no.w.here- Learning to work with 16mm

Today we went to no.w.here in Bethnal Green which is a creative space for experimental filmmakers. They do a lot of work with chemical film and this is what we learnt to use. The day began with a masterclass in how to use the Bolex cameras and then we split into groups and went out to film 3 minutes worth of 16mm footage around the area. This was really fun and it gave me a whole new perspective on filming as we had to take time to consider exactly what we wanted to shoot because it used valuable film, as opposed to shooting on digital, where there is a great deal more space for footage. Shooting on film also means we couldn't review the footage we had shot, so it will be interesting to see how the footage came out. We also had to work together to make sure that everyone had their time to use the camera. In the end, it ended up being more of collaborative effort than we had first intended, as we were giving each other ideas and helping each other with both the camera and the light metering. Below is a video of us drying out the black and white film after James had given us a demonstration of how it is developed.