To any movie maker, the choice of what filmstock to use is such an important decision. Think of it in similar terms to an artist choosing not just a colour palette, but also what brushes, canvas and painting style all at the same time. Film emulsions vary quite considerably in what results they produce, so let’s explore the reasons why this is the case.

Negative or Reversal

This decision usually tends to be impacted not only by what result you’d like but also what workflow is best suited to your budget and abilities.

Negative film produces exactly what it sounds like – a negative image, one in which black becomes white and white becomes black, etc. The relationship between colours is also reversed as ‘opposite’ or complimentary colours are produced. The effect of this is that you can’t project or directly watch a camera negative; either a print must be made from the original which reverses the tonal/colour balance, or a digital scan which corrects the images digitally for viewing.

Reversal film produces a watchable image, and is ideal for direct projection. The downside to reversal film is that it’s inherent high contrast (which makes it look great) means that making prints from it is harder to do – hence why the movie industry adopted negative film en masse. For an amateur or semi-professional however, reversal is a serious contender as the inherent high quality of reversal stocks can mean a very attractive look for comparatively less outlay in film. Generally speaking, reversal film tends to have stronger, richer colour, higher contrast, less grain and higher sharpness.

Fast or Slow Film

A good rule of thumb is to always use the slowest film you can get away with for the given conditions. Faster film almost always has more grain and less sharpness, and unless that’s the look in particular you’re after, higher quality will result from using a slow film stock.

Using a faster stock may be quite handy when you don’t have control over the lighting, and want to make sure you get as much depth of field as possible. Films these days can range from anything between 40 asa to 3200 asa, so have a good look to see what’s currently on the market.

Type A? Daylight?

If you’ve learnt about colour temperature, then you’ll know that daylight is a lot more blue than tungsten lighting. Our eyes adjust to compensate, so white stays white (and not blue or yellow), but film doesn’t.

For indoor use with halogen lights, you need Type A film.

For outdoor use with daylight, or indoor use with daylight-balanced flourescent lighting, you want Daylight film.

If you really want to use a type of filmstock with light it wasn’t designed for, you can use filters; 85A or 85B converts daylight into light suitable for Type A film, and an 80A filter will let you use daylight film indoors. There will be a loss of speed though, especially with a blue 80A filter.

Colour or Black and White

Not much to say on this issue that you can’t really figure out for yourself – if you really want colour, use colour film. You can digitally edit colour film to make it black and white, but the look won’t be the same. Genuine black and white film has a very distinct look that cannot be replicated, and has some nice advantages that you may not have known about. Because there is no need for colour chemistry, it’s a lot easier to DIY process, and the processing itself is a lot less dependent on bath temperatures. People have DIY processed black and white film in the middle of the antarctic and still got great results.

Black and white film can be found in both negative and reversal forms, though reversal is getting scarce these days. Use it before it’s gone!

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