I know this is a Digital forum, but I don't know a better place to turn.

I'm thinking of shooting some 16mm film for a change to my Canon XL1. I have som simple questions though. Perhaps our more experienced cinematographers would like to help?

How long in a TIME scale is 1 meter/feet of 35mm film?
How long in a TIME scale is 1 meter/feet of 16mm film?

Where you live and last time you bought film. How expensive
was it?

Anything special I would need to know beforehand?

You do know from reading Robert Rodriguez's book to transfer
the film after shooting from the negative directly to a positive
video tape, right?

Plenty of web sites about film length vs playing time.

16 mm costs about 50 cents per second to buy the stock and get it processed. Figure somewhere around $5 per second for finished film if you are lucky. $35mm is way more expensive. Way more.

And the cameras rent for a lot of $ and you have to handle the sound with a separate recorder.

Try Super8 if you want to play around. About $25 for 3 minutes (18fps) developed. Still has more resolution and dynamic range than any DV camera. Whole lot cheaper to use.

Super8 is used for some televison commercials.

I agree with shooting super 8 if you just want to try film. Lots of fun and you can do it for peanuts. Pick up a camera on ebay. Send the film to a transfer house. (Some of the labs will do this as part of the developing service).

I will be shooting a short in 35mm this december. We got the filmstock on ebay, from a proco in canada that was unloading it. Got it for less than half price. It was a steal. Sending the ends to the lab for testing, but I am certain they will be fine.

Shooting film, even super 8, helps build discipline and pre-vis skills.

Have fun!

Andreas:

To answer your first question, which is a bit exotic:

1 foot of 35mm 4 perf film running at 24 fps is .6 seconds on screen.

1 foot of 16mm running at 24 fps is 1.7 seconds on screen..