Every so often I am reminded that I am going to school to learn to make movies...
After much confusion trying to figure out what our group was going to shoot, on the drive out to the Marin Headlands, we came up with a simple concept involving sand dollars, a dolly (as in a camera dolly), and someone walking.
Sounds exciting, doesn't it?
The what we shoot for this class are all basically exercises, so there isn't much of an opportunity to be creative. Working within those constraints, as well as being restricted to only shooting on Kodak Vision2 50D 7201 (basically a generic, color 16mm film stock) makes it difficult to actually get something that looks visually interesting while still keeping to the idea of the assignment. For reference, my final project for my introduction to production class was shot on 7222, a double exposure black and white negative 16mm film.
Whereas last time was pans and transitions (which, by the way, I just got my film back from Fotokem and will watch it on Tuesday), this week it's 3D movement. It's not as exciting as it sounds. Basically, there were two setups we had to do: one where we had a stationary camera and a moving subject, and another where we had a stationary subject and moving camera. Of course, being the people that we are in my group for this project (well, mainly me and one of the other group members), we did three setups, with the third being a combination of the first two. Hurray for extra effort! ...or something.
However, I promised you pictures, so here we go:
Preparing the magazine for loading
For this project we shot on an Eclair 16, a 16mm film camera that can be used for sound productions, due to how quiet it is. Typically, the film magazine is loaded with 400 feet of film (about 12 to 13 minutes worth, or thereabouts), but for this project, we loaded two magazines with 100 feet each.
Setting up the first shot
We shot the project in a pedestrian tunnel which overlooks the Golden Gate Bridge, as we wanted to get a mostly silhouetted shot.
Being who I am, I tend to take "test" shots with a digital camera first to get a vague idea of what the film is going to look like when exposed. I really should shoot this with a SLR, but I have found the trusty camera my uncle gave me before I went to England has been more than sufficient for most scenarios.
What it'll vaguely look like on film, except not quite
What it would look like if we shot black and white
The afore mentioned sand dollars
Setting up the second shot on a dolly
Yes, we are film students, and yes, we have a dolly on PVC pipe as a track. If it works, don't knock it.
A better view of the camera, while one of our group members lines up the shot
Another angle of the camera and dolly setup
We shot until noon and finished our project. Early this week I'll be shipping the film off to Fotokem (though I'm highly tempted to send it to Alpha Cine in Seattle instead, but we'll see) and will hopefully get it back a week (in business terms) afterwards.
That's pretty much it. After I watch my other project in class on Tuesday, I'll see about it getting telecined so I can post it on the blog. I'm fairly anxious to see how it came out. Good night everyone.
That shot with the shells
That shot with the shells looks pretty nice.
Is that spot in the back, that looks like its lit up, the end of the tunnel?
How did your group come up with making the rail for the camera?
The dolly is pretty standard
The dolly is pretty standard equipment, though usually it's on proper rails. Given that PVC pipe was the next best (cheapest) thing, that's what we went for.
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