Ari Michael Leeds

Why do film enthusiasts hate digital projection? :-o Maybe it has to do with ripping out thousands of film screens, firing thousands of projectionists, almost bankrupting Kodak? Putting FujiFilm out of production? Other than that, no reason at all, mindless sentimentality and being elitist film snobs.

You accuse me of being hostile? That's not my intent, unless it's people I think really deserve it, like saying they're DPs because they can do 3D animation. What is YOUR intent, in calling me out, here. Calling someone a "weirdo" because you don't like their sense of humor seems to be antagonism and fire setting, nothing more, nothing less. I'd appreciate if you give me the benefit of the doubt instead of casting judgement on someone over the internet.

I have to admit, I've seen some FujiFilm movies that I thought were digital, of course, this is with 1080i TV, for what it's worth. Both of those films are obvious 35mm Kodak examples, so not sure what Freya is meaning there, either.

"ARRICAM ST" LOL, you claim to know so much about cameras, then why would you use an ST (stands for STUDIO) outdoors on location where you'd ideally want to use the LT ( stands for "LITE" as in lightweight)? I know, it's terrible, you have a camera that weighs all of 22 pounds and you can't shoot for an hour in continuous takes with it. It must be terrible being limited to 29 minute takes, too, with a 2,000' magazine on 3-perf. How did they ever do it! We used an ST once instead of an LT on location because that's what ARRI had extra and they cut us a good deal on the rental. Still not a big deal. These aren't 250# IMAX cameras we're talking about here.

Wow John! (Of course, I've seen enough weddings to know never to get involved in one)

Umm, you're getting mad at me for being hostile towards Steve Jobs??? Guilty. Not sure why you'd take that as a slight, personally. Smilies and winks mean I'm joking.

LOL, am amazed, in this day and age, they'd shoot ANYTHING about Steve Jobs on film of any sort! B)

"I am not saying animated films should be considered in these categories either or have these categories of their own." "Potentially an animated film could have outstanding cinematography, better than any film that year and be completely uacknowledged[sic] for it." You say you aren't doing one thing when, two sentences prior, you do that very thing that you say you are not doing. You bring up a hypothetical situation, when an actual situation, Avatar, a 70% CG-animated (with no live action components) film won best cinematography in an actual situation. I would be just as angry if "Tron" had won cinematography's highest nod. This is not about computers. This is about statements and whether or not those statements are supported by fact. You repeatedly make statements that are not, in fact, backed up by fact. You've baited me out of silence again. Bravo. I have nothing more to say. You are talking out both sides of your mouth, within the same paragraph, and it's clear specific instances, films, and analogies that I have provided for you in depth are going in the one ear, out the other. Animation and live-action cinematography are not the same thing. Write 100,000 words of refutation, and it still will not change this very simple, very concrete statement's truth.

That's the thing, Freya. The award already exists, but, for some reason, the wrong award for the wrong thing is being given to the wrong person. There are already awards for special effects and animation. Why the highest honor for cinematography would be doled out for these two, unrelated fields is beyond me completely.

Well some of that is the '70s and you can't have that back, LOL. You aren't even in the right millennium for that. Again, I think you're being too generous in giving all the praise to one particular film emulsion. What about that which preceded it? Some people hated the ECN-II process when it was introduced. You're giving credit to a mindless, faceless photographic film the hard work and stylistic decisions of myriad cinematographers, cameramen, hair and makeup artists, costumers, gaffers, actors, directors. All of that plays into the mise en scene you describe.

I'm not being an analog purist here: I don't consider cel animation or physically drawing on scratching into film to be cinematography either. A lens and a 3-dimensional subject are key components. Director of Photography, you're photographing (usually) 24 exposures every second. I honestly cannot believe there's any disagreement here. Why does animation have its own award if it's "the same thing as filmmaking?" And again, I am not knocking this field, not in the least. It's different than what I do. I couldn't get a job on a Pixar film, or on a cel-animated film. I can't draw. We are going round and round in circles, so this concludes my participation in this ridiculous avenue of "reasoning." You can argue anything, but it is totally absurd to say that drawing something on film, or in a computer is somehow the same as capturing a real-world object onto a two dimensional medium, either a chip of film or a sensor. Then again, some people believe we live in a universe that's like the holodeck in Star Trek, too, some sort of holographic projection. I, for one, don't accept we live in the Matrix, and I work in the real world with other people who want to work in the real world. Until the time that "Surrogates" becomes reality, you have your line of work, and I have mine.

For 35mm, a 4K is a very good scan, although some people go up as high as 6. Honestly, that's way better than what you got in the theatre. A 4th generation print is probably around 2.5K or worse (this is assuming it's not a copy of a digital intermediate done at 2K to begin with). With a second-generation, maybe around 3,000 lines, something like that. The original negative doesn't have 8 with 35mm 4-perf. You're never going to get perfect matches to what was in the '70s with either film OR digital. Also, what existed in the '70s doesn't exist today due to fading. We can guess and get very close, but never get identical results. However, that being said, if you use the equipment they had then, and a comparable film, maybe 5203 with a one-stop push for similar speed, contrast and grain to 100T of that day, you will get very, very close.

Well, you used to shoot the current 100-T film, until they discontinued it. Absent that, shoot 200T, instead. Use lights and lenses from that era. You could pull it a stop if you had money and wanted to really nitpick. Also, you could shoot 50D with 5500K illumination and get perfectly comparable "fun" with really hot, high-wattage lights.

With regards to "getting space right," can anyone name any movie, before or after (even "Gravity" gets several things wrong, although it is better than most) that is as well done as "2001?" No sound in space? Even "2010" screwed all of that up, ignored its predecessor, had a black wire visible in one shot, got the physics all wrong, suddenly you could hear everything. Some pedant was criticizing how the artificial gravity on Discovery wouldn't have been Earth gravity as it was too small. Someone came back and shot the pedant down by pointing out that they BUILT THE SET UP TO THE CEILING OF THE SOUNDSTAGE, so I would say that, in my opinion, Stanley Kubrick gets a pass there. Oh, and insurance would never cover that today. That giant wooden human hamster wheel was a death trap! Looked through all the photos, they're great! Only criticism is there's one shot where they have it flipped from the proper orientation, as you can see the writing on the slate is backwards. And what's the deal with all those Polaroids? Is Kubrick using them to figure out the exposure or something? All the Pola shots have shutter and aperture settings scrawled n them.

I have a lot of respect for what you do. In fact, it's a skill I am absolutely terrible at myself, any sort of drawing. But it is not what I do. I honestly do not know why anyone would try to complicate it any more than that.

So, was it already garbage when they shot "Aliens" in '86? That was essentially the beginnings of T-grain, modern film stock. They were only a third of a stop slower than they are today.

You didn't go to see H8ful Eight in San Diego?!?!

Sorry if I went too far, Tim. I have never developed a thick skin for film bashing, film camera bashing. Frankly, I hear so much of it that it gets me seeing red. Talking about retiring the film cameras is a cheap shot too. When is the battle won for these guys, when there isn't a single foot of film coated in a year?

Well, telling a Brit that is now a controversial issue, isn't it? I'm American, so my loyalties are more to our historic allies. I would hope you don't hold anything against Kodak film because it's made in Rochester, NY! :-D

Cinematography is taking pictures in a sequence. What you describe has no camera, has no lens. It's digital animation. The people who code the programs, the software computer programmers, coders came up with a camera interface to make it more familiar and easier for the user to interact with it. Similarly, "The Oregon Trail" isn't the same thing as loading up a covered wagon under a team of Oxen and trekking out to California or Oregon in the 19th Century. If anything makeup is far closer to digital painting, as both of those at least involve brush strokes and application. Digital animation is not photography. It is not cinematography. It already has its own awards. It is not filmmaking. That's not a slight, it's just reality and fact. I don't make any claims that photography is like a painted portrait. That's no slight to portraiture, it just is. An indisputable, concrete fact. I give you credit, at least, for not claiming to be a cinematographer.

Well, first off, it was a 2nd generation print back in the day. It was only with the era of multiplexes that they went to 4th gen. copies. You're saying all of that is due entirely to 5254? It, along with the ECN-I process was a good stock, good process, but all of that is more due to digital intermediates, digital projection, than a specific emulsion or process or print stock. Something has been lost, and they're catering to younger, arguably dumber typical theatre-goers, but that's a huge stretch blaming this all on the replacement of 5254. So an Agfa movie, a Fuji movie lacks the magic you describe, automatically?

The colon followed by the close parenthesis is kind of a stubborn, sarcastic fake smile the way I use and have seen it used. My remarks are meant to relay a defiant, persistent, determined, solidarity among remaining film aficionados both with one another and with the history of this craft. We'll be here.

As far as how they UTILIZED their Best Picture, I like to curse and swear, but saying "fu ck yeah," and doing a fist pump, then calling out Pope Francis, for what happened 14 years and two Popes prior to him is like a thrown beer bottle from the cheap seats at the end of a blowout football game. If you want to come across as concerned for the victims of institutionalized sexual abuse, "fu ck yeah" isn't exactly the way to open a dialogue on that issue. What I saw confirms my first impressions of the movie, more an attempt at self-aggrandizement than any actual concern. Like a political stepping stone. Then again, maybe I am biased because I know many good people who are part of the vast majority of pastors, clergy, Rabbis, Imams. It must be fun to have it out for organized religion, then take cheap shots at it, yell "fu ck yeah" and do a fist pump, then do a line of coke backstage as you walk off with your gold statue. For those of us in the faithful, it's easy to see right through this "concern," for the victims, just cheap shots at organized religion by the lost, the fickle, the self-important.

Reinventing the wheel, and probably not financially sound. Yes 16 is way down, but slitting film isn't cheap, either.

Is that with the perfs? It's a silly thing to ask, as you can just buy the film in 16mm. Why on Earth would you slit it???