One-Minute One-Shots

Below are the 4 one-shots created by the Spring07 6X1 class.

By one-shot, we mean that the film is composed of only one shot with not even in-camera editing. The film begins when the camera starts rolling and ends when the camera stops rolling.









For this assignment, students used 16mm Bolex cameras and some hi-contrast film. The Bolex cameras are hand-wound, rather than battery powered and each wind has roughly 28 seconds. Since this class is all about making one-minute films and this assignment was all about a one-minute take, we had to cheat a little.

We slowed the frame rate of the Bolex to half the normal frame rate. This meant that when projected, the film would play twice the normal speed but it also meant that we could shoot for a full minute because the camera wind was running at half the speed.

Then, we processed the hi-con film using a red safelight. f4 and f5.6 seemed to yeild the best results for the sunny mid-afternoon light with which we had to work.

Then, the film was transferred to video. As I mentioned, the film ran twice as fast in the projector, so we had to slow it down to half the speed in Final Cut Pro. Also, since the film was processed as a negative, we also had to invert (or change to a positive) the video transfer.

Enjoy!