Stade Films

Here is a link to the Stade Films website and you can also follow on Facebook here

Stade Films is a filmmaking collective based in Hastings, UK and I am proud to have helped out on the award winning short The Captains Daughter as well as also featuring in the fantastic Dancing in the Street video that wonderfully shows of Hastings pier and other locations in and around the seaside town.

Pinhole Camera video footage

Here is a link to some video footage of the pinhole camera in its early stage. I asked my house mate Andy to walk towards the pinhole and as you can see the light level is very low - but an image with movement can be seen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDKxR0bCXfQ

After this test I spoke to Dan Duran (Director) about the system and how to move forward. It was soon decided that a lens would have to be introduced to increase the light level of the image.

Digital SLR pinhole camera tests

In the early stages of my research and experimentation I also explored the idea of using a DSLR to achieve the pinhole camera look the production required. I considered the idea of placing a pinhole in front of the sensor chip inside the DSLR. The chip would act a bit like the image plane in the larger box version. 

Above is a plan sketch drawing of how a potential DSLR pinhole camera could work.

At Focus 24 we hire out film and video equipment, which meant I could do some basic tests during down time at work – not that there’s much of that! lol. By working closely with George at work we achieved some interesting results, that where unfortunately not right for the production, but worth further development at a later stage.

Image created using Canon 5D with no lens but a piece of tinfoil placed in front of the sensor chip.

The thing with DSLR’s is they have a very large ISO range and can film at very low light levels without too much noise being introduced. This would mean the hole in the tinfoil could be very small – only allowing a small amount of light in, but the ISO (sensitivity to light) could be set very high to compensate.

 

 

First outdoors tests

Once I had completed my tests indoors I felt it was time to test the prototype pinhole system outside in a full daylight situation with room to test frame size and focus. I carefully carried the box downstairs and out the front door. The first thing that came to mind to rest the box on was the green recycle bin outside the house.

Box on bin

Rear view of box

Me, box and passerby

From this test I started to understand that the light level would always be very low inside the box. This is due to the size of the pinhole having to be very small to achieve a focused image.

Pinhole size

Creating a small round hole in a piece of tin foil is harder than it sounds. When the pin is pushed through the tin foil it tends to tear it. However with some care and a steady hand a good enough pinhole can be made. By making a series of different size holes in a piece of tin foil and mounting them on card I could now set about testing the focus and light level on the image plain.

Various size pinholes

Test looking out of window

Image created from test

Transporting the filmable pinhole camera prototype

I took the first version of the filmable pinhole camera system into my work place to test it under controllable light conditions. Where I work - Focus 24 - is based in Shoreditch, so taking the system on the train was interesting and lead to a few strange looks from other passengers.

I soon realised there may be some issues with the size of the camera system and how this may effect our schedule during filming. Mounting the pinhole camera system and the EX1 camera together could potentially pose further issues in terms of space to film in as I now know the distance between the EX1 camera and the image plane - unlike as I first drew in my sketches - has to be at least four feet to enable focus.

First build of filmable pinhole camera

I now felt confident enough to build a prototype ‘filmable pinhole camera’ so as to refine my research ready for actual shooting. I remembered I had some foam-board in the loft, left over from a film job I worked on about ten years ago. In an ideal world the box would have been made out of wood, metal or plastic maybe but for this stage of the project foam-board was more than sufficient and easy to work with.

 

Not knowing the exact dimensions needed for the filmable pinhole camera made life a bit tricky when it came to making the first cut into the foam-board, so I decided to build the largest design possible with the limited amount of material I had. The great thing about foam-board is that you can cut through the top layer of card and the foam in the middle, but leave the bottom layer of card intact – enabling a right angle to be formed by folding the intact layer of card. I soon had a basic structure and could start experimenting with creating an image.

 

Preliminary tests and research

To start my development of the 'filmable pinhole camera' I decided to create a pinhole camera using my bedroom at home. To do this I made a small hole in the window blind and sealed out any ambient light using gaffa tape and anything else I could lay my hands on. The result was a pale image of the road outside appeared on the wall opposite the pinhole. By then placing a piece of tracing paper close to the pinhole a much brighter image was visible. I now had a better understanding of how to achieve the filmable pinhole camera and the size the box would need to be.

Plan drawing

Here is a rough sketch plan of how the Pinhole camera system could work. A, is where the light will come in through a small pinhole made in the front of the box. B, is the image plate (or plane) made of a thin transparent material, like tracing paper and is where the light will hit and create an image. C, is the adjustable casing that will enable adjustments of the size on the image plane. D, is the camera and will most likely be a Sony EX1 digital camera - not a film camera as drawn.

The idea is to mount the camera on a tripod and using a set of bars (usually used for mounting Matt Boxes and Follow Focuses) the image plane will be fixed at a set distance from the camera so as to enable a fixed focal distance. The box will then be secured around the front of the camera and light proofed.

Sketch of proposed system

Above is a simple picture I drew of how I envisioned a filmable pinhole camera would look.

Task: build a filmable Pinhole Camera

 My current filming project involves a selection of specialized pinhole camera style shots.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinhole_camera

Pinhole camera's are used to take still photographs over a long period of time. The shots that will be included in this project need to be moving images.

It is my task to build a system that achieves the visual look required as well as being portable and simple to use.

Over the last month I have been developing this system with some results that I will post on here. The main development I have encountered is the introduction of a lens into the system.

This has lead to a reassessment of the original idea behind the shots and the new approach to the idea of a Camera Obscura being present within the film.



The picture here is from the film 'A matter of Life and Death' which features a Camera Obscura used to view the surrounding town and its inhabitants.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camera_obscura

The final system will be a box that allows enough light through onto a piece of tracing paper like material that can then be filmed.

I hope you enjoy my research.