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Super 16mm Long Form Commercial Shot on Kodak Vision 3 7203


Mike Maliwanag

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Hey Everyone,

 

Here's a long form commercial I shot on Super 16mm on the Krasnogorsk K3. I'm really happy with the way it turned it out. I showed it to non industry people and someone asked me how I got it to look the way it does and my I told them, "It looks like that because it was shot on film". I feel like it wouldn't be the way it is if I shot it on any other format. I would definitely appreciate any comments or criticisms!

 

Thanks,

Mike

 

https://vimeo.com/74120596

 

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Mike,

I'm not an expert on 16mm film.........but I like the look. I particularly like your use of color.......its strong.

I just like the look of this film. I personally would have a little more fill light in the red head's face to con-

trast with the red hair.......on the other hand maybe you did not want that..........and that is certainly okay.

You were at the mercy of "the angel's light" though on the street..........maybe hard to control??

Do not be afraid to take the camera right up to the actor/actress.

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Mike,

I hate long lenses.........get the freaking camera up close to her.............look in her eyes.........its in the eyes Mike........contrast the

light in the face with the red hair...........make it snappy.........like a ski-doo on steroids. Have her look over her shoulder at you......

you know that look.......women give you that makes you crazy. I would love to see it on this Kodak 16mm. Best wishes and good

luck........your only limit is your own creativity. You know its like a scene........where the girl is leaving her lover..........she stops and

looks back.......NYC........nice day........on the street. Get her to give you that "Nicole Kidman" look.

Greg

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 4 weeks later...

Very nice, where did you get your scans done? Very clean image. I love the unsteady exposure of these kinds of cameras. Was the film flashed intentionally? Did you use the stock lens? Was your K3 professionally supered, or did you do the trick where you file away the gate?

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Great look and feel. Now that I see you shot it on a K3 it makes sense that it seemed a little "soft" to me. But soft works well for this piece. An SR with modern, sharp glass would have a different feel than the K3. The color looks a little pastel-ish which also makes it more "film-like."

 

Can you give us a little more info on the stock, processing and transfer?

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Nice work. Did you use the stock zoom lens?

Chris, we did use the stock lens. Because it was converted to Super 16mm, the previous owner did not install a recentering ring so the widest we could shoot was 25mm without getting any vignetting. Also, the close focus is pretty terrible on the lens. I believe it was around 6 ft

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Very nice. I'm not sure about the other advice here, but wide lenses up close flatter no-one.

Thanks means a lot to me! I agree although I just watched the King's Speech for the first time and was a bit taken a back by the lens choices!

 

Great look and feel. Now that I see you shot it on a K3 it makes sense that it seemed a little "soft" to me. But soft works well for this piece. An SR with modern, sharp glass would have a different feel than the K3. The color looks a little pastel-ish which also makes it more "film-like."

 

Can you give us a little more info on the stock, processing and transfer?

We shot on Kodak 7203 Vision 3 50D and it's a really beautiful stock. I exposed at the native ASA and it was processed normally. The latitude is pretty great. When we shot the interiors of the bike builder, we we're underexposed at times a full stop, stop and a half and it held just fine. The transfer was done at Video & Film Solutions in Maryland and I was pretty pleased with the results.

 

As for the color, we desaturated the image when our lead actress walks through the city. As she falls in love with the bike we started to bring back the saturation and made sure the red popped and that the colors were more vivid toward the end of the piece.

 

Mike,

I hate long lenses.........get the freaking camera up close to her.............look in her eyes.........its in the eyes Mike........contrast the

light in the face with the red hair...........make it snappy.........like a ski-doo on steroids. Have her look over her shoulder at you......

you know that look.......women give you that makes you crazy. I would love to see it on this Kodak 16mm. Best wishes and good

luck........your only limit is your own creativity. You know its like a scene........where the girl is leaving her lover..........she stops and

looks back.......NYC........nice day........on the street. Get her to give you that "Nicole Kidman" look.

Greg

So we didn't have any permits and we were shooting in downtown Chicago around lunch time hours and it gets pretty busy. We didn't want to attract attention so we had no bounce boards, reflectors, or any grip gear of that nature because we wanted to be inconspicuous. Also the lens' close focus is around 6 ft so we couldn't get that much closer otherwise we'd have a soft image. I'm not quite fond of wide angle close ups and it didn't feel right for this project.

 

Very nice, where did you get your scans done? Very clean image. I love the unsteady exposure of these kinds of cameras. Was the film flashed intentionally? Did you use the stock lens? Was your K3 professionally supered, or did you do the trick where you file away the gate?

  • We got the scans done at Video & Film Solutions. They were kind enough to let me do a test shoot for cheap and I was pretty happy with the results.
  • Unfortunately the film wasn't flashed intentionally but the client actually wanted to have it in the film so it worked out in the end. We planned on adding it in post but since we achieved in camera there was no use!
  • We used the stock lens which wasn't the greatest and was such a pain.
  • I purchased it already converted from Russia. The only downfall is that there was no recentering ring which causes the image to vignette wider than 25mm. I believe the recentering ring costs $200 and that was over half of the camera!
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  • 1 month later...

I liked your shots. I have to disagree with the film look thought, though. With the Red or a Black Magic you get the same 12.5 to 13 stops of dynamic range. I believe the Alexxa has 14 stops! Using some of the older, softer lenses will give you the same look. The only thing I'm not sure it can be simulated yet is the unsteady exposure. And that can even be tampered with in post with software like After Effects.

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  • 2 weeks later...

With the Red or a Black Magic you get the same 12.5 to 13 stops of dynamic range. I believe the Alexxa has 14 stops! Using some of the older, softer lenses will give you the same look. The only thing I'm not sure it can be simulated yet is the unsteady exposure. And that can even be tampered with in post with software like After Effects.

You can dick about with digital footage in many ways, true, but if you want it to look like film, then the simplest way is to shoot film. This is not a criticism of digital, just an observation that the simplest means to an end is usually the best.

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<snip>
  • Unfortunately the film wasn't flashed intentionally but the client actually wanted to have it in the film so it worked out in the end. We planned on adding it in post but since we achieved in camera there was no use!

<snip>

 

Sorry, only just noticed your post.

 

When I had a K3 I found if the camera was left stationary between shots for more than a very short period of time I would get slight flash frames appear a consistently fixed distance away from where the film was stationary in the gate. I think I eventually decided that despite fitting new felts, the light was leaking in via the footage counter. I always taped up around the edge of the door, not only just in case light got in that way, but also to avoid any nasty accidents with the door coming off! Once I put a little flap of tape across counter window as well the problem went away.

 

Your flashing might be from something else, but thought I'd mention it anyway.

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