Why use 16mm film

Director Eliza Hittman, who has shot two projects on film, described her process as "less about risk and more about intentionality, and whether or not you are somebody who wants to turn the camera on and just rehearse and find the moments.

I mean if you have a crew that you trust, there should be no risk involved. The biggest hit that filmmakers shooting on 16mm took during the sudden death of film was the sudden death of film labs. If you are determined to release something as quickly as you can, then film is not the medium you should be using. Hittman planned for a slow post-production process, but admitted, "The post was a little bit slower than anticipated.

It was about a five or six-day turnaround. The size of my crew was about the size of a student film crew. We had an AC, a second, a gaffer, a grip, and that was basically it. But the way our timeline was set up worked with it. We were set up for a seven-day delay. Joaquin explained, "It was a challenge. I want to make it clear, especially at that time, last year all the labs in New York had shut.

I think Kodak is trying to build an infrastructure for developing film. They used to. Darren Aronofsky's 'Black Swan' shot on 16mm film. One way that film has benefitted from modern technology is that you can make more mistakes during the actual process. Joaquin recalled a particular shoot: "We had scratches on the film for a little while, and that was incredibly stressful for us, and we had kind of a slow turnaround.

There were little things like hairs in the gate, we needed to do do a little dust bust past. DPs especially. They seem to be still very excited about that because they know that it will lend a unique quality to the look of their work that is pretty hard to find anywhere else.

Benh Zeitlin's "Beasts of the Southern Wild" was shot on 16mm film. When asked about the type of film stock they prefer to use, all three panelists agreed that, while the cost is basically the same, 16mm is the superior format. Director Eliza Hittman's reasoning was that, "35 almost feels a bit too clean and a bit too digital.

If not, free then discounted. But the 35mm camera is actually more difficult to find. Look, this is a broad statement and clearly it depends on the scope of your project. Joaquin, however, explained that, overall, "There are tradeoffs. It still costs a bit more now to shoot on film than on an Alexa.

And there are different challenges. You have to hire a loader, instead of a DIT. However, there are a lot of intrepid camera and crew who will take a week and get used to it because they are enthusiastic about shooting film. It energizes everybody. The lone cinematographer of the group, Naiti Gamez, shared an anecdote for the type of problems you might run into on a film set.

I would never do that. In what situation would you get the assumed higher res of 35mm? I was curious about that too. From my understanding, because a 35mm negative is larger, it's therefore able to hold more information. Kodak Vision 3 from what I've read comes in 8mm, 16mm, and 35mm. Exactly, Anton. That's it. Folks are really going out of their way to embellish the differences as if magic. Thanks for the 16mm Article! I've been dying to learn more about this format since my dad gave me his old Bolex H The big expense is hard drives to store the files.

I use home-made NAS machines with mirrored drives then keep an offsite backup. So I'll buy three 2TB drives to store 6. I still love the idea of film so I plan to shoot a short, just for fun project with a couple rolls on the Bolex and see how it turns out.

The cost of shooting film varies quite a lot depending on where you go for processing and scanning doesn't have to be the same place. I do high-end film scanning using a 6. Just to mention: you don't save much on storage costs - since you still have to store and back-up all the large DPX files from the scan.

They're huge, with each frame at about MB. And of course you have more detail and resolution with 35mm vs 16mm. The two leading 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 consistently exposing the image the same way. Each camera angle for our test was filmed three times for seconds each.

I then sent that film off to the lab to be processed and scanned. The benefits of these tests were threefold. Second, we could see the characteristics 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.

Unless you are lucky enough to live in a city near a lab, you will have to ship off your exposed film stock. 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.

If you start off with a p 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 smallish file size, and a DPX image sequence which is uncompressed and gives the highest image quality but requires a lot of hard drive space.

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.

After you get your film from the lab, it needs to be stored in a climate- and humidity- controlled space. Search online for a film storage facility near you.

With proper storage, we know film can last well over years. Many moviemakers do not think about this enough. I know many moviemakers, myself included, who have rolls of film packed away in a closet, and extreme temperature and humidity changes will have adverse effects on the film stock. Taking proper care of your film stock will allow you to get the best quality updated scans as technology evolves. Upon first glance it may seem like shooting on film is a difficult proposition, but in reality, once you understand the fundamentals and shoot a few rolls of film yourself, it will become as easy for you as shooting on digital.

Photograph by Patrick Dean. Your email address will not be published. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Film on the other hand, forces you to commit to decisions. You need to get it right the first time. It also gives the actors a sense of urgency as they understand there are only so many takes before they need to move on.

But depending on how you like to work, the added pressure and challenge of shooting on film can really change the way that you work and force you to make some more instinctual decisions. Originally we were supposed to shoot the project this weekend, but decided to push things off for a week or two to find a better location, re-tool the script a bit, and have more time to work with our cast. In the end, whatever creative decisions are made with the extra time that we now have will inevitably better our final product.

Super 16 cameras are relatively light and have a small footprint, meaning I can shoot much in the same way that I would shoot with smaller digital cameras. Not to mention, I love the physical size of the Super 16mm frame. At the same time it has never been cheaper to shoot on film, and there are some undeniable cost benefits when compared to digital.

Film cameras are in such low demand right now that you can rent them at most rental houses for less than the price you would pay for a DSLR rental. For that matter if you choose to, you can purchase a used one off of eBay for a couple thousand dollars or less, depending on the camera of course. Film on the other hand is the archival medium. That means less overtime, fewer meal penalties, and more money in the bank. But when you do have a passion project that could benefit from the aesthetic of film, and the change in process that comes along with it — film is still an option.

Thanks for checking out this post and I look forward to sharing some footage with all of you as the project comes together. Check them out here! Noam Kroll is an award-winning Los Angeles based filmmaker, and the founder of the boutique production house, Creative Rebellion.

His work can be seen at international film festivals, on network television, and in various publications across the globe. Follow Noam on Twitter , Instagram and Facebook for more content like this! Hi Noam! Google brought me here and I am so happy it did! I am so passionate about a short documentary I want to shoot and the first thing that came to me in terms of aesthetics is to work on S Do you think it can work? Most people tell me it will be expensive or so… and documentaries you roll and roll.

But since I have to leave it max 30 min I think I can make it work. What do you think? Also, any S16 Docus that you could link share? For really long interviews, you could always shoot them on digital or with audio only, and then re-shoot parts of them on film once you know what you need. Having a documentary shot on 16mm would definitely separate it from the pack, at least aesthetically speaking.

Both formats share a lot […]. How much would you say a super 16 camera would cost? Is the difference between shooting 16mm vs. Congrats on shooting S16, Paulina! I would try calling Kodak directly. Film Lives!!! Be it 8mm,16mm,35mm or even 70mm. The power of digital media be it 2,4,8 or 16K will not beat the Latitude, Color or Dynamic Range of film in a million years regardless of how superfast technology sweeps through us all.

So always do your best and heartfelt work on film and the rest on digital media. Are there any film schools in your area? Thanks Sergio! Good sensible article. Suoer 16 and the beautiful Kodak stock is fabulous. I have tried a couple of times to work with super 8 and German optics.

One needs to own your own scanner to get the quality you want. Keep up the good work. Did you get to shoot your project on Super 16mm? The project I intended to shoot on S16 ended up morphing in scope and was shot digitally.

But as I said I do have a S16 project in the works, as well as some other film projects, so stay tuned…. Lemme know if I can help anyone in their pursuit of transferring film! I am film scanner and work with pin registered Arriscanners. As Martin says, your film is everything in one. I want to encourage you all guys, try film, and may be for your second project you will do it again. If you want to see double 8mm grain an more, and 16mm Kodachrome, and 35mm two perf, and like Noam talked about the BMPCC, thats my only digital camera I own go to VIMEO and watch my movies for a moment, some of the movies are 50 years old.

Still in a can, usable. All that was digitized in 2K by Screenshot Berlin. I have an unbelievable pleasure to recut the movies a little bit and give some movies a music. I wish you guys all the sense of delight, the rejoice in making movies on film. It is worth in every intents and purposes, of live and experience. Thanks for an interesting read on 16 mm film technology.

It happens that years ago I used this medium for presentations in a number of public forums. It is an L-W Athena analytic projector. It can project 16 mm motion picture film at various frames per second seamlessly.

Speeds include 1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 12, and 24 f. In either forward or reverse. Will also allow the movie to stop indefinitely on a single frame without damaging the film. I have maintained this projector very carefully and it runs as well today as new. Sounds like a fantastic projector! I will certainly pass along the word if I hear of anyone needing something like this. Yes — I would try posting an ad on a site like Mandy. I am a lifelong professional film user.

Available to shoot your project. Haworth Productions I appreciate that you articulate a concise reason for picking the format.