I played around with the idea of calling this article “How to shoot film on a Budget”, but it isn’t very detailed and I can’t remember all the exact prices and different costs all that well anymore (for instance, things like the cost of costumes or how much was the exact price of the rawstock). But, believe it or not, I managed to produce and direct a feature film for the sum of $10,000 on 35mm film. Yes, I cut a few corners here and there, but the biggest reason I was able to produce a film on such a micro budget was that I did my homework (and I had a lot of help from some very good people, namely the cast and crew!). I shot with an affordable Konvas 35mm camera and used props that I had access to (thus saving money, because I didn’t have to buy too much).
One big area I managed to save on was buying the rawstock film; I used inexpensive recans and shortends. I specifically chose the even less expensive expired film over 16mm for the visual effect it gave, as I wanted the film to be grainy (I wanted it to resemble the old westerns), but not as soft as 16mm. For those that don’t know, a frame of 16mm is roughly 1/4 the size of a frame of 35mm – so it’s softer, because the resolution isn’t there. This is the same in digital still photography. Blow up a 3MP picture versus a 12MP picture to a 2ft wide by 3ft tall poster. You’ll quickly see which one is softer. But I digress…
Due to the nature of buying shortends, I had a lot of film that, after we shot it, almost looked like fresh stock (probably due to better storage), but I had a few cans of film that gave me a fair amount of grain. A select few cans had an extreme amount of issues. One can of film was even mislabeled. I shot it exposing for 500T (with a 85b daylight filter, it reduces it by 2/3rds of a stop and would mean I was actually exposing for 320D), but it came back so underexposed that it was not salvageable (actually, I’m not stating the full truth here either. Since I was shooting old stock, I overexposed everything by about a half stop extra).
As stated above, a majority of the film was shot with a 500T film. To be exact, it was mostly shot with Kodak’s older Vision 5279 (a 500T film), but I also used a few cans of other Kodak stock (namely 5277) and one or two cans of Fuji’s 250D. Each of the cans of Kodak was snip tested and labeled, meaning the same stocks were supposed to be fairly close in their look… And yet they weren’t (although they were all labeled within the same D-min area, which was roughly R:15, G:55, B:85). Let’s just say that the D-min numbers are a good way to explain how your negative will handle shadows, grain, and contrast. Shooting the film in 16mm and a film rated at 500ASA (meaning more grain) would not have given me the same effect. As stated above, it would have been softer due to resolution differences between the formats, which was not the look I needed or wanted for an action film. Another reason for 35mm was that I was also able to get a shallower depth of field.
To makes things easy on myself, I processed everything at a local lab and had them do the telecine transfer to DigiBeta. To save even more money, no workprints were made.
BTW: At the time (mid-2004), it was about three times more costly and much harder to locate a post facility that was transferring to High Definition (the local lab did not do High Definition transfers at the time). I remember calling one lab and they quoted me a price of $17,000 for the transfer alone. That was more than my entire film budget, so I thanked them and decided DigiBeta was good enough…
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I have shot on dv, hd etc. I want to learn film. Does it make sense to learn film? Many have said that film is dead and that video is catching up and it will be obsolete. Also that film is expensive.
Buy an old 16mm camera off ebay with a good, clean lens – you can easily pick one up for under $250. Buy a 100′ roll of 16mm film (100′ does about two and a half minutes at 24fps). Get your HD camera and take them both outside, on a sunny day, and shoot a subject (let’s say it’s a child, playing at the park). Use a light meter, and don’t guess. Shoot them both, side by side if possible, don’t worry about lighting. Send out the film and have it processed, cleaned, and transferred by a reputable lab (not some fly-by-night lab). Put them both on the screen and look at them side-by-side, and you’ll see the difference.
Light reacts differently in film than it does with digital sensors. Film handles highlights better (for lack of a better word), it’s more akin to how our eyes see highlights. But even more, film has a greater latitude (what reads as underexposed/too dark or overexposed/too bright) – many negative stocks are even able to achieve as wide a range as 14 stops of latitude. To put this in contrast with digital, apparently the RED can only get about 9 stops of latitude. The Z1U and HVX200 can only handle about 7 stops…
People have been saying film is obsolete for years – as far back as the 50′s when video first came out. When HD came out, they said it all over again. And they were saying it again when the RED was released. But I have yet to see Kodak or Fujifilm close their doors. It’s taken a hit, with all the apparent “ease” of Digital acquisition, but film is not dead. Watch your TV for a few nights and write down the shows that are most visually appealing (not the editing, just the visual style). Shows like 24, Big Love, Fringe, Glee, Heroes, and House are all shot on 35mm film. Greek, Monk, Psych, and Burn Notice are shot on 16mm film.
As for price, it depends on how you work the numbers. If you are paying your cast and crew by the hour or day, and you are a stickler for the best looking shot, then film will save you money. Why? Because you don’t have to work as hard to get good lighting setups (go back and look at your child in the park footage). This alone can shave hours off your schedule. And even one extra day of shooting can cost a few thousand dollars with the cast, crew, catering, rental gear, etc. Not to mention the stress level gets higher for every day of shooting. Even more, the many digital shoots I’ve been on feel almost obligated to shoot more footage than necessary, because they are not paying per foot. They don’t realize that time and money drag out this way.
BTW: I own my own equipment, so if someone hires me to shoot a music video for them on 16mm, I can buy 800ft (22 minutes) of fresh film stock for under $250 (the processing and transfer are separate).