Freya Black

He has made a film called Tideland which he wrote and directed. For some reason it never seems to get released *shrug*. Obviously I don't know what it will be like and it probably depends on which films you like by him I guess! :) love Freya

It was something like that actually! The Denzel character sort of moves at high speed towards the front of the bank. He is having a total freak out episode and he is very upset. Hard to explain, you will have to see the film! :) It kind of represents his emotional state but I think it's supposed to be a little bit funny too. I laughed anyway, and a few people in the cinema did. love Freya

If you are just starting out then a S8 camera is a good recomendation. However make sure you get one that allows you to set manual exposure, as if the internal metering is broken, and there is no manual exposure then you are stuffed! :) Also if you go somewhere to buy a camera, then take a load of AA batteries with you (at least 6) and then you will be able to tell if the camera makes a noise when you pull the trigger and will maybe be even able to see the shutter working. There is e-bay too of course. You can probably find a s8 camera for less than $100. They are lots of fun, so theres not a big reason not to get one except the cost of film! :) As for camcorders, you could consider getting a really cheap and nasty DV camera. You could then still make black and white films, and you will have a camera that you can use at home for editing on. Then when you get a more fancy camera, you won't have to wear it down by using it for capture and editing etc. I've learnt a lot from video, but I've also learnt a lot from experimenting with S8. I've probably learned different things from each and they are all useful! :) love Freya

25fps filming in a 50hertz world should be fine. (Where are you exactly?). Just to be sure however, why not take a PAL video camera in there and give it a go! :) I bet you have a mini-dv camcorder there somewhere right? :) If you shoot other speeds then er yeah, you might have a flicker problem. It depends what the other speeds are! ;) love Freya

Just dropped by to post about this film. I saw it a preview on Tuesday :P and had a really good time. Nice to see you guys are already talking about it! I was very worried as it turned out to be in a different cinema than I was expecting and I had invited a friend along. I knew it was going to be a trashy genre movie, but I thought it might be fun anyway, but I was worried when my friend and I had to race across town to the other cinema, that it wouldn't have been worth the effort. Thankfully it was really good. As soon as the film started a big guy sitting next to me, said "hey it's spike lee" and I was like thinking, "you came here for some other reason?". Anyway I've been thinking about it more and more over the last few days and I really liked it. It is a trashy genre movie. In fact it is a trashy genre movie to the max. More of a parody really. When the guy who plays the bank owner says that he has something that no-one must know about in a safety deposit box, you already know exactly what it is, because of the guy playing him. Then Jodie Foster goes into the bank to talk to the hyper intelligent maniac character, and Denzil Washington plays this good black cop in a world that's bad kind of thing. It is so stereotypical that it's really entertaining. I wondered for a moment how he got these actors to play such roles, but then of course, it's Spike isn't it! ;) A lot of the time you know what's coming next, and you are just like noooooo! You don't want to be doing that! :) The whole film isn't really laugh out loud funny, but kind of witty make you smile fun. It's all made with a lot of fun. (Hence that silly dolly shot). I think my favourite bit, that really did make me laugh, was the bit when the bank manager talks about all his good deeds and gestures in the direction of all his trophies and pictures and the camera pans across them. I loved that! Go Spike! Somehow Spike has managed to totally make this film his own. Real auteur stuff. He works his political points in there at the same time, as you might expect and it's all done with a sense of humour. There is something about the film that is really optimistic too, like yeah things can be better in spite of the bad people. In some ways it might be his most political film in that it is just such a totally hollywood movie yet Spike still gets his message across. This film is a lot of fun, and a good film to go and see with a friend, but if you don't have one, then what the hey, see it anyway! :) What is that genre called anyways? love Freya

Ah! It was quite grainy indeed! Interesting. I was assuming it was Super16 and some really fast film stock or something. I liked the effect to be honest. love Freya

I'm not sure this is limited to low budget films however, there are a whole lot of terrible films that cost a scary amount of money to make. It's just hard to make good films generally, which probably makes Quentin even more talented in that sense. GRRRRR! :) :) It was definitely less about the violence but you are right it's not like there wasn't any, it's a little different to his other films tho, but what I meant was that Jackie Brown wasn't a big comercial success like his other films. :( Definitely the fact it draws the audience into their world is the really important part because the film is being critical about the glorification of serial killers in the media but hey what was that movie you are watching again? :) So maybe not really deep or complicated but a little bit clever, because it's kind of one of those mindless movies that you can just float along on a journey with, but then at the end when you have seen it all and are agreeing with it's message, it's catching you red handed at the same time. :) love Freya A sneaky look at Quentins first feature. Shame he never finished it: http://youtube.com/watch?v=1--YwUldZnI Strangely he reminds me of Jack Black in this film. :) I guess they both have personality and a bit of charisma! :) love Freya

It depends which films you are talking about of course. There are some amazing films from that era, as I'm sure Quinten would be keen to tell you. Well a lot of those other films were probably made for less than 1.5milliom dollars. However I'm always mystified when people say "doesn't look like a low budget film" because I'm not very sure what a low budget film is supposed to look like! There are all kinds of films made on low budgets. Some of them lower than others. Jackie Brown. Although personally I thought it was one of his better films. love Freya That's a really interesting viewpoint. How can you be sure that people have a lot to say? Maybe they are vaccuous on the inside too! I'm never sure if it is just that people struggle to say things, are scared to say anything too complicated or controversial, or maybe that they really are expressing themselves quite clearly and that is all there is. *shrug* love Freya

I thought it was a fairly straightforward film about the way that the media glorifies serial killers etc. It seems preety explicit about that, but you are right theres no big complicated conceptual thing from what I can tell. Just taking the mickey out of the media. :) love Freya

Doesn't seem too acurate tho: I would have thought this would work just fine! People play NTSC discs in Europe all the time. love Freya

You don't say where you are coming from but maybe you could get a european charger if you need one. Europe is about 220/230 volts and 50hz. The plugs in the u.k. and Ireland are different from those on the mainland. Germany has standard european type sockets, and I guess Italy probably does too although I have never been there. love Freya

Hiya Phil! I've got a feeling this might be a wierd NTSC thing. NTSC DV uses drop frame timecode whereas PAL doesn't I think. As we are talking PAL here there shouldn't be a problem. I have to say I'm only guessing however, they might be talking about something else. *shrug* love Freya

Yes! That definitely looks like eymax mount for the eyemo! :) General Scientific supplied a lot of lenses for Bell and Howell. That is a great score! It looks like a very nice lens, very modern looking and cosmetically great condition from the photo too. :) I assume it was very cheap if you didn't even know what it was when you bought it! :) love Freya

Ah yes! Perhaps that is what they mean! I have seen filmo's with the normal viewfinder removed for use with a dogleg, so perhaps it will work without the filmo viewfinder, then again perhaps not! On a similar note, I have a few c-mount lenses that will also not fit the filmo, even tho they have standard threads. The body is just too wide and the nut at the centre of the turret stops the lens from fitting. :( love Freya

Okay, I searched the archive and found this: It is only a bulb feature not an auto bulb feature but it could still do the trick! :) I'm not sure how this would work in practice however because I'm not sure if this would work with a normal cable release or if the interlavometer would be able to hold the frames open for long enough. Also having re-read the thread I realise you guys seem to be trying to get this effect in real time but I suppose you could slow the resulting footage down to real time, perhaps with an optiical printer like Dominic suggests. It might look a bit staccato tho. Perhaps this could be a job for twixtor? :) [i notice on re-reading, that cinephile suggests the same thing preety much, I'm losing my reading skills or something. Maybe I need a nap] love Freya

Is this not just a normal time exposure effect that you could get with a camera on auto B? I thought that the bolex h16 was able to do time exposure somehow? In a timed exposure camera the shutter is kept open for varying amounts of time depending on how little light there is. It's an interlavometer style function. Maybe I have misunderstood exactly what you guys are talking about however. love Freya

I think you have got a little confused by the thread! :) I've no idea what coated lenses are available but they tend to be rarer because coating lenses is a more modern thing, and eyemo lenses tend to be quite old, like the eyemo itself. When you mention vignetting I assume you are reffering to the optical distortion at the edges of the frame that someone mentioned. This may not be vingetting which is more of a masking effect but is more that the image itself is more distorted at its extremes. This is not related to coated lenses, in fact coated lenses probably are less likely to "suffer" from this as they are more modern lenses. It's just to do with the optics of the old lenses. The eyemo is a non-reflex camera. I'm not sure what you are refering to with regards to the bolex 12-120 reflex, but a number of manufacturers made dogleg c-mount lenses that provided a reflex viewfinder with the lens itself. There is nothing like that on the eyemo. I suspect you are confusing this with when we were saying that some of the eyemo lenses were foccusable. What we meant is that some of the lenses are fixed at infinity and you can't focus them at all. I've never heard of a prism like you describe, however, I hear that some eyemo's have a critical foucussing device like on the filmo, where you can rotate the lens out the way and check your foccusing by looking through the lens at a tiny spot at the center to check your focussing is right. This is something built into the camera however and not available as an add-on. love Freya

ooooh! That's a terrible thing to say. Personally I really like a lot of low budget movies, although two bucks will admittedly only buy you a sandwich. :( I think it's okay for people to try and make films with no money, just as long as the two bucks is not also the only money you have to buy food, pay rent etc. Although if it is then you are in deep trouble and probably have long since forgotten about your film. ;) love Freya

I think what Santo is reffering to is collimation, which is when the lens is matched to the body. With screw mounts especially, but also somewhat generally, lenses are made to fit a paticular body and to focus properly on that camera. A lens from another camera may not quite work right in theory. Even bolex's can vary a bit. It's to do with the distance from the back of the lens to the film plane. You can have it collimated in special places, or you can just shoot tests and try and work out how the lens you have works with the body you have. My suspicion is that you can probably get away with stuff. However, when people say "calibrated for Bolex" I suspect they are just talking nonsense to say that it will fit a c-mount. The RX- series of lenses were specially calibrated for the reflex bolex and are special for that camera, but I honestly can't imagine that a dogleg lens would be calibrated for a reflex bolex, as it already is reflex, why would you stick a dogleg lens on it! ;) love Freya

It would definitely be copyright infringement because you are making a copy of the logo. I don't think it would be trademark infringement because my understanding of trademarks is that you would be infinging them if you were passing them off as your own that's why you see messages to say things like "Trademarks are the properties of their respective owners" to make it clear that they aren't passing off the trademark as their own. I have far less clear an idea of how trademark law works however. You presumably aren't planning to trade with the trademark so it shouldn't be a problem I suspect. Obviously, see a lawyer and all that stuff if it concerns you. love Freya

Your keyboard seems a bit topsy turvey! ;) Brazil is an amazing film. I don't think you could even compare it to Tim Burton because his work seems so far away from Brazil. As far as David Cronenberg goes, he is very different too. I guess Naked Lunch might be seen as the closest to Brazil in a strange way that I can't put my finger on. Of the films I've seen by him my favourites are Naked Lunch, Videodrome, Stereo and Crimes of the future, which I think are all wonderful films in their own way. The structure is fairly conventional tho I think you are right, however people seem to get very freaked out by films that are even a bit different in structure, or just don't follow the rules. I was on a film studies course once where everyone was trying to tell me that "Lost Highway" was impossible to understand and made no sense whatsoever. It was just too subtle for them I think. They weren't stupid people or anything, they just couldn't deal with the fact that the film was different. People don't like it when things are different mostly. Brazil is probably much like that too I expect. It's a lot like the trial by Franz Capra I guess. I don't know what to say about Brazil. It is Terry's masterpiece. I love 12 Monkeys and well, quite a few other films by him, but Brazil is one of those films, where everything comes together. I think it really is a great film, in the sense that Woody Allen talks about great films. The sets and cinematography and the story are all just so special. Wonderful. I've been looking forward to his film "Tideland" for ages, but it never seems to come out. I don't know what's wrong. I thnk it has been finished for a long time now. :( love Freya

I think people are not sure if you mean you are worried about shooting at night or are worried about the age of the film. Judging from the fact you are talking about overexposure I assume you mean that you are worried that the film is ancient. Sadly as it is reversal it is probably not a good idea to try the overexposure trick, because, well the film will look a bit overexposed. Reversal doesn't like being overexposed. It's not too keen on being underexposed either, it's a bit fussy. I think you should try and get the exposure bang on. People often try to underexpose reversal slightly, but given the age, it would be good to get it right on the nail. As far as it being too dark, maybe you could bring a really powerful lantern with you! ;) love Freya

I don't tend to think of arthouse as being mainstream but I guess that is a bone of contention, and obviously a zombie movie or monster movies generally are a fairly mainstream genre. Drive-ins and neighborhood theatres are both preety alien ideas now, although the arthouse cinema in the city I live is an old neighborhood theatre. It is still gas lit and has the little box outside to sell tickets. I had a short shown there recently which was a wonderful experience. It was like having my work shown in a real, real cinema, with all the iconic paraphenalia that is now gone from cinema. :) I was very happy. That's quite something to be holding the original negative of such an iconic film too! I find editing hard enough, so I don't think I could face neg cutting, even with drugs! ;) Thanks for your story, I enjoyed it! love Freya

You've got it! and in Germany they even used to have a 99 fennig shop (everything in the shop is 33p!) Now they have gone Euro I expect it is a 99cent shop tho. :( I just had to see corrupt Lieutenant to see Harvey Keitel acting opposite John Lydon! LA crimewave is the same as la takedown or made in LA according to imdb, is that the same film you talk of? http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097700/ All the multiple titles drive me a bit crazy. You will be dead jealous but I managed to find a Mario Bava film called "Beyond the door", well that's what it's called this week anyway, also "suspense" amd "schock" when it feels like a change. I thought these kind of films would be in the pound shop type places everywhere but you guys have the olsen twins, which I have only seen for sale in supermarkets. I have no idea what chop socky is??? What is that??? love Freya

An 18mm lens is always an 18mm lens, whether you put it on an IMAX camera or on a S8 camera. It is still an 18mm lens. I'm not sure what you mean about Konvas frames being smaller. They follow the same standards in the West as far as I know, so they may be Academy or Anamorphic or S35 or whatever. Depends what gate is in the camera. love Freya