Death of Film

[Andy O'Neil]

Visited Western Carolina University in North Carolina a couple of weekends ago. Discovered that they have invested $2,000,000 in their HD video production program so far. According to several faculty members, one who had previously worked for Kodak, film is on its last leg. 21st century technology is getting ready to overtake a technique that's a hundred years old. It was even said that Kodak is concerned and is seriously rethinking their company and what it offers.

 

Will film become obsolete? If so, how long will it take? Is it better for beginners to invest in digital technology right now instead of film?

 

Thanks,

 

Andy

[David Mullen ASC]

Anything physical you "invest" in that's digital will probably be obsolete within a few years, so if by "investment" you mean financial, digital technology is possibly the worst thing to invest in unless you can make a return on it within a few years.

 

If by "investment" you mean educating yourself in digital technologies, yes, by all means. Anyone who will be working in the film industry now or over the next few decades will be dealing with digital technology, even if they are also dealing with film technology.

 

But I think any filmmaker with aspirations to making theatrical films has to also understand something about film technology because that's how movies will be shown in theaters for years to come.

 

Ultimately, though, the safest investment to make is in learning your filmmaking art and craft beyond the technological issues, because those are timeless skills. Learning how to tell a story visually, learning how to light actors, learning to use color, etc.

 

Film is here, NOW. So unless you don't plan on entering the film industry for another couple of decades, it's pointless to ignore it. It may or may not be here after twenty years but that's sort of irrelevant, isn't it?

[Andy O'Neil]

"...I think any filmmaker with aspirations to making theatrical films has to also understand something about film technology because that's how movies will be shown in theaters for years to come."

 

Aren't theaters already in the process of converting to (or supplying in addition to film projections) HD projectors? The commercials and making of featurettes shown before the trailers are projected digitally through HD projectors as I understand it.

 

"Film is here, NOW. So unless you don't plan on entering the film industry for another couple of decades, it's pointless to ignore it. It may or may not be here after twenty years but that's sort of irrelevant, isn't it?"

 

I am by no means against film. I understand the quibbles of doing away with it. I'm just under the impression that film is becoming a rather impractical finance in light of the emerging digital realm. It seems that digital is becoming much more advantageous than film - it also seems these advantages will solidify faster than several decades. Isn't digital here now?

[Guest Pete Wright]

I think that video and HD are replacing film pretty rapidly except for movie production. TV shows and commercials that were shot on film are being more and more shot on HD.

 

If someone starts out in movies, there are plenty of experts on film, few on HD. So if one concentrates on HD rather than film, he will have a better competitive edge.

 

Digital replaced professional film still cameras fast. Film resolves more but digital is more convenient. We amy see the same pattern develop later on in movie productions.

 

The pro photographers who hated digital and would not touch it all shoot digital now. It's the same thing with cinematographers. As soon as the technology improves and prices come down, it will be the same pattern.

 

In the past, digital cinema was limited by CCD performance and storage media options and cost. All this is changing rapidly and new players are entering the field. It is because Sony and Panasonic failed to deliver what filmmakers want.

 

I think that within 10 years we will have the same situation in cinematography as we now have in professional photography. The equipment will perform better, will be more convenient to use, will make productions easier, better and more efficient. You will be able to do more takes quicker, for less $, lighting setup will be easier and more predictable, etc.

 

So is the life of film 20 years? I don't think so. There will always be still photographers who will shoot large format, and there will be for some time high power directors who will dictate that they'll only shoot film. The rest will always use or will have to use what is more economical.

 

It will not take long. The transformation to digital in still pro photography was very rapid. The same will happen here.

 

That is my opinion.

 

Pete

[Guest Pete Wright]

Optical projection is about 2K. Sony developed $60,000 and $80,000 digital projections that are 4K. It will match 35 mm film resolution better. The Genesis camera has a 4K chip.

 

There are no mechanical parts in digital projectors. You will probably soon need less projectionists and maintenance.

 

As digital projectors come down in price and you don't have to bother with optical prints, we may see the digital replace optical projection quite fast in the future.

 

4K projector makes sense on a film that has similar resolution, especially since HD will be more common at home so you should have something a lot better in the theater.

 

Pete

[Jason Maeda]

i work in still photography, where this exact debate was happening seven years ago...film is definately on its last legs. i hate to see it go, but the catalyst for stylistic acheivement is very often a technological advancement.

 

jk :ph34r:

[Filip Plesha]

I would hardly say that theaters in general are converting in general.

Some are thinking about it, some were foolish enough to buy expensive digital systems that will NOT stand up to the actual standard of future digital cinema.

but most worldwide cinemas are not even thinking about it yet. Digital cinema

is the future, but it is not now. I will call it now when 30-40% screens

worldwide are digital.

The problem is that there is no standard yet. DCI is trying to make a standard,

and I think they are the ones that will dictate the future standard because DCI members are major studios like Fox and WB. Their specifications are subjected

to changes and are not finished yet, but some things are pretty clear by now.

Films will be stored in image files, not HD video data. There will be two standards

2K for smaller cinemas, and 4K for larger. Bit deph will be 12-bit. Speed will be

24fps or 48fps (in case someone wan'ts to make a 48fps film) but only in 2K.

If there is going to be any worldwide standard in digital cinema soon, I think this

will be it (technology will catch up quickly i think)

 

All those 1K or 1.5K systems used today will probably be obsolete, or soled

to specialized cinemas like arthouses.

If I owned my own cinema chain, I would not invest in digital at least for the next 5 years.

 

And now my comment on Petes posts:

 

High-end fashion photography is still shot on film mostly. It is not like film in totally replaced by digital in professional photography. There is always someone saying things like that because he knows a bunch of pro photographers and where ever he turns he sees digital photography. Induction is not a very accurate form of reasoning.

[Guest Pete Wright]

48 fps is interesting. i remember from school that this is the speed where the eye/brain no longer perceive jerkiness of motion. That is why theater projectors project each frame twice. You actually get 48 fps on a 24 fps film.

 

Pete

[David Mullen ASC]

There is little economic incentive for exhibitors to invest in 2K or 4K digital projectors. Some have cheaper HD projectors to show commercials before the trailers now, that's all.

 

Considering that a 35mm projector costs a third to a quarter of what a high-end digital projector does, and can be used for decades (I've even been in some theaters with projectors that were built in the 1930's), the exhibitors have not been jumping at the bit to buy digital projectors that may be obsolete in five years. It's really the distributors that stand to benefit the most from the exhibitors switching over to digital projection, but there are many obstacles (some legal) from them collaborating too closely on switching, ever since the Supreme Court's consent degree separating the studios from theater ownership.

 

And with something like 38,000 35mm theaters in the U.S. I believe, and many, many more worldwide, you'll be seeing 35mm print projection for a LONG time to come, believe me. Digital production may be here long before digital distribution.

 

Look, all I'm saying is that if you want to have a career as a cinematographer HERE and NOW, and for the coming decade, you had better learn BOTH digital and film. If you want to become a video engineer, fine, stick to just digital. If you are an independent filmmaker who never wants to touch film, that's fine too -- you can do that now too, as long as when you make a sale for theatrical distribution, you let other people worry about how it gets onto 35mm film. But I figured the question was being asked an beginning cinematographer, not a beginning director, this being a cinematography forum.

 

Film may or may not become obsolete in the near or far future, but what's that got to do with anything here and now? Were you considering buying shares in Kodak versus Sony? What's the point of playing this "guess the future" game in terms of learning to become a filmmaker of today, not the future? If you plan on making movies for worldwide theatrical distribution, film technology will come into the picture at some point. It's that simple. Either accept that or live in denial.

 

Besides, anyone with a passion for filmmaking will have a passion for movies in general, which have been shot on film for the past 100 years! So how can anyone call themselves a filmmaker but have no interest in the way movies have been made for the past 100 years? Even if you decide to concentrate on digital technologies, you would naturally want to learn something about film technology, if only to understand what all the fuss was about 24P or film gamma curves, or widescreen aspect ratios, etc. Nothing about filmmaking exists in a vacuum.

 

As for the rush for filmmakers to shoot digitally, just look at the actual figures, other than in the lowest of low-budgets. How many dramatic TV shows are shot digitally? Maybe one out of every twenty? How many dramatic feature films released theatrically are shot digitally? How many are in the theaters right now (not counting documentaries)? How many years before the technology of the Genesis, Dalsa, or D20 becomes commonplace and used regularly and become cost-effective? And once you BEGIN to compete with what 35mm can do, that doesn't necessarily mean that 35mm is through either. It can take years for a shift like that to take place.

 

All of these discussions are usually held by film students and amatuers. In the real professional world, you have to learn to deal with both film and digital now. Unless you are an equipment owner, you don't necessarily have to guess which way the market will swing because you are prepared either way. You are not dependent on knowledge of one particular technology to get work. Geoff Boyle is a master of shooting beauty shots for commercials -- do you really think it matters if film switches to digital someday for someone like him? He can do either; he's smart enough to learn anything new; and the skills for which he gets hired go SO FAR beyond the recording format it isn't even funny. You need to have the right perspective on this issue.

[Jason Maeda]

i work at the highest level of still photography and have for some years. i am watching the change-over pick up speed exponentially. i would not be surprised if in fifteen years film had been virtually eliminated except as a special process, akin to shooting only polaroid.

 

we all know that film is a reality of the present day. the debate is over the future and imho, the writing is on the wall for all to see if they choose to look. i think the discussion is not "amateur", i think it too non-specific. the real argument is what form will the technology take when the inevitable switch has occurred.

 

jk :ph34r:

[Jason Rodriguez]

Well said David.

 

BTW, I would like to add one qualifier to the still photography situation.

 

35mm film is on it's last legs and dying quickly. Practically every journalist/pro-photographer I see that was shooting 35mm is now shooting digital. Also 99% of the pictures I get across the AP or Reuters news wire are now digital, not film. The main place I still see 35mm film cameras are among pros or high-level amateurs who have a lot invested in their film gear and don't feel ready/compelled to make the jump to digital-but it's generally not a quality issue, just more of a convenience/familiarity issue to them. Also I still see a number of film-based photographers are art shows who feel that digital is "low-brow", and by saying their stuff is shot on film they can demand higher pricing. Of course a number of these art photographers are shooting medium format too, I'll get to that next. But I've seen this at a number of art shows with my own eyes, there are 35mm still photographers that when you mention digital, or they see something shot on digital, they immediately knock it down or disparage it as "photoshop cheating", "consumer point-and-shoot", etc. Of course not helping the situation out are digital photographers who are blowing their pictures up beyond the resolution that their cameras can adequately hold without breaking up and resorting to questionable sharpening techniques that do give their pictures a digital "look" to them. They should be shooting medium format, but instead are trying to blow-up their 6-megapixel pictures to 20"x30", or even larger sizes! For most subjects that's just not going to happen!

 

Medium Format is still going because portable digital cameras that can compete with the resolution of MF are just coming to market now (or have been out for no more than a year-tethered MF digital backs don't count), so you're not likely to see photographers who have invested years of work in MF to simply dump their equipment. Although product and catalog photography is mainly digital now, not film, especially when you can buy RGB scanning backs that will go up to 81 megapixels and more!

[Filip Plesha]

People are saying all the time that medium format digital backs have the quality of

medium format film. Actually in resolution, they only reach 35mm qualitty.

5Kx4K is less than what you can achieve on 35mm, but with usual lenses,

faster films etc. etc. let's say that this is it.

 

Resolution is not what makes them comparable, it's the lack of film grain.

The grain in medium format is small enough to give you similar looking results

to 22Mp digital backs like leaf or sinar.

 

Some are even comparing digital backs to large format. That is absurd.

Even 10K scanning backs do not reach the resolution of large format. Yes, they

give the same smooth and sharp look, but technically LF resolution STARTS

from some 20K (for 4x5)

[Andy O'Neil]

John P. Pytlak,

 

I understand that you are Kodak's Senior Technical Specialist. Can you give any info as to where Kodak is going in the next ten years?

 

Andy

[Rob Belics]

The only reason many photos go over the wire digitally is due to the speed necessary in todays world. But that doesn't mean 35mm is on its last legs and dying.

 

However, I have heard you won't find digital among the 'true' art photographers in the MF and LF areas. Of course, most were already there preferring MF and up to 35mm anyway.

[Josh Hill]

I think this particular argument of film vs. digital is moot. Its an argument that has been been going on since video was first released. Every new thing is supposedly the death of something. Were ovens replaced with microwaves? No. Did the motion picture industry flounder and die with the invention of the VCR? No. What about black and white? Color film has been around for over seventy years, but we still marvel over black and white releases (that go on to success and acclaim).

 

I agree with David that film, in the motion picture field, will be around for at least another 20 years. Why? Because it effects so many different people.

 

Sure, the still photography world has been struck hard by digital. Why do reporters use digital pictures? They're easier and quicker to send in order to be printed. There is no lag time between the picture and the development. They're more convenient, and the resolution has finally hit film quality.

 

Why is HD not going to totally decimate film in the next ten years or even twenty?

 

Several reasons:

 

1) It affects too many people. If you were to do an overnight switch (even a switch over the course of five years) to HD production and projection (no film in the process) it would alienate thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of people all over the country.

 

With the price of good digital projectors at what they are, any small theatre would be totally taken out of the loop as far as distribution were concerned if the entire industry suddenly went digital. That would mean fewer screens per movie (can't call them films, remember?), which would therefor mean there would need to be a higher gross per screen to turn a profit.

 

The inherent start up cost for a theatre to install digital projection is too much for many theatres in middle America to afford. This means that distribution will continue to be film until the vast majority of theatres in the United States switch to digital (which will be probably 20 years).

 

Why 20 years? Look at it this way, only in the last year has DVD overtaken VHS in purchase and rentals. DVD has been out en masse for seven or eight years (I've had my DVD player for four). The cost of a cheap DVD player is 50 or so dollars. A family that takes home 20,000 a year can easily afford that. A good digital projector that will match film quality is over 40,000. What does that say for the change over time for something like that? Especially when DVDs are exceptional quality to VHS, are just about as cheap, and there are more titles available? There aren't even that many movies that are distributed digitally for theatres to even need to think about switching over in the next five years. (And I've never been to a theatre, that I'm aware of, that has HD projection for commercials and such before the movie ... I live in Texas.)

 

2) Support issues

 

With new technology there are new issues. Until there are hard and fast standards for digital projection and distribution of movies there are going to be all kinds of issues with digital projectors. Service for these high dollars machines will cost far more than it does to repair a 35mm projector. Why? Because there are fewer people qualified to work on them. For a theatre to invest in digital projection they have to make sure the support infrastructure is behind them. Its fine for large cities that have a dozen or so qualified technicians, but what about the thousands of theatres outside those cities where it could take days for problems to be repaired? Time is money, and that would be one screen that would not be making any.

 

3) Compatibility issues

 

Digital is a lot more finicky than film is. We all know this just from working with computers, I'm sure. It makes for more complex issues on the set, in post, and in the distribution chain. What if this piece of hardware doesn't link with this piece of hardware? What if linking these two things cause bugs that haven't been found yet? As digital production/distribution becomes more complex more problems such as these will arise and have to be overcome (there's a tape duplication service in my home town that I can't use because it cannot make copies of tapes shot on my XL1s, while they play fine in other camcorders and decks). Digital is not a jump in and go at it thing and there is more room for corruption in the chain.

 

Lost data on a bad duplicate could make the whole tape corrupted, or unable to play on a certain machine. This projector may be slightly more picky about what it projects than this other projector (like some CD players are about the CDs they play).

 

It takes years to iron these things out. Film is stable and dependable. Its been around for 100 years and most of its issues have been overcome.

 

That and new technology is always popping up. What is great today is obsolete tomorrow. It will be hard for the motion picture industry to keep up with the constant changes in the digital domain to do away with film altogether within the next 20 years.

 

4) Job issues

 

The Motion Picture industry has jobs to protect. That includes in the distribution chain. No one wants to lay off thousand of projectionists, negative cutters, film researchers, etc etc. Thats why no one is going to jump in head first to the digital water.

 

I think motion picture film will be around in 20 years. Maybe not as prominent, but it will definitely be around. Sure, there will be more productions using HD as the technology develops. But film will remain.

 

And it will remain for a while even after most distribution is gone to digital. People will still shoot it for aesthetic reasons. People will want to use it for artistic reasons. It'll be around.

 

We're no where near watching the final death throes of film. So if you want to be a cinematographer, you need to learn it. It'll get you a job someday, and if you don't learn it you will lose a job someday.

 

When film is dead, you will know it. How? You won't be having these conversations of whether film is dying or not. The conversations will be: "I haven't seen a movie projected on film in ten years." "I've never seen one at all." "Oh you were missing out, there was something great about film."

[David Mullen ASC]

Yes, it's not like in 15 or 20 years there will be this day when we will officially switch over to shooting digitally. Digital will gradually take over from film over time, that much is obvious. But just from watching how far 24P HD has taken over from film production since it was introduced in 2000 -- i.e. not as much as everyone predicted, with no current signs of a significant acceleration of adoption, just a gradual erosion -- and looking further at the newer cameras coming out, a 20-year lifespan for film use in motion pictures is not unrealistic.

 

No one is going to settle to being tethered to a separate recorder, so cameras like the Viper and F950 are just intermediate steps in the path to digital origination for major film productions. The Genesis, with an attached HDCAM-SR recorder, is more in the right step, but it is still limited because of that to 1920 x 1080 pixels. And that will take a few years to become used routinely, partly because of sheer availability. Arri D-20 and Dalsa and Kinetta are still working out the bugs in their systems, so give them a few more years before they are commonly used. And all of those only get us CLOSE to the quality of 35mm production, so add a few more years after that to achieve and IMPLEMENT something even better. So now we're are hitting close to the ten year mark just to be competing on the same level as 35mm day to day.

 

THEN the next hurdle is making all of that not only as good as 35mm, but cheaper and faster and more flexible, because otherwise, why replace 35mm with something only just as good and not any cheaper? Just because it is new?

 

So in the next decade, we start shooting more digital than 35mm. 35mm is obviously dying then and it's only a matter of when, unless it hangs on for years to come as a specialty item. Hence why film may still be around in 20 years, although it probably will not be the dominant format anymore.

 

But honestly, look at all the people screaming the death of film when the F900 came out -- don't they look a LITTLE foolish now? We still don't even shoot most dramatic TV programming in HD, four years after the F900 came out.

 

So the question is why does it matter? Unless you plan on hanging out in film school for a decade in the vain hope of not graduating into the real world until film is dead, you can't escape it completely. You can avoid it, maybe, but if you plan on being a cinematographer, that would make you rather specialized. Most of us work our way up in the industry by being jack-of-all-trades, ready to handle anything. We don't get to choose what cameras we will get to shoot our earlier features on. For some it will be DV, others HD, and others film. We HAVE to learn it all.

 

Also, I don't get the attitude of people starting out in their film careers who ask questions like "what DON'T I have to learn? WHY do I have to learn film if it will be dead soon?" How far can one get with the attitude of "I won't learn this... or that... but only this and maybe some of that..." That comes back to the people who ask "what books MUST I read? Because I don't want to read too much..."

 

Film is not dead. Some of you starting out will be well-established in your careers before it will. Some of us may even be retired by then. So I don't understand the question. So when it finally goes after a decade or so, you'll get to say "see, I was right!" What, you think then there will be an award handed out? A gold star on your chart?

 

The trouble with the question is that it is so irrelevant that it misdirects your energies. Instead of learning how to master the art of visual storytelling, you get fixated on grains versus pixels. God, do you realize how little that has to do with making a movie? How little of your brain is dealing with the specific recording technology on a day-to-day basis?

[Jason Maeda]

but it's possible that the people asking this question ARE well versed in "visual storytelling". just because someone asks a broad question about the future of the technology, doesn't mean they don't understand the importance of, say, camera movement or eye-lines... it just means they want to know where the medium is heading.

 

i don't think it's irrelevant at all. billions of dollars have a way of making anything relevant!

 

jk :ph34r:

[JONATHANEDWARDS]

hello all

 

i am by no means debating that film will not be used as offen in the years to come, but why does that mean its going do die completely. i have kind of skimed the posts and words like film is on its last legs and kodak is realy considering there future seem kind of like stupid rants you get from a sony sales person and not a DP

 

A painter walks in to a art supply store and asks for a certin kind of canvis, maby something only used in the 1930s , he or she is willing to pay the price. But the sales person says thats a old and a dead technique let me introduce you to are latest canvis's

do you think the painter might want the look of that canvis, of course he might like the way the new canvis looks and his next painting is on that canvis. then again a artist might be on a shoe string budget and buy the most aufull supplies and still paints a beautiful painting why is that we should use the newest technolagy just because its the newest.

 

i like to think that film , dv and HD are like a canvis, maby i am not the smartest person here, so maby i am vary wrong this is just my way of looking at it . To me this is a art form and its insane to rule out one type of image acquisition technique in being a film maker, since that is what everybody will see in the end the image that is and not how easy it was to shoot or how inexpensive it was.

 

I was reading a artical not long ago that both arri and panavision will be investing heavly in the future of film, but the artical also sad that thay both have invested a lot of money in Digital cinema. why is every one so intent on talking about killing film here?

 

Why can't it just be a another way of shoting a film. Broadcasters and video techs are so concerned about quality. Some of the best films i have seen have not been sharp or perfect but shot gritty or inperfect on perpurse.

 

every time i log on to this site it seems like more and more film bashing is takeing place. Thats not to say that everyone here are film bashers , i am allways amazed by the amount of talent and experence that 's on this web site, thats why i keep comeing back. But i just feel that alot of stupid coments and bull that comes out of this topic , not just here but in the media and magazines saying "ACTORS LOVE DV "

or " WHY WOULD I EVER SHOOT FILM AGAIN" or that movie was not on film so its garbage. people still make silent films, just not a lot of people but there still there"

the big problem i feel is that the people that don't under stand the difference like producers and directors buy all this nonsince. and its sad that some one would not even take the time to learn about film because thay think somewere in the future its going to disapear

 

 

the realy funny part is that i have the time to wright this because i am vary sick from processing film as the amount of chemicals i have been exposed to in the past week have cought up with me. so in general film is realy bad for are environment

witch makes it a shame wean realy bad movies are shot on film.

 

now my intent is not to putdown the people that think HD is the way of the future, just hopefully open up other ideas , mainy i am just fustrated with the idea that people think film is dead.

[Carlos M. Icaza]

As always, I find this forum invaluable for the vast information and the richness of experience. I often want to chime in but I only have a small window of experience when it comes to cinematography.

 

But I come from the software world, when over 30 years ago, back in the late 60's the mouse was introduced. It took over 30 years for it to be widely accepted. The windows metaphor (winodws, icons, mouse, e-mail, networking) was developed in the early 70's at XEROX PARC (Palo Alto Researc Center) and the business suites at XEROX said it will never fly.

 

It took more than 20 years for Personal computers to get to where they are now. The Internet itself, founded in the late 60's took over 30 years for it to be what it is today. And even then, remember the whole Internet boom ? Pets.com, Toys.com, thisandthat.com only for the internet. boom to become internet.BOMB !

 

I say this because I agree with what Dave and some of the other folks here are saying. I learned how to program back in 1984. When hardly anybody knew what a personal computer was let alone what a computer programming language was all about. Computer Science was for the nerds. Now days if for anybody. But I learned the "craft" of programming, and 20 years later, with the new wave of computers, faster displays, LCD screens, etc, programming still is programming. It has not changed.

 

To me, in the filmworld, the craft is in the storytelling. Learn how to tell a story regardless of the medium. Learn how to paint it regarldless of the medium. Learn how to frame, to move the camera, to guide the actors, to plan, plan, plan. Because it is like I always say, people don't care if you wrote the best program in the world in BASIC, or C++ or JAVA. If it works and does what people want, does it matter if I used the latest C++ or Java or BASIC? if it sells and my wallet gets fatter, does it matter what I wrote it in?.

 

If you use "FILM" or "HD" or "miniDV" or "8mm", it does not matter, as long as you can share your vision of the story and what you had origininally envisioned comes through through the projector, be it a film projector, or a laptop dvd player.

 

It is all about the storytelling. And I also agree, film will never go away. It is a medium that will be like programming languages, no matter how advance the computer is, you still need to run that software that you bought five years ago because it is the only thing that does what you want. Windows hasn't changed from the very first windows 3.1. It just went from 16 bits to 32 bits. OS-X new ? hardly. It was formely known as NEXTSTEP. An operating system developed in the early 90's.

 

Who are we kidding when it comes to OS's ? To me is it is not the OS, it is the software that runs on the os and is the software the does what you want it to do. Windows or Mac ? Film or HD ? it does not matter, it is the story, and if the story makes you cry, laugh, angry, happy, sad, and you concot emontion, then the medium that it was recorded in is less of a factor in the story telling.

 

I am beginning cinematography, and I an learning in miniDV because I need to learn how to tell a story above anything else. I need to discipline myself and learn as much as I need to learn from as many errors that I will make before I call myself a filmmaker or even a dp.

 

As always, with gratitude,

 

C.-

[Eric Steelberg ASC]

Something I think people also overlook is that fact that as digital recording technology improves, so does film. It's not as if the best offering from Kodak is some antiquated 90's film stock. They are still pushing the boundaries of film aquistion with superb stocks such as the new Vision 2 series. I'm sure John (Kodak) would be willing to agree that film still has a bit more room to mature...even after 100 years of development.

 

I do think it's good though that there is now another option for aquisition because competition always benefits the consumer. Who knows if we'd have Vision 2 if HD hadn't come out with such fanfare in 2000.

[David Mullen ASC]

I apologize if I have inadvertently been debating with Vittorio Storaro in disquise (as Jason, Andy, and Pete) here on the future of film, but I kinda doubt it...

 

The thing is, any experienced professional has already heard all of these "film is dead" arguments ad nauseum, so what are the odds they want to drum it up again? To what practical purpose?

 

No, I'm afraid that people who want to argue that film is a fast-dying medium usually have an agenda or a bias, and tend to be on the fringes of the industry or be a beginner or be a digital equipment owner or manufacturer -- while those who work with BOTH regularly simply have an informed opinion about the strengths and weaknesses of both and where they think the industry is heading in the short term, blah, blah, blah... I don't have an investment one way or the other. If I were anti-digital, I wouldn't have shot eight of my last ten features in HD. How far digital has gone is pretty clear from where I'm sitting. I just joined the digital camera subcommitee on the ASC Technology committee so I will be involved in looking at and testing cameras like the Genesis (when I have the time...) And from where I'm sitting, film is not dead and it won't be dead within the next ten years. It will be in decline over the next twenty years definitely.

 

For anyone who wants to somehow prove that film will soon be dead, my question is "why?" To what purpose? How does that serve you? How will that make you a better filmmaker now or in the near future? I mean, if you're an experienced professional, you're working with digital technology right NOW, so you can't exactly say "it's so I know to study it because digital is the future." You already know that!

 

A bunch of experienced visual artists would be talking about how to make digital technologies better, not asking when film will be dead. The answer is that hopefully film will be dead when no one notices it is dead. But if Jason, Andy, and Pete are all claiming to be very experienced film professionals, then I apologize for suggesting that they were somehow less than experienced in the art of filmmaking.

[Carlos M. Icaza]

David,

 

Speaking of Vittorio Storaro, do you know when his next book is coming out ? and speaking of books, is the one you are co-writing out yet ?

 

And speaking of Film, looks like I'll be shooting some super 8 mm for inserts for a music video I shot in miniDV.

 

Cheers,

 

C.-

[Guest Pete Wright]

Look at history:

 

ED Beta, introduced maybe in 1994, 500 line resolution, analog prosumer format, 1/2" tape

 

DV, maybe from 1996, 500 line resolution, digital, 25 Mbps, digital prosumer format, mini size tape

 

If they could make good 500 line 25 Mbps equipment 8 years ago, it will not take more than couple of years and we'll see cameras of F900 image quality that will cost under $10K. That will kill film, on most productions.

 

Summix has 10 engineers working on a Kinetta quality camera that will be available at fraction of the Kinetta cost. The release date is this year.

 

You have cheap hard drives available for storage. In the past Ikegami and Hitachi had to rely on Matsushita and Sony for storage.

 

You have inexpensive high quality 1080/60p CMOS chips that will be available in a month or so and everyone, from Ikegami to Kinetta, to JVC, to Summix, to Silicon Imaging will be using them for broadcast quality HD cameras costing from $4,000 to $100,000. No one needs to buy from CCD's from Sony anymore.

 

Sony sees the writing on the wall and in one year will be introducing digital still cameras chips that will also record HD quality video. Why? Don't they want to protect their HD investment? Of course they do, but there are about 5 other companies that are working on the same thing. If you can't beat them, join them.

 

So even if film be here another 100 years, it will soon be used only for studio and high end indie productions. Everything else will be HD. This transformation will not take 10 years.

 

Although everyone was invested in Super 8, VHS took over like storm.

 

Although everyone was invested in pro 35 mm and medium format SLRs, digital took over like a storm.

 

Although everyone is invested in S16 and 35 mm equipment, HD will take over like a storm.

 

Pete

[Max Jacoby]

No, I'm afraid that people who want to argue that film is a fast-dying medium usually have an agenda or a bias, and tend to be on the fringes of the industry or be a beginner or be a digital equipment owner or manufacturer -- while those who work with BOTH regularly simply have an informed opinion about the strengths and weaknesses of both and where they think the industry is heading in the short term, blah, blah, blah...  .

 

I have also found that most people who claim that 'film is dead' have never shot on film and have very little actual production experience. Most of the time it seems to be based on the wishful thinking that one day their cheap little video camera will give a good enough picture so they won't have to feel bad anymore about not being able to shoot on film.

[Rob Belics]

Yep. As David said, mostly amateurs.

 

What gets me is film has nothing to apologize for and people seem to think it should "get out of the way old man". It's about time the film group take the offensive or pro-active side and say "step aside young whipper snapper, your still wet behind the ears and have much to learn."

 

BTW, the earlier comment about film chemicals and the environment, the chemicals used for making integrated circuits are much more caustic/toxic/dangerous than anything used for film. Very expensive and large water treatment plants are used at each IC factory just to handle that. Relatively cheap filtering is used at commercial labs for film.