Oliver Chopping

Hi Uli, Thanks for all your great advice & input with regards to our project. You're absolutely right about avoiding all modern shooting techniques & we are well & truly going back to basics here which personally I love. Oli

Very true! I also feel like the chap in the background at the moment. Each arrow represents a new & expensive problem to solve! ?

Hi Alissa, Thanks for replying to my post & yes you're so right about the importance of period make-up, funnily enough we have been working with our hair/make-up team for the last two or three days on this & the attention to detail cannot be underestimated especially so when you are shooting in B&W. It's painstaking work on these tests but it's got to be right! ?

No worries Josh! ?

Hi Aapo, Thank-you for your incredibly helpful input earlier. All of this has just been sent to my cinematographer here on France & he'll go over it all shortly. I've always been a fan of the look of Fomapan 400, that's worth looking into & experimenting with. We will be presently starting on our test footage so every bit of help & knowledge such as you have provided is invaluable thank-you. Best, Oli

Thanks once again David, all incredibly useful help for me. I agree with you 100 % with regards to putting myself in that particular mindset of a filmmaker from that era & that is absolutely how I am approaching the project aesthetically. The two main movies I'm currently referencing are His Girl Friday & (albeit slightly earlier) Hitchcock's The 39 Steps. That's generally the kind of feel I am aiming to replicate somehow. We have many tests ahead of us, using older lenses to play with depth of field, lighting being incredibly important as I need to use the correct period lighting/ techniques as they will be used on screen in the movie within the movie. Testing the costumes with regards to how effective hard/soft colours work & everything has to function seamlessly! It should be easy right?!! My cinematographer has aged terribly already poor chap. Thanks for the link to Finchers "Mank" also I'm very much looking forward to seeing it & judging by a couple of the images I've selected below it looks fantastic. My old RADA colleague Tom Burke is playing Orson Welles by the way! Warm regards, Oli

Simon many thanks for your reply to my post. That's all incredibly useful information for me & yes you're absolutely right about the frame rate as was pointed out to me by David Mullen yesterday also. I have forwarded this to my cinematographer here in France & once again I really appreciate your time & help. Best, Oliver

Hi all, I hope everyone is well in these bizarre Covid times. Firstly, as this is my first post, I'd like to say a brief hello, as I am just a beginner It's great to be able to converse with such knowledgeable minds on these subjects. I am about to embark on my first feature film over here in France next year & I'd like some help & advice if at all possible. We are shooting a pre-war comedy, set mostly in France in 1939 (no it's not Allo Allo to my UK friends!) As the creator & director my aim is to replicate, as close as possible, that particular era of film (primarily in B&W) however there are sections of the film that are flashbacks in glorious technicolour (recreating an Erroll Flynn Robin Hood type film look) as our flick is about the movie business in the late thirties. Now, if I have the financial means to shoot color film in a 1.37:1 aspect ratio at 22 frames per second & then convert it to black & white (like my hero Guillaume Schiffman ) then deep joy! I probably would have to sell the house & a kidney but it will be worth it. If shooting on film is simply a non runner budget wise (& I'm desperate for that not to happen) can anyone assist in possible less costly alternatives that match the grain/lovely grey tones you get shooting with 500 ISO for example? Everything needs to look/sound as authentic as we can get it. The comedic dialogue is very modern day so the juxtaposition with photography of that period is what I'm after if that makes sense? Please excuse my niaevity on the subject. Most of my life has been spent infront of the camera or on stage as a luvvy (yep, one of them) but the tights have been hung up & it's onwards with the proper/real work now! Thanks in advance for anyone who can offer advice of any kind. Warm regards, Oli