16mm roadtrip

Today's episode is sponsored by Squarespace. Yes, 16mm, the classiest format. The format of the gods. Because it's a little small. Anyway, I was in a bit of a low point with my photography, like usual. I could of course just force myself to go outside and knock out a roll, but I don't know. I'm a man of intensity. Drinking, fighting, kissing, and otherwise. 36 frames might work, but how about 12,000 frames? So, next up on Tim and I's journey to become hard motherfuckers. Tim and I aren't hooking up, by the way. You guys can stop sending me all that fanfiction. I don't read any of it. Anyway, 16mm film is about all I'd be bringing along for this one. A Bolex H16 Rex 3, I believe. I can't remember exactly which model. I bought it a long time ago, when I thought 16mm could become my new personality. But I haven't actually picked it up in a while, because what do you know? I like having money in my bank account for things like food and shelter. So, before we left for New Mexico, I loaded up the Bolex with 100 feet of fresh Vision 3 250D. A very high quality Kodak stock used for some Hollywood productions. But for 16mm, at least it nails that, you know, nostalgic aesthetic. Though obviously at a better quality than something like 8mm. And yeah, I don't know if this was the brand new AHU stuff. So, I don't know. Don't ask me. It's not like they tell you on the box. Whatever. Luckily, I had already showered that week, so I was able to get out the door pretty fast. All right. Good morning. On my way over to Tim's. It's about 9. Hope he's awake. I mean, I texted him. I didn't hear anything, though. He's on do not disturb. What a degenerate. A bit of a colder morning this morning, but it shouldn't be too bad. At least not compared to what we're gonna go through in about a day or so. We're prepared for it, though. Maybe. Got my 16 on the back. Really, my biggest concern with the packing the 16mm on the bike is all the vibrations and rattling. I really hope it doesn't, you know, mess anything up. But I guess we'll see. Anyway, I was on the highway for a total of 0.2 seconds before Caltrans decided to close lanes for maintenance during rush hour again. Love those guys. But eventually, I broke free and made it over to Tim's. What's up? Where he showed me some of his new upgrades. New Mexico wasn't exactly gonna show up on our doorstep, so we broke out of there like two men fleeing prison. We didn't have time to pay the breakfast bill. We had to go. For the ritual of, you know, desert gas station hopping to begin. Only this time, we popped into one that had an ass or two and also a donkey. How often do you get to see El Burro? Other than, like, those shows in Mexico. So I assembled the 16mm to get some footage. Yes, assembled. The lens that I have for the system is the Angenieux 12-120mm 2.6 zoom lens. But don't grow too attached to it like I was. It'll only lead to heartbreak. It's quite a missile. Versatile and sharp amongst other benefits. And no, with a lens this big, I'm not overcompensating for anything. Anyway, I must have tripped the camera putting it back in my bag because there were some black frames for a few seconds. The most expensive black frames I've ever put money down on. Sounds so good. That thing's a f***ing monster, dude. But speaking of putting money down, we need to find a hiding hole for the night as we neared the Arizona border. At least, I don't know, we were making progress. But the desert sometimes feels a little endless. I see why people go crazy living out here. We found a little casino border town, technically in Nevada, and decided to poke around there. There's the nug, baby. Laughlin, which I'd never heard of, but apparently everyone else in the world has. So that shows you how much I live under a rock. Anyway, after witnessing the golden idol itself, the Nugget of God, which was emanating a strange hum that must have been siphoning power from the rest of the resort because practically no lights were on, we parked ourselves up in the room. Why is this whole, I feel like this whole casino is dark as f***. I actually thought this room would be worse. It's not great. But not for too long because the light outside was goldenier than the Nugget of God itself. And it'd be a shame to waste it. Laughlin is a cool little, I guess, kitschy casino town. A one night stay is definitely more than enough. Two nights borders on kind of depressing. This lens is decent in low light, but not a complete photon vacuum at 2.6. So I'll have to find something else to do for the night. Luckily, gambling and alcohol exists. The trick with gambling, of course, is to only ever bet an amount of money that would be financially devastating to lose. But luckily for us, we had a pretty good time and good luck, I guess. At the very least, a good enough time to win enough to cover the room, several hundred drinks and whatever the f*** a resort fee is. $100 up. Time to sleep. It was time to get this hoe of a show on the road and head up to higher elevation, which meant some cold weather in our future. Nice mirror shot. Getting artsy with it, you're such a bitch. For some reason, today was the day we were, I guess, somewhat concerned about temperatures dropping. But, you know, we had no idea what truly awaited us. Today would be a cakewalk, actually, compared to the blitzkrieg of cold we'd get soon. However, we followed our usual playbook for mornings like these. You know, knock out some miles to the next town over and find a spot for breakfast. That way you have some, you know, distance under your belt while you sit around complaining about the pain you're developing in your ass. The Route 66 nostalgia was definitely setting in in no time as we cruised along I-40. We've just spent so much time on that road over the years, it's always a good idea to stop for a, you know, quick blessing from the mother road. And of course, you know, shoot some 16mm to bake the trip into a little bit of celluloid-based nostalgia. You know, once I could get the damn lens on the camera. I f***ing hate C-mount. Anyway, as the sun dropped out of view out there in Holbrook, Arizona, so did the temperatures. It was like almost freezing immediately once the light was gone. So we parked our asses inside a cheap motel for the night. Doesn't smell like piss at least. Not yet. Do they just not plug anything in at hotels? The next morning we had to layer the f*** up with a thick crust of frost caked over everything outside. So yeah, special shout out to the team over at Arc'teryx for kitting me out and keeping me warm on this one. Legitimately could not have done it without them. We're talking thermal pants, thermal shirt, jacket. I was layered up more than an unorganized Photoshop project. As cold was more or less the price of entry into the nearby Petrified Forest National Park. Also, money was the price of entry too. Well, let me get the 16 out at least for a second. Photograph some great American landscapes. I had a run out of 250d and it was time to reload out there on the frontier. Like cowboys reloading their pistols ready for a showdown. Now I'd be making this video a little, you know, drippier and freakier by loading up Some stuff I've had frozen at the back of my freezer for a few years, you know, alongside a century old permafrost lasagna. Retrochrome as a stock is a, is a bit of a tough one. Most people don't like it, but f*** it. I don't like most people. This stuff is just super expired ectochrome that was originally used for, uh, I guess range tests at Area 51 if you believe the lore. Speaking of aliens, it was definitely starting to look like another planet out there as we headed even further into this, you know, treeless forest. Anyway, looking like a thumb because for some reason I thought it'd be a good idea to shave my head prison style before this trip. I pulled out the bolex and shot away and deer flying spaghetti monster in the sky. This stuff looks like wet ass. I don't know. It's just really fried, I guess. The canister that it came in recommends 200 ISO, which is different than the usual 400 ISO for the photographic retrochrome. And you know, I'm not convinced that's really the right call. Believe it or not, watching back that 16 mil retrochrome wouldn't be the worst thing that happens to all of us today. As we ventured into the even colder, more unforgiving wilderness, we crossed into New Mexico for some gas and to shoot some gas on 16 mil. Here we go. It was the usual reminder of why I shouldn't be allowed to have nice things. To my best guess, I must not have secured my camera bag very well after that little pit stop for gas because when you know it, that lens flew the cuckoo's nest and fell out somewhere along that 100 mile crossing on I-40. I definitely was and still am pretty devastated when we arrived at the next stop and it was no longer in my bag. I had a moment where I definitely couldn't believe my eyes. The beautiful piece of glass, the ingenue 12 to 120 millimeter, irreplaceable in just about every sense of the word, definitely a low point for me emotionally but also professionally. I love that lens wholeheartedly. So after I sunk into a deep depression about how I shouldn't really be trusted with anything ever, I figured there was nothing that really could be done and there was no sense in dwelling on it. Eventually, we arrived at Brendan's spot in Albuquerque, bittersweet for sure, but at the very least, there was beer to not only make me forget about the lens but also everything ever. Already drinking. I mean already, it's been like 20 years dude. With no lens but plenty of 16 millimeter film, I started hatching a plan. Like that kid in my school that was rumored to be hatched from an egg. I was wondering if you had any old C-mount lenses in stock in your store? C-mount? C-mount, yeah, like old screw mount C-mount for like 16 millimeter cameras. I don't think I have any. I don't have anything here I don't think that'll fit. Uh hi, I uh was calling to see if you had any any old uh bolex 16 millimeter C-mount lenses. I can check and call you back. Thank you so much, bye. After a few calls around Albuquerque, I might have found one but I'd have to come down the next day to uh to confirm. Yeah dude, it's nice here. They got the best meth in the world. In the meantime, as if I hadn't f***ed up enough already that day, we, and by we I mean Brendan, took a whack at extracting a stripped bolt that I cracked a couple months ago while doing an oil change. Did pretty good, all things considered. The only thing I messed up was stripped a uh bolt right there. You said you stripped it, it f***ing broke. It snapped in half. Holy f***ing s*** man, I was having like stress dreams about getting this bolt out. Was there ever any doubt my man? Yeah, there was a lot. This is like a bullet that a soldier gets out of their chest. Perhaps this was a turning point for me. Things were starting to look up, finally, as we settled in and had a few garage beers and then played with knives. That morning hung over with the reminder that I fumbled my gorgeous Ingenue lens and hung over from alcohol too, I guess. We had our coffee and slipped in some highbrow conversation before the day really got started. Check out my meat. First up, we were headed east to a small camera shop that might have a C-mount lens for me. They actually had several C-mount lenses, but wanted to sell them all together as a kit, you know, bundled with a 16mm camera for a handsome lump sum of money. Let's see, camera and darkroom, okay. Though tempting, there was one loose C-mount lens that could be purchased separately. A 2-inch Wollensak Raptor 3.5, so I shrugged and bought it. Two inches would have to satisfy me for the time being. This lens is equivalent to a 50mm on standard full frame, which it obviously doesn't cover because it was made for a smaller format. 50mm times the crop factor for standard 16mm of about 3.485 equals 175mm when used on the Bolex. This was a long- oh, there's a mosquito in here. I hate that mosquitoes are now a thing in LA. Anyway, this was a long-ass lens, but it was apparently all that was available in Albuquerque. Oh well, beggars can't be choosers, so I guess I'll have to get real comfortable with telephoto for the rest of this. 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Still churning through on that FPP Ashchrom 200 for whatever little it's worth. I do actually like retrochrome in photography form, but this stuff was just, it was deep fried. Hey, how'd that camera get there? Did you just walk through the door? Back at Brendan's, it was time to put in another roll. Maybe something that doesn't look totally nuked. Some Vision 3 500T would probably do the trick, especially in the evening, you know, at blue hour. There was a recent movie that came out called The Smashing Machine. And I remember seeing an article about how it was shot on, I think, 16 millimeter film, but also how the director said that they developed a process to make it IMAX compatible. I don't know. The rumor I heard is that they just denoised 16 millimeter footage to do that. And you know what they say about rumors. They're always true. That kid in my high school probably was hatched from an egg. Kind of sacrilegious to denoise 16 millimeter, if you ask me. The grain is kind of the best part. But for research purposes, purposes, sorry, I guess I got time traveling dolphins whose futures are past on my mind. Here's what my own 16 millimeter looks like, um, denoised. Whatever, we stayed up all night trying to beat Echo the Dolphin, the Tides of Time, which has a totally banging soundtrack. But goddamn, the developers must have been on some really f***ed up substances to make a video game about, you know, an intergalactic dolphin. Speaking of denoising 16 millimeter film, legend has it that ARRI used to have a program that would denoise 16 millimeter footage and add back in some, I guess, simulated 35 millimeter film grain because, I don't know, I guess people were ashamed of shooting 16 millimeter professionally? Or maybe it just looked cheap and the 35 millimeter look made productions appear like they had a more substantial budget. Fake it till you make it, right? I don't know, I can't find anything on the internet about it, so it's probably all speculation, but funny speculation nonetheless. Anyway, that f***ing cosmic dolphin needed to be put in his place again as we slowly learned this game is virtually unbeatable through the sweet embrace of cruel agony. After eating a breakfast slammer that morning, it was time to round things out and return home, but we had something like 800 miles in front of us and if we thought anything up until this point was truly cold, we were surely in for one that day. The first half of this trip was a hot summer day at the beach compared to the bulls*** out here. It was like 20 f***ing degrees and we were so layered up that if we fell off the damn bike we'd bounce off the cement back into low earth orbit. Thankfully Brendan lent me his heated gloves that day, but I'll tell you first hand, pun intended, mother f***er, they definitely helped for sure, you know, keeping my hands just barely above the frostbite line. It was just difficult with the, you know, uncontrollable shivering. Tim and I didn't really need to say a word to each other at this stop, we were both feeling it. Alright, it's been a rough 200 or so miles. I think it was like 20 degrees. Went below 20 I think. Warmer, should be 75 in Phoenix, almost there. The warmth would come though, you know, headed towards Phoenix for the sole purpose of seeing some friends on a convenient stopover towards California. At the very least it was a different direction off I-40. But for something even better, we took a quick detour to visit the fine folks over at Wilson Camera over there in Scottsdale to pick up something quite exotic. They had some 4x5 Aerochrome 8443, which was extremely kind to them to hold until the day I could pass through again. I'll make a video about it someday. Ultimately though we were in town to see our buddy Zach perform in his Bee Gees cover band, but at the moment there was one small hiccup. So Zach's in prison? The Bee Gees show that night was actually pretty sick, even if we were the youngest people there by a good 40 years or so. While Tim took the opportunity to make his move on the elderly, I asked around if anyone had old film cameras they didn't want anymore, but struck out more than Tim did. This morning I woke up feeling like I was letting the concept of this video slip away. So I grabbed my 16mm with a telephoto lens that is perfect for viewing the lunar surface from Earth and shot some morning light poolside. 500T ain't so bad. It's of course so blue to counteract tungsten bulbs, which were far more common back in the day. In straight daylight like this, you're supposed to shoot it with an 85B filter to get more of a neutral white balance, but f**k it. With a little post-production color grade love, it can kind of get there. As an ex-VFX compositor, you'd think I'd know better than to fix it in post. At the end of it all, we were back in the desert headed west towards home. Not a lot to say about it really that I haven't said a thousand times, so it's better just to keep my head forward and I guess push on. This trip was full of peaks and valleys for sure, but you know, always fun nonetheless. And I guess now that it's all over, it's time for me to start rebuilding from the ground up a better lens set for the Bolex. Which, you know, losing that ingenue lens, which is still really painful and I'm a total idiot who may never come to live it down, may have kind of been a little bit of a blessing in disguise. That 12-120mm was pretty heavy and big and kind of a pain in the ass to use sometimes, especially when a lot of C-mount primes are considerably smaller and lighter. So I've already started rebuilding my lens set and I'm already one lens deep, so I'll fill you in on that on some other occasion. Luckily for me, this Bolex is a turret mount, so I can actually fit three lenses on it for continued use. And I don't have to deal with unscrewing lenses because f**k C-mount. Though for now, I don't really know what to do with the Wollensack Raptor that I picked up in Albuquerque. I'll probably end up swapping it out for something higher quality and a little bit faster. So, does anyone out there want my two inches?