Artist: Alban Claudin
Director & Cinematographer: Marcus T Patterson
Camera: Bolex H16 EBM Super 16 PL Mount - V mounts
Lenses: Canon 7-63 T2.6
Film Stock: Kodak Vision3 500T Color Negative Film 7219
MARCUS, TELL US ABOUT YOUR BACKGROUND, HOW DID YOU GET STARTED?
I have the classic story of shooting films since I was a kid and “always wanting to make movies,” but I grew up in Birmingham, Alabama really far from any proper production opportunities. I was fortunate to land in a small group of like-minded artists in my early twenties and we just started making as many films (and mistakes!) as we could. We set nets on fire getting them too close to tungsten, broke glass to make our own filters, and we shared all the jobs on set. I would direct a film, then I would shoot the next one, then I’m doing sound design. It was a wild, exciting time. I was really attracted to the creativity and storytelling power of the image, so I gravitated toward cinematography and eventually moved out to LA to attend UCLA and pursue cinematography full time.
WHAT A COOL TRACK. WHAT WAS IT LIKE TO WORK WITH ALBAN?
Alban was a blast to work with! He was down for whatever idea Connor and I came up with, but one image he and Connor had agreed upon early was the idea of walking or traveling somewhere. He was really into the concept we came up with and totally trusted Connor’s vision for the piece. There aren’t any lyrics, so we tried to use the rhythm and split screen to make sure there was a story being told as Alban goes about this day.
THE SPLIT SCREEN WORKS REALLY WELL HERE. YOU SHOT SUPER 16, BUT WOUND UP WITH A 4:3 IMAGE. WAS THAT ALWAYS THE PLAN? HOW DID YOU GO ABOUT FRAMING YOUR SHOTS?
We decided on split screen really early in the process because we wanted to combine images to give us that idea of progression and moving forward that Alban and Connor had discussed. We landed on vertical split screen because we wanted to use the full 16mm frame for the image, but didn’t want something crazy wide. We also liked the idea of combining an analog format with a modern framing with 9:16, and then split screen gave us Academy ratio. The first several shots were storyboarded by Connor, but after about the first third of the film we were relying on things that we thought would be interesting framed next to each other. I used a Wooden Camera 90 degree plate on an O’Connor tripod to keep really nice framing on such an odd camera build.
THIS VIDEO IS A VIBE. I DON'T THINK IT WOULD BE AS COOL IF YOU SHOT THIS ON DIGITAL.
I shoot as many projects on film as I can because we also feel like it gives a really unique flavor. I can shoot on digital, grade it with a filmic curve, add grain and texture, and I still feel like I’m always pursuing the “film look.” When I shoot on film I'm just massaging the colors into the right spot and it already feels right from the beginning. Also, film opens me up to more exposure accidents. I’m a bit of a perfectionist, so when I have my monitor on set I’m always working to get another bounce in, pop a hair light in a corner, get a kicker on this cheek, etc. On film, we light it to the meter and our eye, and sometimes you get a happy accident — moment of underexposure that’s super cool but I likely would have fixed on digital, or a flare that I didn’t notice in the viewfinder that I might have flagged off. There’s a sense of opening a present when you get the scans back that I don’t get on digital.
TELL US ABOUT WORKING WITH THE UPGRADED BOLEX H16 EBM AND WHAT YOU FIND UNIQUE ABOUT IT?
The Upgraded Bolxed EBM was a dream! We already had the 100ft loads from a different project, so I knew we would be going Bolex or similar smaller load camera, but I wanted the ability to put better glass on the camera than the C-mount lenses we’re used to on the H16. Since the film relied on rhythm, I also wanted something with a motor that we could flip on and off with consistent, reliable motor speed, so the Bolex EBM was perfect for our shoot.
WHAT LENSES DID YOU CHOOSE?
We shot on the Canon Zoom 7-63mm T2.6 and it was lovely. There were only three or four of us on set at any given time, so I didn’t want to be changing lenses any more than I had to because it would eat into our shooting time. I wanted to build the camera once on the vertical rig and have it live the whole shoot. The Canon T2.6 was great because it was faster than some of the other zoom options we saw, but not quite as fast as primes, so it split the difference between giving us some extra time in the evening while still being efficient enough for our shoot.
WHAT STOCKS DID YOU SHOOT ON?
We had 500T and 200T. We shot without an 85 filter and had Fotokem do the conversion for us on the scan.
THE COLOR IS BEAUTIFUL. CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT YOUR WORKFLOW?
Thank you! We got our negatives developed and scanned at Fotokem in Burbank. We pushed all the film one stop to get more contrast out of the film itself and bit more texture. I have a standard film LUT that I I like to use to bring the flat scans back into an editable color profile, and then we tweaked it a bit to give Discovery its own look. Our turnaround was incredibly fast, so I did my one light on the dailies and we pretty much kept that look through the end of the project.
More links:
Alban’s Music - https://open.spotify.com/artist/6lhj65affyKVttGzdfUrJp
Directed by: Connor Simpson: http://connorsimpson.com/
Director of Photogrpahy: http://www.marcuspatterson.com/
