Thanks!
Yes it might work. If your camera supports manual settings for the aperture, shutter speed and ISO sensitivity, it can be done.
The easiest way to do it is to put the subject in direct sunlight, so that the surrounding background behind is sufficiently unlit.
The problem is that when you get the film developed, you don't know what you will be getting. It's a somewhat lengthy trial and error kind of process, but on a digital camera you can instantly see whether you got all the settings right or not.
One way you can try to avoid making too many trial photos on film is by trying to measure the light directly from the brightest part of your subject.
Depending on the camera used this might be possible.
However, I'm not sure how well the film cameras fare with their light meters. My Fujica ST605N does have a meter, but I recall it only measures the overall light coming in through the lens, and can not be used to measure it from a fixed point in the image.
Albeit being a bit tricky, I still don't think it is impossible though. It might even be worth a try.
Thank you so much for your detailed explanation! From the look of it, I need to get a good second-hand digital camera one day! But these keep changing every year making it very difficult to make up my mind!