TAKING STOCK FILM
IN THE DARKROOM Shot on 35mm Kodak film, the processing on All of Us Strangers was by handled by Cinelab
M ore than two decades into the digital cine revolution, and you can reliably predict that over half the nominees for best cinematography at the Oscars will have been shot on film, even if –in volume terms – less than 5% of all releases are now shot on celluloid. A high-water mark was Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer , which was shot on black & white 65mm and IMAX, landing Hoyte van Hoytema the Academy Award. This year, cinematography nominees Maria , The Brutalist and Nosferatu shot film. Six-time nominee Anora shot 35mm, while
digitally photographed Conclave and A Complete Unknown had film grain layered on in post. “This doesn’t suggest that because it’s shot on film it’s a better movie,” stresses Adrian Bull, CEO of Cinelab Film & Digital. “What it absolutely does indicate is that film attracts creativity and, on average, better quality filmmakers. If a production has committed budgets to shooting on film, it’s likely to have just gone through a bit more scrutiny than a digital production.” The pandemic brought feature production to new lows, before the double whammy of the writers’ strikes further impacted the year
2023. But last year, the UK’s only film processing lab processed over five million feet of film, returning to 2019 levels. “2019 was a big year for us,” reports Bull. “We had No Time to Die, which, on its own, shot over a million feet of film. “We’ve seen a steady increase in interest in shooting on film – not just indie productions but higher-profile, higher-budget studio projects too,” he adds. Cinelab processed All of Us Strangers (DOP Jamie Ramsay) and The End We Start From (photographed by Suzie Lavelle), as well as scanning and deliverables for Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things , with processing done in Hungary.
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DEFINITIONMAGS
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