36 WINTER 2019 MOVIEMAKER.COMtrast and lower exposure latitude, meaning
you really have to nail exposure. For detailed
explanations and examples of all the film
stocks available check out Kodak’s website
(kodak.com/US/en/motion/default.htm).
All stocks come in 100-foot daylight loads—
which are literally changeable in daylight, as
opposed to loads that require changing in the
dark—and these will give you two minutes
and 46 seconds worth of footage. 400-foot
loads, on the other hand, will give you 11
minutes and six seconds worth of footage, but
the 100-foot daylight load’s advantage is that
it can be loaded into the camera without the
need for a darkroom or film-changing bag.CAMERA, LENS,
AND FILM STOCK TESTSI cannot stress enough how important it
is to perform camera and film stock tests.
Well in advance of your shoot, you need to
run film through the actual camera and film
magazines you’ll be using. For 1985 I was
able to work it out so that I could shoot my
camera and stock test on site at the rental
house free of charge. I brought along a model
to shoot the test, so I could see how the film
stock rendered skin tones. We shot two 100-
foot daylight loads of the stock we were going
to use on 1985. We shot one roll inside their
facilities with a few lights, then we shot one
roll outside in the bright sunlight, while also
testing out different Super 16mm lenses they
had available for rent. Keep an accurate log of
your testing so, when you review your footage
later, you know what you are looking at.METERS
Be sure to have a properly calibrated light
meter to judge exposure, too. The two lead-IT MAY SEEM LIKE SHOOTING ON FILM IS DIFFICULT,
BUT ONCE YOU UNDERSTAND THE FUNDAMENTALS
AND SHOOT A FEW ROLLS YOURSELF, IT WILL BECOME
AS EASY FOR YOU AS SHOOTING DIGITAL. AND THE
CAST AND CREW WILL TREAT THE MOVIE WITH MORE
RESPECT AND BRING THEIR ‘A’ GAME.
ing brands of cinema-style light meters are
Sekonic and Spectra. It is important to use
the same light meter on your project as you
do on your test. That way you are consistent-
ly exposing the image the same way. On 1985
my gaffer’s light meter was reading almost a
quarter of a stop brighter than mine.
Each camera angle for our test was filmed
three times for 10-15 seconds each. First,
I underexposed the image by one stop, then
I exposed it “normal,” and finally I overex-
posed it by one stop. I then sent that film off
to the lab to be processed and scanned.
The benefits of these tests were three-
fold. First, we were able to make sure that
the camera was in working order, and that
the film magazines weren’t scratching our
negative. Second, we could see the charac-
teristics of each of the lenses we tested and
could determine which ones would help us
tell the story we wanted to tell. Third, we
were able to see how the film stock handled
under- and overexposure in a darkly lit
environment, as well as in the bright sun.FILM LABS
AND SCANNING SERVICESThere are fewer and fewer motion picture
film labs, so be sure to check Kodak’s web-
site for an up to date list of working labs.
Unless you are lucky enough to live in a
city near a lab, you will have to ship off your
exposed film stock. When picking a lab it’s
important to look at their processing and
scanning services with equal weight. Your
processed film is a very fragile medium that
is susceptible to dust and scratches. The more
it is handled, the more opportunity it has to
get damaged. That’s why it’s important that
you send your film to the lab to be processed
and scanned immediately in the highest
quality you can afford. If you start off with a1080p scan and later decide you want it to be
scanned in 4K, then you are introducing more
wear and tear onto your negative.
There are two options for the format of
your digital scan, either ProRes which is good
looking for a compressed image with a small-
ish file size, and a DPX image sequence which
is uncompressed and gives the highest image
quality but requires a lot of hard drive space.
Make sure you’re getting the correct format
that fits your post-production workflow.
In most cases you will want a flat scan
which retains as much information from your
negative as possible. With a flat scan, you will
need someone to color correct your footage
in post. The other option is to have the lab
color-correct your footage, but if you have
them create an extreme look, it will be baked
into your scanned footage forever, and might
be difficult to make changes to later on.“
”
PHOTOGRAPHS BY ELIANA NABOOLIO, COURTESY OF HUTCHANALOG INNOVATORS