An Introduction to Working on Film (Real Film!)
There comes a point in everyone’s career where you get an opportunity to work on film, whether 16mm, 35mm or others. Usually this first opportunity comes with incredible excitement and stress. I know it did for me! There are a few different ways of learning how to load or work with film. If it’s within your financial means, there are different short courses you can take at GBCT or NFTS, where the most experienced people will teach you the ins and outs of working with film on a variety of cameras. Another option is to ask a DOP, focus puller or loader to do you a favour and take you to a rental house and pass on their knowledge themselves. I was lucky enough to be taught this way.
My very first experience on 16mm was surreal. A DOP I work with quite regularly asked me to load film on a commercial, but I hadn’t been taught how to load film yet. He very kindly showed me how to load his Sr3 camera, and I spent half a day unloading and loading a magazine with 16mm gash, reading the Sr3 handbook, and watching Sr3 loading YouTube videos until I felt more confident. The next day I was loading 16mm film for his commercial and apart from one jam, it went pretty well. I was so nervous that I might have done it wrong that we asked the lab to let us know ASAP if the footage turned out okay. Thankfully it did.
My love for 16mm film kept growing from there. The focus puller I work with most regularly put me forward for a 16mm indie feature. As we know, a feature film requires a lot more preparation than a commercial. It was daunting at first, but I knew that if I was accompanied by his knowledge and help, I could do it with some practice. We followed our DOP on multiple test days and prep days, which allowed me to practice and grow my confidence before the feature started.
Prepping for a film job is slightly different to digital, because you have extra tests to execute, like scratch tests and steady tests. The consumables list will have some 16mm specific items added to it like a loop to check the gate, orangewood sticks to remove hair from the gate, soft brushes to clean the magazines, a number of empty cans, black bags and cores for unloading, and coolers to keep the stock at a constant temperature as film stock is very sensitive. Back in the day, they used to have dark rooms on the truck to load/unload film, but nowadays it’s mostly done in a tent. So it’s important to have the truck fitted with a table for your load/unload tent, as well as to have a portable table and tent, so you’re able to load/unload on location.
There is much more to film loading than just physically loading film stock into a magazine (commonly known as mags). Because I was working on a long form feature project, the production team pre-ordered about 125 rolls of film stock. It doesn’t make sense to keep all 125 rolls in the truck at same time, so we decided to keep 38 rolls on the truck in coolers to start with - 8 x 250D and 30 x 500T - and the rest could stay at the lab until we needed them. The type of stock needed is an ongoing discussion with the DOP. As a loader you need to make sure you always have the amount and type of stock available that your DOP wants to shoot with. To achieve this, it is good practice to inform them of what’s available each morning, and ask what they would want to shoot with during the week. Once you have that information, you can check the truck to see if you have enough. If you don’t, you will need to email the lab and production team to organise a stock delivery to location. As always, anticipation, organisation and discipline are essential.
It is important to have a system for the shoot. Don’t hesitate to ask your focus puller or fellow loaders what their system is, which is what I did prior to the job. Once you have your system in place, you’re good to go. I had a corner of the truck for my loading station where I had four A4 popper wallets: one for daily inventory sheets, one for short end inventory sheets, one for lab report sheets, and one for on-set custom made camera report sheets. In my corner was my tent for loading/unloading. I also had a drawer that held my folder, where I kept all 4 documents mentioned above organised by filming day. Below my drawer, I had a shelf with one 250D and one 500T cooler, a short end box and an unloading box. Hanging off the table under the tent, I had my rolls of tape to correctly label the mags (black for exposed, white for short ends and different colours to distinguish 250D from 500T rolls). Behind me, I had two boxes of empty cans, bags and cores. Being organised this way meant that I could work quickly and efficiently, but of course this is not the only way to do it. Everyone works differently and has their own organisational tricks.
As briefly mentioned above, to keep track of the stock you have on your truck and how much you have shot on already, you must fill out daily film inventory sheets, short end inventory sheets, and lab reports. Every morning after unloading the truck, thoroughly cleaning the tent and the mags, and loading the film that had been asked for, I proceeded to fill out these daily reports and send them to the relevant people in production, once completed. This helped me massively and allowed me to keep myself organised and prepared for any day and to never run out of stock.
You must be thinking: where’s the trainee in all of this? Well, if the budget allowed it, there would have been a Central Loader (who is the one loading/unloading, taking care of the paperwork, organising deliveries and equipment exchanges, and essentially being the person working between production and set), a 2nd AC, and also a Trainee. However, on this feature film, there wasn’t enough budget for a Central Loader, so our Trainee had to take on the responsibilities of a 2nd AC when I was busy loading/unloading on the truck. So whilst I was spending all this time in the truck with the stock, paperwork and emails, our Trainee was busy keeping things running on set with the focus puller. These responsibilities include doing the clapper board, changing batteries, assisting with changing camera set ups, marking the actors’ positions, keeping an eye on the film counter, and so on. It’s a big step up and luckily our Trainee rose up to the challenge beautifully! Once I got back to set, our Trainee resumed their Trainee responsibilities and ended the day finishing up lab reports and sending them to the production.
Working with film is fascinating and definitely an experience you should have at least once in your life. This is only a small part of what working with film is like, there is so much more to delve into on this subject, but hopefully it gives you a preliminary idea of what’s expected. Keep asking, keep learning, go for it and enjoy every second of working on film. It is truly wonderful!
All photography courtesy of Léa Aubigne.
