16mm Film Production, Roger Hewins
November, 2008
Kinetic Filmmaking:
16mm and the Doors it Opened
Filmmaking is an industry built on conformity, an industry where sameness is encouraged and originality frowned upon as being un-commercial. When one studio launches a Robin Hood film (open domain rights) three others go into pre-production at competing studios. When The Lord of the Rings grosses hundreds of millions worldwide, The Golden Compass gets the green light. When Shrek proves that computer-animation can sell, Hoodwinked, Open Season, Madagascar, and a plethora of others are pushed into production. Ever since its inception as a big-time industry, Hollywood has operated on copying whatever has been done before, on setting up rules of what to make, when to make it, and how to make it, and then forcing everyone who wishes to make movies to conform to these prescribed rules. Not until the advent of a medium other than the prohibitively expensive and cumbersome 35mm could filmmakers outside of Hollywood experiment with their own rules or, more importantly, lack thereof and in doing so make a bid at entering Hollywood on their own terms and with their own, uncompromised vision.
This opportunity came in the form of 16mm (which was preceded by numerous other formats that, for various reasons, never gained the universal acceptance as 16mm) that, in 1923 was introduced to the public by the Eastman Kodak company. This new type of film offered many differences and improvements from what had come before, including decreased flammability, a characteristic 35mm did not embrace until the 1950s. Most important, however, to the avant-garde filmmaker were the two big Ms that came with 16mm: money and mobility.
35mm film was, and remains to this day, notoriously expensive, far too expensive for amateurs to get on board [1]. This alone made it utterly impossible for any but the most affluent amateurs to make their own films, and certainly it was out of the hands of common but inspired enthusiasts. So with the introduction of an affordable alternative to the industry standard, the first and biggest hurdle could be vaulted. Now filmmaking was within the reach of the common man, with clubs and societies springing up all over the world and thousands of budding filmmakers finally bringing their visions to light in unique and yet-unconsidered ways.
The second M, mobility, brought with it a freedom for the filmmaker that was liberating even to the 35mm auteur whose camera weighed a lot and whose movement was accordingly limited. However, the 16mm was a smaller, lighter piece of equipment that could easily be carried. This dually broadened the horizons of the blossoming independent film movement. Now cameras could be easily moved in unique ways, adding a range of effects to the visual spectrum of the cinematographer. Also, the camera could now be taken in much smaller, more claustrophobic settings where the 35mm would never fit. This second consideration also aided in budgetary concerns because, since an entire set could not be built to cater to the camera, a small, real location would have to suffice. This would work just as well for the aspiring filmmaker, also allowing him to save quite a bit of money.
These advances led to the birth of many film movements and, moreover, introduced many people to the art of film who would never have previously had the opportunity. As the movement grew, so did the world’s recognition of work shot on 16mm, and over the years the artistic and monetary freedom allowed by the use of 16mm has allowed more than a few filmmakers to break into the previously impervious world of mainstream Hollywood film.
In 1996 Christopher Nolan was 26 years old, a recent graduate of University College London and fresh off of several semi-successful short films including Larceny (which played at the Cambridge Film Festival), Tarantella, and, most recently, Doodlebug. But now he was ready to make a feature, more specifically a roughly seventy-page screenplay titled Following that he had written. The budget for the film was next to nothing, standing at about six-thousand dollars, and the crew was similarly small. Often times the entire cast and crew could travel to their shooting location in a single taxi. Nolan shot the entire film himself, using 16mm black and white film stock and filming on weekends over the course of an entire year[2].
The use of 16mm not only allowed Nolan to make a film he would otherwise have been unable to afford, but it also allowed him, stylistically, to paint a psychological picture that would have been much more difficult on 35mm. Following is, by-and-large, shot handheld, with the shaky camera work giving the film an edgy tone and throwing the characters around in an uncertain, jagged mental state. Nolan used his mobility both for the ease of hand-held shooting and also the afore-mentioned ease of shooting in small spaces, as the indoor locations were all places he had access to rather then constructed sets. But despite the small budget, Nolan’s vision was completed for the world to see.
It was based on the success of this micro-budget, chronologically twisted (the timeline of this story is something few studios would have previously wanted to take a chance on) film that Christopher Nolan was given his next job, directing Memento for Newline Cinema. This film also boasted a unique chronology, telling the story from both ends to the middle in a way that probably wouldn’t have been attempted save for the success of Following. With Memento Nolan made a permanent shift into the mainstream, but even moving on to such films as Batman Begins and The Prestige he still shows the signs of his avant garde origins, working within the confines of Hollywood’s rules only so far as it suits his purposes and being, overall, one of the most successful directors of our time.
Another director to come out of the experimental film movement, with somewhat more limited success, was David Lynch. Lynch grew up in a very artistic environment, with his first short film being a 1-minute loop that ran at an art exhibit and was titled Six Men Getting Sick and self-described as “57-second of growth and fire, and three second of vomit.” After his second short The Alphabet, Lynch turned more definitely away from his origins in fine art and more towards his new passion of film, but took with him a very distinct and impressionistic aesthetic. Needless to say, his early films were nothing like what Hollywood was or would ever produce, and were, like Nolan’s first feature, shot on tiny budgets and made with the affordable 16mm[3].
Lynch continued his film experimentation with The Grandmother, a silent film that told the story strictly through visuals and relied heavily on sound cues, a characteristic that Lynch would take with him throughout his career. His short films display a wide range of experimentation, including animation, silent, single-shot films, and eclectic mixes thereof. The film Eraserhead, Lynch’s first feature, was released in 1977 (after, originally, being deemed “unreleasable”) and signaled his rise to prominence. Stanley Kubrick said it was one of his favorite films and, while never rising beyond that status of ‘cult’ film, it opened the door for Lynch’s next film while unknowingly setting the pattern for Lynch’s career.
Unlike Nolan, David Lynch never shifted far away from his roots, making films that continued to be visually confusing and aesthetically heavy, Artaudian films that had more to do with the feel and experience than with the story and its coherence. Despite 4 Oscar nominations and numerous other awards, David Lynch never moved into the mainstream, instead remaining somewhat in limbo, with Hollywood studios financing his films, but with those films rarely finding a very large audience . But the fact that the films are financed at all demonstrates the power and influence of his work, the undeniability of its merit, even if the populace at large would rather watch something else.
These days digital video is gradually beginning to supplant 16mm and even, with the new Red One camera, the 35mm. Whether it’s better or worse is another topic (and the debate rages on) but the position occupied by either medium remains the same. It facilitates the outside filmmaker who wishes to express his own vision rather than a watered-down version that has been run through the machine of Hollywood. 16mm allows that vision to be actualized, and provides more than enough quality for some of those filmmakers to use it as a springboard to make the leap from there to Hollywood. For others, it is enough to make their films the way they want and remain in anonymity, working happily with little money and a little camera.
Bibliography
www.saunalahti.fi. History of sub-35 mm Film Formats & Cameras. Retrieved 28 October 2008.
Christophernolan.net. The Making of the ‘Following.’ Last Updated 06/06/2002. Retrieved 28 October 2008.
McGowan, Todd. The Impossible David Lynch. Columbia University Press. 1 March 2007.
Lynch, David. Lynch on Lynch, revised edition. Faber & Faber. 24 March 2005.
Following. Dir. Christopher Nolan. Perf. Jeremy Theobald, Alex Haw, Lucy Russell, John Nolan. 1998. DVD. Next Wave Films.
The Short Films of David Lynch. Dir. David Lynch. Perf. Richard White, Dorothy McGinnis, Virginia Maitland, Robert Chadwick. 2008. DVD. Absurdia.
Movies in the Home. Brian Coe, 1981. Historical Overview of Home Movie Technology.
November, 2008
Kinetic Filmmaking:
16mm and the Doors it Opened
Filmmaking is an industry built on conformity, an industry where sameness is encouraged and originality frowned upon as being un-commercial. When one studio launches a Robin Hood film (open domain rights) three others go into pre-production at competing studios. When The Lord of the Rings grosses hundreds of millions worldwide, The Golden Compass gets the green light. When Shrek proves that computer-animation can sell, Hoodwinked, Open Season, Madagascar, and a plethora of others are pushed into production. Ever since its inception as a big-time industry, Hollywood has operated on copying whatever has been done before, on setting up rules of what to make, when to make it, and how to make it, and then forcing everyone who wishes to make movies to conform to these prescribed rules. Not until the advent of a medium other than the prohibitively expensive and cumbersome 35mm could filmmakers outside of Hollywood experiment with their own rules or, more importantly, lack thereof and in doing so make a bid at entering Hollywood on their own terms and with their own, uncompromised vision.
This opportunity came in the form of 16mm (which was preceded by numerous other formats that, for various reasons, never gained the universal acceptance as 16mm) that, in 1923 was introduced to the public by the Eastman Kodak company. This new type of film offered many differences and improvements from what had come before, including decreased flammability, a characteristic 35mm did not embrace until the 1950s. Most important, however, to the avant-garde filmmaker were the two big Ms that came with 16mm: money and mobility.
35mm film was, and remains to this day, notoriously expensive, far too expensive for amateurs to get on board [1]. This alone made it utterly impossible for any but the most affluent amateurs to make their own films, and certainly it was out of the hands of common but inspired enthusiasts. So with the introduction of an affordable alternative to the industry standard, the first and biggest hurdle could be vaulted. Now filmmaking was within the reach of the common man, with clubs and societies springing up all over the world and thousands of budding filmmakers finally bringing their visions to light in unique and yet-unconsidered ways.
The second M, mobility, brought with it a freedom for the filmmaker that was liberating even to the 35mm auteur whose camera weighed a lot and whose movement was accordingly limited. However, the 16mm was a smaller, lighter piece of equipment that could easily be carried. This dually broadened the horizons of the blossoming independent film movement. Now cameras could be easily moved in unique ways, adding a range of effects to the visual spectrum of the cinematographer. Also, the camera could now be taken in much smaller, more claustrophobic settings where the 35mm would never fit. This second consideration also aided in budgetary concerns because, since an entire set could not be built to cater to the camera, a small, real location would have to suffice. This would work just as well for the aspiring filmmaker, also allowing him to save quite a bit of money.
These advances led to the birth of many film movements and, moreover, introduced many people to the art of film who would never have previously had the opportunity. As the movement grew, so did the world’s recognition of work shot on 16mm, and over the years the artistic and monetary freedom allowed by the use of 16mm has allowed more than a few filmmakers to break into the previously impervious world of mainstream Hollywood film.
In 1996 Christopher Nolan was 26 years old, a recent graduate of University College London and fresh off of several semi-successful short films including Larceny (which played at the Cambridge Film Festival), Tarantella, and, most recently, Doodlebug. But now he was ready to make a feature, more specifically a roughly seventy-page screenplay titled Following that he had written. The budget for the film was next to nothing, standing at about six-thousand dollars, and the crew was similarly small. Often times the entire cast and crew could travel to their shooting location in a single taxi. Nolan shot the entire film himself, using 16mm black and white film stock and filming on weekends over the course of an entire year[2].
The use of 16mm not only allowed Nolan to make a film he would otherwise have been unable to afford, but it also allowed him, stylistically, to paint a psychological picture that would have been much more difficult on 35mm. Following is, by-and-large, shot handheld, with the shaky camera work giving the film an edgy tone and throwing the characters around in an uncertain, jagged mental state. Nolan used his mobility both for the ease of hand-held shooting and also the afore-mentioned ease of shooting in small spaces, as the indoor locations were all places he had access to rather then constructed sets. But despite the small budget, Nolan’s vision was completed for the world to see.
It was based on the success of this micro-budget, chronologically twisted (the timeline of this story is something few studios would have previously wanted to take a chance on) film that Christopher Nolan was given his next job, directing Memento for Newline Cinema. This film also boasted a unique chronology, telling the story from both ends to the middle in a way that probably wouldn’t have been attempted save for the success of Following. With Memento Nolan made a permanent shift into the mainstream, but even moving on to such films as Batman Begins and The Prestige he still shows the signs of his avant garde origins, working within the confines of Hollywood’s rules only so far as it suits his purposes and being, overall, one of the most successful directors of our time.
Another director to come out of the experimental film movement, with somewhat more limited success, was David Lynch. Lynch grew up in a very artistic environment, with his first short film being a 1-minute loop that ran at an art exhibit and was titled Six Men Getting Sick and self-described as “57-second of growth and fire, and three second of vomit.” After his second short The Alphabet, Lynch turned more definitely away from his origins in fine art and more towards his new passion of film, but took with him a very distinct and impressionistic aesthetic. Needless to say, his early films were nothing like what Hollywood was or would ever produce, and were, like Nolan’s first feature, shot on tiny budgets and made with the affordable 16mm[3].
Lynch continued his film experimentation with The Grandmother, a silent film that told the story strictly through visuals and relied heavily on sound cues, a characteristic that Lynch would take with him throughout his career. His short films display a wide range of experimentation, including animation, silent, single-shot films, and eclectic mixes thereof. The film Eraserhead, Lynch’s first feature, was released in 1977 (after, originally, being deemed “unreleasable”) and signaled his rise to prominence. Stanley Kubrick said it was one of his favorite films and, while never rising beyond that status of ‘cult’ film, it opened the door for Lynch’s next film while unknowingly setting the pattern for Lynch’s career.
Unlike Nolan, David Lynch never shifted far away from his roots, making films that continued to be visually confusing and aesthetically heavy, Artaudian films that had more to do with the feel and experience than with the story and its coherence. Despite 4 Oscar nominations and numerous other awards, David Lynch never moved into the mainstream, instead remaining somewhat in limbo, with Hollywood studios financing his films, but with those films rarely finding a very large audience . But the fact that the films are financed at all demonstrates the power and influence of his work, the undeniability of its merit, even if the populace at large would rather watch something else.
These days digital video is gradually beginning to supplant 16mm and even, with the new Red One camera, the 35mm. Whether it’s better or worse is another topic (and the debate rages on) but the position occupied by either medium remains the same. It facilitates the outside filmmaker who wishes to express his own vision rather than a watered-down version that has been run through the machine of Hollywood. 16mm allows that vision to be actualized, and provides more than enough quality for some of those filmmakers to use it as a springboard to make the leap from there to Hollywood. For others, it is enough to make their films the way they want and remain in anonymity, working happily with little money and a little camera.
Bibliography
www.saunalahti.fi. History of sub-35 mm Film Formats & Cameras. Retrieved 28 October 2008.
Christophernolan.net. The Making of the ‘Following.’ Last Updated 06/06/2002. Retrieved 28 October 2008.
McGowan, Todd. The Impossible David Lynch. Columbia University Press. 1 March 2007.
Lynch, David. Lynch on Lynch, revised edition. Faber & Faber. 24 March 2005.
Following. Dir. Christopher Nolan. Perf. Jeremy Theobald, Alex Haw, Lucy Russell, John Nolan. 1998. DVD. Next Wave Films.
The Short Films of David Lynch. Dir. David Lynch. Perf. Richard White, Dorothy McGinnis, Virginia Maitland, Robert Chadwick. 2008. DVD. Absurdia.
Movies in the Home. Brian Coe, 1981. Historical Overview of Home Movie Technology.
