Shooting a Short on 16mm

[Andrew C]

Hi all,

I’m going to be shooting a short film on 16mm film. It’s my first time shooting with film, and we plan to use the Bolex H16 Reflex with Kodak 7266 Tri-X Reversal Film. I’m a bit nervous, particularly about changing out the film in the dark.

My plan is to rely on my light meter for exposure, err on the side of overexposure, and use a tape measure for focus. Going to push the director and actors to rehearse the scenes a lot before we shoot, in order to preserve the film.

I’m going to do some testing for a few weeks beforehand, exposure wise, from a camera movement perspective, and just get more used to shooting with it.

Any thoughts or advice is appreciated.

Thank you,

Andrew

Topic

[dmullenasc]

Reversal film has no latitude for mis-exposure — I spent ten years shooting Super-8 and 16mm reversal before and during film school. You lose detail at either end so quickly that you really have to bias your exposure for the subject’s tonal values.

Spot metering may help though I used an incident meter, so what I did is that if the subject was mostly dark tones, I’d open up and if it was mostly light tones, I’d stop down.

[quijotesco24]

First time film and you going with reversal?
You are a brave man that’s for sure.

Also test all equipment thoroughly, as you have been told, reversal has no latitude. So any error mechanical or human will be hard on your final images.

 

[Andrew C]

Thank you. Do you have a standard process then, when exposing film, like taking multiple readings around the set and setting the lens to an average of those, depending on what you would like?

Would I expose skin tones similarity to how I would digitally? Or should I mostly stick to slightly overexposing?

[neeraj.jain]

I also recently shot with a Bolex H16.

I will add that one of the challenges of it is that the image through the viewfinder gets darker as you stop down the iris or add ND’s. Another thing to consider is how loud it is — so if you’re recording sound, that might not be possible with that camera.

Also, one thing I struggled a little with is that the Bolex I used had to be cranked for each take. We got about 26 seconds (24 fps) for a fully wound motor.

In the results I got back, I feel like the footage I shot on the 10mm lens generally felt a bit fuzzy (even stopped down a bit) while the footage shot on the 25mm lens came out a lot sharper and crisp. I can’t share footage/stills yet otherwise I’d post a couple here for you

[Andrew C]

Thank you, this is all good advice!

[quijotesco24]

Andrew C wrote:

Thank you. Do you have a standard process then, when exposing film, like taking multiple readings around the set and setting the lens to an average of those, depending on what you would like? Would I expose skin tones similarity to how I would digitally? Or should I mostly stick to slightly overexposing?

Before thinking about exposure you need to test your meters, making sure they are not off. So test camera, lenses, light meters and check the results from the lab and then recalibrate your meter accordingly. On reversal when something is 1/3 off you can tell. So also make sure even the iris on each lens is not off.
But I haven’t shot reversal for 20 years and even then I tried to run away from it. But once you know all your available dynamic range after testing you will be able to determine how to expose and to where put faces, windows, shadows, etc for your liking.

[Author]

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