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Famous films shot in 16mm?


Daniel Stepp

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I'm looking for a list of famous feature films that were shot on 16mm. I've looked everywhere online and I can't seem to find this information. If you guys know of any, please post them here. I'll list some of the ones I know of.

 

El Mariachi

Leaving Las Vegas (S16)

Japon

Midnight Cowboy

Clerks

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"Midnight Cowboy" was not shot in 16mm...

 

Not all of these are famous:

 

Texas Chainsaw Massacre (original)

Evil Dead (first one)

John Water's films of the 1970's (like Pink Flamingos)

Ballad of Gregorio Cortez

Ruby in Paradise

Secaucus Seven

Liana

Roger and Me

Go Fish

Monsoon Wedding

Party Girl

Station Agent

Conspiracy

Never Die Alone

Chasing Amy

Magic Flute (Bergman version)

Scenes from a Marriage(?)

Cold Comfort Farm

Enchanted April

Truly, Madly, Deeply

The Snapper

My Beautiful Laundrette

 

many documentaries

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Idziak spoke at last year's Camerimage:

 

http://www.kodak.com/country/US/en/motion/...merimageP.shtml

 

A range of workshops and seminars was held, including sessions sponsored by ARRI, led by Remi Adefarasin, BSC, and Slawomir Idziak, and another sponsored by Panavision, which was led by Fraker and Laszlo Kovacs, ASC.
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Most of John Waters's films through, I think, "Polyester." Although maybe they're more infamous than famous.

 

Also not really famous, but very interesting, are most of Guy Maddin's films, all of which, except for (I think) "Twilight of the Ice Nymphs," were shot on either regular 16 or super 16.

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Dog Star Man ! (and ~300 other Stan Brakhage films)

 

Scorpio Rising

 

Celine and Julie Go Boating

 

India Song (I thought it was 35 when I saw it, the only time I can think of when a 16 > 35 blowup fooled me)

 

Define "famous" :lol:

 

-Sam

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"Dog Star" reminded me of another one, John Carpenter's first film "Dark Star." He shot half of it in 16mm as his thesis film at USC and then found financing to finish the project in 35mm. And it costars his buddy Dan O'Bannon. A fun little film and just check both of those two out on IMDB to see where that led!

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And it costars his buddy Dan O'Bannon. A fun little film and just check both of those two out on IMDB to see where that led!

There's a really good (and lengthy) segment about that on the new recut "Alien" DVD.

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  • 6 years later...
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An interesting old thread that probably needs updating by now.

 

We can add the following to the S16 list:

 

Choke

Junebug

The Hurt Locker

The Wrestler

Half Nelson

The Squid and the Whale

Look Both Ways

Balibo

Vera Drake

Irreversible

Pi (on a Bolex no less)

Hustle and Flow

Mean Creek

Bad Taste (also a Bolex)

Nine Lives

 

And these in which S16mm was used extensively:

 

28 Weeks Later

Babel

City of God

The Constant Gardener

Factory Girl

Capturing the Friedmans

The Motorcycle Diaries

Last King of Scotland

I'm Not There

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Super-16 actually.

 

I read that for Tigerland they did some tests with Super 16 but felt it wasn't grainy enough, so they decided to shoot regular 16 and crop a 1.85 frame out of that. Apparently this still wasn't grainy enough for them so they pushed the film 2 stops as well. I think a similar thing may have happened with The Wrestler. Did anyone list that one yet by the way?

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What a silly way to waste a bunch of money, a two stop push to add grain?

 

Get some expired '79, maybe underexpose and you could have *plenty* of grain.

 

It might not have been easy to get a large enough quantity of expired stock to shoot a feature. Also, if I remember correctly it was an optical blowup to 35mm not a DI, so the colour-shifts with expired stock might have been problematic. I guess it's something you would have to ask the DOP/director or somebody involved in post.

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