Chris Blaine

It's already been shot and edited. The change in look happens in a single shot, the colour draining from the picture (bar the reds) and getting grainier. What do you mean by a 'competent tool'...?

Hello all, I've directed a short film called "Death Of The Revolution" about a ten year-old who realises he should start a revolution in his primary school. It was shot on S16mm, we've reached final cut using Beta SP telecine'd rushes, but we're looking to go from S16mm to HDCAM (or better if we can afford it - which is unlikely) to grade the pictures before coming back out onto 35mm for a final print. There is a section in the film which turns into a dream sequence in the shot - the film is inspired by Russian revolutionary propaganda and so I'd like the picture to become grainier and black-and-white bar for all the reds. This transition happens in one shot, so my first thoughts were to print that section of the film onto S16mm before taking both this grainier print and the neg cut with us to the film-in suite (we're hoping to use a Spirit) where we'd be able to get the two looks pretty correct before editing them together with a cross-fade in an HD suite, where we could do final tweaks to the look before putting it back out to film... However here in Britain there seem to be fewer and fewer 16mm printers in action so I'm not sure how possible that would be. Would it be worth my while to get as grainy a 35mm print I can get for that section? Are there other ways of getting more film grain? Are we best to get the pictures looking as near to what we want in the Spirit suite or to wait to use the (comparatively cheaper) HD suite to get the grade we want? My producers are scratching around for money so they'd be happy if there were cheaper alternatives. Also this is my - and our DoP's - first time using film properly (Most of our stuff we've shot on HDCAM or other forms of video, we've had a couple of things printed to film which turned out well and we were very happy with, but our film experience amounts to a couple of shorts on 16mm before which has been TK'd and edited and graded from the tape, as well as quite a bit of S8mm we've projected and shot onto video - but never shooting film and getting a neg cut and a decent grade) so if anyone has any more advice to give on the subject I'd be much obliged. Chris (First time poster, long time reader, thanks for all the help you've all given me in the past without me even having to ask a question...)