A few months back during my degree course as a class we entered the Kodak film competition. This was an exciting prospect because it allowed me to try my hand at shooting on film rather than digital. I quickly assumed the role of Cinematographer as I really wanted to get my hands on the camera. The college had recently purchased an Aaton XTR Prod 16mm camera and I was the first student who got to use it free reigned, which was cool but also quite scary.
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| Aaton XTR Prod |
Being born into the digital age I have become accustomed to instant footage, there's nothing scarier to me than finishing the shoot and tearing down the set with out actually knowing if you've recorded anything at all, never mind anything useful. Five or so years ago I did try my hand at 35mm film photography which I did enjoy but even that was more instantaneous than shooting on 16mm film, as I had learnt to process the films myself. What if something went wrong whilst loading the film? That would be my fault alone.
Our concept was to create a Support The British Film Industry advert type piece rather than go down the route of the scary Anti-Piracy adverts which are around at the moment.
Inspiration
As a group we all really liked the Radio One adverts as seen below as they have a nostalgic and patriotic feel to them which we wanted to recreate.
The Result
After waiting for a few weeks for our film to be processed we received the footage on mini dv tape and nervously played it back. To my relief there was something there, in fact the footage looked pretty good. Here is the edited finished piece.
Although I am pleased with the end result, if I was being critical I would say that I over lit the background. This was simply a case of not really knowing how the camera would pick up light and fearing that there would be nothing recorded. Let me know what you think by commenting, cheers.
