Jeff L'Heureux

Hi Ruben, The amount of grain in 16mm comes down to a few factors: -is it regular 16mm or super16? -what lenses are you using? -what stock are you using? -what's your lighting/exposure? You've got a handle on stock and exposure, but you have to take mind of the importance of what kind of lens is on the camera. The hobbyist 16mm cameras have a great look, and personally I think the grain of your footage looks beautiful as is, but if you want to tighten up the grain on 16mm you need to make sure you're shooting super16, and have some good glass in front of the lens. The optics of the lens can greatly influence sharpness, contrast, flare, and a number of other factors. Shoot that same footage, on the same stock with a super16 camera on some Ultra Primes, and it would look entirely different. For now, if you want to keep with the same glass, I'd recommend trying to shoot 50D, and overexpose a stop or more. Film has a great ability to hold detail in the highlights, so overexposing to keep those shadows will still keep your highlights intact as well in most cases. By comparison, here's an HD frame grab from a film I'm working on: Arri 416 Kodak 7203 50D Zeiss Superspeed MKII 50mm (a good affordable choice, certainly not the newest lenses out there, and notice the triangular bokeh) shooting stop: f2.8 ND 0.9 key light on the actresses face metered at f16, this shot is two stops overexposed, no special processing, only basic color correction in DaVinci Resolve and no grading. Unlike some of these digital cameras coming out that can shoot in the darkness, I've learned that film really does love light. The more you feed it, the more crisp the images are. Instead of silking off the actors, I decided to embrace the direct sunlight and position the actors accordingly, supplemented with some reflectors. The footage we shot in the sun is some of the tightest grained 16mm I've ever seen. That said, don't fear the grain either. Your footage is beautiful as is, but it's a great example that within the same format there are so many looks you can achieve depending on the stock, camera, and lenses.

I would personally ship it FedEx ground across the country before risking putting it on a plane, and once its developed then I'd overnight it. The extra wait would be worth the security of knowing it won't come near an x-ray at an airport by any chance. If you're worried about developing the footage quickly, I kept cans of exposed 16mm in my fridge for over 6 months before developing them, and there was no difference between that footage and other footage that was developed the day after it was shot.

I took my family down to Seattle today just to see Interstellar on a true IMAX 15perf 70mm at the Pacific Science Center (as opposed to either of the two IMAX screens in Vancouver which are both digital) and I have to say the Imax originated footage was incredible. I will add a caveat. I agree with Tyler above about the lack of rich blacks in some of the 35mm anamorphic material. That could have been handled better, especially as a showcase for what film can achieve in this increasingly digital realm. We're all used to seeing new digital cameras able to shoot in "available light" at night, but film just isn't designed to work in the dark. I felt the night scene on the porch of the house between Matthew McConaughey and John Lithgow was particularly underwhelming and the focus was a little soft because of the low light levels. If I'm not mistaken I read in an interview somewhere that Nolan and Pfister don't do DI's for color grading purposes, only as a necessity to shots that add a visual effect. I feel that is a little too extreme as film can benefit from a good DI just as much as digital can. I'm also not necessarily against digital projection either like Tarantino is, as long as it can project all of the quality that the original shooting format holds. Currently, no 2K projection of Interstellar is showing you anything near what an IMAX 15perf 70mm projection is in terms of quality. In my opinion, IMAX film shouldn't be retired until we're at at least 16K projection.

I've done both an HD telecine of 16mm on one film and most recently a 2k scan on a new project, and when it really comes down to it, the outcomes are practically indistinguishable visually once they reach the ProRes stage. It really comes down to cost and convenience. Deluxe Vancouver got rid of their telecine systems in 2012, but at the time I had them telecine to a final output of 1080p24 ProRes files. Since then I've had Vision Globale in Montreal do a 2k scan of new footage to ProRes files as well and both sets are comparable. One advantage was that Deluxe charged me only the hourly rate for their telecine transfer, meaning I had a professional colorist grade the footage live. As long as you are quick in the suite and don't power window every shot it can beat the cost of a scan. Someone more technical than me might be able to confirm this, but it also felt as though when the negative was on the telecine bench that pulling out details in the highlights seemed more possible than when I got the flat gradable footage from the 2k scan. But that might just have been the skills of the colorist I was witnessing. As far as I'm aware, most editing systems today can edit ProRes 4444 footage in full quality just fine, as long as your system is not ancient.

You could call Arri CSC in New Jersey. I bought my 416 package from them. Great pricing for a full kit complete with cases, and it looked brand new on arrival even though it was 'used' ie: rented a few times in the past before I bought it. http://www.arricsc.com/sales/sales.html

I see what you're talking about. It's subtle for those who don't know what to look for but it is definitely one of the telltale signs of a digital camera vs. a film camera. It seems to happen on night scenes where digital cameras are used, and yes I've even seen it on Alexa footage. Off the top of my head I know I noticed it in the night scenes of "Ted", shot on the Alexa, and in a few shots of the dark interior action sequence of "Oblivion" with the drones attacking the people, shot on the Sony F65. What confuses me about the latter in particular is that the F65 has a rotary shutter, which one would assume would mimic the exact motion blur as a film camera, but there are clearly a few shots in Oblivion that have that 'video-ish' motion blur. The most awful example of bad digital motion blur I saw was the end hand-to-hand fight in "Gangster Squad". It was so bad in fact that the person I went to see the movie with, who is not a film buff of any kind actually whispered to me "why does this scene look like weird video footage?" There have been threads about this bad motion blur on Gangster Squad's IMDB forums as well, so it's really noticeable. What I don't know is if this is happening intentionally by the DP's, or a side effect of these camera sensors working in low light, and why it appears in some shots but not others in any given movie shot on digital.

For anyone in Europe, I have a few brand new unopened cans of Kodak 16mm 7203 - 50D (400ft) that I'd be willing to sell at a nice discount. They are being kept in Nancy, in eastern France. I have about six cans of 7203 and one can of 7207 (250D). As long as its shipped within the EU you wouldn't have any problems with x-rays.

I should also add that our lead actress speaks French as a first language and her sweet talking went a long way with getting around the security and police we did run into. I doubt we could have done the same by telling them in English.

I just wrapped productuon on a feature shot mostly in Paris where we did exactly this with a crew of 3 including myself and two actors, five people total. We went and shot scenes at every major landmark in Paris on a fully decked out Arri 416 plus. The funny thing is, people have such a specific sense of what a "movie camera" is that we really only got noticed when the matte box was on. No trouble shooting two scenes in the interior of the Eiffel Tower itself, got by security with the camera broken down into separate pieces and shot handheld without a tripod. We got lucky though as there's renovations going on right now so lots of barriers up that kept most of the tourists away from the areas we shot. We literally were able to make it look like the actors were the only people in the Eiffel Tower for one scene. Had big trouble at jardin du Tuileries near the louvre. Security on us within ten seconds of us pulling out the camera. They were nice though and let us shoot the scene only a short distance away from the main fountain as long as we were "discreet" so I shot handheld without the matte box and hid the back end of the camera inside an empty backpack. Only other trouble was the police stopped us in front of notre dame and told us to stop but there were so many people that we simply waited 15 minutes and came back and finished anyway. Successful shoot without any trouble otherwise outside the louvre, under the Eiffel Tower, at the Arc, the Champs Élysées, inside two train stations, even at Charles de Gaulle airport if you can believe it. Mind you, I pulled all of this off with an Arri 416 which is the epitome of "movie camera" looking equipment in non film people's eyes when the matte box is on. We turned a lot of heads and many people thought we were shooting 35mm. If it had been something like a 5D or a black magic camera I doubt we'd have been noticed at all. I'm processing the negative at Arane Gulliver lab, by the way, which is full of great people who love working with film still. So, it can be done. My advice is, if you can avoid the matte box you'll turn fewer heads to your attention.

The 416 goes through one 'phase' cycle when you press run just to ensure the perfs are properly lined up and you won't tear a perf. It takes getting used to but it is just an extra measure the camera takes for the safety of the film in the gate.

Similar idea here. A soft key light offscreen on camera left, a few practicals in the background, and a backlight hung on the ceiling shining at the back of Walt's head giving him some edge to cut him out of the background. The difficult thing to do in this shot would be the backlight, which is a staple of studio work, as this was again likely shot in a studio without an actual ceiling on the set. That backlight is more difficult to pull off on a practical location without some grip stands or a way to rig the light to the ceiling. On a studio set you could pan in any direction, but if you use stands you'd have to lock your frame or risk showing the stand that's holding the backlight.

Looks to me like the screen-right side of his head is lit with a light behind a silk about 10 feet away, and the screen left side is just a bounce card just off camera from that same source creating a subtle soft edge. There's probably some negative fill near Walt's head just off camera to create the darker black in the center of his head as well. Walt's house interior was built on a set in New Mexico so the illumination on the furniture is overhead studio lighting, and that window is probably lit with some powerful HMI's pounding in to simulate sunlight.

I own a set of Zeiss Superspeeds and they are a great set of glass. This article is exactly accurate as to how they operate/behave: http://www.cinematechnic.com/resources/zeiss_super_speed_f1,2_lenses.html

I can't speak for the efficacy of shooting rehearsals. I've only shot film and it can't be used in the same cavalier manner as digital can in that sense, especially on a budget. If I may be so bold, I'll use that as a selling point for shooting on film though. Whenever I've told actors or non-actors alike that we were shooting actual film, they take it way more seriously when action is called than they do if it's just digital. I do find though that it's better to rehearse at least once and tweak what you see and immediately shoot after making those changes rather than wait for any length of time between the rehearsal and the shot. Actors tend to be patient and understand the time it takes to prepare a shot. Non-actors will lose interest the more they stand around and wait, especially if they're volunteers and aren't being paid. I brought in 20 volunteers for a scene and had to be on my toes not to waste their time at all, and at the same time make it fun for them even though I really wanted to pull my hair out because of the details of the scene. After about two hours, you'll start to get whispers in your ear from one or two that they "have to leave" for whatever reason, which is their kind way of saying that they're bored and want to go home. I was able to get through the scene with losing only 4 people by the end of a four hour night shoot. Not bad for volunteers giving up their evening, most of whom had never met me before. One more trick that works well, although it's a little devious: Non-actors don't understand lens focal lengths. You can be on an 85mm doing a close-up of the actual actor in the scene who happens to be amongst a crowd, but because your camera is pointed in the general direction of the crowd, they think they're on camera during the shot. Never let the crowd know they're off camera, even if you are doing a close-up and only see one person's face.

The bigger the group of non-actors on screen at the same time in a crowd setting, the worse their collective performance will tend to be. You can see this often in films where extras are brought in to show fear and shock in a large crowd setting. If you pick out any one person for any length of time their performance falls apart. I'm looking at you football stadium scene in Dark Knight Rises! Actually, that might be a good example of how to approach it. I think there's some B-Roll of what the crew said to that crowd on youtube somewhere. Better to not let them rehearse too much though. They'll all turn into DeNiro in front of the mirror and get bigger and bigger with each take. Non-actors tend to overact, so you'll have to pull them back. However, if you say they're shy they may underact instead and not give enough of a reaction. A lot of it has to do with your attitude. Even if you're pulling your hair out with the details of the day, the schedule, the scene, you have to make it fun for them. That is the key for volunteers. It may be work for you, but it has to be fun for them. Don't let them see you sweat and carry them through the scene like a photographer would when trying to get a large group of people to smile for a photo. Do one rehearsal, fix anything wrong and try to get it in one or two takes.

I'm shooting some vacation footage for fun this summer in France as a test of the Arri 416 package which I actually just bought from Arri CSC. Great deal, by the way. It will be mostly day exteriors on 7203, so it will be natural daylight. I've got two rolls of 7219 for night exteriors or interiors. I may consider sitting at 172.8 the whole time, but it should only matter for the 7219 when it will be artificial light. I'll consider it, thanks!

It is more of a time convenience option than anything. I'll be shooting B-Roll off the cuff and if I can spend two seconds setting the camera to 25fps to avoid the flicker in the Metro as opposed to pulling off the matte box (not swing-away) and lens and pull out the shutter tool to manually change it, I'd prefer the quickest option. That and I try not to mess with any mechanical parts near the mirror shutter unless I absolutely have to for a change to something extremely noticeable like a 45 degree angle. I'd hate to have some patron bump into me while I'm down in the Metro and have my hands in there and get a fingerprint or scratch on the mirror. I just wanted to be sure that switching to 25fps would do the trick just as well as changing to 172.8 degrees. I consider myself more of a director than a DP; I just happen to know how to shoot and I'm a staunch film supporter so I can't check my work on the set. In past work I've overlooked shutter angle and shot some high speed work that I wanted with my director hat on, while in my DP hat I had mixed lighting that gave me some flicker from fluorescents that I didn't account for. I suppose that's why directors hire you fine people.

Thanks everyone.

Thanks Stephen. I will do that if nothing else. Is that the only way though?

This Summer I'll be in France shooting some B-Roll in the Paris Metro/subway. It will be entirely available light down there, and I'm pretty sure it's all fluorescent. How best would I avoid light flicker? Camera is an Arri 416 Plus, shooting 7219. MOS. My usual framerate is 24fps with 180 degrees shutter otherwise, but if I'm down in the Metro with presumably 50Hz fluorescents, would it make sense to shoot that footage at 25fps since it's MOS, and the 1 frame difference in camera speed would be negligible in post? I'd prefer not to pull out the shutter tool and switch the angle manually if I can avoid it. Will 25fps with a 180 degree shutter avoid flicker in Europe? Thanks!

I wouldn't recommend it, as once you drop below 24fps it will stand out to the audience as being "different". With a normal shutter angle and a lower frame rate double printed back to a higher frame rate like 24fps you get something like the intro to Reservoir Dogs: With changing the shutter and a low framerate you get something akin to the end of the first battle in Gladiator, at about 9:00 onward in this video: Both very much stand out as an effect, and an entire project done on either would likely be very distracting if you have any kind of story to tell.

So, I saw the new X-Men film this weekend, non 3D showing, and throughout the entire film I was noticing a strange "digital smear" of the frames that really stood out and telegraphed the movie as being shot on digital. It was especially apparent when there were fast moving characters on the screen. Did anyone else notice this? Did Newton Thomas Sigel shoot with a different shutter angle, or something that made this happen on the Alexa? I've seen movies shot on the Alexa that didn't have this same overtly digital look, like Skyfall and Thor: The Dark World, so what happened with this one? Any input?

Didn't mean any disrespect at all. Actually your footage looks awesome, Chris. I didn't even notice you shot with a Bolex until I read the description on the vid. No worries.

I also believe 16mm will be around longer than many suspect, but like Prashantt mentioned above, that's not really the question. The real question and answer is simply to look at how quickly today's digital cameras come to market and then become obsolete as little as one year later. I just purchased an Arri 416 Plus package and am fully happy with my decision to do so, whereas just ask all the people who purchased a Blackmagic 4k camera how they feel now that the Ursa is about to come out. They might say they're happy with their purchase but deep down they're pissed that a better camera is on the way so quickly. I read somewhere that this is exactly what the corporations wanted with the film industry. They want a world where whatever hardware you buy becomes obsolete in three years and you have to buy the newest toy from them to keep up with the game, and they succeeded with still photography. 16mm, and 35mm are here and still at the top of their game after 100 years from a quality and reliability perspective. It all comes back to the fact that all of these digital cameras are still trying to emulate the look of film, when you can actually go out and shoot film quite economically if you do your research. Kodak is very nice to younger film makers and has offered me a great deal on stock.

=================================================================== Jeff, Really like this look, and the filming. What f1.4 lens did you use on the Pentaflex ? =================================================================== Hey Doug. Hah, talk about working within your limitations. Finally I can speak with some people who can appreciate the technicalities of how I pulled off an entire feature on a Pentaflex 16. Firstly, all the night footage was done on only two lenses, a 25mm and 50mm, both F1.4, and always shot wide open. I had to do all wide shots on a 25mm, which is practically like trying to do a wide shot on a 50 if you're shooting 35mm film, you can't back up enough! It made it very difficult to shoot in tight quarters. I had a 12.5mm and a 12-60mm Zoom, but they're both F2.8, so good luck trying to shoot at that stop at night without tons of lighting gear, so my long lenses became my savior for being able to shoot in low light. Shooting during the day is infinitely easier, as I just popped on the 12-60mm zoom, and used Fuji F64D stock. All of these lenses are proprietary and designed specifically for the Pentaflex 16 if I'm not mistaken, because I took them to a camera house and they couldn't even tell me what kind of a lens mount it was. Pav, the sound on my film was an even funnier story. I do NOT recommend attempting to shoot a feature on a camera like the Pentaflex unless you're prepared to ADR the whole film, which is what we did. The Pentaflex is a very loud camera. We did record sound on the set, but only as a reference to the lines and inflection for the actors. I synced up the onset dialogue in post, but my camera noise and other general outdoor noise was definitely apparent, and we ADR'd all of the actors in a studio afterwards. No one who has seen the film so far has noticed that it's entirely looped so I'd say we did a great job. Also, the Pentaflex is not a crystal sync camera by any means. If you have it set at 24fps, it's likely jumping between 23-26fps as you shoot. Because when we got the footage back the dialogue did not accurately sync with their lips without slightly manipulating the speed of the playback. This worked fine for us, since once I found out what that speed was, I simply had the actors re-record their lines to match that speed anyway. Suffice to say I've upgraded to an Arri 416 Plus now for future shooting, but I can be perhaps the first person to say that it is possible to shoot an entire feature on a Pentaflex. It is an awesome little camera though, with quickly interchangable 100' magazines, a great set of lenses, and a regular and high speed motor that can go up to 96fps, a lot of which you'll see in the trailer. I'd argue it's better than a Bolex anyday, and you can get them on the cheap on Ebay.