Does anyone actually make a living from videography?

[Jon O'Brien]

Hi there. Well, I've decided to get out of videography. Frankly, I've had enough.

There's so many of them around. Do you know, in nearly every provincial town there's a pro drone video business. In large centres there are reams and reams of pro videography businesses.

How do they all make a living?

So many ads on Google. Everyone seems to know a pro videographer, and everyone else younger than about 35 seems to consider themselves an authority on, and perhaps quite the talented exponent of, shooting videos on their latest phones that are mega-smooth in image quality and camera handling (digitally stabilised of course, and very impressively, too).

Young professionals now do pro-style videography on their weekends as a hobby, instead of playing sport or riding a bike.

Whenever I manage to get a paid filming gig with an organisation, the next thing I find out, every time, is that some young person already on the payroll gets the video filming bug from seeing me in action with a camera, and they go to the boss and put their hand up for video work and they get the video gig next time around. Why pay an outsider when you've got someone on staff with pro gear who will do the filming for free (and have a lot of fun getting away from their work station for a couple of hours, too)?

I'm going back to my original idea I had in 2016, which was to film just on film. I'm going to do what I want to do, which is to film stories on film. Narrative and documentary. Super 8, Super 16, and a bit of 35mm.

[Jon O'Brien]

Frankly, what I feel like saying, and I'm going to say it to get it off my chest, is to hell with video. I don't even like the look of it. In fact I think modern digital video stinks. Haha I said it. Thankyou.

Edited July 28 by Jon O'Brien

[Aapo Lettinen]

I have decided to mainly film on real film too unless someone specifically wants to pay full day rate for shooting video. Shooting in very dark is necessary to do on video anyway but I can't see much point wasting time on shooting video for daytime stuff especially when I have so many film cameras needing testing. basically I get at least some money from shooting film even if doing it for fun (to test cameras and motors) but if shooting video people are like meh and I get nothing and everyone just like "I have better video camera at home" 😄 

--------

As for ridiculous competition in today's world, there is so many of those "video boys" here too .  no one ever bothers to ask the "old-timers" (over 24-something years olds) if they want to do anything. They just pick the cheapest 16 to 20 year old kid with the basic video camera and let them make the company's promo videos and social media clips and such. Often the end result even is pretty good by today's standards because most others do the same too and the bar has been set so low that anything will pass basically.

But at the same time, people are so tired of marketing, both making it and looking at it. Almost all modern commercials are crap and lazy and cheap and even if not cheap and lazy they are so incredibly stupid that your brain starts to melt and ooze out of your ears.

I guess everything is about "making content" nowadays. Nothing needs to be well made, just make it fast and put it out there for people to see and hope for the best. Well I am doing that myself too with my youtube channel but decided it is not fun to make those videos if they take too much time to edit so basically just taking the unusable parts out and then uploading 😛  I used to make editing for living some years ago and used to be super precise, nowadays it is just "I will save my energy for making actual short films instead of making some youtube tutorials content nicer looking when it is really enough that you can hear it properly, the image can be anything"

[Jon O'Brien]

Exactly right, Aapo.

I don't like how people automatically assume that video making is for young kids. Yeah, nice to give young people work but is it really setting those young people up for a stable and real future to make them think someone's going to pay them to make videos when they're 10 or 20 years older?

Once the aging process starts to hit you young dudes you will be in the same boat as us old salts.

Another thing that really brought it home to me the other day was out driving with my wife. There was an accident ahead. The traffic rolls to a stop. Eventually we get to the scene and there's a scrawny kid in shorts with legs like sticks standing there, he looked all of 16 maybe. He had with him a big, very heavy, expensive tripod he had a huuuge ENG camera and was filming the scene. A smile I think passed across my lips. The scene said it all. Email after email to TV stations advertising my services as a trained video camera operator (I got top marks too), all ignored. A minor traffic bingle occurs up ahead and in 5 minutes there's a kid so young he could still be watching the Smurfs standing there with a $50K camera filming the total nothing that was happening. It's just amusing in the end.

But kudos to that kid. He got that big heavy camera and all that kit on scene in just a couple of minutes.

I don't like the look of digital video. And it's getting worse as the years go by. The level of taste is set so low now that nobody even knows what nice motion picture footage can look like.

Pale, washed out, textureless, creepy-looking even I would go so far as to say (especially that weird footage they show on the huge TV screens in home appliance stores), strangely-smooth interpretation of what things and objects actually look like in real life (rendered by the sensor and the electronics to come up with a sort of 'digital interpretation' of what things and textures look like in real life. I'm not exaggerating at all when I say it stinks. I can't believe how bad video now looks. Electronic muck. And all the opportunities are given to teenagers who, really, do not have good taste. They haven't learned it or earned it.

The other dumb thing about video/digital is the gear is almost worthless a few years after you shell out big time for it. I don't know where all this is going dudes but the future don't look too bright for video.

 

[Jon O'Brien]

At the cinema, it's almost all muck. What happened to talent in the 'film' industry? Run by gear heads now.

No, it's not democratisation of filmmaking. It's the decline of it.

Edited July 28 by Jon O'Brien

[Jon O'Brien]

The thing is, in the past, filmmaking was a difficult thing to get into. You got a job at a TV station, earned your trade, and got respected for what you'd done and what you can do. Maybe you got your own kit eventually (with a bank loan), and you got independent work eventually because pro film gear was beyond the reach of anyone that was not a fulltime camera operator/DP/etc. You just couldn't afford to invest in it otherwise. Or you rented gear and you could only do that if you were a pro. That situation kept the amateurs as amateurs and the pros as pros. The pros grew old with a camera stuck to their eye. And thus it was for many decades ...

Then along came the digital revolution. Democracy of filmmaking at last. Everyone can do it now. It's all fair. Yippee.

Film gets kicked to the curb for a couple of decades. Lots of people say it's a dinosaur format. Blah blah. The new dudes disdainfully turn their backs to it. Sniff. Noses in the air. "Film is redundant." "the future is all digital."

Filmmaking paradoxically eventually became a gear head thing. Which was not the way it was supposed to go. It was supposed to be about storytelling, and, well, cinematography. And eventually the filmmaking world devolved to become a low taste and ignorant field of dreams because the new cinematographers took to heart too much their own mantra that only story is important. You know what that means? It means the image doesn't have to be super excellent. Yay. It opened up 'film'making for one and all. Except it was really video making. And our film industries became video industries actually. I mean, let's not kid ourselves. They're videos, you know.

And some, well, ....

They went back to film.

 

 

 

Edited July 28 by Jon O'Brien

[Aapo Lettinen]

Yes, the "democratization" in this context means that anything should pass no matter how low quality. And combined with the "techno-religion" that only brand new technology is good and is the answer to all the world's problems ("lack talent? No need to waste time for learning! Just use this and that techno-gadget AI cheat mode which does everything for you including writing the scenes and AI generating fake behind-the-scenes material where you look cool") .

Professional movies turned much worse when the digital cameras got too sensitive and especially because the led lighting eventually got so good that set can be run on battery power and speed is the key to survival. You don't work by the art, not by the method. You just run run run, dissect the script as quickly as possible to usable chunks and then get it recorded the fastest you can. It is like a slaughterhouse, they ramp up the speed the animals coming in and you just run and cut and tear the guts out and chop the meat to pieces small enough they can be further processed well enough. It is just generic chop, people will eat it anyway, don't worry about it, we'll ramp up the speed even more. They try to find the upper limit, the maximum profits vs lowest costs, the top efficuency. No one cares about the people working there, no one cares about the people consuming the product as long as money comes in. Especially absolutely bo one cares about the animals, they are just generic meat chop in the wrong form and must be processed as quickly as possible. It all goes thru the grinder in the and looks the same....cheap and depressing and couple of bone shards in it because no one cares anymore.

 

 

[Brian Drysdale]

I suspect much will depend on your location and the nature of the local market. In large cities, with major companies and organisations, the demands will differ. 

There are now more people who have attended various media and film courses which teach enough for them to make productions that satisfy clients who may not be that demanding. Social media may be all that they require.

[Jon O'Brien]

1 hour ago, Brian Drysdale said:

I suspect much will depend on your location ..

True, but then I'm looking at things from both the bottom and from the top. All I have to do to look at the top is go to the cinema. I'm afraid it all looks like garbage to me. Except for a tiny few exceptions. Like, maybe one interesting film every 5 years.

I will just go back to film and do my thing and I will be happy. I don't care for video at all, of any kind.

The new hip line of videographers and digital cinematographers pushed film so far away from themselves that they ended up cutting themselves off from it, leaving it behind for the people who love it to take it up again and cherish it. I will do so gladly. Their redundant muck became my magic. And so to them I say thank you for the privilege.

Shoot film!

Edited July 28 by Jon O'Brien

[Jon O'Brien]

There are young people out there who do care passionately about movies and have great taste. You will tend to find that they love real film.

Many "cinematographers" (videographers) getting the jobs are stills photographers, graphics designers, and directors. Read their CVs like I do. Pick your team with care, you scriptwriters out there. Get a real filmmaker to create your story.

[Tyler Purcell]

I started with film, totally devoted to film, moved to digital because it was the trend and went back to film because digital was shit for a long time. So I've been in both camps and I took the long route through broadcast TV and into commercials, shot some features, even moved to Hollywood. I mean, my journey has been pretty successful all this time, even though I may not be doing what I came here to do, I have checked off most boxes. Ok, so directing a feature on 35mm would be great, but I have done several 35mm shorts with my own equipment, along with I can't even remember how many music videos, commercials, documentaries and short narratives on 16mm, dozens and dozens. So I can say without a doubt, I've done the "film" thing and have been a proponent of film since I got back into it in 2014. 

I said 20 years ago the digital revolution would kill cinema. I saw it with the F900. I saw it with early digital projection not being any better than TV's at home. I saw it with everyone embracing a new tech, simply because it saved money, which is never a good thing :cough AI:. I saw all of this coming and where it took longer than I expected, the rebuke of digital has been epic to witness. Everyone said once the "old timers" retired, that would be the end of that, but the polar opposite happened. The young people have taken the mantle and there are dozens of big filmmakers shooting on film, there are thousands of smaller filmmakers as well, all hoping for that next big push. 

On the flip side, budgets are getting constrained. We have seen the music video and commercial business with budgets big enough for film, basically dry up entirely. We're seeing smaller narrative and documentary productions who were going to shoot on film, make hard choices and shoot on a friends digital camera to save a few dollars and put money into the production rather than some plastic. Even people who do shoot on film, with Kodak's stock issues, camera problems, shipping failures (X-ray damage), limited takes due to cost, we see more and more people really frustrated shooting on film because they wind up wasting time and money. Film just isn't as reliable as it was 20 years ago, the results are just not the same. So how do you convince a producer to shoot film, when their prior experiences were poor? It's actually becoming harder and it's why even some great DP's and directors who are "film" guys, have a lot of times, moved to digital. 

The days of film being the great divider are behind us. Now, film is used for big IMAX movies OR someone screwing around with their own money. Nearly all of us fit into the ladder sadly. There just doesn't seem to be anything in the middle anymore. Where are those 10M budget features that go direct to 35mm prints in the theaters? Gone. Man, that genre of filmmaking is entirely dead. There is no distribution method for a movie like that either, even if it were shot digitally. 

So when you take that all into account; smaller budgets, technical issues, theatrical is pretty much dead for smaller budget films, the point of film is basically the director or cinematographer giving each other a wink. In the end nobody cares if the 10 seconds of material they saw was shot on film in our world of instant consumable content. Also, if you don't make content for those people, then you basically have no way of making money in this industry anymore. 

Obviously there are insane people like myself who refuse to back down, but in the end our wallets will force our hands eventually. We aren't on this planet long enough to piecemeal a long form project together from spare money in a global economy which is hell bent against creatives making money. Heck in the United States, being a creative is shunned upon today, unless of course you live in a "liberal" city and even then, most creatives have jobs outside their profession of choice. The days of making great stuff and being able to pay your bills, is long behind us in the conventional sense. Today, being an "expert" on YouTube, will pay far more and that's actually where nearly all of the young talent have landed, as they realize their skillset of copying other people, just doesn't work. So no, I'm not jealous of them at all, nor am I bitter they're working 16hr days shooting with the FX6 making a few bux. Bro, I'm totally good, more power to ya. I have zero interest doing those jobs. 

So what's the play? 

I just got a real digital cinema camera. It sits on a shelf currently because I don't have all the accessories to really make it sing. I've shot some stuff with it, the camera creates a very nice image and I'm pretty sure it's the future. 

I got it because I'm scared to be left behind. 

That's what I've done to help remedy this problem. Will it work? Who knows. My poor 16mm kit has only been used by myself over the last year, first time since I got it. 

I won't stop shooting film, but the play today maybe making digital look like film. That's what everyone is after. 

[Brian Drysdale]

The streaming channels have pretty much replaced the lower/medium budget feature film regarding theatrical release. Their productions now have the budgets in that range, although they've cut back on the number of films being financed. 

Independent features are still being made, but generally are being shot digitally, bearing in mind that they've got to cover the above the line costs of the cast on more limited budgets. 

If you wish to work on dramas, you need to live in an area where they're making them. Film studios are being built in various regions, but main cast members often want to work in traditional film industry locations, which can affect where a film is shot.

However, to become a head of department, such as a DP,  being based in a production centre is probably a requirement, so that your name becomes known. Feature films are now being shot in various locations in the world, but key crew members are often parachuted in, so it becomes difficult for locally based crew to get those jobs.

A lot of the work is for series dramas for streaming and broadcast television, rather than feature films. Some of these now have feature type budgets, although the cast costs are a good percentage of that. 

[Giray Izcan]

It's simple economics you know... in today's world, where the digital has reached the level of film, most producers will not deal with film and all the costs associated with it... I love film and prefer it but can't deny the fact though.. it is delusional to think that shooting on film could be just as cheap or if not cheaper than shooting on digital, it just is not. It is prohibitively expensive to shoot on film and have all the coverage you need without cutting corners and without being a slave to the camera. A page of dialog scene for instance would cost you 2-3 thousand to shoot on 35 - this include the lab expenses, scanning and purchasing 2x1000ft film so you can get all the coverage you need for a better edit. A simple action based page sure 1 can per page is good but for a dialog, yoh might wanna double that as you would shoot the scene covering each actor, different shot sizes etc. 

[Aapo Lettinen]

I think that on the vast majority of projects, it never really mattered what they were shot on. Not in the past, not today. As long as it was something good and something they could brag on a little so that the investors and audience were happy. 

So that is why they are changing technology all the time. They just want something good enough and when the next popular gadget comes out they probably use that on their project and the next one uses the next cool thing available then. They don't care about the process, they just care about the "public image" aka 'looking professional' and that the end result is good enough quality.

Film is all about the process and I don't think it never fit mainstream productions really well. because they rarely care about the process, they want something good looking which sells. and both digital and film will sell but digital is on most aspects technically better nowadays and especially if you have limited budget, especially lighting budget, the video WILL oftentimes look better. More corner-cutting-tolerant so to speak.

Of speaking about film shooting "being a process" and video shooting "only being about the result" is the big mentality difference of how to approach the storytelling through the medium. On video the technology is really boring and dull and no one really cares, you just have the sript and the actors and you capture the stuff and it likely looks nice and that's it. If you need more coverage or want to try something then you just do that if you have time left. No one cares about the camera or technology really, one could just switch it mid take and people would not notice much.

On film, if "committing to the process" so to speak, one lets the camera and medium guide you through the story and it be your eyes. You don't try to force the medium and technology to just capture the generic story, the content.... but rather take an ancient piece of gear and wander with it to the unknown and find a different point of view which is unique to it, even if just caused by the ergonomics and your film budget or it being b/w or anything or all together. Or like the method I have, to take one roll of film and go out to some pre scouted locations and see what you can capture of the reality with such a tiny piece of film quickly running out. It is entirely different mindset of going out driving 150 kilometers having only like two minutes of footage in total available and then when you have stock left for one single take you will drive another 100km to get that one single shot, one single take. A video guy would shoot hours of stuff if spending all the effort to go there on the location. The "method-film-guy" waits and plans and shoots ONE TAKE and goes home.

Sometimes you get really good material with video because you can shoot so much coverage that eventually you find more useful stuff than you originally thought. But pretty often one gets most of the really good stuff on the one film roll reserved for the day and the same usable stuff is in that 10min roll than the 2h of video material the video camera would had shot.

dialogue can be a bit hard on film with really limited budget yes. I like to make hybrid productions where combining film and video to get the best out of each. Shooting dialogue and night scenes on video and the rest on film is fully possible even on really low budget but most people have this weird mindset that one could not mix cameras on the same production or if mixing they would all need to look like the same and then they get tangled with the film emulation madness and other stupid stuff.

Of course one can mix cameras and formats! and they DON'T need to look like the same. It can be a really big benefit for the story if they DO look different actually. Just need some tiny bit of planning which scene is good on which format and which camera. Mixing within the scene needs lots more planning but you can totally shoot different scenes on different cameras and shooting mediums no problem! if wanting to hide the difference it is easy to do so well that audience does not even notice and if want to embrace the difference you can easily make it really stand out. It makes the storytelling richer, it is not a fault at all 🙂 

[Aapo Lettinen]

people who play acoustic instruments understand the "process" stuff better. Playing a real guitar or violin or drum etc , or playing the kind-of-same sounding tune from a synth is totally different and it affects both your composing and how you play the music piece even if it is the same melody and timing. And if you start to improvise you don't come up with same kind of stuff with the synth than if playing the real instrument.

the people who don't care about the process think that the end result is the only thing which matters.... when, in fact, the end result will be totally different if the process is different. If emulating a car with a piano it becomes a cat, that can be interesting still but it is not a car. and even if it was, it is not the same car. it may be blue like ordered but the body shape and the sparkle on the paint finish is different. 

the same thing is the big issue with AI generated content. It is made to be the same without really understanding what it is trying to emulate and tries to shortcut to the end result without taking the journey.  One becomes a different person if walking across the continent VS. driving with a car VS. flying the whole distance. People think the end result is just the same if the person was in Europe first and now is in Beijing. Then the AI person (the one who did not even fly to Beijing but stole a photo of the city from web and photoshopped himself in it) claims that the end result is the same than with the guy who freakin walked there 😮 

[Aapo Lettinen]

7 minutes ago, Aapo Lettinen said:

the same thing is the big issue with AI generated content. It is made to be the same without really understanding what it is trying to emulate and tries to shortcut to the end result without taking the journey.  One becomes a different person if walking across the continent VS. driving with a car VS. flying the whole distance. People think the end result is just the same if the person was in Europe first and now is in Beijing. Then the AI person (the one who did not even fly to Beijing but stole a photo of the city from web and photoshopped himself in it) claims that the end result is the same than with the guy who freakin walked there 😮 

video guys took the car and are contantly nitpicking and complaining about the car being broken or too slow or bad to drive or stupid looking or just takes forever 😄  

the iPhone guys took the plane and are bragging how the end result "is not different at all" from Alexa/Venice/etc  and how much cheaper and faster it was to fly than to invest in the car logistics and gas and such, just grab your passport and toothbrush and go, you can buy clothes etc at the destination.

And how stupid the guy is who walks 😄 

Edited July 29 by Aapo Lettinen

[Tyler Purcell]

10 hours ago, Giray Izcan said:

It's simple economics you know... in today's world, where the digital has reached the level of film, most producers will not deal with film and all the costs associated with it... I love film and prefer it but can't deny the fact though.. it is delusional to think that shooting on film could be just as cheap or if not cheaper than shooting on digital, it just is not. It is prohibitively expensive to shoot on film and have all the coverage you need without cutting corners and without being a slave to the camera. A page of dialog scene for instance would cost you 2-3 thousand to shoot on 35 - this include the lab expenses, scanning and purchasing 2x1000ft film so you can get all the coverage you need for a better edit. A simple action based page sure 1 can per page is good but for a dialog, yoh might wanna double that as you would shoot the scene covering each actor, different shot sizes etc. 

I just got an URSA Cine 12k. 

The thing can do everything any cinematographer could ever want. 

I did a quick exposure/latitude test recently with a grey card and color chart. I exposed the camera at F22, opened it all the way up to 1.5, recovered the exposure at 1.5 in post. I exposed the camera at 1.5, stopped down to F22, recovered it down to F16 no problem. This camera is a god damn animal with dynamic range, I have never encountered anything like it. Puts the ALEV3 Alexa imagers to shame, it really does. Way lower noise floor, full frame, internal ND's, up to 220fps in 4k slow mo using full imager, at 12:1 compression in 12k 1.75:1 aspect ratio, it's actually WAY less data than Pro Res 4k HQ coming off an Alexa. Also, you can shoot 12k and simply do a punch in! Insane. 

When you see cameras like the URSA Cine 12k being roughly $16k (for a complete kit with case, batteries, cards etc) you wonder, why does anyone even contemplate film?

[Aristeidis Tyropolis]

On 7/29/2025 at 9:31 PM, Tyler Purcell said:

I just got an URSA Cine 12k. 

The thing can do everything any cinematographer could ever want. 

I did a quick exposure/latitude test recently with a grey card and color chart. I exposed the camera at F22, opened it all the way up to 1.5, recovered the exposure at 1.5 in post. I exposed the camera at 1.5, stopped down to F22, recovered it down to F16 no problem. This camera is a god damn animal with dynamic range, I have never encountered anything like it. Puts the ALEV3 Alexa imagers to shame, it really does. Way lower noise floor, full frame, internal ND's, up to 220fps in 4k slow mo using full imager, at 12:1 compression in 12k 1.75:1 aspect ratio, it's actually WAY less data than Pro Res 4k HQ coming off an Alexa. Also, you can shoot 12k and simply do a punch in! Insane. 

When you see cameras like the URSA Cine 12k being roughly $16k (for a complete kit with case, batteries, cards etc) you wonder, why does anyone even contemplate film?

Because it still looks better (to me at least) because maybe not all of us need to see every nook and cranny within such a huge DR spectrum, because maybe there's a lot of inherent ridiculousness in actually affording to shoot film and then spending thousands upon thousands to make stuff look like the thing instead (looking at you "the holdovers") and still not completely nailing it (sorry but it took me seconds to do so). Because succession looked better than most other shows and the people around it were very deliberate about it - see their commentary, it's wonderful. Yes, we can lament the loss of the middle ground, we can lament the loss of aesthetics, of being patient about anything, about the pleasure of figuring stuff out (as the great Mr. Feynman said) - but maybe some of us don't want to see that much hideous detail on people's faces, who the hell puts their eyes directly on top of someone's cheek to see the pores, anyway? There's an audience and creator circle that is refusing to be defined by this level of crisp, sharp, overly visible nonsense for narrative drama especially. That is who this contemplating is for - it's going to be small but not as small as it seems or as some would like it to be - this whole mentality we (all) have of building metal houses and then throwing plaster and crap on top to make it look "human" and "pleasing" is beyond idiotic to me.

[Jon O'Brien]

It's interesting to read all the responses.

It sure seems to me that the digital revolution has done much damage to what I call good filmmaking. The new wave of digital filmmakers said it was all about storytelling (that's what they actually said). They said camera doesn't matter, it's the story. But strangely enough they strike me as people that don't actually care about story. They care about what they do, about their careers, about looking good, about getting the work, about gear, they sincerely adore the pristine bland and weirdly textureless look of digital acquisition (no, they do, I assure you). They love it all. But they don't make good movies. Their movies suck. And they are the ones running the industry.

Things will only change when someone makes a great movie again. I'm still waiting for that to happen. It happened in the past, when there were big slumps in the cinema. I won't be the one to do it. I'm just an amateur and that's okay.

I still truly believe that film is a better way to make a movie. As I keep saying, it's no different than playing classical music on a real, acoustic instrument, instead of in a digital gadget. Lots of people in the contemporary world have a sort of weird bug in their heads they need to get rid of: this idea of progress. People seem to have to believe that things are always getting better, or they get depressed. If you can't accept that that principle isn't always true you will unwittingly glide into self-deception. Sometimes progress leads us into some pretty poor places. So, go back, get out of it, and start again. Stand on the shoulders of giants. A lot of hip, techy sort of people don't even know what that means.

 

 

[Tyler Purcell]

1 hour ago, Aristeidis Tyropolis said:

Because it still looks better (to me at least) because maybe not all of us need to see every nook and cranny within such a huge DR spectrum, because maybe there's a lot of inherent ridiculousness in actually affording to shoot film and then spending thousands upon thousands to make stuff look like the thing instead (looking at you "the holdovers") and still not completely nailing it (sorry but it took me seconds to do so).

Its not about cost, it's about; 

- Instant results; no film, no lab, no camera problems to deal with. 
- DIT checks everything before the day is done. 
- Edit as you are shooting, your editor can literally be on set working on a scene AS YOU AER SHOOTING. 
- No down time on set, you can run long takes, allowing for method acting that's not possible on film. 
- No cost operation, cards are re-formatted and data is backed up onto A/B and sometimes C drive sets. 
- An immense amount of re-framing and re-construction in post production, allowing you to shoot way faster and simply re-constitute framing in post during the edit, which is very hard to do on anything but large film formats. 
- Distributors are requiring HDR nearly all of the time for streaming of higher end productions. 
- Future proofing for 8k, which will be a huge business in the future. Any film not in 8k already, won't be promoted as such in the future, meaning anyone shooting in high res today, will be gifted automatic marketing in the near future. 

Not to mention good digital cameras are way less than good film cameras, but I'm not discussing costs. 

Mind you, this is coming from someone who shoots film primarily, runs a film-only business and services/sells film cameras for a living. So I'm in no way denigrating film, it does deliver the nicest image and best workflow, I'm simply thinking from a producers perspective in a world where 90% of content is viewed online with crappy compression anyway. If we were talking theatrical, well-made film prints all the way. 
 

1 hour ago, Aristeidis Tyropolis said:

Because succession looked better than most other shows and the people around it were very deliberate about it - see their commentary, it's wonderful. Yes, we can lament the loss of the middle ground, we can lament the loss of aesthetics, of being patient about anything, about the pleasure of figuring stuff out (as the great Mr. Feynman said) -

There are plenty of great shows that use the same esthetic shot on digital as well, plenty. 

Middle ground WAS the industry, tens of thousands of people are out of work and probably will never get steady industry employment because of the middle ground being gone. I don't think lamenting is a strong enough word, it's really over. Once streaming dies, which it will eventually, there really will be only lower-end platforms left. People taking their paychecks and making shows with them, rather than making a living being a creative. The democratization of digital cinema has caused this and it's killed the industry. Theatrical is also dead outside of the biggest blockbusters as well, leaving zero hope for young filmmakers. With the complete collapse of the commercial and fashion industries, there just isn't much left for creatives to do thanks to technology. 

Also, patience has nothing to do with technical issues and re-shoot costs, which have driven SO MANY PEOPLE away from film. Go talk to ANY older DP, they'll nearly entirely be digital fanboys today for a very good reason. 

Many of the young people who are into film today, don't really care if anything comes out. They're just into the aesthetics unfortunately. Taking a worn out camera and turning it into something that can shoot 100k feet for a feature suddenly, is something so many of these people don't understand. They think mechanical devices will just run forever. 

1 hour ago, Aristeidis Tyropolis said:

but maybe some of us don't want to see that much hideous detail on people's faces, who the hell puts their eyes directly on top of someone's cheek to see the pores, anyway? There's an audience and creator circle that is refusing to be defined by this level of crisp, sharp, overly visible nonsense for narrative drama especially.

So you're saying 5p and 15P 65mm film doesn't do this? Come on man, 65mm when scanned and presented properly, is just as sharp, just as detailed. It's magnitudes higher quality than even the URSA 17k. The moment you add a layer of thin film grain to any digital show, all of those problems are whisked away. 

1 hour ago, Aristeidis Tyropolis said:

this whole mentality we (all) have of building metal houses and then throwing plaster and crap on top to make it look "human" and "pleasing" is beyond idiotic to me.

Ask any professional colorist, they use the same tricks on film shows as they do on digital. Many people will even entirely remove film grain from film shows, so the VFX shots will be nicer plates to deal with and then re-grain them, even for film distribution. Ever even watch shows with varying stocks and wonder why the grain structure is the same throughout? 

Edited July 31 by Tyler Purcell

[Jon O'Brien]

 

It's the audience that matters. If films are garbage, eventually the money people will notice because the film didn't make enough money. Then things will change. And change is on the way. These untalented movie makers will be driven out by reality and a new crop of talent will emerge. That's my prediction.

It's true. Audiences don't give a rats arse about seeing the pores in the actors faces. Film renders faces so much better than digital acquistion. That's a fact and nothing can change that. Digital isn't as good for narrative. It doesn't matter if it's cheaper and easier. It's not as good. Read that again if you need to.

[Aristeidis Tyropolis]

It's true, we did lose (collectively as a society) this middle ground, we also lost the ability to accept the cinéphile and mainstream as part of a whole...I remember a time when people would watch a Kurosawa movie and a Spielberg movie, because that was the rotation of that week and it was ok... I wonder who would watch Mr. Kiarostami's work if he came out today...

But you cite features - business realities, these are choices...we chose to go this way, we don't inherently have to do any of those things.

I know you respect the film world with your work - but you're talking about where the business is going, based on those facts you mentioned - which let's face it - we are all pretty much aware of: It's all a dystopian amalgam of super-sharp 8k video-gamey and genAI crap, more people of out work (and not just in cinema) and a surprisingly large number of excessively violent TV sci-fi drama around the topic of the world ending. Should we follow that too? 

As for 65mm, I am glad that Mr. Nolan is keeping the format alive but you're right, it's too sharp for my eyes - ditto for VFX work, I am not sure we even need any of that crap for standard story-telling and digital is superior for that kind of content anyway - it'a good though to remember that there used to be a time that VFX answered to the creator and not the other way around...anyone remember the famous ladder scene in LOTR (two towers) which had to be cleaned up because that was Mr.Jackson's favorite?

I make a point of watching "Yi-Yi" every other year to remember cinematic humanness - I would never look the way it does in digital.

 

 

 

Edited July 31 by Aristeidis Tyropolis

[Jon O'Brien]

Let's try a thought experiment. Okay, let's assume that the current state of the quality of filmmaking and storytelling in movies has nothing to do with the digital revolution. Nothing to do with it. It's got nothing to do with digital cameras, computer VFX, etc. Games people making movies, etc etc etc.

Okay.

So why are movies and TV so bad, now?

What happened to Hollywood?

What happened to TV?

Why are movies now such a problem. Hmm, do we go to see this thing? Um, dunno, maybe ... costs a bit though. Na let's not bother.

Like the guy said in Star Wars Episode 8, with all the red curtains burned away, cinders floating down everywhere, and the dude in the Hugh Hefner robe lying in two pieces on the floor:

"What .... happened?"

[Jon O'Brien]

What happened is that videographers migrated to the film industry. True story. These dudes are videographers. They're not filmmakers. They love gear and they love video. They have low taste. They're not artists. Great filmmakers are artist entertainers.

Edited July 31 by Jon O'Brien

[Brian Drysdale]

I'm not sure that high end TV drama is that bad so far as visual quality is concerned. The current "Dr Who" looks a lot better than the series of the 1960s up to when they stopped making it in the 1980s. However, the stories are different and the main character has evolved, which may not be to everyone's tastes.

How TV productions are developed has changed, with script editors probably being involved a lot more than they were in the past. That will have an influence, together with the more eccentric productions having problems getting through the layers of commissioning executives.  

I'm not sure that videographers will make to the top in the film industry if they just love gear, although there was also a lot of gear love with film, with camera people being very tribal about their camera brands.