FILM vs DIGITAL

[Brian Drysdale]

I suspect what's being intended is the type of camera and lenses can influence the visual look of a film, i.e, don't expect a DSLR to look like an Arri Alexa. Although, a DP can produce good pictures on both, they can do a lot more with one than the other.

 

The best camera for a job can depend on the circumstances, so it's a matter of selecting and it may not be the latest fashion that's doing the rounds.

Edited September 20, 2014 by Brian Drysdale

[Gregg MacPherson]

"Negative" impact is a bit subjective even if I agree to some extant...

 

 

There are some quite humorous typos etc in this topic.

[John E Clark]

 

nobody noticed this post.... just wanted to say well said. and ways of seeing is great, read the book and have always wanted to catch the little tv series too.

 

I've not smoked enough cigarettes to engage in a Marshall McLuhan discussion... and unfortunately I gave up smoking years ago...

 

But I think it is better for people to 'work out' their ways of seeing by interacting with others. There is a tendency in certain types of 'art' programs where there is an assigned reading (or viewing) to be given out, term papers written, and the 'student' moves on.

 

Back in the olden days, that was not sufficient for myself and friends, so we would rent 16mm films, documentaries usually, and then have beer, bretzels, (wine for those who wanted to be more high brow), smoke packs of cigarettes and argue the merits of the film.

 

These days the internet provides the media, but still the viewer has to massage that message into a personal workable form.

[John E Clark]

 

How do you know (that no one noticed Zack Healy's post)?

 

In Berger's documentary I much enjoyed the clip and VO from Vertov's work. But I just took something very poetic from it, which was probably ironic to the intentions of Vertov and Berger. Artists (Vertov I mean) create and we should feel free to experience however we want.

 

I watched Berger until he started talking about how formerly the experience of rare icons was only available in the flesh, but now "it" is available everywhere due to the proliferation of media. With this deft sleight of hand (by Berger), the actual is confused with the image. If I was too jumpy and misunderstood that please someone just prompt me.

 

Now I'll have to watch this... but I would conjecture that the 'it' is refering to the original film, 'in the flesh', that is sitting in a theater, or renting a film, placing it in a projector, etc. While now, one can 'see' this formerly 'rare' film, anywhere, due to the Internet.

 

On the other hand since the beginning of photography with Daguerrotypes, which were designated as The Real, vs. 'painted reality/falsity', where the painter could alter lines, tone, etc. at will, the photographic innovation has allowed everyone to experience as 'real' what was formerly only available by personal being 'there', in the flesh.

 

Never mind that Vertov used any number of artifices to create his 'Camera Truth'... and the most obvious Elephant in the corner being that just setting the camera in a particular place, is 'taking a position' and fixing subsequent 'truths' only from that point of view...

[Bill DiPietra]

In my media theory classes the readings and discussions ranged from Berger, McLuhan, Althusser, Mulvey to Heidegger, Lacan, Freud, Foucault and many more. All had interesting theories on one thing or another, but at the same time, you simply cannot be afraid to say "This is absolute nonsense" (provided you can state why you feel it is nonsense, of course.)

 

The subtle application of these media theories that one chooses to embrace, is something of a lost art. Part of the problem is that many students move from academia directly to some visual medium and often attempt to make a rather overt translation of a given media theory using whatever story & medium they are working with. A mixture of life experience is usually what's missing.

 

The art is in the subtext.

[Younes Boudiaf]

 

What does film vs hard drive have to do with the topic? Did someone nudge the thread into the archiving thing? (rhetorical questions)

 

Its in fact a major problem for Digital technology, because so far HDD still the main storage mean for media, and it is not easy to maintain things on HDD technically and also it needs a trained team and special equipment for that, I don't know if they can use also Film for that !! as it cab be stored easily.

 

But Storage technology is developing through time, and maybe SSD technology will solve part of the problem.

another problem, which is the Codecs problem ! how many codec are there !? and is it easy to read those files in the future !?

 

 

The link bellow is an article about media storage.

 

 

http://www.oscars.org/science-technology/council/projects/dmpafp.html

[Gregg MacPherson]

 

Its in fact a major problem for Digital technology, because so far HDD still the main storage mean for media

 

 

Reassuring to know that the original poster gives the OK to the full breadth of ideas possible under the Film vs Digital title rather than relying on that obscure sentence at the bottom of his first post.

 

I was just humorously censuring George's attempt at censuring Bill. Rhetorical means you don't need to answer. In context, it meant, please don't.

 

Some of the English language humor may be hard to get a feel for, but sometimes turns the unbearable into simple fun, like magic.

[Chris Leutger]

I've always liked this piece by Tacita Dean, who's trying to maintain her 16mm film production in the UK:

 

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2011/feb/22/tacita-dean-16mm-film

 

Her films are one of the things that got me interested in getting into moving pictures in the first place. From her work I started to think that there's a space where my photographs could breathe with time. She had an exhibition several years ago and this is the intro piece:

 

Tacita Dean - Analogue Life

I realize that I do not know what analogue means. I flounder about trying to find a definition that will make sense in the context of this text, this book and this exhibition. Analogue, it seems, is a description-a description, in fact, of all things I hold dear. It is a word that means proportion and likeness and is, according to one explanation, a representation of an object that resembles the original, not a transcription or a translation but an equivalent in parallel form-continuously variable, measurable and material. Everything we can quantify physically is analogue: length, width, voltage, and pressure. Telephones are analogue; the hands of watches that turn with the rotation of the earth are analogue; writing is analogue, drawing is analogue. Even crossing out is analogue. Thinking, too, becomes analogue when it is materialized into a concrete form, when it is transmuted into lines on paper or marks on a board. It is as if my frame of mind is analogue when I draw: my unconscious reverie made manifest as an impression on a surface.

Analogue implies a continuous signal—a continuum and a line—whereas digital constitutes what is broken up, or, rather, broken down, into millions of numbers. I should not eschew the digital world because it is, of course, the great enabler of immediacy, reproduction, and convenience, and has radicalized our times, indescribably. But for me, it just does not have the means to create poetry; it neither breathes nor wobbles, but tidies up our society, correcting it, and then leaves no trace. I wonder if this is because it is not born of the physical world, but is impenetrable and intangible. It is too far from drawing, where photography and film have their roots: the imprint of light on emulsion, the alchemy of circumstance and chemistry, marks upon their supports. We are being frog -marched towards a sparkling revolution without a backward turn, without a sigh or a nod to all that we are losing. And that is the point, what we are losing is a vast immensity of treasure and yet we are choosing not to replace it properly. We are giving up our ability to make near perfect simulacra of our visual world, which digital still fails to replicate, despite its increasing proliferation of pixels, and we are doing so willingly.

Recently, I sat around a boardroom table with Annie Chaloyard from Kodak Industrie in Chalon-sur-Saone, and asked her why Kodak was capitulating so readily to the overreaching digital bully, and had stopped producing film there. She replied, sadly, that no one seems to notice the difference anymore; the generation who are of an age with digital will soon never have seen celluloid film or know the photographic negative. It always takes a generation to forget.….

[George Ebersole]

In my media theory classes the readings and discussions ranged from Berger, McLuhan, Althusser, Mulvey to Heidegger, Lacan, Freud, Foucault and many more. All had interesting theories on one thing or another, but at the same time, you simply cannot be afraid to say "This is absolute nonsense" (provided you can state why you feel it is nonsense, of course.)

 

The subtle application of these media theories that one chooses to embrace, is something of a lost art. Part of the problem is that many students move from academia directly to some visual medium and often attempt to make a rather overt translation of a given media theory using whatever story & medium they are working with. A mixture of life experience is usually what's missing.

 

The art is in the subtext.

 

Like anything else taking good notes, and applying those notes when it's your turn at bat helps. I think you also need some artistic training and taste.