Roger Deakins on Digital vs. 35mm

[James Malamatinas]

Very interesting conversation with Roger Deakins below:

 

Roger Deakins: Digital vs 35mm

 

Will leave opinion to you guys; I'm worried about starting another film vs. digital thread - there is enough of those on here!

 

EDIT: Fixed link. Thanks John.

Edited February 8, 2011 by James Malamatinas

[John Sprung]

The link doesn't work.

 

 

 

 

-- J.S.

[James Malamatinas]

Fixed it, thanks.

[Guest Kevin Thomas]

This clip covers a range of topics apart from True Grit and towards the end he discusses shooting on the Alexa

 

[K Borowski]

Oh no! Not Roger too. I am really really hoping he was misquoted or the article heavily slanted towards the pro-digital things he was saying. God knows the media loves to glorify anything involving 11001001s. Fortunately he is accessible enough that I can ask him. We are really fortunate to have Cinematographers who are so open and scholarly, like Deakins, Mullen. We're really privileged in these internet communities to have such a wealth of knowledge instead of tight-lipped thuggish types with the "Took-er-jerrrrb" mentality that if you teach someone your craft they will just come up to be a competitor..

[Phil Rhodes]

Next, Phil Rhodes on Digital vs 35mm!

 

Roger Deakins' opinion is more or less meaningless, because he's completely blind to, and probably more or less consciously unaware of, the overwhelming factor that makes people shoot digital. I've said it before, but the greatest proponents of film tend to be those who get to shoot it at someone else's expense, and I can't really flip that on its head just because Deakins' opinion happens to coincide with the status quo.

 

P

[Vincent Sweeney]

It's just someone's personal taste. He simply likes ultra clear/sharp images. Even when shooting 35mm he puts a lot of effort into shooting at a lens's sweet-spot, etc. The comment about adding grain is interesting though. He's the same one that had planned to shoot Jarhead on S16mm at one time too.

 

You don't see him shooting films like Black Swan, or Biutiful either so maybe it's part taste, and part not working with directors that strongly prefer more texture in their work (or whatever you like to call it).

[Adrian Sierkowski]

I don't see much wrong with picking the right format for the project at hand, which is what Mr Deakins seems to be saying. I doubt that if a film came up where he thought Digital would be the way to go that he'd pick film, or one where he though film would be better that he'd be shooting digital.

[K Borowski]

I don't see much wrong with picking the right format for the project at hand, which is what Mr Deakins seems to be saying.

 

Read the article, and you'll see that isn't the case. . .

[Stuart Brereton]

He has said many times on his forum that he finds the Film vs Digital argument meaningless, and that he will happily shoot on any format that delivers the results he needs. Up until his most recent movie, digital has not been good enough for him and so he has avoided it, but he is currently shooting on the Alexa.

[georg lamshöft]

I find his arguments regarding better tonal transitions und higher dynamic range a little bit surprising - the ALEXA is good, but better than film? He also insists on a 4k DI but accepts uncompresses 1080p output? From what I understand he really likes the sensitivity ad maybe his new movie will show a look we've never seen before but he was always after? I'm a huge fan of Niccol's - let's see how "Now" holds up on the big screen.

[Francesco Bonomo]

I find his arguments regarding better tonal transitions und higher dynamic range a little bit surprising - the ALEXA is good, but better than film?

 

this is from the ASC website:

 

“To me, Alexa is the first [digital] camera that succeeds in getting an image that is not exactly film, but does something that film cannot do,” he says. “It has better color space than film, more latitude, and basically, it’s faster and incredible in low light. This film [Now] has lots of night exterior work, low light levels, a low budget, and we are working fast and furious on it, and [Alexa] is holding up fantastically well.”

 

He also insists on a 4k DI but accepts uncompresses 1080p output?

 

On his website he wrote that he doesn't really care about "numbers" and admits that most people who post there know more about the technical aspects of digital than him, but he adds he trusts his eyes, and even though Alexa has less resolution than other cameras or 35mm film, he believes it holds incredibly well when projected at 2K, 4K and on 35mm. He also added he'd love to see a 4K camera from Arri, though, but if he had to choose one thing to add to the camera it would be the optical viewfinder.

[Adrian Sierkowski]

I did read it, though it was brief, but it just sounds like it's snippets from a larger interview.

[Phil Rhodes]

He also insists on a 4k DI but accepts uncompresses 1080p output?

 

There is a certain logic to this, if you think about it.

 

If you shoot, postproduce and project 1080p, every pixel you shoot ends up on the screen. There is no, or rather should be no, conversion of formats during the process; there is no loss. Each pixel of each frame directly describes image information.

 

If you shoot 35 then scan it, you have to deal with the fact that the grain does not line up with the pixels and is different on every frame. Since the grains carry the picture information (at whatever resolution it exists) you aren't necessarily describing picture information using the pixels in your scan - you're describing grain, which then describes picture information.

 

This is a longwinded way of saying that in order to keep 2K of resolution in a film scan, you may well have to scan it at 4 to get everything, simply because details in the film image may not line up conveniently with your 2K scanning grid. Scanning film is not a straightforward re-wrapping of existing data like changing (say) a Quicktime movie to an AVI file, which can often be done without changing the image, it's a conversion between two vastly different regimes, and it is not without loss and imperfection.

 

It's intuitively true, too. Obviously, a 1080p video originated image is going to look sharper (though not necessarily better) than a film image scanned to 1080p, because the video image has only one set of imaging artifacts and the 35 has two.

 

This doesn't even take photochemical generation loss into account, which has limited traditional 35mm postproduction to an effective resolution significantly under 2K.

 

So yes, it might easily look better to scan film at 4K, and the result might easily be comparable to a good 1080p video image. The required data rates, just to give an idea, are just over 1000MB/sec for a 4k by 3k 10-bit RGB image, which would probably require a 10-16 drive RAID these days and is achieved fairly routinely.

[K Borowski]

Direct quotes: "First film I’ve shot digitally, because, frankly, it’s the first camera I’ve worked with that I’ve felt gives me something I can’t get on film. Whether I’ll shoot on film again, I don’t know. [shooting on Digital] gives me a lot more options."

 

I don't see much wrong with picking the right format for the project at hand, which is what Mr Deakins seems to be saying.

 

"Whether I'll Shoot on Film Again, I Don't Know" is the title of the article, too, even if you didn't read that part of it.

Edited February 9, 2011 by K Borowski

[Adrian Sierkowski]

I woudln't say there's anything too much so "i'll only shoot digital," rather, I don't know what the next project may need. Else he's just being silly.

[K Borowski]

This doesn't even take photochemical generation loss into account, which has limited traditional 35mm postproduction to an effective resolution significantly under 2K.

 

That's just not correct.

 

If it were, theatres would have converted to analog video tape in the '70s.

 

It is true now BECAUSE of DI mastering that movies on film look worse than an HD master (before compression), but that is taking a 2K scan, and copying it three more times.

 

When you start out with a cut negative, and exercise the proper quality control steps, 35mm, especially from a 4-perf. neg., can hold far more than 2K, even in a 4th generation copy. But hey, everyone was using S35 anyway, because anamorphic lenses were SUCH a hassle to work with. Nevermind, no big deal.

 

Phil, you of all people should know better to generalize the WORST a product is capable of (2K DI, 4th generation copy from a S35, 500T negative) and play it off as indicative of that system as a whole. And I place Deakins' opinion far above a number-cruncher or a film geek who is more fascinated with the technology than the final product it produces. That, in a way, is almost like a blind test, a truly objective observer evaluating the final image. Barrin, of course, cases where it is degraded by age, genetics, gender, other heritable traits, the trained human eye is one of the best indicators of on-screen quality.

[Phil Rhodes]

When you start out with a cut negative, and exercise the proper quality control steps, 35mm, especially from a 4-perf. neg., can hold far more than 2K, even in a 4th generation copy

Well, I'm just not sure that's true, what can I say.

Even if it's possible I suspect it isn't done often and it certainly isn't the norm. I've seen camera original scans - good scans, on good gear, from big movies - where I didn't really think that a 2.35 super-35 frame shot on 500 speed stock was 2K, let alone 4, and I promise you it wasn't by the time it'd been shot back out to intermediate stock and duped. Now that's not normal either, that's a pretty extreme case, but I'm afraid that this idea that traditional four-stage photochemical postproduction routinely produced 4K results on the average cinema screen is just fantasy. It looked good, because of all the advantages of what we might call "dynamic image element technology", or moving grain, and I like it, I have no objection to it, it's fine, but 4K on the screen? I suspect not.

And if it did, you wouldn't want to scan at 4, for all the reasons I mentioned. You'd want 6 or 8.

P

[K Borowski]

I don't think 35mm through either 2K, 4K DI or contact print workflows, even technicolor from the OCN has ever produced 4K results.

 

I forget the resolution of print stock, but I am pretty sure it can hold more than 4K, not that someone would ever come up with a high speed system that could do that.

 

 

I'd say, a good contact print could get maybe around 2.5K on the screen from a 4th gen, maybe approaching 3K from a show print. I'd say 35mm neg., 4-perf. anamorphic academy only holds about 3.2K or so of actual information. So yes, 6K, whatever the number is that is between 6- and 8- K would probably be the absolute maximum you'd need. 8K is really overkill.

 

But resolution isn't where 35mm film really shines. It's color bit-depth (analog equivalent). I'm not really qualified to talk about color spaces, bit-depth, compression any of those issues, but color film, contact printed, can convey a remarkable range of tonal and color rendition that is, to me, unmatched by any digital system I've seen. Even in the DI system, using a good color space (Cineon and its successors are the only systems I really know of that really attempt to render a full "filmic" color range, but even here I've read there is great room for improvement - and it was designed by Kodak!) there really is something lost after digital imput and digital output regardless of steps taken to deal with grain aliasing, preserving resolution, etc. etc. etc.

 

 

For me, the most important thing is being able to produce good flesh tone, not to get XK on the screen. But, yeah, we're getting less than 2K now in every movie in the past year that I know of, save "Inception," and were only getting marginally more than 2K (save S35 content) before DI.

[Simon Wyss]

I think the film vs. digit debate is also somewhat hooked to a generation, that one of now 50 to 70 years old, roughly. I have a 1951 born boss who can react so superficially, so lightly, incomparable to for instance my generation of now 40 to 50 years of age. It’s no wonder to me that Deakins and others, let’s include Jean-Pierre Beauviala here, switch between film and video any time. Beauviala is an electrical engineer and the cameras he designes or co-designs are like some more apps of an electronic world. A producer of 44 years today for whom I was busy prefers an Arriflex 35 II to everything else except perhaps the Wall he acquired lately. Again another cinematographer I know personally works Mitchell, Bell & Howell Standard, Moviola. Of course they vanish in the mass. But we’re here. I am a film man, too. I have an uncle who says film although it’s video. He is a 1942er.

[Vincent Sweeney]

I find his arguments regarding better tonal transitions und higher dynamic range a little bit surprising - the ALEXA is good, but better than film?

 

This is a little odd to me too. Can't say I've seen any proof of that and cetainly roll-off isn't better to my eye, then again, most of us don't have access to the best available post production/grading options on earth.

 

1080 has been holding up fine since that 2nd Star Wars, its all the other stuff in that image that hasn't been so hot since.

 

I think the film vs. digit debate is also somewhat hooked to a generation, that one of now 50 to 70 years old, roughly. I have a 1951 born boss who can react so superficially, so lightly, incomparable to for instance my generation of now 40 to 50 years of age. It’s no wonder to me that Deakins and others, let’s include Jean-Pierre Beauviala here, switch between film and video any time. Beauviala is an electrical engineer and the cameras he designes or co-designs are like some more apps of an electronic world. A producer of 44 years today for whom I was busy prefers an Arriflex 35 II to everything else except perhaps the Wall he acquired lately. Again another cinematographer I know personally works Mitchell, Bell & Howell Standard, Moviola. Of course they vanish in the mass. But we’re here. I am a film man, too. I have an uncle who says film although it’s video. He is a 1942er.

 

I just shot a short two weeks ago with several grad students on the crew. More than one of them hated the fact we were on a red and wished for 16mm.

[Chris Keth]

I really don't see why these threads are always stated using the word "versus." Painters don't talk about "oils vs. gauche" or "pencil vs. crayon." Why are we still comparing tools that have different attributes, looks, and uses?

[georg lamshöft]

This is about aquisition technology only and propably the directly related processing, not the "presentation" technologies (35mm print, 2k/4k-beamer, RAW-processing, optical prints...) - I doubt that he compared the Alexa output in digital projection to a regular film print from 35mm to make his statements!?

 

4k != 4k - this is absolutely clear if you take a step beyond RED-marketing. This is why the Alexa oversamples and the Arriscan does that as well - we can discuss if bayer-filtering & OLPF & noise degrade the theoretical resolution/sharpness/IQ more than grain & scanner noise do - but I think it has clearly shown that a regular 2k-scan (oversampled from 3k) on modern film stock (not always 500ASA) in S35 looks terrific - barely any grain/noise and sharpness close to the theoretical limits. The Alexa output (well, I've just seen 1080p) with a similar image size looks spectacular - but not really sharper or more detailed, IMHO. It's a true 4k-DI where 35mm starts to show advantages, IMHO. We can discuss how much usable information remains close to the 4k-nyquist-limit (even when the scan itself is oversampled) but at least in the 2-3k range there is plenty of detail/ information which simply isn't there in HD/2k-output.

I have no idea how they did the IMAX-blowup for "Inception" but it clearly showed some serious detail beyond HD - on this large screen, HD just looks like mush in comparison (like Avatar - which does a great job to cover it up with framing, CGI, light, color and movement). Does Deakins even want to do some IMAX-prints ? ;-)

 

We don't really know what matters for Mr. Deakins in an image regarding technical quality and how he compared these technologies. But I'm afraid that it is propably based on hasty watching and that watching the incredible clean output even in extreme night-shots (this is what he mentions for Niccol's film) on a good HD-screen on set "warps" his perception. Even if we are experienced, we are still prone to the "new toy"-syndrome - experience it myself finding cool features which feel über-important (how could I lived without it?) but lose their fascination rather quickly.

 

I simply wonder if we have to accept a few Deakins films which aren't up to "True Grit" (at least for daylight-shots) in a 4k-theater (when those finally come...) because he jumped on the digital train a bit too early.

 

He also shot Super35 when anamorphic (optical printing, grainier stocks, no super-sharp spherical primes...) was still vastly superior! He mentioned his reasons as well as the other "Super35-fan" Michael Ballhaus but the result never convinced me (not with the older films).

 

On the other hand I'm glad that he doesn't rely on "K's" and he cares about the overall image impression as well.

[Dom Jaeger]

I really don't see why these threads are always stated using the word "versus." Painters don't talk about "oils vs. gauche" or "pencil vs. crayon." Why are we still comparing tools that have different attributes, looks, and uses?

 

Perhaps because the arrival of crayons never threatened the existence of pencils. Even acrylic paints - cheaper, faster and less toxic than the oils they were supposed to replace, never really threatened oils because so many painters refused to give up the texture and colour richness of oil paint (sound familiar?).

 

But digital cameras will kill film. I give it about 10 more years - optimistically - before the film manufacturers and processing labs will call it a day. And cinematographers will have lost access to another option, another tool.

 

As Kurt Vonnegut would say, "so it goes".

[K Borowski]

One of the most wonderful philosophies I've ever heard about business goes as follows:

 

Myself: "Mike, you're a bartender. What would you do for a living if you lived during prohibition?"

 

Mike: "That's simple. I'd make f*¢|<$ beer and liquor anyway."

 

 

 

I cannot make color film myself, but I can expose an AWFUL lot of it.

 

 

There is a point though, you're right, when the number dips below a certain number of billion feet that Kodak and Fuji are totally ____ed. Ironically, I think B&W film is going to outlive color. It is far simpler to manufacture. Color film, however, is a very complicated animal. And its manufacture is very much an economy of scale situation. It's not like color paint, where you can make a gallon almost as cheaply as you can make 400- or 500 thousand gallons (2 million liters) of it. You cannot make a 2,000-foot (610 m) can of color film almost as cheaply as you can make 2,000,000,000 feet (610,000,000 m) of it.

 

I was privileged, in 2009 to be shown some work done by a professional photographer in the 1920s. Despite the arrival of nitrate film, he stubbornly continued to shoot all of his work on hand-coated, glass plates until the end of his career. Matthew Brady, the famous Civil War photographer, is said to have had so much of his work survive because he stubbornly continued using Daguerrotypes when everyone else switched to glass plates. In WWI many of said glass plates were sold by the U.S. Gov't. as surplus, the emulsion stripped off so the glass could be sold. I don't know if that is true, but that is the story as I heard it.

 

The photo of Monica Lewinsky and Bill Clinton existed, in part, because the photographer still had a slide of the two of them from his stock photos, whereas all of the digital images taken by him and everyone else had been deleted because they weren't relevant for whatever coverage they were providing to the wire services at the time.

 

 

 

Film is going to continue, I'm sure, in some form a hundred years hence, but I'm sure it will exist in a form that has lost commercial viability and cost-effectiveness, just as there are still Daguerrotypists today.

 

I am going to keep shooting film until they stop coating it. Then I am going to learn how to make it, and keep shooting it, and learn to disguise it as much as I can.