Popcorn
This 90-minute comedy starring Jack Ryder and Jodi Albert follows the lovelorn Danny as he takes a job at the local multiplex so he can be near the girl of his dreams -only to find out that his first day is her last.
But “lovelorn” is certainly not the word to describe its producer, Daniel M San, of DMS Films: “Popcorn was my first affair with High Definition so to speak, and you can call me a ‘born-again’ convert.”
“For myself and my co- producer Rebecca Knapp, both producers with a film background, although HD was always an option we were fighting to use film up to three weeks before the shoot. But even with a free lab thrown in, we just couldn’t make the budget work with film.”
“HD proved to be amazing to work with: you give the DP time to light it like film, you respect it like film, and then you get this incredible latitude in grade. I thought the 750 wouldn’t be up to the job, but I was wrong. We shot the equivalent of 150,000 feet in film in four weeks, and achieved a coverage we would never have achieved on film.”
“I wasn’t counting the footage, and everyone got the shots they needed. You just don’t have to stick to a set number of feet per day, which is what spoils so many projects.”
“Next time we want to use the 900 rather than the 750, so that we can shoot at 24. That means that when we go theatrical, we don’t have to slow the film down.”
“And the look is fantastic: the rushes looked so good we promo-ed two weeks after we wrapped, and our agents Moviehouse Entertainment managed to sell three territories without any grading!”
“And suppliers VMI were fantastic, sorting out any breakages immediately. When our monitor packed up they sent round a huge 27” replacement in its own van. The DP fell in love with the monitor, and we got a free production vehicle for a whole week. The overall result is that I’ve gone back over our other projects, specifying High Definition.”
