A Recording of a Recording

Here is a recording of the showing of my Project 1 dream sequence. Shot with a 16mm Bolex, edited in camera (i.e. no editing, was shot in order, 1 take per scene), a few underexposed shots. Turned out a lot better than I imagined. Especially the stop-motion. A few scenes are underexposed, but I expected worse and, hey, this is my first time lighting actual film. Enjoy.

16mm Dream Sequence

You know what's really scary? Besides the photo on the right, I mean. Shooting on film. This semester I'm taking a class on 16mm filmmaking and we just did our first project with the Bolex. First off, you have to lock yourself in a dark closet (which brought back frightening memories) and load the film reel completely blind. You won't know for sure whether you filled it correctly until you're done shooting and there are a number of things that can go wrong. Then you have to worry about closing the diopter, opening the fade switch thingy variable shutter lever, cleaning the trap, cleaning the lense, covering the filter slot, winding the damn thing... failing to do any of these things could ruin the film (which, btw, we have to edit in-camera). After that, all you have to do is light the scene with an impossible amount of light, meter the light, figure out the f-stops, measure for focus, focus, and shoot. Did the shot turn out? You'll find out next week. That's 16mm filmmaking.

The most fun part is not knowing for sure when you run out of film. It tells you how many feet of film you've run through, but I'm not sure I trust it! Hopefully, the reel didn't end prematurly. I wouldn't want my setup for the end credits, pictured below, to go in vain.

The purpose of this project was to shoot a dream sequence and my partner was Terry, who will likely be the Director of Photography on my drug film, so he at least had an idea of what he was doing.

What did I learn? I learned to love digital. There isn't as much payoff for success, but success is at least obtainable. I also learned that film is stored in refrigerators and sock drawers. I'm sure my roommate enjoys having to push my stacks of film aside to reach the milk.

Back in Iowa City.