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RED vs. 16 mm

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gwertheim

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I am currently a film student in Toronto, Canada. I am preparing to shoot my final project and I am trying to decide which camera to use 16 mm (school pays for film, processing, color correction, etc.) or RED.

What do you think??
 
gwertheim said:
I am currently a film student in Toronto, Canada. I am preparing to shoot my final project and I am trying to decide which camera to use 16 mm (school pays for film, processing, color correction, etc.) or RED.

What do you think??
Click to expand...


Your on a RED forum mate.

RED is the answer.
16 mm is so old, small gate, expensive film and TC and online process.
RED has full 35mm gate size, no film, no processing and you can edit, grade and online in your laptop.

Ask yourself the question again.

enjoy the future
 
Personally, I would shot film (as much as I love my RED and the beautiful images it produces). It will be far easier in the future to shoot on digital cameras like the RED, but it will be harder to get jobs on film. Since the school is paying for all the film costs, it really makes no difference as far as money goes, correct? Here's a question to ask yourself, do the advantages of the RED (35mm DOF, HD monitor, HD playback, etc) help you tell your story better?

Matthew
 
Shoot 16mm. Worth it for the experience.

Chances are the school has a good setup for dealing with a film-based workflow, the same is unlikely to be true of a RED-based workflow (especially given the ever-changing nature of it).
 
i'm editing a 16mm short that was shot before RED ...
well, after shooting Red 4k for past serveal months i have to say the 16mm images ( 2k scans) are lacking compared to 4k = not in same ball park ... hate it - i want the smooth skin tones ... i'm almost to the point that i'm considering reshooting it on Red ...
if you want 35mm smooth images go Red .. if you want a image with grain go 16mm ... it comes down to your project ..
 
Film X

Film X

Hi
Good points here by everybody.
You should also consider this:

5-10 years from now, in a digital cinema world, film jobs will be harder to find. would it be cool if you had film experience already ?
It is very important, in my view, to have a hold on film history, and the ways it worked.
Even if we don't use it anymore...
The fact that you really know how it worked in the past, makes you a better artist, with broader views and lets you appreciate more the tools of today.

Would you ask yourself in the future "Oh, i wish i worked with film" ?
Any filmaker should have this experience if he can.
 
It's not that i haven't worked on film before. Looking to the future, I think working with RED would look better on a resume, but some of my teachers think film would look better.

It's a constant battle between the two formats for me.
 
gwertheim said:
It's not that i haven't worked on film before. Looking to the future, I think working with RED would look better on a resume, but some of my teachers think film would look better.

It's a constant battle between the two formats for me.
Click to expand...

The thing is, if you can shoot film, you can shoot RED easily. However, it's not the other way around. I can shoot beautiful stuff on my RED, but I doubt I would do as well on 35mm film as I am too used to seeing exactly what I am getting on a HD monitor, looking at the waveform on the RED, etc. I can't AC on alot of shoots around here because I am not experienced with film (of course that's changing as more and more shoots are shooting digital--especially on the RED.)

Matthew
 
I am the director and I am funding the project so I get the final say
 
What does the project need?
What does the DP ask for?
What is the final product? (festivals, DVD, 70mm print?)
What postproduction scheme did you think of?
With whom will "you" speak at the lab/posthouse?

Don't be impressed by NEW technology!

Vision3 is also NEW but the DP know what he gets on the release print! With a DI (and there are different ways of doing it (crimson/FCP/Scratch/Lustre.../R3D/DPX/2k/4K...) you have to make tests as it IS a NEW technology. Can you afford it? Or are you enough corageous to support a possible failure?

If you shoot RED then test the WHOLE post solution.

Have a nice shooting.

Patrick
 
What does the project need?
It is my decision
What does the DP ask for?
He is not picky
What is the final product? (festivals, DVD, 70mm print?)
Either MiniDV, DVD, hard drive. Not sure yet
What postproduction scheme did you think of?
Huh???
With whom will "you" speak at the lab/posthouse?
Hell if i know, the school will take care of it
 
gwertheim said:
What does the project need?
It is my decision
What does the DP ask for?
He is not picky
What is the final product? (festivals, DVD, 70mm print?)
Either MiniDV, DVD, hard drive. Not sure yet
What postproduction scheme did you think of?
Huh???
With whom will "you" speak at the lab/posthouse?
Hell if i know, the school will take care of it
Click to expand...

With all respect, I think you don't need RED... Because you don't need this specific technology.

Put your money in good acting and rehearsal.

Patrick
 
Tresch said:
With all respect, I think you don't need RED... Because you don't need this specific technology.

Put your money in good acting and rehearsal.

Patrick
Click to expand...

I know I don't need a red, but on a student project where you have to trust your fellow students to load the mags properly, light the set well and documnent everything, i'd rather use RED because if I need to reshoot something I will know after I transfer the footage to my hard drive, not 2 weeks later.
 
With all these newer digital formats it will now always be a question of final output. It can be tough (my final thesis was shot in HD and it couldn't even be projected in HD because I couldn't afford a digital transfer to HDCAM or HDCAM SR)

Since it's for school, will you have a final screening with classmates and/or professor. If so, can you screen your 16mm even if it's transfered to a digital format?

Or, is it more important for your reel after you leave school? Then you can show down-compressed RED footage easily and won't have to deal with all the printing 16mm can require.

What will you learn most from? 16mm by far. It's not as antiquated as people make it out to be. Especially as a student film project, where most films are experiments, film will teach you so much more about the process itself.
 
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