Film

The differences between film and digital footage begins with the camera. Film is digitalizing. Less and less are movies shot with film. Instead movie begin and end with digital cameras and editing. However, knowing about the history of film is valuable for anyone interested in cinematography.

Breaking down the Camera 

• The lens-as you knows deals with light. The lens can be either a zoom or primary lens. The place where the lens attaches to the camera is called the lens mount.  

• The viewfinder-is where you see the image the camera is capturing. Before digital cameras and their nice screens, the viewfinder was the indicator of what was within frame. 

•  The film chamber-where the film is exposed to light and the image is created.  The mechanics within the film chamber

• The film gate-has two plates which hold the film in place when it's exposed to light. The aperture plate and the pressure plate. 
• Aperture plate-the aperture is a little square where the light comes through and hits the film. So the aperture plate is where the aperture is. 
• Pressure plate-holds the film against the aperture plate. Film has to be steady while exposed to light otherwise the image will be blurry. 
• Claw and Sprocket wheel-these hook into the little ridges (perforations) along the edge of film and move it through the film chamber.

• Intermittent- movement is not continuous, but stop-start. Film has to stop before the aperture for exposure. Loops are formed so that each frame has it's moment before the aperture. 

• Shutter- blocks light while frames moves into place. If this pause does not happen then the image will be blurred and possibly overexposure can occur. In the case of a circular shutter the angle is what effects exposure time. So a narrow angle, less than 360 degrees, will reduce the time of exposure. Steven Ascher writes in his Filmmakers Hand Book that "exposure is the intensity of light that passes through the lens and the time each frame is exposed to light" he provides the formula

"Exposure time (shutter speed) = (1/ speed in fps) x (angle of shutter opening/360)" 

• Stops- the halving and doubling of light intensity. Ashcer explains that “If you close down the lens by one stop you must double the time of exposure to keep exposure consistent.”A stop is "the distance between consecutive f-stop numbers" To understand what a stop is and you need to understand what an f-stop is. 

• f-stop-It's a little tricky at first but the f-stop is the “ratio between the focal length of the lens and it’s diameter (the aperture)". Focal length is how well the lens bends light and the aperture is the little window where the film is exposed for a brief moment to the light. Asher list f-stop numbers as:

1, 1.4, 2, 2.8, 4, 5.6, 8, 11, 16, 22, 32

Editing

I did a very simplified editing workshop with film. Unlike digital footage, everything I shot was on one long roll of film. I couldn't just move things around (nonlinear editing systems) as you can on digital. I had only one roll of film because my movie was three minuets long.

• Cutting-Lucky I shot in a chronological order, but if I hadn't I would need to review my footage and make marks on the film of where cuts were needed. 

• Splicing-After cutting and lying out the film in the desired order, it was time to put every thing back together. I used some splicing tape to stick the two pieces back together. 

This video shows what it looks like to cut and splice film. Splicing Film