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16mm feature films


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"Les Carabiniers" (Godard)

Some later Eric Rohmer are 16mm; and some Jacques Rivette ("Celine & Julie Go Boating"; "Out One"; parts of "L'Amour Fou")

 

-Sam

 

---Les Carabiniers' was 35mm. It was shot on Ilord still film in 100' loads.

'Paris vu par... ' was 16mm COLOR. The majority of French new wave 16mm films were color.

If B/W probably 35mm. Unless it's 16 hours long.

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Sex and the City

Hustle and Flow

 

The Constant Gardener was shot 16 and 35mm, as Mr Mullen said. In my research for Africa and Kenya shoots I found the article on the CG in the 2005 OCT of American Cine. It was shot in Kenya with some Arri 35, and Aaton minima and XTRs. Though having a DI is helpful. I definitely won't have anything like that.

 

I keep hearing that 16 is lighter and faster than HD, no 28" monitor or cables. Varicams with Pro-35 is a beast compared to a minima or even a SR-3.

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"March of the Penguins" S16mm

"Roger and Me" regular 16mm

 

I saw "PI" which was shot on regular 16mm Tri-X B+W reversal stock if I recall correctly, in a theater showing the 35mm blow-up print. It looked fantastic and was obviously superior to the DV to 35mm films I saw during the same time period.

 

I just saw the film (?) "Whatever Happened to the Electric Car?" and even though I thought it was a pretty good documentary about this issue, it was actually hard to watch the totally crap images in many parts of the film which made typical video - film transfers look like 70mm... it really detracted from the enjoyment and the experience of what I expect from viewing a motion picture on the big screen. This might be a good example to see if one wants to see how bad video can look compared to film origination.

 

 

David M. Leugers

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I just saw the film (?) "Whatever Happened to the Electric Car?" and even though I thought it was a pretty good documentary about this issue, it was actually hard to watch the totally crap images in many parts of the film which made typical video - film transfers look like 70mm... it really detracted from the enjoyment and the experience of what I expect from viewing a motion picture on the big screen. This might be a good example to see if one wants to see how bad video can look compared to film origination.

David M. Leugers

 

Funny, but what I noticed was how good the HD portions of the documentary looked -- I expected the home video stuff to look crappy -- nobody was shooting that stuff thinking it was going to be projected theatrically.

 

Between that and "Inconvenient Truth" (or "Fog of War") I was thinking how HD has made documentaries look slicker than they used to look (compared to the ones shot in DV, not the ones shot in Super-16.)

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Between that and "Inconvenient Truth" (or "Fog of War") I was thinking how HD has made documentaries look slicker than they used to look (compared to the ones shot in DV, not the ones shot in Super-16.)

 

 

While I agree HD is a major improvement for video documentaries, even regular 16mm can look better to me

on the big screen. I am sure there are many who would disagree with me on that. I feel that parts of "Who Killed the Electric Car" would have been improved immeasurably if shot on S-8mm film, let alone 16mm, instead of the low resolution, soft focus, and lousy colors of much of the video used. Maybe this film looks better in other theaters with a better print? The theater I saw it in is well regarded for their perfect presentations as far as projection and focus of the image and quality sound. All in all, better the film was made than to decide not to due to inferior materials.

 

 

David M. Leugers

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Between that and "Inconvenient Truth" (or "Fog of War") I was thinking how HD has made documentaries look slicker than they used to look (compared to the ones shot in DV, not the ones shot in Super-16.)

While I agree HD is a major improvement for video documentaries, even regular 16mm can look better to me

on the big screen. I am sure there are many who would disagree with me on that. I feel that parts of "Who Killed the Electric Car" would have been improved immeasurably if shot on S-8mm film, let alone 16mm, instead of the low resolution, soft focus, and lousy colors of much of the video used. Maybe this film looks better in other theaters with a better print? The theater I saw it in is well regarded for their perfect presentations as far as projection and focus of the image and quality sound. All in all, better the film was made than to decide not to due to inferior materials.

David M. Leugers

 

I'm really clueless as to what you're talking about -- the HD interviews with people in the documentary looked great, and that's intercut with lousy amatuer home video footage that would not have been shot in 16mm or Super-8 or anything else in reality, plus some clips from other sources, some bad. Most of the "bad" stuff was what the filmmakers didn't shoot for the documentary, so even if they shot the documentary in 70mm, there still would have been a lot of bad home video and low-rez video stock shots mixed in there! You make it sound like it was an option to shoot all the material in the documentary in 16mm or something. Did you think some actor/activist like Alexandra Paul was going to throw an Aaton into her back seat everytime she ran out to see if the electric cars had been moved from their parking lot? Do you think all of that public access hearing material could have been shot in 16mm? The clips from local news broadcasts?

 

The HD interviews I saw were very sharp, fine-grained, saturated, etc. on the big screen -- looked like high-end Super-16, almost 35mm quality, which was surprising in a documentary. My reaction after the screening was "documentaries sure are getting slicker than they used to be." I'm ignoring all the stuff they used in the doc that they didn't shoot of course.

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I'm really clueless as to what you're talking about

 

I was talking about how the images looked to me. Of course, any subject that is important enough to make a documentary on deserves some leeway when it comes to using source material. I only meant that if some of

the scenes from "..Electric Car" had been shot on film it would have looked better than what was available. I

believe if someone is going to set out to shoot a documentary without using available footage, then shooting on

16mm film or HD is the way to go. The makers of "..Electric Car" didn't have that option.

 

 

David M. Leugers

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