Did I flash my film?

Dole Ames · October 18, 2010

I'm a student working on my first short being shot on film (shooting on Super16) with an Arri 16 SR3. I had a mag that had about 350ft exposed and 50ft unexposed which I accidentally forgot to mark and left sitting on a table. Someone in the crew went over to the mag and opened up the load side with the 50 unexposed feet. I don't care about losing the 50 feet, but I'm wondering if opening up the load side would at all affect the 350 feet that had already been exposed and was in the take-up side, or are they completely separate? I'm still very new to this and just want to make sure that I don't have to reshoot my 350 feet. Thanks if anyone can help.

Adrian Sierkowski · October 18, 2010

Totally separate. The SR, and all Co-Ax mags keep feed and take up separated. All you'd loose would be the feed side, unless they also opened up the take up. All that feed, though, is unusable.

Saul Rodgar · October 18, 2010

Totally separate. The SR, and all Co-Ax mags keep feed and take up separated. All you'd loose would be the feed side, unless they also opened up the take up. All that feed, though, is unusable.

Ditto. Always helps to put tape on loaded magazines' latches. And along the surface where the door and the magazine meet. That way no one can accidentally open them up without going through the process of taking all the tape off, at which point they'll hopefully realize what they are doing is wrong. I've seen even really experienced ACs goof off and open exposed take up side mags without tape on. ;)

Stuart Brereton · October 19, 2010

It's probably worth adding that NO-ONE except the loader should be opening mags for any reason. It's the loaders job, they are responsible for it, and they are the ones who get it in the neck when something goes wrong. It's the same reason that the Camera team don't touch the props, and the art dept don't mess with costume.

Dole Ames · October 20, 2010

Great, thank you guys so much. I'll definitely be sure to be more meticulous about this in the future, it's just that we're working with a tiny crew and some people don't know the basics. Such a relief to know that we won't have to reshoot!

Edgar Dubrovskiy · October 21, 2010

Shoot some dark subject (like a black card of some sort) on that stock - like 10ft. This way you will know how will the footage look if you accidentally shot an exposed neg (or some student loader opened the mag while loading). Good experience :)