Hello all you talented people out there,

I'm submitting a short feature script to a contest for funding and development help. The genre is romance comedy (i.e. quite conventional) , but the characters are not - instead of a glossy leading man and women these people are taken from real life. We're reasearch their careers and ethnic backgrounds thoroughly with sit-down interviews in the same way that we would a documentary. The idea is to shoot the film in similar way - naturalistic with a documentary feel. Like what you would see in Ken Loach's RIff-Raff or Sweet Sixteen or in Kieslowski's early short docs. Naturalistic, with a quiet kind of beauty.

My question is, can I get this type of look using 16mm or HD? And if so, any other tips or trivcks, lighting, camera movement on how I can get it? I ask because Loach's cinematographer uses 35mm, but I don't quite think we can afford that.

Thanks for your help!

Leah