Tired of hearing "Film is Dead?" Well So Are We!

[George Ebersole]

No offense Carl, but you're not making too much sense here.

 

What films are you working on?

[Chris Millar]

image>>image - image processing

model>>image - 3D rendering

 

For the extent of this discussion it can be seen as standard stuff.

 

image>>model - machine vision

 

By model I mean conceptual model not always physical.

 

George, search out 'machine learning', you'll find it's a very popular topic nowadays and it's reasonable to say your life will be changed somewhat (more and more (and more)) by the outcomes of people working in the field.

[George Ebersole]

I don't see what machine learning has to do with anything.

[Chris Millar]

As I don't see what films Carl is working on has 'to do with anything'.

 

But in attempt to clarify it for you (to a point) I was attempting to allow you to make more sense of Carls post.

 

No bother though ;)

[George Ebersole]

I learned to code in 1980 on Apples using Apple Basic, I played on teletypes at Lawrence Livermoore from 77 to 79, I build my own computers for my own personal use, and even took a crack at entering Robot Wars in the 90s when it was here in the US up at Fort Mason in SF. I've shot stuff at Apple, Intel, VMX, knew the VP for SEGA America and his son, was courted by them to write (but never did), and I still don't understand what "machine learning" is.

 

Nor do I see its relevance.

[James Steven Beverly]

 

I'm interested in the film to digital pipeline - but I haven't been on any death watch. As far as I'm concerned film died thirty years ago. But it was reborn the very next day. This is perhaps purely personal as much as rhetorical but I think it might also have currency just beyond myself. Thirty years ago it was no longer a case of film being better (or worse) than video (or what I could see video would become). It was a case of film being intrinsically and fundamentally differerent from video, and from digital. The mediums were different. Both physically and conceptually. Both practically and theoretically. At every single level.

 

Film was reborn in this moment for me - no longer in competition with video/digital. It was film as a parent who has love for it's children, but also film as something capable of change and evolution - not the medioum itself so much although great things have happened there as well, but in terms of what artists, who understand the medium, can do with it. This was thirty years ago.

 

Believe me. Thirty years ago the same thing was being said as is being said today. Film is dead. By which was meant, it will be. One day. The electronic bandwagon was leaving town for the big smoke. Are you interested or do you want to persevere with this old Victorain age technology? And it was completely obvious. But film is a powerful ghost, far more powerful than digital. It is capable of haunting the present in ways that digital can't. Digital would have to die first. But digital can't die. It can not, therefore, return from the grave.

 

Now since that time I've always treated film as completely secure, not in terms of day to day deals on film stock and whether this or that production will be done on film or video or digital (ho hum), but in terms of the massive history behind film. It's a huge legacy. It's has a legendary foothold in cultural memory. And the fact that today, despite the death of film thirty years ago, one can get a camera, a roll of film, shoot it, process it and screen it and see exactly what I mean - a spectre, a ghost, a poltergeist, a zombie. A beautiful, spooky and powerful force.

Philo Farrnsworth

I'm not on any death watch. Film died thirty years ago.

 

Carl

Well, with all due respect, "as your concerned" is irrelevant to anyone BUT you. Film was NEVER "re-born" nor "dead" it exists as it always has, the primary acquisition medium for films with a reasonable budget. and "Digital" video, isn't the :"child" of anything except possibly a variant on analog video which it's self goes back to before the teens of LAST century which is at LEAST late mid Edwardian (only eight years AFTER the Victorian era to be exact). The first digital image recording was invented 63 years ago so you need to revise your "death" estimates.

 

I keep getting the feeling, you consider yourself an intellectual and a poet. You waxed so nostalgic throughout this discussion, I could hardly read through all the metaphors for the tears. And NOW I find, your latest metaphoric nostalgia-laced immersion is into that Victorian era, long dead, yet continually resurrected medium motion picture film and 16mm no less, how did you put it, ah yes" like putting on a pair of old shoes. Extremely comfortable" A particular format that was hailed as being surpassed in image quality by DV a few years ago,. Fairly spry for so grandfatherly and according to you,deceased media. With such tenacious dead media resurrected and popping up over and over again, it's no wonder DeMille made all those Bible epics.

[Chris Millar]

....and I still don't understand what "machine learning" is.

 

Nor do I see its relevance.

 

ok

[George Ebersole]

 

ok

 

Maybe you can enlighten me.

[Chris Millar]

I'll know a lot more in about 6 months from now - even then I'm not sure how exactly to enlighten you on the topic so I suggest if you're interested, do as I have done - search it out, read.

 

No harm in pointing out that even if you don't it'll still be as relevant as you decide ;)

[Stuart Brereton]

The computer is what it's inventors aimed at: a "universal machine". The idea of such. The ultimate generic machine.

 

What is built around this universal machine are things like: keyboards, screens, mice, xbox kinect sensors, cameras, modems, which are called "peripherals". They are not part of the computer proper. They are add ons around the central idea.

 

This idea is as old as mathematics - of a universal system. A rational system. A logical system, that would account for anything and everything. At the heart of this system is the simplest of number systems, the binary system. Which can be physically implemented by a single switch. The first computer is an on/off switch. The switch that turns the computer on. And turns it off.

 

Within the universe of computation there is no such thing as digital photography. The computer itself doesn't really give birth to digital photography. It's fundamental consciousness is not built on data but on a priori algorithms. Mathematics. The abacus. Data is something that happens later - imposed from outside this system. The digital photograph arrives in the form of data. Not much needs to be done with this data other than re-route it to storage. When something does need to be done it is algorithms that come into play, to manage and massage that data into some alternative form or not as the case may be. The data is then re-routed to the screen, to drive a display.

 

The real power of the computer is not tested in any way by this. As far as the computer is concerned the data is just dumb information to be occasionally massaged. The computer's central consciousness is much more tested by the art of computer generated imagery where the computer creates the data in the first place, according to ancient and modern laws of physics, ie. where mathematics is king. The synthesised image.

 

But in recent years an alternative role for computation has emerged, (other than simple data management) and that is the world of machine vision. This is where it gets far more interesting - where digital photography and computation actually start interacting with each other in interesting ways. Here it is not mathematics which is king, but statistics.

 

And soon there will be quantum computation where statistical theories of the universe will need to be properly dusted and reworked.

 

This is where digital really lives. Digital photography is just one small and insignificant part of the digital universe proper.

 

C

Not sure about the Universal machine. Maybe a universal translator would be more help...

[James Steven Beverly]

. and "Digital" video, isn't the :"child" of anything except possibly a variant on analog video which it's self goes back to before the teens of LAST century which is at LEAST late mid Edwardian (only eight years AFTER the Victorian era to be exact). The first digital image recording was invented 63 years ago so you need to revise your "death" estimates.

I apologize, I made a mistake on the date. The FIRST beginnings of television was 1873 and the first electromagnetic television system design was patented in 1884. That actually would have put television technology well into the Victorian era and actually motion picture technology only preceded television by 6 years. The zoopraxiscope which was first used June 30th,1878 and was a crude motion picture viewer. A series of 12 stereoscopic cameras set 21 inches apart and armed with trip wires to photograph the individual frames that covered the 20 feet that the subject moved across essentially creating the first piece of motion picture film, 12 frames long and the first motion picture camera angle, a tracking shot of a horse and rider at a galloped. SO, if you want a metaphor, which you seem to be so fond of, film and video are fraternal twins that grew up in the same golden are and age and still live in the same neighborhood today.

[Carl Looper]

Well, with all due respect, "as your concerned" is irrelevant to anyone BUT you. Film was NEVER "re-born" nor "dead" it exists as it always has, the primary acquisition medium for films with a reasonable budget. and "Digital" video, isn't the :"child" of anything except possibly a variant on analog video which it's self goes back to before the teens of LAST century which is at LEAST late mid Edwardian (only eight years AFTER the Victorian era to be exact). The first digital image recording was invented 63 years ago so you need to revise your "death" estimates.

 

I keep getting the feeling, you consider yourself an intellectual and a poet. You waxed so nostalgic throughout this discussion, I could hardly read through all the metaphors for the tears. And NOW I find, your latest metaphoric nostalgia-laced immersion is into that Victorian era, long dead, yet continually resurrected medium motion picture film and 16mm no less, how did you put it, ah yes" like putting on a pair of old shoes. Extremely comfortable" A particular format that was hailed as being surpassed in image quality by DV a few years ago,. Fairly spry for so grandfatherly and according to you,deceased media. With such tenacious dead media resurrected and popping up over and over again, it's no wonder DeMille made all those Bible epics.

 

Nostalgia is about loss

 

Nostalgia is not the same as history. History is that which survives the past, into the present. Nostalgia is about a desire for something that has gone and will never return.

 

What I am speaking about is not nostalgia. I am speaking about history - that which comes down to us from the past and survives in museums, in libraries, in art gallerys, in boxes under the bed, in the rubbish tip, in archeological digs, and so on.

 

Putting on a pair of old shoes was a little nostalgic, but what I'm doing wit thoise old shoes is far from it. It is about history. Both that which comes from the past and that which has yet to occur. The present is a fiction.

 

And yes the brief history of film I've posted is poetic. Poetry is required when you are writing to a forum, otherwise your posts will end up the length of a book. Because to write the history of film video etc, would require a book, many books. My posts tend to get too long as it is.

 

So yes, it's very simple brief poetic stuff.

 

What is wrong with poetry anyway?

 

But a good point about the history being earlier. Indeed it is. Indeed the history of film goes back to cave painting. And it's not linear. It forks off in different directions. For example, the invention of photography is the result of at least two parents - one is optics and the other is chemistry. The camera was known a thousand years ago. The idea of atoms was first proposed by the Ancient Greeks. So yes, it is a bit silly putting dates on various things.

 

Film has died many times, and has been reborn many times. The introduction of TV is a good case in point. Until then there was a particular type of film making called news reels. That particular type of filmmkaing eventually died. Because it went across to TV, where it continued on film for a little while, and then shot on video and then digital. It is quite simple to understand why.

 

Film is dead. Long Live Film.

 

C

[Carl Looper]

I apologize, I made a mistake on the date. The FIRST beginnings of television was 1873 and the first electromagnetic television system design was patented in 1884. That actually would have put television technology well into the Victorian era and actually motion picture technology only preceded television by 6 years. The zoopraxiscope which was first used June 30th,1878 and was a crude motion picture viewer. A series of 12 stereoscopic cameras set 21 inches apart and armed with trip wires to photograph the individual frames that covered the 20 feet that the subject moved across essentially creating the first piece of motion picture film, 12 frames long and the first motion picture camera angle, a tracking shot of a horse and rider at a galloped. SO, if you want a metaphor, which you seem to be so fond of, film and video are fraternal twins that grew up in the same golden are and age and still live in the same neighborhood today.

 

Yes, the history is extremely interesting. TV is indeed a brinwave of the Victorian era. A very good point. My reference to Victorian Age technology was not a put down I was using - it was one thrown at me by a video cameraman arguing with my interest in film - thirty years ago.

 

I guess I'm not being that clear.

 

The whole point I'm trying to make is exactly the same one you are making. That it doesn't matter whether it was invented yesterday or 2000 years ago. The wheel is still as good an idea as it was 6000 years ago.

 

We learn from history. We also change it. We can change the materials, eg. from paint to chemistry, or we can change what we do with the materials, be it paint or with chemistry. It doesn't actually matter.

 

C

[Carl Looper]

The reason I'm saying "film is dead" is simply because I'm sick of defending the counter-proposition: that it isn't dead.

 

I'd rather just agree with the idiotic proposition, that film is dead, than argue why it isn't.

 

But if I had to argue it once more I'd say the reason film is not dead is because there are people, like me, who understand and appreciate it's exquisite beauty, power and history. It is completely and utterly different from everything that has sought to replace it. As it must be.

 

But as soon as I say that there will be some jackass who will jump up and have a go at me about that.

 

So I say to them - yes film is dead. End of story Can I back to enjoyingh film now or do I ahve to listen to another reason why film is dead.

 

The salient point is that having died, many times, it has come back, time and again, from the grave.

 

It doesn't matter why, or how. All that matters is that does. I know why it does but I don't want to necessarily share that in a hostile environment. I would rather say "yes sir, you are right. film is dead. it's been dead for a very long time." and then continue on working with film. If that causes them to scratch their head, then all the f**king better.

 

 

C

Edited August 3, 2013 by Carl Looper

[George Ebersole]

I'll know a lot more in about 6 months from now - even then I'm not sure how exactly to enlighten you on the topic so I suggest if you're interested, do as I have done - search it out, read.

 

No harm in pointing out that even if you don't it'll still be as relevant as you decide ;)

 

I think this conversation has gone over the deep end, and as far as "machine learning" goes, I think it's out there as far as sensible topics go for this conversation.

 

Whatever it is it's got nothing to do with the film debate. Like someone else said, film is used because it's there and DPs are used to working with it, but digital is easier to store, work with, and less expensive.

 

thanks.

[Carl Looper]

I apologize, I made a mistake on the date. The FIRST beginnings of television was 1873 and the first electromagnetic television system design was patented in 1884. That actually would have put television technology well into the Victorian era and actually motion picture technology only preceded television by 6 years. The zoopraxiscope which was first used June 30th,1878 and was a crude motion picture viewer. A series of 12 stereoscopic cameras set 21 inches apart and armed with trip wires to photograph the individual frames that covered the 20 feet that the subject moved across essentially creating the first piece of motion picture film, 12 frames long and the first motion picture camera angle, a tracking shot of a horse and rider at a galloped. SO, if you want a metaphor, which you seem to be so fond of, film and video are fraternal twins that grew up in the same golden are and age and still live in the same neighborhood today.

 

Yes, film and TV are more like siblings. A very good point. I was thinking of TV in the sense of people watching TV in their lounge rooms versus going into town to the cinema. If it wasn't for World War 2, TV in the sense I'm using, could have indeed occurred a lot earlier. The war got in the way. By "TV being the offspring of film" I mean that film paved the way for TV. All of the important work was done in film, ie. not in the technical sense (electonics is it's own art) but in terms of what could be done with a moving picture regardless of means. For example, you could create stories! The vision the early TV technicians had was more like two way communication - a bit like Skype! Dick Tracy technology. They'd have to keep working on it for another 100 years before that eventuated.

 

Carl

 

 

C

[Carl Looper]

Another good reason for saying "film is dead" is to cut through some of the rubbish about film, for example, that it is "the primary acquisition medium for films with a reasonable budget". Good grief. What sort of argument is that?

 

Certanly Kodak might like to push that line, as they do in the ad which started this thread. The big budget film. Big f**king deal.

 

The reason film is used is not because you have a big budget for it, but because someone, somewhere, made that decision for whatever reasons, to shoot film. Some might be good reasons. Some might be the force of habit. Some might be that the digital alternatives are too hard to work out. And some might do it out of some sort of sense that because some big budget projects film use it, it must be good. But what about those who shoot film on a tiny budget? Why would they do it? The cost of film is an obstacle rather than any indication of it's merits.

 

The better reasons film is shot is because it has it's own unique qualities (which I won't try an elaborate here) that could be lost doing it in some other way.

 

In many ways it can depend entirely on the project. There are many reasons why you might not shoot film, other than wanting something easier to use. It could be the look of alternatives that you are after. Or certain freedoms that alternatives provide - such as shooting a work in the middle of Syria.

 

Carl

[James Steven Beverly]

Like someone else said, film is used because it's there and DPs are used to working with it, but digital is easier to store, work with, and less expensive.

 

thanks.

Hummm.....I'd say that's VERRY debatable. There are a MYRIAD of reasons video is most often more expensive to shoot in a professional setting than film, not the LEAST of which is the tendency for these "filmmakers" to not make decisions but instead shoot every single angle available which has turned out to be detrimental rather than instrumental to story telling. Then of course there is the rental fees for these Wunderkind electronic weapons of mass disillusionment which change in countenance seemingly every six to eight days, creating an ever expanding cycle of cash outlay that must be fed ravenously and push rental fees over FIVE figures per DAY. THEN there is the post production circus where the initial expense savings of shooting video tape is swallowed whole by the massive cost of enhancing these images into something that doesn't offend the viewer's eye to the point of near cinematic blindness. Where video works is on ultra-low or NO-budget productions where the video is older generation HD, edited on a decent home PC by someone who some experience is local video post production, who is underpaid (because this is ART, damn it) IF they're paid at all, using off the shelve software for a straight to video release. That's NOT to say it can't be done well AND inexpensively, just that it generally isn't, hence, straight to video, if it's sold at all. I, PERSONALLY, aspire to more, in fact my inspiration is Richard Boddington. What he was able to do with "Dark Reprieve" should be a model for every aspiring film maker here!!

Edited August 3, 2013 by James Steven Beverly

[Pavan Deep]

One thing that I am certain of is that many of us who use film and understand it are very passionate about it, it's a mixture of romance, nostalgia and beauty, there isn’t the throw away disposable attitude with film as there is with digital. For me film is not just another image capture medium, there’s an endearing simplicity to film something that digital does not have, I understand the mechanics of a film camera, I understand how film reacts to light and more importantly I can see a series of images when I hold up the film to light. Often like many when I see my images after they’ve been processed by the lab and telecined I am always excited, there is an indescribable magical quality about them, whereas my digital images may look good on set in the monitor, but I am often disappointed with them in the edit room, there is no mystery or magic, it's a different mind-set.

 

I seem to agree that many who praise digital are students and many have not really had the opportunity to work with film as such they don't understand it and often aggressively dismiss it. On a my film shoot, which is Super 16mm a student decided quite arrogantly to share his wisdom [lack of it] and tried to convince the crew that film was only used for archiving, needless to say he didn't work with us again. I have spent a lot of years lecturing in colleges and universities and on many occasions I have heard lecturers tell their students that the equipment they are using is the same as the professionals, in most cases this is not true and as blatant lie. I have sat in lectures where a where lighting or framining in a television program is being discussed and clearly the program has been shot on film, but yet the lecturers insist it's been shot digitally and in some cases even specify what camera is used - further misleading their students. In many ways I feel most academic institutions teaching film production are setting up students to fail by giving them innacurate information and by not giving the reality of this industry where survival is dependent on a combination of luck, talent and skills, an institution can only really provide students with skills.

 

Pav

　

[Prashantt Rai]

This ferrania news is awesome. Thanks for informing us. Just did some research and a whole lot of information.

 

 

http://www.filmkorn.org/ferrania-the-new-old-hope-for-analogue-film/

 

 

http://www.apug.org/forums/forum390/120736-film-italy-ferrania-starting-production-2014-a.html

[James Steven Beverly]

One thing that I am certain of is that many of us who use film and understand it are very passionate about it, it's a mixture of romance, nostalgia and beauty, there isn’t the throw away disposable attitude with film as there is with digital. For me film is not just another image capture medium, there’s an endearing simplicity to film something that digital does not have, I understand the mechanics of a film camera, I understand how film reacts to light and more importantly I can see a series of images when I hold up the film to light. Often like many when I see my images after they’ve been processed by the lab and telecined I am always excited, there is an indescribable magical quality about them, whereas my digital images may look good on set in the monitor, but I am often disappointed with them in the edit room, there is no mystery or magic, it's a different mind-set.

 

I seem to agree that many who praise digital are students and many have not really had the opportunity to work with film as such they don't understand it and often aggressively dismiss it. On a my film shoot, which is Super 16mm a student decided quite arrogantly to share his wisdom [lack of it] and tried to convince the crew that film was only used for archiving, needless to say he didn't work with us again. I have spent a lot of years lecturing in colleges and universities and on many occasions I have heard lecturers tell their students that the equipment they are using is the same as the professionals, in most cases this is not true and as blatant lie. I have sat in lectures where a where lighting or framining in a television program is being discussed and clearly the program has been shot on film, but yet the lecturers insist it's been shot digitally and in some cases even specify what camera is used - further misleading their students. In many ways I feel most academic institutions teaching film production are setting up students to fail by giving them innacurate information and by not giving the reality of this industry where survival is dependent on a combination of luck, talent and skills, an institution can only really provide students with skills.

 

Pav

　

See what I'm talkin' about a deliberate and calculated agenda on the part of these institutes of higher learning ALL for the benefit of themselves. The sickness of greed in this nation runs so deep, the only way to fight it is to sweep aside the bullsh!t and scream the truth from the highest mountain as LONG and as HARD as you have breath left in your lungs!!

[Matt Stevens]

Film is certainly going away in favor of digital, but every time I see something like this I am reminded of what film has that video does not. They are not the same animal.

 

 

 

[George Ebersole]

Hummm.....I'd say that's VERRY debatable. There are a MYRIAD of reasons video is most often more expensive to shoot in a professional setting than film, not the LEAST of which is the tendency for these "filmmakers" to not make decisions but instead shoot every single angle available which has turned out to be detrimental rather than instrumental to story telling. Then of course there is the rental fees for these Wunderkind electronic weapons of mass disillusionment which change in countenance seemingly every six to eight days, creating an ever expanding cycle of cash outlay that must be fed ravenously and push rental fees over FIVE figures per DAY. THEN there is the post production circus where the initial expense savings of shooting video tape is swallowed whole by the massive cost of enhancing these images into something that doesn't offend the viewer's eye to the point of near cinematic blindness. Where video works is on ultra-low or NO-budget productions where the video is older generation HD, edited on a decent home PC by someone who some experience is local video post production, who is underpaid (because this is ART, damn it) IF they're paid at all, using off the shelve software for a straight to video release. That's NOT to say it can't be done well AND inexpensively, just that it generally isn't, hence, straight to video, if it's sold at all. I, PERSONALLY, aspire to more, in fact my inspiration is Richard Boddington. What he was able to do with "Dark Reprieve" should be a model for every aspiring film maker here!!

 

No offense, mister Beverly, but your'e getting a little highfalutin' for me, which is why I discontinued our private exchange (which admittedly I started). No one I've ever worked with, no director, no producer, no writer, (maybe an actor), talks in the terms your talking.

 

Best of luck to your production(s), wherever they are.

 

My plan, starting back in 2005, was to finish my degree, get a full time job, pay off my back dues, then shoot a little something using prosumer hi-def gear.

 

It would be nice if I could be left alone to do that.

 

All the best.

[George Ebersole]

Film is certainly going away in favor of digital, but every time I see something like this I am reminded of what film has that video does not. They are not the same animal.

 

 

 

 

Matt, I think the bottom line is that if it looks good, then use it, and damn the expense because hopefully the image combined with all the other artistry injected into the project will put butts in seats and recoup the cost.

[Giray Izcan]

I just confirmed with Kodak that the new Star Wars trilogy will be on film. So, film is most definitely not dead.