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The transition continues...


Frank Barrera

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Just heard from a friend who's working on the new season of Law & Order. They are now using the Genesis.

 

They switched last year.

 

Honestly, the show would have gotten cancelled had they not been able to cut costs with digital.

 

How is this anymore of a "transition" than when Star Trek went digital in '04 and was promptly cancelled the year after?

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They switched last year.

 

Honestly, the show would have gotten cancelled had they not been able to cut costs with digital.

 

How is this anymore of a "transition" than when Star Trek went digital in '04 and was promptly cancelled the year after?

 

 

well, a "transition" is a change from one thing to another. and it is my belief that someday most if not all motion picture acquisition will be digital. Star Trek or Law & Order being cancelled or not has no bearing on the slow transition towards digital. but the mere "fact" that L&O used a current cost saving strategy to stay in business is another testament to that fact that this transition is occurring.

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well, a "transition" is a change from one thing to another. and it is my belief that someday most if not all motion picture acquisition will be digital.

 

Frankly, I don't care what you believe.

 

I don't care for definitions or points of order either.

 

 

When this industry goes fully digital, with the corresponding loss of quality that comes with the digitization of any industry, except maybe the typed page, you and your peers can have it, and ruin it all you want.

 

For now quality is here and is well-established enough not to succumb to peer-pressure and pseudo-scientific comparisons funded by digital camera manufacturers. Leave the melodrama and the notion that you're riding some "wave of progress" for the media to spew; there's no place for half-informed bull-$&*t of this nature here

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Frankly, I don't care what you believe.

 

I don't care for definitions or points of order either.

 

 

When this industry goes fully digital, with the corresponding loss of quality that comes with the digitization of any industry, except maybe the typed page, you and your peers can have it, and ruin it all you want.

 

For now quality is here and is well-established enough not to succumb to peer-pressure and pseudo-scientific comparisons funded by digital camera manufacturers. Leave the melodrama and the notion that you're riding some "wave of progress" for the media to spew; there's no place for half-informed bull-$&*t of this nature here

 

Wow. Sounds like you had a bad day. If you didn't I'm not so sure why you felt it necessary to attack me. But thats cool. Hope tomorrow is a little brighter for you.

 

good luck

 

f

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Wow. Sounds like you had a bad day. If you didn't I'm not so sure why you felt it necessary to attack me. But thats cool. Hope tomorrow is a little brighter for you.

 

good luck

 

f

 

Yeah, I have a bad day every time someone posts something like this about this wonderful new digital world, not for a moment considering the likes of people that work with film every day, like I do.

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Frankly, I don't care what you believe.

 

I don't care for definitions or points of order either.

 

 

When this industry goes fully digital, with the corresponding loss of quality that comes with the digitization of any industry, except maybe the typed page, you and your peers can have it, and ruin it all you want.

 

For now quality is here and is well-established enough not to succumb to peer-pressure and pseudo-scientific comparisons funded by digital camera manufacturers. Leave the melodrama and the notion that you're riding some "wave of progress" for the media to spew; there's no place for half-informed bull-$&*t of this nature here

Karl, would you please chill out dude? We're all intimately familiar with your position on film vs. video by now, so you're just wasting bandwidth on this subject by flogging a dead horse here. I've noticed a lot of your posts lately have been unnecessarily rude in tone. I find it personally offensive and I'm not the only one.

 

And if you're going out of your way to attack someone, Frank is one of the last guys you should be venting your spleen on, considering that he's a well-respected member of the forum who's always been cordial to others and a DP (who shoots film, FYI) from your neck of the woods.

 

You do know the saying "don't s**t where you eat", don't you?

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When this industry goes fully digital, with the corresponding loss of quality that comes with the digitization of any industry, except maybe the typed page, you and your peers can have it, and ruin it all you want.

 

I believe in the case of this post, the digitization of the typed page has definitely suffered from a loss of quality ;)

 

(Just pokin' fun at ya Karl, but I have to agree with Satsuki)

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They switched last year.

 

Honestly, the show would have gotten cancelled had they not been able to cut costs with digital.

 

It would likely have gotten cancelled without cutting their costs, that's true. Going to a digital camera was only one - and a somewhat minor one - of the ways they accomplished that. The same is true of almost every drama on network television. All have been required to cut costs, because in case people haven't noticed, network numbers are nowhere near what they used to be and their financial model is changing. No different than any other industry (or what's left of industry) in this economically disastrous time.

 

As for "the industry going digital," you're going to have to get used to it, certainly for television. This coming season, there will be far fewer film shows than ever. Many established film shows will be switching to digital shooting, including all of the CSI's, Criminal Minds, Numbers, NCIS, and a few others. In addition, every new show will be digitally originated with the possible exception of Eastwick. In fact, besides Lost, Brothers and Sisters (also rumored to be going to digital), Ugly Betty, Grays Anatomy and its spinoff, Heroes, Chuck, House, and One Tree Hill, I'm hard pressed to think of any other dramas still on film. My guess is that within one or two more seasons, there won't be any. The sea change long predicted has actually occurred. Such is the way of the world.

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As for "the industry going digital," you're going to have to get used to it, certainly for television.

 

Yup. The SAG strike also pushed things in that direction. You can shoot digital under the AFTRA contract. Was it really 2004 that Star Trek went digital? I thought it was earlier than that, on Voyager.

 

 

 

 

 

-- J.S.

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This coming season, there will be far fewer film shows than ever. Many established film shows will be switching to digital shooting, including all of the CSI's, Criminal Minds, Numbers, NCIS, and a few others. In addition, every new show will be digitally originated with the possible exception of Eastwick. In fact, besides Lost, Brothers and Sisters (also rumored to be going to digital), Ugly Betty, Grays Anatomy and its spinoff, Heroes, Chuck, House, and One Tree Hill, I'm hard pressed to think of any other dramas still on film. My guess is that within one or two more seasons, there won't be any.

 

Has it really gotten that bad? CSI?

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Karl, would you please chill out dude? We're all intimately familiar with your position on film vs. video by now, so you're just wasting bandwidth on this subject by flogging a dead horse here. I've noticed a lot of your posts lately have been unnecessarily rude in tone. I find it personally offensive and I'm not the only one.

 

And if you're going out of your way to attack someone, Frank is one of the last guys you should be venting your spleen on, considering that he's a well-respected member of the forum who's always been cordial to others and a DP (who shoots film, FYI) from your neck of the woods.

 

You do know the saying "don't s**t where you eat", don't you?

 

Venting my spleen? Would you please elaborate on that?

 

What set me off, maybe Frank didn't mean it, is spitting back a definition at me when I told him that Law & Order was no news.

 

If he had unloaded the bombshell about shows like CSI and NCIS making the switch, I would've reacted totally differently.

 

In fact, excuse me while I belt down some hard liquor to deal with that extra bit of bad news for the day.

 

 

Perhaps I did misinterpret Frank. I've never worked with or heard of him, not that he isn't a far bigger fish in the ocean that I am, but he came off as another interested hobbyist that views the transition as an interesting phenomenon that takes place on the front page of the paper, err, excuse me, on whatever website he views his news.

 

Every time I tear out a film processor, scrap lab equipment, see another stock discontinued, see another unemployed loader, AC, DP, or labbie, it eats me up inside.

 

Drive around downtown Rochester, or talk to someone who works (ed) there. Watch an industry die (transition, revolutionize are more popular words) and don't let it get to you; I envy people that can take things like this in stride, comfortably numb to it all. Maybe I would be better off if I could watch all of this happen as a third party. But, the water is five feet high and rising and I'm desperately trying to stay afloat.

 

I've sacrificed everything, my family, my friends, my social life to do what it is that I truly love. If it turns into something that I not only don't love, but detest, forgive me for being jaded, biased, unobjective about it all.

Edited by Karl Borowski
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I always thought that this particular phrase referred to on-the-job relationships, no?

Yes, but it's applicable here - this is a job-related website and you're potentially burning bridges in your local industry because of some out-of-line comments you made to a stranger on a web forum who, as it happens, may end up being your boss (or knowing your boss) in the very near future. All the more reason to behave as the professional that you are while you are here. Maybe I'm being overly sensitive, but I've been realizing more and more as I meet other film industry professionals in the real world that your reputation often precedes you.

 

Venting spleen = angry ranting verbal diarrhea of a cyclical nature (my definition).

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Yes, but it's applicable here - this is a job-related website and you're potentially burning bridges in your local industry because of some out-of-line comments you made to a stranger on a web forum who, as it happens, may end up being your boss (or knowing your boss) in the very near future. All the more reason to behave as the professional that you are while you are here. Maybe I'm being overly sensitive, but I've been realizing more and more as I meet other film industry professionals in the real world that your reputation often precedes you.

 

Venting spleen = angry ranting verbal diarrhea of a cyclical nature (my definition).

 

Yet again, I sacrificed a high-paying career to enter the film industry. I can piss off or burn bridges with whomever I like. Is that stupid? Yeah, maybe. But it is still my choice to make, right?

 

This forum is, for the most part either a place to help filmmakers out or to let off steam for the BS I run into on work or on set every day.

 

I don't have to suck up or pretend that I like the $h&*storm that has enveloped the industry here, in my far-to-seldom free time here too, do I?

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Has it really gotten that bad? CSI?

 

Yes. The only one I'm not 100% positive about is the original Las Vegas CSI (I'll try to confirm it). New York and Miami have definitely gone to digital.

 

As John mentioned, the move away from film was severely accelerated by the SAG situation. I would say that it pushed up the timetable by at least a year or two, and as a result has left a lot of post businesses (which are, in general, heavily invested in film transfer equipment) seriously reeling. The move was inevitable, but nobody expected it to happen this quickly.

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Guest Stephen Murphy

On a positive note this season of 24 started shooting on 35mm, was told it had to switch formats for financial reasons, spent time shooting tests on some of the current crop of HD cameras, and instead went with S16mm. At the last minute the powers that be decided to allow them to continue shooting 35mm instead. Its amazing what you can learn on Twitter nowadays:-)

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Venting spleen = angry ranting verbal diarrhea of a cyclical nature (my definition).

 

Oh, and Satsuki, please please please, no definitions. That comes off as being a bit of a jerk, and that is why I got angry on this thread in the first place.

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On a positive note this season of 24 started shooting on 35mm, was told it had to switch formats for financial reasons, spent time shooting tests on some of the current crop of HD cameras, and instead went with S16mm. At the last minute the powers that be decided to allow them to continue shooting 35mm instead. Its amazing what you can learn on Twitter nowadays:-)

 

I really wouldn't consider Twitter a bastion of truth, although in this case, it is true that 24 (which I inadvertently omitted from my film show list) started the season on 35mm and will, for the moment, stay on 35mm. That might or might not continue to the end of the season, however, and Rodney is constantly looking at various electronic alternatives. So far, none has completely met their needs.

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I really wouldn't consider Twitter a bastion of truth, although in this case, it is true that 24 (which I inadvertently omitted from my film show list) started the season on 35mm and will, for the moment, stay on 35mm. That might or might not continue to the end of the season, however, and Rodney is constantly looking at various electronic alternatives. So far, none has completely met their needs.

 

They were one of the first shows, if I recall correctly that was looking at the Genesis. So if it didn't meet their needs five years ago I don't know why it would now.

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On a positive note this season of 24 started shooting on 35mm, was told it had to switch formats for financial reasons, spent time shooting tests on some of the current crop of HD cameras, and instead went with S16mm. At the last minute the powers that be decided to allow them to continue shooting 35mm instead. Its amazing what you can learn on Twitter nowadays:-)

Does anyone know why any producers would choose to switch from 35mm to HD rather than to Super16? Shooting on S16 shouldn't really be more expensive than HD when you consider the cost of an HD Camera. S16 also provides the colour quality of 35mm.

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I really wouldn't consider Twitter a bastion of truth

 

I dont consider any online forum a bastion of truth, but in this case listening to Rodney Charters on Twitter is as close to the truth as most outside of LA are likely to find online.

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Maybe I'm being overly sensitive, but I've been realizing more and more as I meet other film industry professionals in the real world that your reputation often precedes you.

 

Happened to me today, and happens on average almost every show I go on. Somebody knows me either from these forums, or Facebook, or whatever.

 

I can only assume Karl is this forward and opinionated in person.

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Does anyone know why any producers would choose to switch from 35mm to HD rather than to Super16? Shooting on S16 shouldn't really be more expensive than HD when you consider the cost of an HD Camera. S16 also provides the colour quality of 35mm.

 

It may have similar colorimetry, but it doesn't have the depth of field characteristics, sharpness, or grain characteristics of 35mm. 16mm also creates some problems when you need to do things like visual effects. There are also those that simply dislike the degree of visible grain on most S16 stocks shot under common conditions. With S16, there is also the additional cost - sometimes considerable - of performing dirt cleanup in post, something that is unnecessary with electronic alternatives. So whether S16 is cost competitive with most of the electronic alternatives depends, in part, on whether you look at the big picture.

 

The move to digital formats today is primarily centered around "big chip" devices like Genesis, F35, D21, and Red, which all provide an image that retains a lot of the characteristics of 35mm capture, in particular, rather shallow depth of field. Having been involved more than once in comparative tests, I can say that for many, the look of modern electronic cameras, such as the ones I just mentioned, is a more pleasing, richer, and cleaner look than that achieved by S16. You may not agree, but that is simply the case. Many of them look at S16 as an attempt to needlessly hang on to film technology. And even though I have a long, long history in film, I have to say that on some level, they have a point.

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