shooting through the base

[Nate Yolles]

Has anyone shot through the base before? I'm told that you need to compensate for exposure greatly, but I haven't heard what the results are of loading the film facing the other way.

[Kevin Zanit]

Yes, it is several stops of compensation.

 

From what I hear, it?s a very red looking image that is very high contrast. I remember reading something about it on CML, but I don?t remember many of the details.

 

 

Kevin Zanit

[Randy Havens]

Actually this just happened to me 2 months ago.

Our loader collapsed on the day of the shoot, and

we had our PA do the loading. Somehow 2 shortend

rolls was loaded the other way and slipped through our

2nd, 1st and DP. I freaked out at the transfer, thinking

all my rolls were like this. but thanks god it was only 2 200 feet

rolls (feww!!)

 

It looks super duper red, and I thought there was about 3 stops lost,

maybe 4, but it wasnt useable at all, even after playing around with it for awhile.

 

better not happen again...

[Jarin Blaschke]

Wouldn't the image also be slightly out of focus, since the image would be focused on the base and not the emulsion?

[John Pytlak RIP]

With color negative film, you are exposing through the black carbon rem-jet, which will lose at least 3 stops. And the red-sensitive layer is on the bottom, so the red speed is relatively greater than the green and blue. Finally, the yellow filter layer is between the green and blue sensitive layers, and so will not protect the red and green sensitive layers from "native" blue exposure. And the image will be out of focus by the thickness of the base. :(

 

As noted, a goof-up like this on loading is not going to produce good images.

[Tony Brown]

I do this all the time, never had a soft shot.

 

As for exposure it depends greatly on your subject. Test test test.

[F Bulgarelli]

Tony,

 

Do you have a clip that we could chek out?

I'd be interested in seeing what it looks like.

 

Thanks

 

Francisco

[K Borowski]

It seems that the problem is going to be the Rem-Jet backing on the film. That is probably accountable for at least 1 1/2 to 2 stops of decreased sensitivity to light. Seeing how most people are afraid of shooting a film bellow 500T these days, I'd suggest trying to remove the Rem-Jet prior to shooting, shooting VNF-1 or E-6cine, or shooting C-41 or E-6 still (although the best one could do in this arena would be 100 feet, and finding someone to process it would be difficult too).

 

Regards.

~Karl Borowski

[John Pytlak RIP]

Rem-jet absorbs about 3 stops of light.

 

Some have tried removing the rem-jet by running the film through the prebath and rem-jet removal stages of the process, washing the film, and drying it (in total darkness of course). Unfortunately, since this also removes any soluble film emulsion components like absorber dyes, the results are unpredictable.

 

Without rem-jet, there is no halation or static protection, and the back side lubricants that optimize camera transport will be removed too.

 

WHY do you want to expose the film through the base side? :unsure:

[Tony Brown]

WHY do you want to expose the film through the base side?  :unsure:

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Because we all seek something different (though it probably will evade most of us)

 

I spend my working day trying NOT to get perfect exposure, perfect colour reproduction etc etc. If you succeed you just make thinks look.... ordinary?

 

Removing the backing would render the effect minimal, its the backing that adds the character. It varies a lot from stock to stock too. The effect from Fuji is pretty dull and boring as they seem to apply a much more even coating than Kodak. Because of this the Kodak looks WAY better.

[Matt Pacini]

I too, can't imagine doing this on purpose!

I did it once, and damn near cried when I saw my footage.

 

If you're wondering, the look is so extreme, there's no way to magically salvage the footage to make it somehow look normal.

 

The only way I can describe it, is that it looks like that old film that took place on Mars (Angry Red Planet???), a deep, deep red, really contrasty and chunky looking.

Not to mention upside down and backwards...

 

MP

[Nate Yolles]

I too, can't imagine doing this on purpose!

 

For the same reason you would change shutter angle, ramp, shoot at 4 fps, shoot 96 fps, pull the lens out of the mount while filming, start and stop the camera while filming, shoot reversal, push, pull, flash, re-rate stock, skip-bleach, cross process, shoot on print stock, mix stocks, mix DV with film, mix HD with film, mix 35mm with 16mm/s8mm, bake the film, use custom filters, go through a DI, scratch the emulsion, desaturate the image, choose 500D to shoot at high-noon, emulate Technicolor, shoot an entire film with video against blue screen, go hand held for all 90 minutes, edit the film in reverse chronological order, use blue moon light, use white moon light?.

[DavidSloan]

:lol: Damn...the rebel in me wants to shoot an entire film this way!!!!! :D

 

Can someone PLEASE post an image???

[Chris Keth]

For the same reason you would change shutter angle, ramp, shoot at 4 fps, shoot 96 fps, pull the lens out of the mount while filming, start and stop the camera while filming, shoot reversal, push, pull, flash, re-rate stock, skip-bleach, cross process, shoot on print stock, mix stocks, mix DV with film, mix HD with film, mix 35mm with 16mm/s8mm, bake the film, use custom filters, go through a DI, scratch the emulsion, desaturate the image, choose 500D to shoot at high-noon, emulate Technicolor, shoot an entire film with video against blue screen, go hand held for all 90 minutes, edit the film in reverse chronological order, use blue moon light, use white moon light?.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

Point well taken, but all of those are used to achieve certain effects, both visual and psychological. In what situation would you want the look that shooting through the base gives you, and why couldn't you do it another way?

[Rob Belics]

For the same reason you would change shutter angle, ramp, shoot at 4 fps, shoot 96 fps, pull the lens out of the mount while filming, start and stop the camera while filming, shoot reversal, push, pull, flash, re-rate stock, skip-bleach, cross process, shoot on print stock, mix stocks, mix DV with film, mix HD with film, mix 35mm with 16mm/s8mm, bake the film, use custom filters, go through a DI, scratch the emulsion, desaturate the image, choose 500D to shoot at high-noon, emulate Technicolor, shoot an entire film with video against blue screen, go hand held for all 90 minutes, edit the film in reverse chronological order, use blue moon light, use white moon light?.

All at the same time?

[Riku Naskali]

All at the same time?

Maybe on some "hip music video" :lol:

[Matt Pacini]

:lol: Damn...the rebel in me wants to shoot an entire film this way!!!!! :D

 

Can someone PLEASE post an image???

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Sorry, I don't have any digitized footage, but you'd better test some before you get too excited.

 

I'm into doing wacky things to be creative, but to me, it in no way looked "cool".

The quality of the image was just absolute rubbish.

It looked like badly shot old Super 8, through a blood-red filter.

If I were going to spend the money to get this look, then I'd save a bundle and do exactly that: shoot it on Super 8 with a red filter!

 

Matt Pacini

[mattuhry]

Happened to me when shooting 4x5 view camera stills and my assistant mis loaded a few film holders with flipped over ecktachrome. Thankfullly I was able to reshoot the next day. Client would not have been amused. As far as motion picture film based cool looking "mistakes" shooting through the base is low on my personal list of things to try.

 

Maybe try going into a darkroom equipped with re-winds and scraping the rem jet half off with a blade of some sort and then shoot /process / transfer. that might look cool.

 

Warn the lab about all the dust and scratches.

 

Matt Uhry

www.fuzby.com

[Alvin Pingol]

Well, since I've never seen the results of shooting through the rem-jet, and since no one has posted any samples, I can only guess as to what it looks like.

 

To those who have done it before, care to tell me how far off I am?

 

Proper:

 

My guess:

 

 

It's... red. And high contrast. And a bit blurry. And... red.

 

Eh? Eh? :D

[Matt Pacini]

Not a bad guess.

 

In reality, it would end up not this blurry (my footage wasn't out of focus), not quite as contrasty, but certainly about this red, and grainy.

 

Matt Pacini

[Alvin Pingol]

I can see why someone would want to do this.

 

Perhaps for the POV shots of a guy wearing some high-tech goggles... or a rabid zombie dog... or possessed child. ^_^ Although if the results are unpredictable, I'd probably play it safe and go with filters or achieve it during post. Interesting, though.

[Brad Grimmett]

Hmm, this may be a stupid question....so be prepared. What would happen if you filtered to get rid of the red? Would that be green and blue? Would it work to get things close to back to normal? Does this make any sense?

[Charles Haine]

Hmm, this may be a stupid question....so be prepared.  What would happen if you filtered to get rid of the red?  Would that be green and blue?  Would it work to get things close to back to normal?  Does this make any sense?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Not a stupid question at all, but maybe a stupid answer. The real answer is to do a test, since otherwise you'll never really know. But, in the realm of guesses, here it goes:

 

If this is an accidental occurence, filtering out the red will do very little, since the only reason you have a red image at all (other than the color of the base, discussed below) is because the bottom red-sensitive (cyan-dye) layer of the negative is the fastest layer, since it has to aquire image from light that has already been filtered through two other layers of film (the blue-sensitive [yellow-dye] and green-sensitive [magenta-dye] and a yellow filter in-between those two layers). Thus, even though it's 3 stops underexposed (in the accidental occurence), the red is probably sensitive enough to get an image, while the other two layers (green and then blue), which are each slower because they usually get more light, probably won't produce as much of an image (possibly as much as a stop further underexposed than the red-layer which, at the bottom end of a the exposure curve, is a lot).

 

I think this is why your blue printer light is generally 10 points below the other two (or at least mine always is), and why red-fringing exsists (since the fastest layer, red, is ever so slightly grainier than the other two layers). But that's just my guess.

 

So, if you time out the red, you'll probably have little image at all left over, no blue at all, maybe a tiny hint of green.

 

Now, if you did this on purpose and compensated for the exposure three stops (exposing a 500speed film like 5218 at 64ASA, for instance), you might be able to time the red out.

 

The red layer would be getting way more light than it is used to, being exposed first. The green layer would get more light than it's used to getting, and light that hasn't had it's yellow filtered out, and then the blue layer, which normally gets the bulk of light, and at a broad-spectrum, would get the least, and a narrow spectrum (light having passed both through the orange base and the yellow filter).

 

However, since the individual layers of film and the yellow-filter don't cut that much light (certainly not the 3 stops cut by the rem jet), you might be able to time that into something with a broader spectrum. It wouldn't look normal, but it wouldn't look all red.

 

Additionally, the base of color camera film is orange, and that is acting like an orange filter would on the lens (though I don't know if the base of color stock exactly matches an 85 filter, I'd be curious to find out). Thus, you'd have to further time out that orange (in addition to the other image balancing issues), roughly akin to how much you'd have to time out the orange if you exposed tungsten film to tungsten light WITH an 85 filter.

 

Which leads to the idea of exposing tungsten film to daylight without an 85, letting the base of the negative act as the filter.

 

In terms of focus, the bigger your depth of field in front of the lens, the smaller your depth of focus (the area in front of and behind the film plane) behind the lens. So, you'll want to work with a smaller depth-of-field in order to compensate for the different position of the image plane (the base of the film stock is the thickest part), which you'll be doing anyway since you have to open up three stops to compensate for the rem-jet.

 

That's aside from whatever blurri-ness is introducted by the rem-jet. The base is meant to be optically invisible, but I don't know about the anti-halation backing. It's job is to prevent light from halating, and I think it's stripped off in processing, so it has the potential to be image-degrading.

 

A great test would be to take some 18, shoot it through the base both under tungsten and daylight conditions at 64ASA, without any lens filtration, and not tell the lab anything other than time to color chart, and see what you get.

 

Hope this helps. It certainly makes me want to go out and test it.

 

chuck

[Charles DeRosa]

OK, we're going to test this tomorrow with a bit of help from RGB lab in hollywood.

If anybody has some suggestions about specific tests, let us know. I'm fascinated to see what happens.

chuck

los angeles

[Dominic Case]

As noted, a goof-up like this on loading is not going to produce good images.

In addition to all the other problems that John mentions, is the fact that remjet is not applied with any attempt at optical uniformity - in other words, if you shoot through it, you will get a streaky result - perhaps described as looking like lace curtains (red) waving in front of the image. (Hold a bit of raw stock up to a bright light to get an idea of the colour and the look).

 

If you do this, then also remember that the negative will take up in the camera the wrong way out. Either rewind it, or be sure to draw the lab's attention to it. They SHOULD check of course - but there's no reason to expect an odd roll to come in like that, so a hurried operator might load it on to the processor emulsion down instead of up - and then you will have remjet spotting and emulsion dimple marks to add to the "look".