Student Filmmakers - June 2008 - (Page 8) Cinematography Film. The magic of celluloid! I first fell in love with film in the seventies when I discovered Super 8. I eventually worked my way up to 16mm, and finally graduated to 35mm. Shooting in film, you don’t have to worry about the whole new HD and digital technology, at least not until you get into post-production, but that’s another article for another time. Motion picture film has a nostalgic feel to it. Creating the illusion of something that’s happened in the past. The feeling of reflecting on a cherished memory. Film provides a softer more surreal image than the sharp, sometimes harsh and unflattering picture that video presents. The film camera has been around since the late 1800’s. A film camera also doesn’t have the fancy circuitry found on a digital camcorder. It’s a relatively basic but genius concept – the film is advanced through the camera, and a portion of that celluloid is exposed to light, one frame at a time. Shooting with Film: Celluloid comes in various formats: Super 8, 16mm, 35mm and 70mm (IMAX). Each tends to lend itself to certain genres. Super 8 is great for home movies, documentaries and even gritty music videos. 16mm is often used for TV, low-budget features, student films and documentaries. 35mm is the norm for episodic TV shows and theatrical feature films. 70mm, also known as IMAX, is for epic event studio pictures and highly commercial documentaries and travelogues. You usually want to shoot with negative film stock, not reversal. Negative stock is similar to your 35mm still photos that come with a negative and you can make as many prints as you want. Reversal film is like Polaroid film where the actual stock is developed into a positive image, and you have no backup negative. The other great Long Live Celluloid A Glance at Working with Film Formats, Cameras, Lenses, & Filters by Bryan Michael Stoller 8 studentfilmmakers June 2008
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