SEASONS ON FILM

 5219 Kodak Vision 3 500T
How I study

Get the technical stuff in your system so you can focus on feeling and expression.

In preparation for shooting projects on motion picture film I started to practice with stills. I figured it would take a few years from my first roll to really get to a point where I was happy. It started with testing the stock in different conditions, over and under exposure, and working out a colour grading pipeline.

All of this so that I can eventually focus on a feeling without a limit in the medium. Personally, my tests are really meticulous and almost repetitive. Shoot, dev, scan, grade, take notes, repeat.

A note to this, I'm also trying to take the attributes I like most in my film shots and bringing them over to my digital cinematography. Not always seeking matches, but trying to make the most out of each medium. Example being the Arri handling underexposure far better but film having a nice foggy look to the deep black point. I can use digital to see further into the shadows and then lift / fog out the low end to taste.

-M.