First roll questions

[Filmosity]

So I got my first two rolls of K40 back from Dwayne's today. I have to say, I'm impressed. I was giggling with glee as I watched the images.

Dwayne's did great processing, even preparing the film with head and tail leaders. The images were clean and free of dirt and hairs for the most part.

The only problems came from my end. My first reel was very over exposed, probably due to the manual aperture setting I had. I was really just experimenting. However, the second reel was pretty overexposed too. I was shooting in bright sunlight on an Elmo Super 104 on K40 with auto exposure. I'm wondering if there's anything I did wrong. I guess I just have to under expose a stop below what the meter tells me. Luckily, I can fix these problems when I transfer the footage to Final Cut Pro.

But this experiment makes me feel good. I'm planning on shooting a short film next month, and I think I've decided that I'm going to shoot film instead of video. However, I do still have some questions.

Here are the conditions: Two guys will be sitting on a couch in an entertainment room, one watching television and the other reading a magazine. The room will be lit for nighttime (meaning a lower key lighting design) with only one or two practicals in the scene and the glow of the television casting a bit of blue on them. Obviously I will be using movie lights (ranging between 300w and 1000w) and possibly a couple 500w and 1k worklights from Home Depot (gelled to balance for film) for general scene lighting. What film would you guys recommend for this situation? Do I have many options?

Also, I'm a bit confused about the use of the built in 85 filter on the camera. K40 is a tungsten film, correct? So I would use the 85 filter when shooting outside, thereby reducing the ASA from 40 to 25. Indoors with tungsten lighting, I should remove the filter. But the opposite holds true if I were to use a daylight balanced film, correct?

I hope you guys can help me out. Thanks,

Cavs

[unxetas]

well.. I'm no expert, but K40 isn't all that great for interior shots.. specially for a night time scene.. I would say you need to use one of the new vision2 negative stocks, but I'm sure someone else will be able to answer better ;)

About light balancing, yes, you are correct.. if you use daylight film with tungsten lighting, it will give the film a very orange look.. I'm not sure if there's any tungsten filters (probably just a blue gel or whatever) and I'm not sure if any of the currently available stocks for super 8 are daylight balanced..

[Herb Montes]

Using outdoor balanced film with indoor lighting requires a 80A filter. That also lowers the speed of your film. Generally for indoor filming you would use an Ektachrome stock like VNF which has a speed of 125 ASA. But for greater latitude you would want to go with Vision 2.

[mattias]

Luckily, I can fix these problems when I transfer the footage to Final Cut Pro.

not really. if you overexpose k40 a lot of information is lost forever. you can of course bring down the brightness, but it might not look very good. it's better to underexpose if you're not sure. k40 often even looks better underexposed than normal, and there's also more information in the shadows than in the highlights, so it's easier to fix later.

/matt

[Filmosity]

good point mattias...unfortunately, i figured that out a bit too late! been trying to fix it in FCP, but it's just not working. Oh well, live and learn.

I've got a lot to learn about film, but that's why i'm here.

[matt5791]

Using outdoor balanced film with indoor lighting requires a 80A filter. That also lowers the speed of your film. Generally for indoor filming you would use an Ektachrome stock like VNF which has a speed of 125 ASA. But for greater latitude you would want to go with Vision 2.

It is worth adding here that there are a couple of stocks available for super8 that are daylight balanced - the EXR 50D and the Vision 250D, although only from Pro8.

However an 80a filter 'steals' a lot more light than the 85 filter to convert tungsten film to daylight - hence why motion picture stocks have traditionally been balanced for tungsten film in the first place as traditionally lighting is tungsten balanced, thus avoiding the use of filters and ultimately meaning less lighting = less cost.

I think that the 80 filter sapps something like 2 stops, whereas the 85 only 1/3 stop.

Matt