TAKING STOCK FILM
Emerald Fennell’s Saltburn also passed through the lab, with DOP Linus Sandgren later bringing Noah Baumbach’s upcoming Netflix comedy- drama Jay Kelly to the facility. Fennell also plans to shoot Wuthering Heights – starring Margot Robbie – on film. Meanwhile, in post-production and set for release this year are Wes Anderson’s The Phoenician Scheme , lensed by Bruno Delbonnel, as well as Lynne Ramsay’s comedy-horror Die, My Love , shot by Seamus McGarvey. “The first response you get from producers is about the cost. They’d love to shoot on film but think it’s going to be too expensive,” says Bull. “There’s a misconception that shooting on film will cost an additional half to three-quarters of a million, but many pictures we handle are on sub-$10-million budgets, with the spend with us being less than £100k. The cost of the stock actually exceeds our processing costs.” The Brutalist was notably made for £8 million, including all film processing out of labs in Hungary. “It proves that you don’t need really high studio budgets to shoot on film,” insists Bull. Brady Corbet’s epic was shot using VistaVision, the first in a wave of features in this antique format. Others include Paul Thomas Anderson’s untitled Leonardo DiCaprio drama and two Warner Bros-financed projects: Alejandro González Iñárritu’s untitled 2026 film starring Tom Cruise, photographed by Emmanuel Lubezki, and Yorgos Lanthimos’ forthcoming Bugonia , starring Emma Stone and lensed by Robbie Ryan. “VistaVision offers a bigger area and, creatively, a very shallow depth-of-field, despite using twice as much stock (8- perf versus 4-perf) and incurring twice the processing costs compared to conventional 35mm,” explains Bull. In the age of AI, the creative cachet and even commercial value of shooting on an analogue format could actually
GRAIN OF TRUTH Nosferatu (above), The Brutalist (left) and Oppenheimer (below) giving us the film grain we love to see
increase to sustain film as a niche, but essential part of the filmmaking palette. “Film is the antidote to AI,” Bull says. “It’s probably the only format you can shoot that has the provenance of a true representation of what actually happened in front of the lens. “If people wanted to be really particular about disproving that their work was AI-generated, they’d probably shoot on film,” he continues. “Anything shot digitally can be modified, and evidence of those modifications can be easily suppressed. In contrast, a developed piece of film serves as proof; it can’t be modified or adjusted. It’s a permanent record of that performance that was captured in camera.” It could become a marketing credential to state that a story wasn’t created by AI – although as the tool
seeps further into editing, VFX and colour creation, this will blur. “Certain actors might want audiences to know that the performance they are watching is completely genuine,” Bull suggests. “Therefore, they may want it to be known that it was shot on film and is not some AI-generated incarnation.” Such arguments hark back to the idea of the integrity of film as a medium versus digital’s latent synthetic quality. “Every image shot on film exists in real life. There’s no synthesis. Each frame is different. The beauty of film is that even a static image holds movement, as the grain changes frame by frame.”
A developed piece of film SERVES AS PROOF; it can’t be modified ”
17
DEFINITIONMAGS
Powered by FlippingBook