From Video To Film With The Kodak Film Academy

"There is unquestionably added value in the discovery of film."

After the success of its first session in Madrid, the second Kodak Film Academy was held in Paris last December. The event offered 20 young European talents the opportunity to discover the native grandeur of film

"Our goal," explains Gilles Podesta (Kodak France), "is simply to bring together, at a turning point in their career, self-taught European professionals who are known in the world of video images, regardless of whether they are directors or camera operators. We want the Kodak Film Academy to serve them as a stepping stone toward a cinematographic career using the medium of film."

Kodak invited several young European filmmakers from France, Spain, Italy, Russia, Greece, Belgium, Portugal, the UK and the Netherlands to participate in the filming in Super 16 of the song 'Dirty' by a French rock group. Supervised by Kodak's Training Manager, Ian Magowan, and by Jean-Claude Peugnet, a technician at the Kodak plant in Chalon, the filmmakers enjoyed the benefit of four theoretical courses on film from its manufacture to the distribution of the finished product in theatres by way of laboratory processing and post-production. As well as the actual shoot, a joint "making-off" [i.e., "making-of" project] was undertaken under the dual direction of Vincent Battailon, a former head cameraman who is now a director, and his assistant, Muriel Coulin, using XTR and Aaton A-Minima cameras. Each of the two shoots enjoyed the use of twenty 120-meter boxes of film.