I spent most of Sunday scouting some locations for the film we are shooting next summer.
Since the film is taking place primarily outside, we have had to do as much scouting as we could over the last several weeks. In case anyone is wondering why that is... Fall is upon us, the leaves are changing colors. In order to know what an area is going to look like when everything is green, we've had to scout now. To this end I put over 150 miles on my car on Sunday, but it was worth it. Even waking up at an unholy hour to take a road trip to the countryside was worth it... I hope... is that dramatic enough? too much? Does it make you want to find out why I hope my trip was worth it?
I spent most of the day taking pictures of likely places, and using a little digital home video camera to do some walk throughs. So that this winter and early spring as we are deciding on locations, we have something tangeble to look at. I also brought a 16mm camera.
I rolled my first can of honest to goodness, film. as opposed to video, or digital
I'm now as nervous as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs about it.
"Why would you be nervous about rolling a can of film??? You've already shot a video documentary before haven't you? so whats the big deal?", you ask?
There are some subtle...and not so subtle
differences, betwixt film and video.
Video: a 3 hour DV (digital Video) cassett costs around $20. if you know where to buy it
Film: a 100 foot can of 16mm film costs around $25. Depending on your film speed, that's maybe a couple minutes...
Video: DV Cassett can be recorded over approximatly 300 times.
Film: single use
Video: Instant playback, camera can be plugged directly into a T.V. and you can have a full color & sound play back imediatly after shooting.
Film: in order to see what you actually shot, you must first get the film developed, that's another $50 or so dollars... per reel. I don't live in California, we don't have places close by which develope this kind of film. So we have to mail it out of town, wait for it to be developed & processed, and shipped back to us. (tack on another $10 or so for shipping and handling)
Video: can be transfered easily and cheaply to a portable hardrive which can then be plugged into a computer and edited.
Film: comes back from being developed and processed as a roll of film. In a can. Tack on another 50 bucks a roll to transfer to digital for editing.
Lets see now... add the 5... carry the one...
Video: 11 cents a minute... each time the same cassett is resued, the amount of money per minute drops. by the second use its 5.5 cents per minute, the third is 3.7 cents per minute. (not including any overhead, or editing time or anything else, just the cost of the video)
Film: For us it's roughly $135 / 10 minutes. or $13.50 / minute. Just for the film cost...
As of this moment, I have no idea what anything I shot looks like. I wont know what it looks like for a week or two (thanks to mail times). Is any of it actually in focus? Did a small piece of film break off and scratch the roll as I was filming? Did I adjust the light sensetivity correctly? Is evertying I shot way to bright? Way to Dark? Will the masked avenger perish in a vat of liquid hot acid? Will Jane find out who the killer is? Find out next week on... Extra Drama theater!
I don't know. bitch bitch bitch, I know, I know...
Indiefilm posted on Sep 25, 2006
| views: 617
Comments
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secretlife said on Sep 25, 2006....
awww Indie this is your dream!
Everything is going to be fine even if you've got butterflies in your tummy....
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Indiefilm said on Sep 25, 2006....
Very true, very true.
But, that doesn't make me immune to haveing to wait weeks to find out if what I shot was any good...
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secretlife said on Sep 25, 2006....
Hey, this thing ate my invisible comment!
Get your wife to give you a rub down tonight....take your mind off of waiting-and put it back in the gutter where it belongs!.
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Indiefilm said on Sep 25, 2006....
SL: Invisible comments... I have no idea what your talking about... We can neither confirm nor deny the existance of invisible comments.... ;)
That's actually not a bad idea, not a bad one at all. My back is a bit sore from carrying a camera around for most of the day. Film camera's tend to be a bit bigger than video cameras afterall, a nice back rub would be nice. although a front rub would be... nvrmd....
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secretlife said on Sep 25, 2006....
i figured the front rub was a given after the sight of that back
I'm an idea person...i keep telling people thati wonder why nobody believes me?
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Indiefilm said on Sep 25, 2006....
You are an idea person. I believe you, just don't get any funny ideas... like the president in a to-to riding a unicyle...
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scalywag said on Sep 25, 2006....
Indie....good for you for taking this step. It sounds so exciting!
I'm willing to bet your film will come out fine. But do let us know.
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Indiefilm said on Sep 26, 2006....
Well, It's going in the mail today, I should be seeing it in about a week.
And Scaly, this wasn't the first step, I've been on the a long and depraved road into the bowels of the independant film world for a little while now... this is just my first time behind the camera rolling film, rather than video...
But it is another step, and a big one... not to mention exciting.
Slowly, the filming world is consuming my life...
que scary music... and add some dramatic lighting....
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secretlife said on Sep 26, 2006....
don't let him fool ya scaly.....he's enjoying the bowels more than he has any right to!i'm not even going to try to touch that one here
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Indiefilm said on Sep 26, 2006....
SL: Baaaaaaaad!!!!!! Your nearly as bad as I am, you know that! Broadsided! I didn't even see that one coming! I mean, I usually try and plant stuff which can be used as joke fodder, but damn! I hadn't even thought of that one!!! Kudos!
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scalywag said on Sep 26, 2006....
well,
bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha
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joeyo said on Sep 28, 2006....
dont worry. im sure if you loaded the camera correctly there wouldnt be any light leakage. :)
and u forgot to mention the good things about Film, like.. how much better it looks compared to video.
it makes it all worth while... given u have the budget ..hehe
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Indiefilm said on Sep 29, 2006....
Joeyo;
I was waiting for the enevitable comment, "but if it's so expensive, why use film rather than video?"
Since I didn't get the question, I'll answer it anyway.
Film is sexy.
For car people its the difference between an economy car and a luxury sports car. They both get you where your going, but one looks so much better it's not even funny.
As for the budget, I mis calculated, 100 ft (30.5 meters) of 16mm film is actually 2 min 44 seconds of film at normal playing speed. (24 frames per second)
so its acutally $135 for 2min 44 sec...
or $49.45 per minute...
Film is a sexy you have to pay for.
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secretlife said on Sep 29, 2006....
it's kinda like having kids-
you don't know how they're gonna turn out-
they cost an awful lot-
but after all is said and done, you'd not trade the experience for anything else. sorry i couldn't think of a damn sexy analogy
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Indiefilm said on Sep 29, 2006....
SL: yeah, except you don't get the same kind of tax credits for film. :p
You could use the analogy of a high priced hooker... that's a sexy you have to pay for. ;)
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mobil said on Sep 30, 2006....
Seems there would be a tax write off for film that doesn't work
out, no?
In any event, you love this shit, no matter what happens, it's
worth it because you love it.
You live and breath it, that says love, have fun, refinance the
house if necessary. Walk down that red carpet head held high,
or into divorce court, head held low.
Maybe both. ha ha
Good luck with it, but most of all, have fun with it.
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secretlife said on Oct 06, 2006....
Sooooooooooooo.....what's the story on this?
MISS YOU
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Indiefilm said on Oct 10, 2006....
*drags self away from everything else for a short while*
We've got the film developed, I'll be making a post about it *crosses fingers* later today. I'm a bit... well, not overwelmed, but definetly welmed at the very least. Lots going on...
and on and on and on and on... I just wrapped up Roll # 3 a couple days ago... more later
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secretlife said on Oct 15, 2006....
*waits patiently ...well ok, maybe not THAT
patiently...
put the dang pencils down for 5 minutes will ya?
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Indiefilm said on Oct 16, 2006....
*whistles innocently...*
... erm... finaly got to making an update... *gives best sheepish grin*