The 'Long Take'

I will have to admit that I was very skeptical that my group and I could produce a 1 minute film from a Bolex camera in one day. When this assignment was presented in class and it was said that it was going to be like a ‘lord of the flies’ type day where we would be asked to fend for ourselves and block, shoot, develop and transfer a film in 4 hours, I was nervous. Once the day of the so titled Long Take came, I was even more nervous then before because I showed up to class and we all immediately began working. I was in group 4, so we ended up having to go out first and help group 2 with their blocking and shooting.  

They ended up using Ethan as an extra and after about 20 minutes of blocking and planning, they had it timed perfectly. Once they shot, we were able to go with them to the dark room and watch them develop their film. That was cool for two reasons, first was because we got to watch to see exactly how to do it before we did it (in case they screwed up, we wouldn’t) and second because it was awesome to see their film images appear onto the strip. Now, I’ve take photography class before in high school and I’ve gotten to see photos hand-processed before, but this was cooler because the images actually came out! In my photography class, I always over exposed the paper, or something happened (user error) in the aperture or shutter speed settings.

When my group and I went out to film, I was the camera person, so I held the Bolex (heavier than it may appear) and tried my best to follow the directions and blocking. It was difficult because we were having the camera as a POV of a stalker and I had to make sure that it looked perfectly. It’s so hard when there is only one chance to get it right and only one chance not screw it up. While we were filming, I could tell that it was going to be good because, I don’t know how (by the grace of god or whoever), but it was the best version of all the run throughs that we had—thank goodness that it was a live take.

During the developing process, I kept having flashbacks of my photography class days where my pictures would come out black, or with no image at all. Luckily, after seeing the dried negative on the projector, it was awesome… The frames flicker a little and I think that was from the camera, but I think it works with what we were doing. It is going to be awesome!

So, all in all, the day turned out to be so much better then I had anticipated. I wish that we had more days to play around with the cameras and then get the immediate gratification of seeing all of our sweat and frustration out on the film. It was a great day!