I Shot a Roll of Cinestill 800T by Nicola De Prato
My name is Nicola De Prato and I’m an Italian Cinematographer based both in Los Angeles and Italy. Since I moved to LA about two and a half years ago I came across to film photography and very curiously I’ve started shooting and experimenting with it. In the US there is a huge variety and availability of several film stocks compared to Europe.
Interesting that right now, in such of an uncertain moment in contemporary history almost without a real identity, we look out for something that past times have given us, something with a great “personality” like FILM.
In terms of cameras, I started with the classic disposable cameras (KODAK Funsaver) and then, after some savings, I bought a Contax G2 with Zeiss 28mm and 45mm.
I love taking photos at night and after trying Cinestill 800T I fell in love with it. The grainy look, the halo effect, the tungsten based stock and the ability to shoot in low light situation led me to appreciate and shoot more and more with this stock.
The set I am presenting today is taken from a very personal project called “TAXI DRIVER ON ACID”.
Nicolò Di Ronco is the protagonist of these shots and with him we had fun experimenting with colors and location, shooting in the north east of Italy.
“Taxi Driver on Acid” is inspired both by Taxi Driver, Scorsese’s famous movie that talks about how inner solitude leads to extreme actions and the recent television series “Too Old To Die Young” by Nicolas Winding Refn ( with amazing visuals curated by Darius Khondji ) which mixes the noir genre with psychedelic colors.
I specifically used primary colors, RED GREEN and BLUE because if mixed, they are able to create almost infinite shades of different colors. I was curious to understand how the film behaved in different chromatic situations and so I also shot digitally to make the classic side by side comparison.
Cinestill, Kodak Vision3 500T and Portra 400 are my favorite film stocks but research, study and experimentation never stops. Recently I bought Ektachrome E100 and Velvia which I hope to shoot this fall.
You can find my pictures on instagram @nicoladeprato or my videos vimeo.com/nicoladeprato .
My name is Nicola De Prato and I’m an Italian Cinematographer based both in LA and Italy.
