Entries Tagged 'Film Cameras' ↓

Film follows uphill battle of poor Memphis football team

Updated Wed. Sep. 14 2011 7:12 AM ET

Sheri Block, CTVNews.ca Staff

If you’re surprised by the emotional impact of “Undefeated,” a documentary about a high school football team in inner-city Memphis, you’re not alone — directors Dan Lindsay and T.J. Martin are too.

The film began as a project about a promising young player with the chance of a college scholarship, but turned into an emotional documentary about an underdog team and their steadfast coach.

“We kind of knew going into it that the stakes were high enough, that’s why we chose to make the film. but I don’t think we could have ever expected the things to happen that happened,” says Lindsay during a chat Tuesday morning at TIFF.

“There were moments where we were filming where we had to put down our cameras. Several moments I had to go collect myself because I was just sobbing and trying to keep the camera straight while we were filming. the discoveries that we made on film were just as surprising to us as they are for the audience.”

Martin and Lindsay, who worked together on Lindsay’s 2008 documentary “Last Cup: Road to the World Series of Beer Pong,” first heard about the Manassas Tigers after reading a newspaper article about O.C. Brown. Brown was a left offensive tackle from an impoverished home who moved in with the team’s offensive lineman coach (and his well-to-do white family) to get help with his school work and improve his grades.

The filmmakers thought a kid straddling two very different worlds would make an interesting story, but it wasn’t long after arriving at Manassas High School in Memphis that they realized the heart of the story was volunteer coach bill Courtney.

“Bill told us the history, that he came there six years ago and there were 17 players. their jerseys were 20 years old and they hadn’t won a game in forever. he said he just fell in love with these kids and started helping build a program and we thought, ‘That’s incredible,’” says Lindsay.

“We went with the purpose of documenting a certain moment in time and we actually kind of caught something even bigger than that.”

The result is a look at the Manassas Tigers’ 2009 season as they try to make the playoffs — a feat the team had never been able to accomplish in its 110-year history.

As well as struggling on the field, the documentary gives a glimpse of the uphill battle these kids face in their personal lives (there’s a better chance they’ll end up in jail than college) and how Coach Courtney sets out to turn them around — along with his football program.

“Sports don’t change lives. It’s the people that are involved in the kids’ lives that change lives,” says Martin.

Now that “Undefeated” is complete, the filmmakers say they still can’t believe it is showing at TIFF.

“Eight months ago we were sitting in an editing room by ourselves wondering if anybody was ever going to see this… and to now be here to show it to a sold-out audience (is incredible). People have been very, very generous towards us with the film and so far it’s just been an amazing experience,” says Lindsay.

Comparisons to the “The Blind Side,” which earned Sandra Bullock an Oscar for her portrayal of a privileged woman who adopts a homeless football player, are inevitable. but Martin wants people to know that the two films are very different.

“I think there are emotional comparisons to it because it’s a hyper emotional kind of film, and I think by nature it taking place in the south and football and the race dynamics… there are similarities. but it’s a different film, a different experience.”

Mamiya Professional C330, (c. 1970)
Mamiya 500 DTL Mamiya, (c. 1970)

As well as several lenses for both cameras, including a telephoto lens for the 500 DTL.

Those are fine cameras:

keh.com/OnLineStore/ProductLi…

The 500 DTL about $30.

I'm not sure about the 'professional', but the 500 DTL shouldn't be too much. sorry, not for sale, but I actually have that one. I got mine for free because it was my great great uncle's (I think). however, I doubt it costs much because of its limit of 1/500 shutter speed (hence the name) and lack of other features. the one good thing it does have is ability to switch between average and spot metering. I'm not sure, maybe you know all of this and it's why you're looking for it, but I wouldn't pay more than a hundred (preferably a lot less) for it. if you see one more than that, pass unless you're a serious collector and can't find it elsewhere.

[edit]
Ah, selling…Yeah, not as much options there, because you have to compete. sixty maximum, then…by the way, I don't know what the thumbs-down was for. I was stating my personal limit for it; that wasn't an average market price.
[end edit]

50p from car boot or look on ebay

I saw Mamiya C330 going for about $30 on ebay. I was shocked as I had one to sell but after seeing the low prices decide to trade it for some ammo instead.

What temperature is right to store professional camera film at? will a normal household fridge do?

keep itin the fridge and it should be fine

I keep all of my film in tightly tied plastic bags with the air taken out and in the refrigerator. I leave the film out for about 5-6 hours (or overnight) at room temperature before using. I've never had any issues or problems, and they DO store for a very, very, very long time. good luck and best wishes.

Hi

All info about unexposed and exposed, and many other… in 1st link below (applies to all brands' professional films – whether transparency or negative)

Second link is for 1 of chosen Fuji film (as I wrote above all brands' specifications are much similar or the same like Fuji – I used Kodak same way as Fuji – stored it for years, even after exposing (oops), and if something really bad happened it was only after I made a mistake (oops 2nd time))

I hope the addresses and info in it clarify everything and answer your question

Best regards

Wrap it in tinfoil and keep it in the fridge! use before sell by date!

keep it in a dark cool place below room temperature

By Julie Steinberg DisneySita, the cheetah mother, stands guard over her cubs

Nature films used to be dry, boring affairs with Ben Stein-esque narrators who themselves struggled to stay awake. Not anymore: Studios are using technological developments and a new cinematic paradigm to draw in younger audiences.

Disney’s latest, “African Cats,” follows two families on the Kenyan plains: one lion pride struggling to stave off invasion from its enemies, and one fierce cheetah mother (“Tiger Mom” has nothing on her), determined to raise her cubs alone. Speakeasy chatted with nature documentarian and co-director Keith Scholey about the film.

The Wall Street Journal: How do you craft a narrative like this? How long did you shoot for and did you know in advance what you wanted the story to be?

Keith Scholey: We shot just over two years. the tricky bit was finding who we were going to follow because there are lots of lions and cheetahs near the Mara River. We knew Sita [the cheetah mother] from the past, and we knew she was an experienced mother. with the lions, you can very easily make a boring lion film if you follow a stable pride. We wanted to show the social dynamic when a lion pride gets taken over. What would happen to Layla, an injured lioness, and her cub Mara?

We operated with very small teams that got up early and followed the lions all day. There was a natural narrative that progressed so we selected the footage that told that narrative — we had no idea where it was going to go. We expected Layla to get better, but she took a few more blows, and she just went downhill and died. We had to go with that story. you don’t want your star to die halfway through the film, but then Mara became our story.

How close do you get to the animals? What was the extent of your interaction?

There’s a huge density of cats in the reserve. all tourists travel in vehicles. Animals become  habituated and start to ignore the vehicles. As long as you stay in the car, you’ll stay safe and the animals will stay safe. We always adapt our vehicles to carry our camera kit and all the filming is done from them. you don’t get closer than 20 meters is our role. But you don’t even need to be that close — you can get very tight shots from being far away.

Some of the critics have said that the film anthropomorphized too much. How do you strike a balance between ascribing human qualities and depicting the animals as they are?

They’ve missed the point. What you see is what happened; we just documented the events.  I’ve been following these cats for many years and they do have their own personalities. I’ve never come across a cheetah quite so gung-ho as Sita. whether you call that bravery, or courage, or whatever, we just followed these animals and played out their stories. It’s an authentic narrative. obviously you have to simplify things, but we could never have scripted Mara getting adopted by the rest of the pride [after Layla died].

Was naming the animals both a narrative tool and one to help the audience better sympathize — or understand — their plight?

It was really important you that identify with an individual. when I drive around and see an adult cat, I think, “wow, you must have a great story because I know what you’ve been through to get here.” if you make it generic, “cheetahs do this,” you somehow don’t get the impact of what the individual has to do. There were successful and unsuccessful cheetahs. Sita was successful — only one in 20 cheetah cubs get through. She raised three.

We’re quite careful with what we ascribe to the animal and what we leave for you to make your own mind up about. I have a PhD in zoology — I grew up in scientific circles. So I know the boundaries between what we can say and what we can’t. when the pride adopted Mara, they weren’t planning this adoption, but there’s this communal thing that goes on in prides. We had to try to describe what happened for a general audience.

You’ve been doing this for decades, but is it still hard to prevent from yourself from interfering when you see an injured lion, for example?

Everything in your heart tells you to get involved. Everything in your brain tells you not get involved. It’s a tug of war. Sita lost two of her five cubs to hyenas. She was calling for them early one morning and we knew there was a problem. one of the camera crew had been following those cubs every minute since they were tiny furballs. But you have to be an observer.

Do you have a favorite great cat and spot you’ve shot them? Where haven’t you been to that you’d like to see?

They’re all just kind of amazing. I’ve personally spent a lot of time with cheetahs. I have a real soft spot for them. But I could watch a lion pride happily for the rest of the day until I die. the Mara is certainly an incredible place.  it will take you a month to see elsewhere in Africa what you’ll see in the Mara in a day.  I’m about to go up to the Grand Canyon; I’m in Arizona right now. I’m looking forward to seeing that.

Tell me about the technological developments that enabled you to get such crisp cinematography.

I think technology really came to us. We arrived at just the right moment. Sony has this new camera called the F23, a video camera designed to shoot cinema. it does the same as 35 mm film. the technical thing is it has a small sensor which basically gives you three times the magnification than you would normally get with 35mm. with big lenses, you get 3x more power for your punch. We shot most of the film off-speed — we slowed everything down.

There’s a helicopter-stabilized camera for the aerial shots called a Cineflex. We put one on the back of a truck for many of the tracking shots, which gave the film a more cinematic feel. That worked really well. the soundtrack gives it a lot of impact as well.

What does that mean for future nature films? it seems like the way to draw in a younger audience is to provide them with that vivid picture.

Technology will continue to help us. But I think the real change for natural history to survive in this media environment is to be more cinematic and use a more of the normal dramatic storytelling techniques that are common to drama and film. We tried to employ that here. There’s no doubt that very strong storytelling, not just from the narrative but storytelling with music, with how you grade images, all of that will become far more important.

The key point with all this is if we fail to draw in the audiences, we’re not helping the natural world at all. at the end of the day, going back to the criticism we discussed, the question I would put to the critics is if you’re going to draw new audiences and excite them with nature, which is a crucial step of conservation, what else would you do?