Fujifilm Canada is marketing a new film stock that it is calling the world’s first high-speed, daylight-balanced color negative film. The Reala 500D (35mm: 8592 & 16mm: 8692) complements Fuji’s F-500 tungsten-balanced stock and its E.I. 64 and 250 daylight stocks.

500-speed tungsten stocks, whether Fuji’s or Kodak’s, have been incredibly popular among directors of photography as they have finally allowed low-light shooting with faithful color reproduction, good latitude and little grain. The Reala 500D now offers Fuji’s proprietary 4th Color Layer technology, borrowed from its stills photography products.

‘The majority of film stocks have red-, green- and blue-sensitive layers, which for all intents and purposes has been very good for decades,’ says Taylor Ogston, VP of sales, motion picture film and professional video for Fujifilm Canada. ‘The 4th Color Layer fills in the gap between the blue/green area of the color spectrum. It offsets that green cast you would get, particularly from fluorescents.’

The Reala 500D is ideal for location shooting that might combine daylight with artificial fill and practical sources. Not all productions have the time to properly gel all windows and lights, but the new stock will help compensate. For its efficiency, the Reala is well suited to TV, low-budget film and commercial work.

The stock can in some cases replace the F-500 for evening exteriors.

‘If [you’re in] Times Square, where you’ve got a wild mix of ambient neon and sodium vapor street lights, I would say the Reala would be the ideal stock,’ Ogston says.

Fujifilm, along with IATSE 667, will cohost a demo day at Showline Harbourside Studios in Toronto on Feb. 10 featuring new cameras and lenses, including the new Arricam system, from PS Production Services. The event will also give cinematographers an opportunity to shoot tests with the Reala 500D. Ogston says that many shooters have expressed interest in seeing how the stock performs in the bleach-bypass lab process, which, along with all other processing, will be performed at Deluxe Laboratories, which will then screen the results Feb. 12.

-www.fujifilm.ca