My two first semester films. Both of them on silent and shot on a Bolex Deluxe. It's the only time I've gotten to shoot on film so far due to covid, and we didn't even get to edit it by actually cutting the film and had to work with digital prints.



This first film here (I posted it awhile back, I think) was challenging to shoot because it's all outdoors and the thing about video is dealing with the brightness of the sky. Even with digital it's very tricky to not blow it out, and it's inconsistent. Some of the shots here ended up washed out, not only because it was insanely bright during filming, but also because I reading the wrong part of the light meter when I had the High Slide in. A high slide is a little metal slide with some small holes that you use when you're outside and it's so bright your light meter registers off the scale, so several shots end up over exposed.






This second film took a lot more planning. For those who have never shot on film before, it is INSANELY hard to shoot interiors. Kind of the opposite problem as shooting exteriors during the day is the total absense of light. To properly expose a small room with light you need at least 1600 lumens, but closer to 2000 lumens. The average LED lightbulbs fall between 250-500 lumens. I was going for a chiaroscuro effect for much of this film (strong contrast between light and dark) so to achieve that effect I bought a 1000 lumen bulb (which at ten feet away barely registered on the light meter at all, so I typically had to keep the light within 5 feet of my actor) and black cardstock and taped it around the shade of my snake lamp, effectively making a really big shade to keep the light directed and strong...basically ghetto barn doors.






Some shots are definitely too dark and you can only bring them up so much in post before they get extremely grainy with film. I cheated with certain shots due to only having the ability to film so much. We only had 6 minutes of film on two reels and the film had to be 2-3 minutes long so there isn't much room for error or extra takes or coverage shots. Some shots I planned didn't turn out so well in execution, others turned out pretty good. But these films are really about learning from your mistakes anyways and I definitely learned a lot making this film. And my friend's daughter who is in this still hasn't watched it because she's afraid it'll be real embarrassing. She did fine! If there's anything embarrassing, it's my shitty acting while filming myself in my second semester film from last year!