Jon O'Brien

If you're clever, know what you're doing, and put in the research, for independent filmmakers making short films, I do think that for approximately equal quality, that 35mm film using your own gear possibly works out the same price or approximately so as hiring an Alexa and all the other kit from a rental house. All things considered. Post and everything. Or put it this way, at worst, film wouldn't be much more in cost, and if you're really into film you won't care about such a small cost difference. You know, artists complain about the cost of paint. They always did. Oils cost more but who cares - just paint less and do a great job on what you do produce. But I've never worked it out exactly, the film/digital cost difference for short films. I do know there's just no way I would buy high-end digital gear. I'd only do that if I could work with it and make the money back reasonably quickly.

In all seriousness I did wonder if that photo was taken in the tropics. Something about the look ....just looks warmer. Doesn't look bone-chillingly cold. Any probs with humidity in the tropics? Do you need to use silica gel when storing overnight?

Looks a bit like David Lean's shoot on the Irish west coast for Ryan's Daughter...

Actually, Bruce McNaughton has offered to give me advice whenever I ask about something. So I'm not all on my own.

Thanks Gregg, still haven't got the tape yet, and I was wondering about just how opaque these gaffer tapes are. The problem these days is that so many people now are fully into digital and trying to get practical help for a film project sometimes feels like one must go it alone ...since no one else knows .... feels a bit like the bit in 'Far from the madding crowd' (the novel) when Gabriel Oak stands alone on Norcombe Hill at night and imagines that he's the last sentient man left in his location and everyone else has gone round to the other side of the world...

Yes, I had another look at it and realised I needed to turn the knurled pin a bit more. It clicked in just a bit more. There is less play there now. The spring is maybe a tad weak, that pushes the metal 'wedge' the comes forward. Thanks.

There is Neglab in Sydney. Werner Winkelmann is the manager.

I must say though, I'm over my objections with digital cameras, and I concede that they are great. But for my own films, short and insignificant as they turn out to be (possibly), I will be shooting on film because it's part of the fibre of my being. It's my choice. I've got 600 ft of 50D in the fridge, so what do you expect. Film to me is the future, and I know a lot of others feel the same way. Currently scouting for locations.

Where I live there are a lot of people who love movies and like seeing them on the big screen. It's true, most don't even know about the digital/film thing but they like discussing beauty of image and cinematography after the show. I think it's great that we have digital and film because it provides variety - subtle, but it's there. To my eye, the new phones and tablets are perfect for exhibiting film movies on. Sure they might be compressed making it impossible to see even a hint of grain but the image quality is good enough on a good phone to see subtle but important differences between digital and film. That's my view and I' sticking with it 🙂 Anyway, it always comes back to: what does the filmmaker care about?

A subtle comment, cleverly done, though strictly speaking not quite true. Everyone outside of cinematography does care - they just don't know why they care. As was said above, they expect the maker to care, so they can sit back and enjoy. How can those who don't know much about art and the creative process care about these things? It's not a strong argument to take.

The thing is, the whole point really of the cinema theatre is a social experience and it retains very high value in that one thing that it's got. Even if you go to the movies alone which is totally fine it is still a social experience. I enjoy it - unless it's a crummy audience or too many rude slobs there that day etc. Went to see 'Swimming with men' (great movie!!!) the other day with friends and we had a really nice time. It's still a lot of fun to go to the movies. We were probably the youngest ones in the cinema but if you watch a good movie with a good fellow audience it's much better than sitting at home. But agreed, it is good to be able to adjust the look of the image at home.

This is what I was thinking too. I don't know much about Hitchcock's knowledge of photography, but if he did a bit of still 35mm photography he might simply have meant his "natural" or normal focal length lens transferred to motion picture and his cinematographers of course knew what he meant by that.

I can't figure out why, at my local cinema, movies shot on digital camera look brighter than (some) movies that were shot on film. This observation doesn't apply to the recent Star Wars movies shot on 35mm but mainly to lower-budget film-shot movies. Does the movie need to be visually checked by the projectionist and brightness levels manually adjusted or is it all programmed into the DCP? One movie I saw, the Ext daytime scenes - many of them - looked atrociously dim in my opinion.

I love the black bars top and bottom. But that's just me.

What if you are editing/grading scanned film only? Is Davinci, a pretty advanced set up, still the best? I'm wondering if it might not be best just to pay someone to do my grading/editing - with me looking over their shoulder - rather than pay for all the high power computer hardware. I'm not making a lot of films at the moment so perhaps that's the most cost effective solution for now.