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Experimenting With 16mm Film in the Studio
Feb 3, 2022
Experimenting with 16mm film in the studio with Matt and Thomas. Shooting experimental rolls of 16mm film and learning about lighting, color, shade, and more. Are you a fan of 16mm? Leave a comment below to share more. Matt Moloney: https://www.instagram.com/matt_moloney/ Thomas Rutigliano: https://www.instagram.com/thomas_rutigliano/ Camera: K3 from Max (https://www.instagram.com/k3super16/) Film: Kodak Vision3 500T (Color) + Kodak Tri-X (B&W) Developed and Scanned: Colorlab Music provided by: Funk Shui https://www.instagram.com/funk.is.free/ Heath240 https://www.instagram.com/heath__240/ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Follow FilterGrade! Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/filtergrade
View Video Transcript
0:02
is
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[Music]
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[Music]
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[Music]
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oh
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[Music]
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what's going on everybody it's matt here
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again from filter grade today i'm back
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with another 16 millimeter video um i
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recently just got the film back from
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color lab in maryland and
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the footage came about
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insane like i'm really really shocked
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with the way that it looks and
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everything like that
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in the footage you'll see it's me and my
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friend thomas rotigliano i'll link him
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in the description we just shot honestly
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two rolls of
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film in the studio for fun kind of just
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experimenting with light
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i wanted to test and see like how sharp
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of focus we could get
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on
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small little text in books things like
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that
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just details with the fashion stuff like
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that so
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it was a lot of fun and i'm gonna go
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through all the footage and tell you a
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little bit about how i shot it because
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i'm still just like really really
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surprised with how well it came out so
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let's just go ahead and get into it
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all right so
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getting started um
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i just wanted to do like a screen test
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and basically i've been reading this
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book by andy or not by andy warhol but
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it's a biography about andy warhol
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and
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in the book it just talked about how he
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did these screen tests where he would
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just set up a camera on a tripod and
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tell somebody kind of like just stand in
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front of it he wouldn't give them any
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direction
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wouldn't really tell them what to do
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anything like that you just
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have somebody stand in front of it walk
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away let the camera record for 10
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minutes or whatever and
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just basically as a study on observation
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and so i thought this was really
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interesting
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obviously i don't right now i don't have
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the money to just spend tons of
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money on film so i just did a little 10
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or 20 second variation of this but i
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think it was really cool um
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kind of just to see
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what somebody is like when they're just
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still you know they're they're not told
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what to do or anything they just sit
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there
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kind of just blink and it's just a
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portrait of that person so
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it was really interesting thought it was
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cool especially with the backdrop it
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really
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really kind of complemented it
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um moving on
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the next shot we wanted to try some more
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kind of like sharp light more more
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contrasty like just playing with the
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shapes and stuff like that so we we
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moved it kind of just lighting on the
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left side and
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we turned off the main key light that we
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had on the right so it's kind of just
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like
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a small
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little sliver that you know you see on
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his face which i think it it actually
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really looks like quite dramatic kind of
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cool after that i wanted to just get
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some like quick detail shots something
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that i've been trying to do with the 16
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millimeter camera that i'm testing with
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the k3 that i mentioned in the first
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video is trying to get it to mimic
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how i used to shoot with super 8 and
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what i mean by that is kind of just like
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quick little
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little like jittery um like trigger
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pulls i guess you would say which
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with by that i mean like one or two
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seconds of footage that's just really
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flashy really fast paced and i really
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love the way that that looks especially
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i was able to really do it well with the
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super 8 camera
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because it was in 18 frames per second
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that's what i was limited to
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with
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the
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k3 i can go
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up to 60 or 120 frames per second so
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it's kind of like almost
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hard i've been shooting at 24 frames per
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second but it's still a little bit hard
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to mimic that like quick fast paced
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trigger action that i had with the super
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8 so i might start bumping it down to 18
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frames per second when i want to do
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those shots but overall
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i think it looks cool
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um this little fashion shutter step i'm
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always a big fan of that
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then we went in and moved on to some
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really cool like colored lighting
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schemes so i have these just little led
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tube lights that i've really been
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wanting to test out with film um they
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look really great on digital but i
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wanted to try it out on film see
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if it would be enough light to actually
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like illuminate the scene
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and the subject so
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we went with a little
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simple um
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you know
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blue and red or like purple and red kind
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of color palette and
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i think it came out really cool like
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seeing
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the red on his skin and then the blue on
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the side it's just like it to me it
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really looks cool so i'm happy with how
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that came out i really want to try
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something like this for a music video or
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a commercial or something like that
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and then next i wanted to kind of back
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up i have a different backdrop set up
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and there's a little bit more space to
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stand further back
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um using the other backdrop setup
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so what i did for this part was
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kind of
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i wanted to test out
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what it's like you know zooming in and
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out and i know that sounds kind of like
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really simple but with this kind of
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camera just not being used to it i
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really just wanted to to see what the
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mechanism was like see
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you know if i'd be able to make it a
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smooth
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zoom in or zoom out
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so
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you know just tried that out it looks
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cool i think the lighting isn't the best
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in here
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it's just kind of flat
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um
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the shots with the book i really
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actually like these i intended to get a
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light in it
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for some of them
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just
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because it was kind of an experimental
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role
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for
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the shots of the book i'm actually
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really happy with it because you can you
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can see
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you know the little font that's even in
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the book
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and i had i had tried to do a shot like
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this with super 8 for a music video
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actually a few months ago
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and
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the goal was to kind of just get like
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the title screen to be like a
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it was on a typewriter like a typewriter
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note and i got the shot but
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for whatever reason i think it's just
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super 8 you know it's such a small
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medium in terms of like the actual film
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itself
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that you can't really see those tiny
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tiny details so
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it was a cool idea and concept didn't
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really work out
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i'm very very happy that this experiment
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worked with the book um on 60 millimeter
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film because i definitely want to use
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this um
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i definitely want to use this now that i
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kind of
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know that it's possible so
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super cool
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then after that
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i gave thomas the camera because i
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wanted to try some different lighting
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things i forget who it was but i saw
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this shot
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um and it was just of a plant in a
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studio with this slow moving light and
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it was in black and white film so i knew
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i wanted to eventually try it on black
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and white
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luckily thomas actually brought a roll
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of black and white film that we could
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shoot after this first um color roll
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which was a kodak 500t
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like you know perfect for the studio or
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whatever so
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um
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long story short i saw that clip and i
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really wanted to recreate it see how i
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could mimic it so i let thomas shoot
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this shot
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um
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and i kind of just played with the light
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moving it
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kind of almost mimicking like sunrise
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sunset type of thing you'll see in the
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footage i
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i did a few different like tests some of
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them were just
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like going back and forth and they
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didn't really turn out well but one of
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them at the end kind of has it the light
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turning actually towards the camera lens
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and you get this little this sun flare
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you know light flare effect that's i
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thought i thought that was really cool
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so
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definitely going to try and play around
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with that some more
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so another part of the that same role
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was
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going to
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kind of a like a concert event slash
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thing
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and it was a nighttime event with
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definitely a low light setting so
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i wanted i going into it i intended to
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shoot like a whole roll or two
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but once i got there it just didn't look
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like there was going to be enough light
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as you can see on the footage it still
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came out
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it still came out but it's not it's
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definitely nowhere near as bright as i
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would have preferred it to be um the
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nighttime footage of the city actually
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looks pretty cool and some of the
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artists when it's a close-up that looks
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really cool as well but you can't really
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see anybody in the crowd which is a pro
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and a con
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but
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yeah i think
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if i
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were to do this in the future i would
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just make sure to have a lot of light if
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it's going to be a nighttime setting
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because
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i just didn't want to waste the film on
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risking it not coming out bright enough
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or anything like that
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so the next part
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of the footage was
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i don't know why this is all jumbled up
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but the next part of the footage was
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just some
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i just wanted to do some fashion like
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details test shots i had thomas back up
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way far in the studio and then
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kind of just
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literally just point and shoot me
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walking back and forth putting on
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clothes stuff like that
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i think it's interesting a little bit i
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just wanted to really at this point
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in my head i was just like really
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wanting to make sure that all the
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lighting was gonna
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be bright enough
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because i shooting in the studio was
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super eight in the past like i've
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it's worked but you really you really
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need to think about all the lighting
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that you will need to have and where you
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want like what you want to be showing
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well lit versus not because on film it
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will really stand out
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that's lit that's not lit so
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just something to be mindful of
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a color or a black and white reversal
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film i think and the lab said i had
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gotten an email from the lab that
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basically said like they only process
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um
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like standard black and white or
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something i i'm honestly not too much
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familiar with the black and white film
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terminology and all that it was either
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reversal or non-reversal and they had to
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process it and whatever
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they normally do for like color film
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just with the black and white chemicals
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um which honestly it didn't really
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matter that much
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so
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long story short got the black and white
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footage back super happy with this we
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did a lot of experimenting with
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flashing lights
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um kind of making it like a strobe
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effect like a horror scene
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and
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yeah we just did more fashion
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experimenting this was kind of like
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us just wanting to make sure that there
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would be enough light
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in hindsight there probably wasn't
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enough light but that also made the
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footage come out that much better so
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definitely not mad about it it's really
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a grungy look and once i kind of
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boosted the exposure a little and added
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like a a curve
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i think it looked it looked pretty cool
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to me
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um i'll put in the this little like
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advertisement for the clothing that i
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was working on i'll put that in right
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here so you can see how it looks
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to me that was like really really cool
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just
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putting the pieces together between
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um the model shots the shots of the
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clothing by itself the shots with me in
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it the thomas shot just putting
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everything together with the song too
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with the beat in the back
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my friend funk is free on instagram i'll
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link him below he made that beat and
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it's it just brought the whole entire
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piece together so super grateful for
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that really happy with how that project
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turned out and
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yeah i just couldn't be couldn't be
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happier with how all the the color came
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out the black and white came out and
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really i'm just excited to start
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shooting a lot lot more 16 millimeter
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film because this has just opened up my
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eyes to the possibilities
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and
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yeah now i'm
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i'm just ready to go so if you have any
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questions
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if you like the video make sure to leave
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a like and a comment
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if you have anything like that don't
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hesitate to reach out to me on instagram
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matt underscore maloney i'll link that
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in the description as well
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but yeah like thanks so much for
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watching i hope you guys enjoyed hope
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this was
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um educational and that it uh inspires
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you to go out and you know shoot some 16
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millimeter film so thanks so much for
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watching and peace out have a good one
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bye