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Super 16mm Features


Jase Ryan

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I'm wondering what was everyones favorit features shot on 16mm. I'm gearing up to shoot my first feature on film and would really like to watch some great movies shot on 16mm. I love City of God, I know that, but what else is looking that good.

 

Thanks!

Jase

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I'm wondering what was everyones favorit features shot on 16mm. I'm gearing up to shoot my first feature on film and would really like to watch some great movies shot on 16mm. I love City of God, I know that, but what else is looking that good.

 

Thanks!

Jase

 

 

Romper Stomper. Early Russell Crowe film too. Greta hand held work.

 

Bit's of Babel

 

Leaving Las Vegas

 

Bit's of Apocalypto

 

Constant Gardener (same DP and Dir as City of god too)

 

Half Nelson (great indie film too)

 

I think the Last King of Scotland....

 

The Mother

(there's a lot of english stuff actually)

 

jb

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I like "Tigerland" and "The Last King of Scotland".

 

Having watched "28 weeks later" a lot of it wasn't in s16. From what I remember of the AC article theres some F900 and S35 mixed in there and you can see it switch around on screen. Funnily enough its the night stuff which looks cleaner and the day stuff which is grainier, seems counterintuitive. It really holds up on the big screen.

 

Quite a few documentaries recently seem to have shot portions in S16 which must be a bit of a privilege.

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Having watched "28 weeks later" a lot of it wasn't in s16. From what I remember of the AC article theres some F900 and S35 mixed in there and you can see it switch around on screen. Funnily enough its the night stuff which looks cleaner and the day stuff which is grainier, seems counterintuitive. It really holds up on the big screen.

 

The vast majority of 28 Weeks Latter was shot on super 16 - the F900 was only used for the IR shots during the climax (through the girls gun sight) and the super35 was used for the pre-mentioned day-for-night shots, which as you have already mentioned were less grainy.

 

I don't think 28 Weeks Latter was the least grainy super 16 film i've seen, but then again it probably wasn't trying to be.

 

Other films on Super 16 have been Lock Stock and Two Smocking Barrels, Dead Man's Shoe's and This is England and My Summer of Love.

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I like "Tigerland" and "The Last King of Scotland".

 

Having watched "28 weeks later" a lot of it wasn't in s16. From what I remember of the AC article theres some F900 and S35 mixed in there and you can see it switch around on screen. Funnily enough its the night stuff which looks cleaner and the day stuff which is grainier, seems counterintuitive. It really holds up on the big screen.

 

Uh, 28 Weeks was 95% S16mm and if you saw something switch around, it was probably a different lens or lighting affecting the S16 image. The limited night vision stuff was not on an F900 either, it was one of the little prosumer Sonys I believe.

 

The Squid and the Whale was all S16. As was The Devils Rejects which is prob. my favorite use of it recently. The cleanest S16mm I've seen is Last King of Scotalnd (It went 2K DI I heard) or the Brad Pitt/African stuff in Babel- it was 99% S16mm and it was crazy good looking. In fact the DP said he was hoping for more grain but Laser Pacific did too good a scan so he didn't feel it off-set the 35mm enough and when they tried to add grain in the DI, he didn't like it so they left it the way it was.

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Children of men using two Arriflex 416 S16mm cameras looked awesome. 16mm is way better than HD for the film look.

 

Children of Men was 35mm! The film's shooting predated the release of the 416 too, you may be confusing it with the 435 and 235 which they may have used.

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Well by a lot I meant a lot more than I thought from what Id read. In "28 weeks later" I can think of whole key scenes which were on S35. Chunks of the film, something which jumped out at me. Yeah the F900 was for the Night Vision shots but isn't it fair to call this a mix format film? I just watched the "Three Extremes: 2" and they looked like they were all shot on S16, one was shot by Chris Doyle.

I saw a French horror film last year called "Sheitan" which was a pretty good example of what can be done on a lower budget S16 film. Even had Vincent Cassel in it. I think it was also shot with the A-minima. Generally I find the Kodak magazine is a good resource for looking at whats being shot on S16, with Kodak at least.

Thousands of shorts of course as well, some are blown up to 35 in a variety of ways. Good way to see what your options are.

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Children of Men was 35mm! The film's shooting predated the release of the 416 too, you may be confusing it with the 435 and 235 which they may have used.

That explains it! I read somewhere it was shot on 16mm. For ages I have admired how it resembled 35mm. Now done a little digging

 

QUESTION: What was your basic camera package on Children of Men?

LUBEZKI: We had an ARRICAM Lite with Master Prime Lenses. We shot a lot with an 18 mm lens with no close-ups. The images are clean and sharp with just a bit of flare that I liked. We also used an ARRI 235 on the long car scene and in some other shots.

 

QUESTION: We heard that you chose to use a special process on the film dailies.

LUBEZKI: Deluxe Labs printed our dailies using their ACE silver-retention process, which desaturates colors and gives you true black tones. That was the look that we intended for the prints, so we wanted everyone to get use to seeing it.

 

QUESTION: How did you shoot that six-minute car scene? That was revolutionary. You put the audience in that car on a breathtaking chase through London.

LUBEZKI: It was a 12-page scene with the light outside the windows constantly changing as the car moved and turned around corners. Doggicam built this special rig with two dollies that allowed us to move the (ARRI 235) camera horizontally and vertically on a Sparrow Head mounted on top of a roofless car. We could shoot from any angle inside and outside the car and get shots of the actors in the front and back seats.

 

QUESTION: There is another breathtaking foot chase scene at the end with Theo escorting a woman who is carrying a newborn baby through a refugee camp going in and out of buildings with things happening around them until they get to the waterfront.

LUBEZKI: I give our camera operator George Richmond a lot of credit, and also Terry Needham (first AD) who set it up. We couldn't have done it without them. We were shooting with the ARRICAM Lite handheld running through the streets with explosions all around them. I used a wireless T-stop control. We were going from T-2 to T-8 to T-16 in seconds shooting in natural light. I don't think anyone notices. It looks natural. We did it in two takes. There were no marks and no second camera coverage.

 

QUESTION: How about the last scene with the woman and her baby in the boat?

LUBEZKI: We were originally going to shoot that on a real boat on the waterfront, but it was very cold and the ocean waves were dangerous, so we decided to use a tank at Pinewood Studio. We used a wave machine and smoke for atmosphere.

 

QUESTION: You have extended your role as a cinematographer into digital intermediate timing on a number of films, including Children of Men. Do you think that it is inevitable that all films will be timed in DI?

LUBEZKI: I cannot answer that question, because every film is different. We mainly did a DI on Children of Men because we had hundreds of digital effects shots. DI can be a powerful tool that should be used as needed to get the looks that directors want for their film. But, the truth is that I liked the look of the film dailies that I saw better than the DI. A 2K or 4K digital picture is not up to the looks that you can get on the original 35 mm negative film today. We now have the best film, cameras and lenses in history.

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Well by a lot I meant a lot more than I thought from what Id read. In "28 weeks later" I can think of whole key scenes which were on S35. Chunks of the film, something which jumped out at me. Yeah the F900 was for the Night Vision shots but isn't it fair to call this a mix format film? I just watched the "Three Extremes: 2" and they looked like they were all shot on S16, one was shot by Chris Doyle.

I saw a French horror film last year called "Sheitan" which was a pretty good example of what can be done on a lower budget S16 film. Even had Vincent Cassel in it. I think it was also shot with the A-minima. Generally I find the Kodak magazine is a good resource for looking at whats being shot on S16, with Kodak at least.

Thousands of shorts of course as well, some are blown up to 35 in a variety of ways. Good way to see what your options are.

 

I find it annoying when someone disgards information that someone else bothered doing their homework to gather.

 

The little bit of HD infrared footage was shot with a converted Sony HVR-Z1E set up by Extreme Facilities U.K.. The day for night was shot on 35 as well as plates for better fx rendering. The rest, which is easily 90%, was S16 using Arri and Aaton cams with the new Ultra 16 and Ultra Prime Arri lenses.

 

Mixed format? Not really. Babel was for sure because several scenes were shot on different mediums.

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I find it annoying when someone disgards information that someone else bothered doing their homework to gather.

 

The little bit of HD infrared footage was shot with a converted Sony HVR-Z1E set up by Extreme Facilities U.K.. The day for night was shot on 35 as well as plates for better fx rendering. The rest, which is easily 90%, was S16 using Arri and Aaton cams with the new Ultra 16 and Ultra Prime Arri lenses.

 

Mixed format? Not really. Babel was for sure because several scenes were shot on different mediums.

 

Yes, I'm sure you're right about this. I didn't see your post Adam, don't feel ignored. The two scenes I can think of off the top of my head are the scene at the Helicopter between the Pilot and the "Hero" and the scene in the long row of buildings with the sniper at one end which they have to make their way down. They stuck out to me, both day for night. I'm sure theres others but it was mostly S16, the vast majority.

 

"She got me" had a lot of S16 as well. Seems like Mathew Libatique keeps coming up, he's worked with a group of great directors. "March of the Penguins" was also S16.

 

I like all these films but definetly check out "Tigerland" I think its quite underrated and was there something mentioned somewhere about it being R16?

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Hey Andy,

I saw an English film at a festival this year and you seem to be clued up on local productions. Do you know much about "From London to Brighton". I was quite impressed with parts of it but no one seems to have seen it.

 

Yes, 'From London to Brighton' has been talked about a fair bit here, I haven't seen it personally but as far as I am aware its about as dark as Brit Grit gets!

 

What seems to be apparent by the mentioned titles are that UK film makers seem to be shooting more and more features on Super 16. The current funding climate means there are no films being made on a budget inbetween micro-budgets (say £50,000) and lavish-budgets of the Atonement type film (say £20,000,000).

 

So if you are on a micro-budget, shooting super16 or HD is going to be less of a strugle/burden on your production than 35mm.

 

For the more prolific of UK filmmakers, budgets often have to be acheieved during shooting or even afterwards - perhaps thats why Michael Winterbottom shoots so many of this films on HD and DV, and even at the other end of the scale the gangster/football hoolagan film directer Nick Love's last few films have been on HDCam and HDV.

 

Regards,

Andy

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  • 7 months later...
That explains it! I read somewhere it was shot on 16mm. For ages I have admired how it resembled 35mm. Now done a little digging

 

QUESTION: What was your basic camera package on Children of Men?

LUBEZKI: We had an ARRICAM Lite with Master Prime Lenses. We shot a lot with an 18 mm lens with no close-ups. The images are clean and sharp with just a bit of flare that I liked. We also used an ARRI 235 on the long car scene and in some other shots.

 

 

Arricam Lite and 235 are 35mm cameras. CoM was 35mm sir.

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