16mm Filmstrutters.
silvertone
765 Posts
Hey doods. So I think it is about time to venture into making some short films. Anyone in the know about what kind of Bolex kit I am looking for (lenses, specific models, etc?).I really look at it as the time to buy something like this, as consumer/pro digital stuff is just KILLING the maket value on 35mm and Medium format professional photo stuff, as well as the 16mm film cameras. Ideally I would like to get a rock-solid 16mm (or super?) field camera, with which I could shoot in low light... I can't fathom shooting more than a-minute-or-two scenes at a time. I would like an audio sync if possible is a 400 foot cartridge and battery compartment really nessasary for a beginner filmmaker?). Anyone in the know here? Made some films? shoot for a living?
Comments
my best friends is an amateur filmmaker, and he got
a good deal on a quality digital movie camera (I think
around $1200 and it retails closer to $3000) and it
is so worth it over traditional film. The image quality
is fantastic and very film-like, and the cost of the camera
is immediately offset by the money saved on film, processing,
editing, additional lighting, etc...he's already shot 3 shorts
with it in the past 6 months (one starring me
and they look amazing, as if shot on quality 16mm stock.
I can get the info about his camera model if you are interested,
I swear film is one area where the benefits of going digital over
traditional are overwhelming, especially at the amateur level.
No offence, but I wanna shoot 16mm films, not some digital shorts! Haha.
I know the price of developing and transfer are high, and am aware of the hidden costs here, but am looking for the specifics on a camera. I have shot with the highest end pro-sumer cameras (Both the Canons and Sonys) and for what I wish to do the aesthetic is just different, especially if you dont have an HD setup for editing. A considerable amount of my freinds last film was 8mm to Final Cut and whoops ass on any of the Digital footage he shot. He did the transfers himself and it still looks better than GL1 into an HD system!
Anyways, back on topic.
Rex5s or a K3?
A H16 with standard crartidge?
Of course, it looks like youre foregoing the flatbeds and moviolas and just gonna shoot on film but still cut on computer. That???s no fun.
Anyways, there???s quite a few things you should look into. Type of camera is really of no concern here. First off, make sure youre camera solves the parallax problem. Unless you don???t mind it. Otherwise youll be shooting something slightly different than what youre seeing in the viewfinder.
If youre looking to shoot in low light situations, youll prolly NOT want a bolex or any hand cranked camera. They don???t run that slow and if they do, its not very smooth and your picture will kinda jump. I was using a beaulieu that a friend had converted to run on d-cell batteries, that seemed to work fine. It ran as low as 2 frames/second and the shutter automatically slows to proper speed so you get all these streaks. I think that???s specific to beaulieu, but im not entirely sure.
Crystal sync and all that sync shit. I don???t know, but something tells me this is obsolete. Unless youre using a nagra you don???t really need the sync sound thing. Bust out your ipod, md, whatevers, press record. In the editing room, just eyeball it and get a slate. If youre using mag tape, youre a better man than me. That would imply that you have a serious sound set-up and can splice 1??? mag and sync it to film. I don???t think you have this.
The 400 ft. cartridge is not really necessary. You say youre shooting 1 to 2 minutes at a time. The regular roll of 100 ft. should suffice as those are usually around 3 minutes of roll time.
Don???t know the specifics of model #, but I hope that helps.
Before you jump into this look into the post-production costs. I dabbled in 16mm and the cost of developing the film exceeds the actual cost of the film. I may be wrong but I think it was like $50 to develope 3 minutes of film. This was black-and-white too and this was back in the mid-90's. Utimately it may be cheaper to get a good digital camera, film in black-and-white and then use some sort of filter in post to add film grain. Equipment may be getting cheaper but I can't imagine post production is.
I had the K3. It's a wind-up model but is way too loud to record sounds. Still, I had a lot of fun with it and even with no lighting it looked pretty super. I don't think any 16MM camera worth it's beans uses catridges but, again, it's been a while since I did anything with film. I used to hear about Bolex a lot. Look that up.
To jump back into the digital vs. film debate. The end results have a lot to do with the lighting. That's what really makes the difference. Go rent Collateral and see how good video can look. Of course, on the flip side, there's films like Phat Girls which are video-to-film gone bad.