film; the alteration of color with b&w can provide a formal component to enhance this (rather longish) musical piece. - Too much realism in the shots - my opinion is that you need more unrecognizable, wacked-out shots to offset the boys with guitars. You've got some great shots of the singer's profile from above and below. Keep going - MORE OUTSIDE! If you don't do it, who will?

This sounds like your first movie project? Do it in Super 8 and save the big bux 16mm productions until you have a little more experience. Good Super8 looks nice, and bad 16mm looks, well, bad. Spend the money on lighting, costumes and catering; everybody will like that.

I don't understand. They produce their fastest stock 7218 in Super 8, how much faster do you need? You can even push it a stop or 2 if necessary. Kodak 7218

One way to go is to use a video camcorder as the audio track recording device and second camera in case of problems with the Super 8. Put the video camcorder on a tripod for an unattended master shot while you shoot Super8. During the shoot, have your talent perform the take twice: once while rolling video camera only, then a second take rolling both video and Super 8. If you can get lavalier mics on the talent you might even be able to use audio from the 2nd take. Use a head (and if possible, a tail) slate on each take you run the the Super 8 camera. During editing, copy both video and S8 elements to your computer. If the S8 shot comes out OK, then dub in audio off the videotape (video only take) and slide around to achieve lip sync; it shouldn't be too far off if the 2 takes were performed the same. If the S8 camera crapped out on you, the video will provide backup. Remember, of course, that S8 cameras are not sync cameras; they almost always run a little off speed. So you're going to have to deal with audio slip.

For that kind of money it would be worth your while to fly out to wherever the camera is and inspect it, perhaps even take it to a camera shop for a once-over.

Good point. If time and money is of no concern to you, why don't you wait until the end of the year and buy an IMAX camera? For 350.000$ you will get a neat package with prime lenses. The camera will be similar in performance (if not better) of what Mel Gibson used for "Road Warrior" (35mm). Also the IMAX camera is a film cine camera capable of shooting in a 65mm mode, so, you will be future proof. Anyway, I guess it's good advice to wait until that camera is out, since, prices for all cameras are bound to drop quite a bit after their release. :lol:

As for color temperature, why not intersperse some red, yellow or green LED's in the array, perhaps on seperate controller circuits so you can dial color temp in onsite?

Nah, it was acquired by Sony a few years back. :ph34r:

All in all a smart, enjoyable movie. Cinematography lighting were unintrusive but quite competent, casting and story were excellent. Several times I had the "I remember that!" experience. But the kids at my cineplex apparently don't know how to focus a projector; too many closeups were just a little too soft.

When doing evening shooting, you need to remember that the lighting is going through contiuous change rapidly; you won't have much chance for reshoots of a given scene, because the lighting will be different. Not only in intensity but also (very much so) the color. The good news is that you won't need to use an 85 filter, because the color temperature of "magic hour" is very similar to that of tungsten bulb. But as soon as the sun hits the horizon, the golden tones go away fast, and the predominating color is the deep blue of the evening sky. Also, in inhabited areas you will find an increased emphasis on artificial lighting as the evening changes over to nightfall; streetlights are usually either blue mercury vapor or orange sodium vapor lamps. No amount of filtering will change their color; they are all blue, or all orange, and very little of any other color. Fluorescent lamps have that sickly brownish or greenish color cast (which can be corrected somewhat with filtration), incandescents are golden (on unfiltered tungsten balanced film, house lamps are slightly orange as they run somewhat lower color temperature than studio lights do), and arc lamps like searchlights are brilliant white with maybe a touch of blue, depending again on your filtering. At 9fps the shutter is open for a long time. Avoid unplanned rapid movements with the camera, as they will be just smeared frames, almost unrecognizable except as color and movement. Use a tripod if you want a stable image.

Where would you get your film processed? I think I'd leave the Super 8 home and take the model along instead - better company :rolleyes:

I'd guess you would go for a naturalistic, but somewhat cold effect. Abandoned houses don't have orange glowing electric lights like occupied houses do, they have plenty of shadow in the corners, they get all their light from outdoors. Horizontal soft lighting as through windows, perhaps with a bluish tinge to imitate the bleached out indoors look. Some of the color scheme can be worked out with your art director.

A few months back I was assisting at a mixed light video interview; the camera op hung 1/2 blue (or CTB) stage gels over his tungsten Lowell lights and any tungsten practicals in the shot; the white balance was set for outdoors and the scene looked fine. With color negative film the effect should be similar.