Kevin Armstrong

For the Record, this topic was started to bring to light the fact that, at least in this case, as well as with the dark knight, the filmmakers, not some studio head or corporation, were able to decide on which format best suited the needs of the picture, for the purpose of telling the story more effectively. this is what should be celebrated, not the film vs digital blah blah blah. now if the DP would get paid for DI and Post work more often, perhaps we could avoid the upcoming, imminent, future oscar for "best colorist" award.

I think its interesting that one year removed from elswitt's "there will be blood" which was purely photochemical from start to finish, this year, "slumdog millionaire" was shot with a variety of analoguous and digital acquisition formats, including the Si-2k mini, which was chosen purely for its size, weight, and the "less intimidating" factors, and not chosen for its superior image quality (or lack thereof, rather). realizing that this application fit this paticular production, the filmmakers chose to sacrifice image quality for the sake of telling the story better. this is certainly not the case for many of todays producers caught up in the marketing hype and demand to use bleeding edge technology, or on the flip side, waste money on shooting 35mm (consuming much higher % of the overall budget that could be reserved for higher production value in front of the image plane, not behind it) the long forgotten argument that was, is, and will forever be true- if your story is strong, pixel count and film vs. digital, DI or no DI, 4k scan or 2k scan is irrelevant. it is all an argument reserved for those who cannot execute or choose not to do so.