Vintage analogue cinecamera available for Brighton filmmaking students

Screen and Film School Brighton’s range of industry standard camera equipment now includes the highly coveted Panaflex Platinum 35mm, a model which offers students the chance to perfect their skills on analogue film.

For seven decades, Panavision have equipped large-scale film productions worldwide, supporting the vision of some of the film industry’s most creative minds. Now, veteran camera technician and long-standing friend of Screen and Film School Brighton, Ray Moore, has brokered a long-term loan of one of the company’s most successful models – The Panaflex Platinum 35mm – so that our students may learn the niche specialism of analogue film on what Ray refers to as a ‘Rolls Royce’ camera.

This model was a favourite of Hollywood directors throughout the eighties and nineties and was used to shoot such notable productions as Bruce Almighty (2003), Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End (2007), Mad Men (2007), The Killing (2011), The Dark Knight (2008), The Thin Red Line (1998) and A Time to Kill (1996).

Moore, who has enjoyed a long career as a 1st AC with high-end production companies such as Paramount Pictures, HBO, the BBC and Lucas Films, has been involved with Screen and Film School for a decade, providing filmmaking students with expert workshops and specialist training on high-end analogue camera equipment, as well accompanying students and staff on educational excursions to production studios such as Pinewood’s Kodak Film Lab.

Ray’s professional relationship with Panavision started in 1985 when he worked on a film called The Girl from Mani. From here, he built up a reputation as an expert in his field, working on numerous TV and feature film productions throughout the 80s, 90s and 00s.

“Panavision would know that if I was working on a particular production, the equipment would come back perfect.” said Moore. “Some would say ‘the equipment returned by Ray was in better condition than when it had gone out!’”

It was through his rapport with Panavision that Ray was able to source the Panaflex Platinum 35mm for the Film School – a camera which would normally incur a rental cost of £1500 per month, or £18,000 per year.

“I thought, if you are going to have a film school, you’ve got to have motion picture cameras.” said Ray. “Kodak is still alive. They’re probably doing about 40% or the overall work in comparison with all the digital shoots. Working with analogue film is a cottage industry, but there’s still a demand there.”

An expensive medium

Screen and Film School Brighton are one of the few higher education providers offering student filmmakers production budgets to help cover the costs incurred through working on traditional celluloid film. Today, a single 400 ft roll of 35mm film retails at approximately £200.

To make film budgets go further, Ray has also developed a novel method to help keep costs down when working with the expensive celluloid medium.

“The answer to me was, instead of shooting on four perforations of picture image, we could shoot on ‘two perf’. In layman’s terms, that would give you longer running time and so you’d get more out of 400 ft roll of film.”

Cost-saving ingenuity such as this means the opportunity to work on analogue film is open to any filmmaking student at Screen and Film School Brighton, whether they are looking to experiment with a new medium for a one-off project or focus more closely on celluloid as their main area of specialism.

Screen and Film School Brighton would like to gratefully acknowledge Ray Moore’s role in sourcing such an incredible piece of camera equipment for our students, as well as his continued valuable contributions to the Film School.

 

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