Am I crazy for not feeling 35mm film nowdays?

[Edith blazek]

Hello, so to me, 35mm motion picture film just doesn’t have an aesthetic quality over modern digital cameras as I struggle to tell the difference half the time, unlike with say super 16 which I find does register with me as being filmic, even with grain removed. Like, I have to tell myself as I watch a modern 35mm film that it was shot on film, some examples for me are don’t look up and the northman, and even with films that attempt to emulate older time periods like licorice pizza and once upon a time in Hollywood, I just don’t see the image find it looking like eras they’re emulating, they look modern to me, which is not to say they’re bad, they look great, I just struggle to feel those films as being shot on film despite the fact they were. and whatever textural quality there is to 35mm film, I find is easy to replicate with film emulation, and I even heard of some 35mm productions like hbos winning time using film emulation as the film was too clean on its own so they added grain that would look more like 16mm film and at that point I ask, why not shoot it on 16? But then again, maybe I'm wrong and there is an inherent quality to 35mm film, let me know your thoughts.

[Tyler Purcell]

I feel the same way. A lot of that is the modern grading. The versions seen in digital cinemas or at home, are heavily graded. 

In my eyes, the magic of film is not JUST in the capture, it's in the projection. A really good print, well made and projected well, does not look like digital, even if it's shot digitally. 

This is what's missing and why so many people like yourself, look at the modern super clean 35mm and even 16mm in some cases and say "why bother" because I agree, why bother. A lot of what you see is done to keep Kodak in business. Filmmakers specifically choosing film on huge projects like Euphoria or Winning Time, just to shoot a few million feet of film and keep the whole ball rolling. None of those people are going to care about "going back to the negative" in 20 years for remastering like someone who shoots their own projects may. 

For me, the discipline and the archival nature, are the reasons I like film. I find shooting digital is impossible to be disciplined and I have had plenty of files lost and it's sad. Having negative sitting on my shelf makes me happy. I know what I shoot is safe forever. A big studio doesn't care about that shit, they only care about recouping investment. 

So yea, film prints are the shit. That's the only way to really watch movies, even modern ones. ?

 

[Simon Wyss]

Tyler is perfectly right and I should like to add that the main difference between film and video lies in the labour. It takes a human being to project a film positive before several hundred spectators.

It goes deeper than esthetics, films are tangible objects. Video, mind you, I imply analogue electronic imaging, doesn’t have a body with pictures on it. It’s a radical abstraction, just magnetic information.

[Uli Meyer]

I agree with Tyler and Simon. A big part of working on film is the journey. Shooting on film is a different discipline, more tactile, more careful, possibly more thoughtful. I shoot my own small projects on film and to me the look is completely different compared to digital. Most people probably don't see the difference but if you work with film often, you will. So why does it matter if most people don't see it? All I can say is that it matters to me.

Stills from proxy edit of a short film I'm currently working on, shot on 35mm, featuring yours truly ?

Edited December 17, 2022 by Uli Meyer

[Paul-Anthony]

There is also a big difference between independent films and Hollywood films shooting 35. When you go around the world in film festivals and see independent features shot in 35mm, they just pop out from all the other films shot in digital. The skintones, the highlights, the colors, the vibration in the image, when its not completely erased in post-production, nothing else looks like this, and the big screen reveals all the beauty and unicity of modern 35mm.

[Edith blazek]

2 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

I feel the same way. A lot of that is the modern grading. The versions seen in digital cinemas or at home, are heavily graded. 

In my eyes, the magic of film is not JUST in the capture, it's in the projection. A really good print, well made and projected well, does not look like digital, even if it's shot digitally. 

This is what's missing and why so many people like yourself, look at the modern super clean 35mm and even 16mm in some cases and say "why bother" because I agree, why bother. A lot of what you see is done to keep Kodak in business. Filmmakers specifically choosing film on huge projects like Euphoria or Winning Time, just to shoot a few million feet of film and keep the whole ball rolling. None of those people are going to care about "going back to the negative" in 20 years for remastering like someone who shoots their own projects may. 

For me, the discipline and the archival nature, are the reasons I like film. I find shooting digital is impossible to be disciplined and I have had plenty of files lost and it's sad. Having negative sitting on my shelf makes me happy. I know what I shoot is safe forever. A big studio doesn't care about that shit, they only care about recouping investment. 

So yea, film prints are the shit. That's the only way to really watch movies, even modern ones. ?

 

Except I'm not sure as on one hand one can argue what we collectively think of as film is not from capture stock but from a degraded print stock as the winning time cinematographers have argued in the go creative show episode on it but on the other hand, 16mm, in the same circumstances as 35mm nowadays still looks filmic more often than not, even with the changes in lighting and post production workflow, I just think the issue is the 35mm rendition of the vision3 stocks are too "good" now. Also, I guess I should've added that euphoria and winning time do avoid the pitfall of looking similar to digital as even other hbo shows shot on 35mm film do, but that's probably more due to the fact they have very special circumstances to their production (euphoria was shot on Ektachrome that was cross processed and winning time had additional film emulation on top of the base negative). I guess it like 16mm, it still has the quality of not looking clinical even with so called clinical glass so there's that, but I just don't feel it as being intangible to emulate with a proper post production workflow, again, unlike with 16mm as I've just not seen as many convincing 16mm emulations on digital. And maybe there's something to be said about the disciplinary aspect of it but personally, if I'm going to go through the process of shooting film and all that brings, I want something to show for it in a way I just cannot get with digital, which is why I'm in the camp of super 16 over modern 35mm stocks.

Edited December 17, 2022 by Edith blazek

[Karim D. Ghantous]

4 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

I feel the same way. A lot of that is the modern grading.

True, but I think there is something else: a lot of productions scan the negative. Which is great because it's the cleanest, purest version of the image. But, that's not the same thing as making a print, then scanning that. Prints don't really degrade the image as much as people think. But a print does add an extra dash of 'film-ness.'

1 hour ago, Paul-Anthony said:

completely erased in post-production

Bingo. I do wish that they would stop doing that. Let the film breathe and let it speak. People over-grade an image simply because they can. It's pathetic.

[Tyler Purcell]

On 12/17/2022 at 12:52 AM, Edith blazek said:

And maybe there's something to be said about the disciplinary aspect of it but personally, if I'm going to go through the process of shooting film and all that brings, I want something to show for it in a way I just cannot get with digital, which is why I'm in the camp of super 16 over modern 35mm stocks.

Disciplinary act is really the most important aspect on set honestly. Everyone works to a different beat when film is rolling. With digital, it's too easy to have a video village and replay system, which takes up a lot of time. Everyone congregates around the monitor between takes, sipping their coffee and analyzing the shot. The filmmakers themselves are more distant as well, being tucked away in video villages. There is a lot of emphasis on "perfection", which can be nauseating. Nobody is watching your film for it's "perfection" and honestly it's that aspect, which I feel is killing cinema in general. Every frame must be perfect and that mentality makes for poor creativity. 

Now you can absolutely create a digital project without those aspects, but why restrict yourself? 

So yes I do think discipline is #1 for me at least. 

But yes, I agree... the modern 35mm world is just too clean. We shot 250D, 200T and 500T on our last 35mm short and I kept the grain, I embraced it a bit more and I think it does play well compared to modern cinema. It's unfortunate that Vimeo's compression does soften the blow. 

 

[Jon O'Brien]

 

On 12/17/2022 at 6:50 PM, Paul-Anthony said:

There is also a big difference between independent films and Hollywood films shooting 35. When you go around the world in film festivals and see independent features shot in 35mm, they just pop out from all the other films shot in digital. The skintones, the highlights, the colors, the vibration in the image, when its not completely erased in post-production, nothing else looks like this, and the big screen reveals all the beauty and unicity of modern 35mm.

Yes as Paul-Anthony says Hollywood-style big-budget 35mm films these days do tend to have a clinical look almost indistinguishable from digital but there must be ways to grunge-up 35mm a bit. What about cropping in a bit (and shooting with this in mind) to effectively make the frame size a bit smaller - but still bigger than Super 16 which needs the most expensive lenses to look truly good on the big screen. Also maximising grain by film stock selection, pushing stops etc. 35mm is a format for the big screen that simply "works well." Super 16 is fine for a real-film look on smaller screens but sometimes I feel it can look a bit underwhelming for a major feature movie. It did look good in my opinion though when it was used for some scenes in 'First Man' (2018). I would like to have seen 'Let the Corpses Tan' (2017) on the big screen. I wonder what that looked like in the cinema.

Edited December 19, 2022 by Jon O'Brien

[Uli Meyer]

5 hours ago, Jon O'Brien said:

What about cropping in a bit (and shooting with this in mind) to effectively make the frame size a bit smaller - but still bigger than Super 16

Not cropped in but shot N35 2perf.

[Karim D. Ghantous]

13 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

 

That was very nicely done, Tyler. How come Dave didn't get a credit? LOL Anyway, the image was very nice. Raw, but not unrefined.

[Jon O'Brien]

2 hours ago, Uli Meyer said:

Not cropped in but shot N35 2perf.

Beautiful. The light is gorgeous. I think my ideal film format is 2Perf. I would happily specialise in it. Pity that sync-sound cameras in 2Perf are not easy to come by.

[Mark Dunn]

9 hours ago, Uli Meyer said:

Not cropped in but shot N35 2perf.

I guessed Kentish Town, not too far off. it's never looked this good outside Four Weddings. (OK that was further west, but it'll get there).

Uli, ladies and gentlemen. Shoots his home movies in 35mm, in colour. Erste Klasse.

Edited December 19, 2022 by Mark Dunn

[Uli Meyer]

1 minute ago, Mark Dunn said:

I guessed Kentish Town, not too far off

Spot on! Kentish Town Road corner of Prince of Wales Rd.

[Mark Dunn]

5 minutes ago, Uli Meyer said:

Spot on! Kentish Town Road corner of Prince of Wales Rd.

Cheated a bit, I went down the 214 route on Street View?.

But I thought it looked familiar- I was half a mile away with the Steenbeck for a music video (in 16mm) in September. Looked like that part of the world.

Edited December 19, 2022 by Mark Dunn

[Tyler Purcell]

12 hours ago, Karim D. Ghantous said:

That was very nicely done, Tyler. How come Dave didn't get a credit? LOL Anyway, the image was very nice. Raw, but not unrefined.

Thanks, yea the grade is very basic, I don't like crazy grades. I did a lot of work to cover up major issues we had with production, but outside of that, the grade is basic. I like the more raw nature of film when I can exploit it. Sadly on the last few 16mm projects, I haven't been able to because the film has been damaged in some way or another. 

[Chance Shirley]

8 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

Thanks, yea the grade is very basic, I don't like crazy grades. I did a lot of work to cover up major issues we had with production, but outside of that, the grade is basic. I like the more raw nature of film when I can exploit it. Sadly on the last few 16mm projects, I haven't been able to because the film has been damaged in some way or another. 

Yeah, Tyler, even on Vimeo, this short looks *great*. Excellent work!

[Chance Shirley]

I really miss when more movies and TV shows were shot on 35mm/16mm. Most everything these days just looks kind of flat and bland to me. And, of course, more goes into the look of a show than whether it is shot on digital or film. But when I compare any random episode of The X-Files (shot on 35mm) with any random episode of Better Call Saul (shot digitally), the X-Files stuff looks so much better to me.

And Better Call Saul is an excellent show with excellent cinematography! But there's something about the picture on that show that looks flatter than shot-on-film TV shows.

[Karim D. Ghantous]

21 hours ago, Chance Shirley said:

I really miss when more movies and TV shows were shot on 35mm/16mm. Most everything these days just looks kind of flat and bland to me. And, of course, more goes into the look of a show than whether it is shot on digital or film. But when I compare any random episode of The X-Files (shot on 35mm) with any random episode of Better Call Saul (shot digitally), the X-Files stuff looks so much better to me.

And Better Call Saul is an excellent show with excellent cinematography! But there's something about the picture on that show that looks flatter than shot-on-film TV shows.

I might go so far as to say that even Seinfeld looks better than a lot of modern movies or shows. Yes, it's not a cinematic masterpiece, but you can't beat 35mm - at least, you couldn't back then. I've been seeing clips of the show in HD (I don't have the Blu-Ray version yet) and it's amazing how much I like it, given how simply it was lit and shot. Thank God it wasn't shot on video. Thank God.

And Sex & The City also looks terrific, while we're at it.

[Chance Shirley]

On 12/20/2022 at 9:20 PM, Karim D. Ghantous said:

I might go so far as to say that even Seinfeld looks better than a lot of modern movies or shows. Yes, it's not a cinematic masterpiece, but you can't beat 35mm - at least, you couldn't back then. I've been seeing clips of the show in HD (I don't have the Blu-Ray version yet) and it's amazing how much I like it, given how simply it was lit and shot. Thank God it wasn't shot on video. Thank God.

And Sex & The City also looks terrific, while we're at it.

Classic Sex and the City was 16mm, right?

And good point about Seinfeld. The X-Files is a favorite of mine, but it seems most any show shot on film looks really great these days, especially if they’ve been re-scanned in HD from the original film sources.

[Tyler Purcell]

5 minutes ago, Chance Shirley said:

Classic Sex and the City was 16mm, right?

Yep XTR Prod and SR3. 

5 minutes ago, Chance Shirley said:

And good point about Seinfeld. The X-Files is a favorite of mine, but it seems most any show shot on film looks really great these days, especially if they’ve been re-scanned in HD from the original film sources.

 The re-release of Seinfeld and X-Files are both amazing. I'm so sad they haven't restored Star Trek Voyager. 

[Edith blazek]

On 12/18/2022 at 2:58 PM, Tyler Purcell said:

Disciplinary act is really the most important aspect on set honestly. Everyone works to a different beat when film is rolling. With digital, it's too easy to have a video village and replay system, which takes up a lot of time. Everyone congregates around the monitor between takes, sipping their coffee and analyzing the shot. The filmmakers themselves are more distant as well, being tucked away in video villages. There is a lot of emphasis on "perfection", which can be nauseating. Nobody is watching your film for it's "perfection" and honestly it's that aspect, which I feel is killing cinema in general. Every frame must be perfect and that mentality makes for poor creativity. 

Now you can absolutely create a digital project without those aspects, but why restrict yourself? 

So yes I do think discipline is #1 for me at least. 

But yes, I agree... the modern 35mm world is just too clean. We shot 250D, 200T and 500T on our last 35mm short and I kept the grain, I embraced it a bit more and I think it does play well compared to modern cinema. It's unfortunate that Vimeo's compression does soften the blow. 

 

Looks nice, what lens did you shoot it on?

[Tyler Purcell]

2 hours ago, Edith blazek said:

Looks nice, what lens did you shoot it on?

Most of it is a Cooke 20-100, super nice lens, just a bloody tank! haha 

[Daniel D. Teoli Jr.]

This movie blends film and digital and does a great job of it.

OP...people should use what they want to use...if they can afford it.

The problem some people have is they force things. They will demand film and can't afford it. Or they force the use of film due to being ego based and film does a subpar job. So, the project suffers or does not get done at all due to their ego. 

<><><><>

1973 Main Street. L.A.

D.D.Teoli Jr.

(Can't photo kids like this nowadays...better not be caught!)

Edited December 23, 2022 by Daniel D. Teoli Jr.

[Giray Izcan]

Gold was shot on 35mm film.