"Once" a digital romance

[David Mullen ASC]

There is this charming little digital movie that opened today in Los Angeles called "Once", from Ireland.

I guess it was shot on a Sony HDV camera from what I gather. The picture quality is nothing to write home about, the but the loose, semi-documentary style of shooting, the natural performances, with real singer/musicians playing singer/musicians in a simple love story, well, it's worth checking out. It doesn't have much of a plot, just some connected incidents with a lot of music involved, but it's sweet and lovely.

[Corrado Silveri]

Thanks David, I will check it out...

[dalemccready]

the trailer is on Apple's site. It looks lovely.

[Priyesh P.]

Thanks for the hintDale, I watched the trailer, too. They´ve done some really great color grading.

But did anybody here of the German docu "RHYTHM IS IT!" ? It was shot on HDCAM I think. Really, really nice one.

[David Mullen ASC]

The movie may have been shot in DV actually, which explains some of the quality problems on the big screen, but if so, it's also pretty impressive. I based the guess about HDV on this quote:

http://www.moviesonline.ca/movienews_12026.html

MoviesOnline: What camera did you use to shoot it?

John Carney: We shot it on three of those little Sony HDVs. I think they’re called 325’s or something.

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But the only "325" I can find online is a Digital-8 TRV-325 PAL camcorder, so the movie may be only PAL resolution.

[James T Mather]

David, I think Once was shot on PAL DV (John Carney (who I've only met once but seemed like a nice guy) - shot a drama in Ireland called batchelor's walk on Dv cameras. I imagine that this film is the same production system.

[donatello b]

there was a excellent review of "Once" in the wall st journal yesterday ( friday) ...

[Tom Lowe]

I'd like to see this. I'll keep my eyes peeled for it.

[Emanuel A.]

Thanks David for your find and post.

[Keith Alan Morris]

they were absolutely raving about it on siskel and ebert last night. or ebert and roeper. or...roeper and random guest critic. they said even if you're underage (random R rating) to sneak in.

[Tom Lowe]

yeah I saw Roeper and that dude praising this movie to the heavens. what struck me the most was when they mentioned that the entire budget for the picture was only $150k! There is hope for us all!!

[Billy McCannon]

It's a great little film. It was shot on the Sony HDR z1.