Shows Shot On 16mm

Help!

I'm trying to find a list of all current network (and cable) episodic programming being shot on 16mm.

Anyone out there have ideas as to how to get a quick reference?

Thanks for the help.

Tom Camarda
LA DP
www.tomcamarda.net

>I'm trying to find a list of all current network (and cable) episodic >programming being shot on 16mm.

"Sex and the City" was shot on 16mm, I think it might have been S16 but I'm not sure. A lot of shows doing 16 are doing S16 to make them more valuable in re-runs when the HD TVs come in.

Mik Cribben - Steadicam operator
NYC. Miami

Mik Cribben writes :

> "Sex and the City" was shot on 16mm

For a few years, then switched to 35mm. The DP was on CML around the time of the switch.

John Thomas, I think it was.

Jeff Kreines

John Pytlak posted a link to a Kodak article in another thread that talked about 'One Tree Hill' being shot on S16. Also (tho not a currently running show), the first 2 seasons of Buffy were shot on 16.

Looked better in 16 in my opinion...

Ross McWhannell
DP/VFX. Leeds, UK

Hi,

I don't know if it'll be of interest to you, but anything you get from the UK that was shot on film is liable to be 16. Couldn't guarantee any specific instances but it's a starting point.

Phil Rhodes
Video camera/edit
London

>For a few years, then switched to 35mm. The DP was on CML around >the time of the switch.

Hi Jeff,

That doesn't sound right to me. John Thomas was on the CML (perhaps still is?) and was shooting 16mm when he posted a question about diffusion filters. Terry Stacey and Florian Ballhaus were also shooting alternating episodes with John.

I was at Silvercup Studios when they were shooting what must have been the last or next to last season and I could be wrong but if recollection serves, they were shooting 16mm then.

Best Regards,

Anders Uhl
Cinematographer
ICG, New York

Jeff Kreines wrote :

>"Sex and the City" was shot on 16mm for a few years, then switched to >35mm.

That is incorrect. Sex and the City was shot on S16 for its entire run.

Some current shows on S16 (nobody shoots on straight 16 anymore) that I can quickly recall are :

Gilmore Girls
One Tree Hill
Malcolm in the Middle
Tru Calling (could be 35mm for the coming season, not sure)
The OC
Monk
Dead Zone
Scrubs

Note that One Tree HIll and Gilmore Girls are both posted and aired in HD - as will Tru Calling, The OC, and Malcolm be this coming season. There are likely a few more that are slipping my mind at the moment.

Mike Most
VFX Supervisor
IATSE Local 600
Los Angeles

I've heard a rumour that "Third Watch" is switching to S16 this season (they were S35 with some S16 mixed in before.) And I hear that "The Dead Zone" is switching to 24P HD.

David Mullen, ASC
Los Angeles

Sex and the City was processed at Technicolor East Coast (New York City), and it was always 16mm.

Jose Llufrio
Chemist
Technicolor East Coast, Inc.

Jose Llufrio-Ortega wrote :

>Sex and the City was processed at Technicolor East Coast (New York >City), and it was always 16mm.

My mistake. The info was from the DP, who perhaps was testing 35mm, but it wasn't a done deal. The posts are
somewhere on CML.

Jeff Kreines

Thanks guys!

This should help me convince the producers to shoot on
film instead of the SDX-900.

Tom Camarda

Sex and the City considered switching to 35mm before their next to last season. In the end they decided to stick with Super-16.

Mitch Gross
NYC DP

I find that fascinating. My GF watches Sex and the City constantly and it never even crossed my mind. The OC too...wow. In my experience in shooting S16 on Indies and student films, I never was able to pull as clean an image from any sort of fast stocks as sex and the city has. If your on a nice slow stock, no problem.

I'm still a fan regardless.

Any knowledge on the type of camera and glass used on these shows?

Chris Sargent
Dir/DP
Toronto

For the first four seasons, S&tC shot on Aaton XTRProd cameras with Canon zooms and Zeiss primes. In the final two seasons they switched to Arri SR3 cameras but I don't know about what glass. Then John Thomas posted here about filters he also later asked (or perhaps asked elsewhere) about other options in S-16 zooms since he was getting a chance to shoot some tests and explore options.

I know they had an A-minima on set when it first came out. One Steadicam op joked that the camera was so small that they could put it on the sled along with the main camera and get double coverage.

Mitch Gross
NYC DP

Chris Sargent wrote :

>In my experience in shooting S16 on Indies and student films, I never >was able to pull as clean an image from any sort of fast stocks as sex >and the city has.

You were also never able to transfer to video from the original
negative on a Spirit, and you probably were never able to shoot 7279 or 7218.

Mike Most
VFX Supervisor
IATSE Local 600
Los Angeles

I've shot 79 and X-fer'd on the spirit w/S16 at least 5 times, all with good results. But I wasn't fooling anybody with those low lit interiors. It still always had a quality inherent to itself. A great quality, but never was able to shed that structure completely off the map.

Shows what a good crew and lights will give you.

Chris Sargent
Dir/DP
Toronto

The Kodak Entertainment Imaging website often has articles about Super-16 productions.

Just go to the website at http://www.kodak.com/go/16mm and use the "Search Cinematography" search tool in the lower left hand side with keywords like the "Title of the Production" or "Cinematographer's Name".

John Pytlak
Eastman Kodak Company
http://www.kodak.com/go/motion