Cinematography Mailing List

 

Old Film Effects

Published : 30th May 2005

Hi all,

Next month I'm going to work on a new music video here in Norway and we're gonna shoot it on std 16mm and after the first telecine session I will play around with the raw footage and create effects with it.

I'm gonna scratch it, draw on it, expose it to dust and put it in a pile of water for a few days.

I was wondering if anyone else have some suggestions about what I can do to make this film look dirty, strange and funny. In other words, we need more effects - old real film effects.

Any help appreciated!

Best regards,

Andreas Widerøe Andersen
Norsk Smalfilm
http://www.smalfilm.no

P.S! We will not make any effects in post/digital.

Take a look at a DVD of Maunau's 'Sunrise', photographed by Charles Roscher and Karl Streuss in 1927, and if you can make it look like anything so beautiful as that, you are doing well.

David Samuelson

Just to clarify, we're not looking for a really old (1920s) look, but more like an "old" 1980s new wave look. Anyone seen the Santa Cruz skateboard films from that time? Wheels of Fire and Streets on Fire - that's what we're looking for.

Any suggestions to what else I can do to the film? We will shoot on Kodak Colour Negative film.

Andreas Widerøe Andersen
Norsk Smalfilm

Have you considered Super-8?

Ektachrome can look pretty interesting if lit properly and you get a quality place to process it (like Pro8), and not to change the subject, but anyone know about the Kinetta HD camera?

I saw an article in American Cinematographer. Couldn't find rental/sale prices on it though.

Bob Patrick
NY DP/Gaffer

>Just to clarify, we're not looking for a really old (1920s) look, but more >like an "old" 1980s new wave look.

I used to work second camera with Hal Jepsen, who was one of the undisputed kings of the old surf and skate films of that era. We used Éclair NPR's and Beaulieu's. I think we were shooting 7248 most of the time but it was so long ago please don't hold me to that! Why not just telecine a scuffed up workprint?

http://www.surfhistory.com/html/profiles/jepsen.html