When the production challenge is ‘how to limit costs’, the answer can often be ‘shoot film’ – if the filmmaker is willing to look beyond the obvious. With film, not only does ‘one size not fit all’, it doesn’t need to because with film, there are plenty of formats to choose from.
We could talk about 65mm film as the ‘gold standard of quality’ (just ask Christopher Nolan whose cinematographer Wally Pfister ASC shot parts of ‘The Dark Knight’ and the upcoming ‘Inception’ on 65mm) – the use of Super 16 for TV origination in Europe and its growing use in the US -- or the unique look possible from Super 8 footage cut into a finished theatrical print. But for this discussion, let’s just look at 35mm film.
If only because 35mm is so well understood. Or is it?
Talk about 35mm film and most filmmakers assume you are talking about 4-perf – and for good reason; it’s the widely-accepted quality standard and still a viable and cost effective option for productions around the world. But with Kodak improvements in emulsion technology, the introduction of new cameras with 2-perf and 3-perf capability, and the increased use of digital intermediates (DI’s), there are more options than ever before. And when the challenge is cost, they’re more affordable.
Consider…for equal run-times, filmmakers shooting 3-perf 35 need 25-percent less stock than they need to shoot 4-perf, which means their film processing costs are also 25-percent less. And, for those shooting 2-perf, their costs for film stock and for processing are 50-percent less than shooting 4-perf. The telecine and finishing costs are the same for all 35m formats because those are based on run times and in this example, run times are equal.
Of course, 2-perf, 3-perf, and 4-perf are just different 35mm formats, so they are all exposed onto normal 35mm motion picture film stock. There are a number of cameras available with that capability, but the run time per magazine is different. 4-perf runs at 90 feet per minute; 3-perf at 67.5 feet per minute, and 2-perf at 45 feet per minute. So, a 400-foot magazine can run from about 4.4 minutes to 5.9 minutes to 8.8 minutes – depending on the format chosen.
And what about image quality? If you agree the bigger the image area the better the quality, consider:
- for widescreen (2.40 aspect ratio) movie production, a 2-perf 35mm image is 3 times larger than Super 16mm; a 3-perf 35mm image is 1.3 times larger than a 2-perf image and 3.9 times larger than a Super 16 image.
- for HDTV (1.78) origination, a 2-perf 35mm image is 1.6 times larger than a Super 16 image; a 3-perf 35mm image is 2.4 times larger than a 2-perf image; and a 3-perf image is 3.9 times larger than one shot on Super 16.
(Panavision / 2perf Explained – www.panvison.com)
And one more point of quality: a 2-perf image shot on the most recent film technology, KODAK VISION3 500T 5219, will show less grain than a 4-perf image captured on the KODAK VISION 500T 5279 stock just recently discontinued. That more than makes up for the magnification required in going from 4-perf to 2-perf for these two film systems and is a tribute to the continued advancements in film emulsion technology.
And further image structure improvements on 2-perf and 3-perf are possible with the use of improved motion-compensated adaptive sharpening and noise-reduction algorithms used in the digital intermediate process, so those smaller images can look great on television and cinema screens.
Plus, those formats bring with them all the advantages that come with shooting on 35mm film – its emotional power, range of stocks, full lens selection, archivability, universal acceptance, and unique film look.
We would be remiss if our discussion about formats didn’t mention 4perf traditional photo chemical finish, a post option that remains a cost effective high quality path for completing a film project. Photo chemical post production has limitations; for example you can’t selectively paint a blue shirt red or brown eyes green. However, despite the current emphasis on digital post production, traditional 35mm 4perf photo chemical finish is still a viable and cost effective way to produce a film.
For many35mm film remains the ideal capture medium today -- across a broad array of available formats -- from wide screen anamorphic projected in a movie theater to 16:9 HD displayed in your living room. And while 4-perf is still considered the ‘gold standard’ of 35mm, 3-perf and 2-perf offer affordable options while maintaining the cache, the flexibility and uniqueness of 35mm. Plus, there's always Super 16, which provides theatrical and high-definition images at a very attractive price.
The point is – it’s not only advantageous to shoot on film, it may be more affordable than some might think. For filmmakers unwilling to compromise with another medium, but willing to consider the multiple formats 35mm film offers, film offers lots of creative choices -- beyond the obvious.
