Digital Is Dead

[Hal Smith]

Oh BTW Tim, please don't close this thread until I finish writing the lyrics to my, "Ding Dong Digital Is Dead," song.

 

I am at this very moment rounding up a group of midgets to sing it.

 

R,

 

Shouldn't it be?

 

"Ding Dong! The Digit's Dead. Which old bit? The wicked bit."

 

(Okay, it's past my bedtime, I'll go quietly now.)

 

PS: Richard,

 

The Chorus Niagra Flash Mob in the Wellington Mall was inspired. You guys up north of the "Land of the Free (to Starve)" sure know how to have a good time.

[Adrian Sierkowski]

For those of you not in the know to Hal's last reference:

 

 

[Paul Korver]

This thread made my night! Thanks Richard!!

-Paul

[Simon Wyss]

Elektra, has digital numeric video not always been dead?

Are you alive, does blood flow in veins of you?

Do you bear the eternal spark in you?

 

Gea, hold me firmly in your arms,

and let me not flee in flight!

 

Urania, you count the days.

Do we have a day for everything?

No, we don’t.

 

Chemistry is Gea’s home. But there hasn’t been an earth day in the week for thousands of years, and no uranic day, either. No wonder film and video have become rivals. Five out of twelve missing. Scar Wars.

[Guest]

Elektra, has digital numeric video not always been dead?

Are you alive, does blood flow in veins of you?

Do you bear the eternal spark in you?

 

Gea, hold me firmly in your arms,

and let me not flee in flight!

 

Urania, you count the days.

Do we have a day for everything?

No, we don’t.

 

Chemistry is Gea’s home. But there hasn’t been an earth day in the week for thousands of years, and no uranic day, either. No wonder film and video have become rivals. Five out of twelve missing. Scar Wars.

 

Um.......OK.

 

R,

[aFirebird]

Hi, Richard

Do you have the link where this article been published?

 

So exciting news to me.

 

Thank you.

 

xingkui

Edited December 12, 2010 by xingkui Guo

[Simon Wyss]

Well, actually I wanted to write only the first line at first: has digital video not always been dead?

 

Then I got carried away somehow.

[Guest]

Hi, Richard

Do you have the link where this article been published?

 

So exciting news to me.

 

Thank you.

 

xingkui

 

You mean an article about digital being dead? I don't need one. None of the digital people need any basis in fact to back up their arguments, so why do I?

 

Besides, you heard it here first. This is essentially, "The Article." Feel free to quote me as your only source. :D

 

R,

[James Steven Beverly]

Elektra, has digital numeric video not always been dead?

Are you alive, does blood flow in veins of you?

Do you bear the eternal spark in you?

 

Gea, hold me firmly in your arms,

and let me not flee in flight!

 

Urania, you count the days.

Do we have a day for everything?

No, we don’t.

 

Chemistry is Gea’s home. But there hasn’t been an earth day in the week for thousands of years, and no uranic day, either. No wonder film and video have become rivals. Five out of twelve missing. Scar Wars.

 

.........What??! :blink:

[Francesco Bonomo]

Blimey Richard that's a bit premature - ever since film came out people have been pronouncing digital as dead or dying.

 

Sure over the next few years - digital's going to be used less and less, there's still a bit of life in it yet.

 

But I think there's going to be a place for digital over at least the next 10 years for high end projects and digital loving directors such as Chris Nolan and Spielberg.

 

As much as the film crowd try, they still can't get the look and feel of digital - I know with vision 3 kodak are getting close to nailing the digital look - but its still not there yet. The highlights on film are much too smooth - film just can't get that hard clipped hightlights the way Red does and the skin tones on film just aren't there yet - none of the skin tones are orange or dull enough.

 

I'm sure film will get there, but its not there yet - sick of these film fan boys who hang around on Panavision-user who overly hype the death of digital. Digital has a great history why rush to move on so soon - I'd be happy for film to take over digital but not until the quality and reliability are there.

 

fantastic reply, Phil :D

 

(and great thread, Richard!)

[Brad Grimmett]

What's happening here in TV land is that shows that started on film are staying on film.

-- J.S.

Unfortunately, not all of them are staying on film. A couple have switched in the last couple years. It's nice to see shows like Glee start with film though.

[Indiefilmstock]

Film is far from dead. We can hardly keep it on the shelves. Of course, we are selling it at a discount.

 

You would think that anything on television would be digital, but we've got a ton of commerical clients still dedicated to using film. Especially those that want their project to look good in HD.

 

By the way, if anyone wants of that film from award winning shows that Kodak has trumpeted, please give us a call. We've got factory sealed and ends.

 

Richard Kaufman

Comtel Pro Media

818-450-1122

richard@comtelpm.com

[Guest]

You would think that anything on television would be digital, but we've got a ton of commerical clients still dedicated to using film. Especially those that want their project to look good in HD.

 

By far 35mm is still the gold standard for all national spots, digital has hardly gained even a toe hold in this area. And many of these spots end up with ratios of 100:1!

 

R,

[William Coss]

Yeah but Glee is shot on 35mm, so that means all new shows will be 35mm. Sorry, Digital Is Dead!!!

 

R,

Glee is shot on 16

[Guest]

Glee is shot on 16

 

Here's a behind the scenes video of the making of Glee, at 01:16 that is clearly a 35mm Panavision camera in view.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoUiYSys2Mc

 

R,

[K Borowski]

Maybe it's just a Panavision Elaine with an anamorphic stretch, Rich :-p

 

 

At this point, I seriously doubt we're going to see much new content shot on S16. The love-affair with 500T filmstocks has made S16 incompatible with 1080p programming, sadly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just as an aside, David M. thinks this thread is a shot in the back to a certain member of these fora leaving. I never considered it so. I hope he will come back. He certainly wasn't in my top ten of people I'd wish would leave. He wasn't even on the list. I disagreed with almost everything he said, and often he didn't have a point, but he didn't have a bad attitude about it. He didn't resort to personally attacking anyone on here.

 

I think this thread you've started, Richard, is more of a commentary on the RASH of threads praising new digital cameras and the bold new era they were going to inaugurate. I think this thread, in that same spirit, may be childish, may be ironic. I'm not sure, may be both B)

[David Mullen ASC]

The thread is fine, and I get the joke completely, it's the title that just stood out to me when combined with the other one. But I much prefer Richard's sense of humor...

[Guest]

Check the dates of the threads, this thread was started several days BEFORE Tom announced his departure. This thread was started Dec 10th, Tom announced his departure at: Posted 15 December 2010 - 05:32 PM

 

Also, Tom will be back. Jim J announced he was quitting this forum several times, and came back, several times. Glad ya did Jim we all love ya!

 

R,

[Stephen Williams]

Check the dates of the threads, this thread was started several days BEFORE Tom announced his departure. This thread was started Dec 10th, Tom announced his departure at: Posted 15 December 2010 - 05:32 PM

 

Also, Tom will be back. Jim J announced he was quitting this forum several times, and came back, several times. Glad ya did Jim we all love ya!

 

R,

 

Hi Richard,

 

Looking forward to Tom's return too!

 

Stephen

[K Borowski]

I think, in the spirit of good fun only, we should use this thread to announce every Single FILM shot on 35mm. Then we need to get ahold of the directors and have them make grandiose statements about film's abilities, losely, or completely detached from science and fact.

 

Care to give us our first one Richard? I'd like to hear about how shooting 35mm negative on "The Dogfather" completely blew you away, like you were tripping on acid, or something like that (I'm not going to cite my sources here, but I actually heard that line used once to describe a certain acquisition system in a filmmaking magazine from 2005).

 

Talk about how the future is here and how you are never going back. Then give an incorrect ISO rating, like "2560" and talk about how shooting at that speed is impossible with any other non-film camera ;) [in fact, due to improper rounding, it's impossible to shoot that speed with ANY camera]

 

Then talk about how film, and the DI suite has leveled the playing field and taken all of the advantage of making a movie away from "the studio system." After all, film an cameras are the big hurdle to making a movie economically. Competent crew, A-List Actors and Actresses, cranes, lights, advertisiting, stunts, CG, compositing, editing soundtrack, ADR, extras, food service, security, and other silly trivialities will all fall into place with a great camera loaded with 35mm film!

[David Mullen ASC]

I think a good snapshot of where studio production was one year ago is to look at what's in the theaters this season.

 

Black Swan (S16, a bit of Canon)

Kings Speech (35mm)

Tron Legacy 3D (digital - F35?)

Chronicles of Narnia 3D (digital - F35?)

The Fighter (35mm, 2-perf)

The Tourist (35mm anamorphic)

How Do You Know (35mm)

Unstoppable (35mm)

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows (35mm)

Rabbit Hole (digital - Red)

Casino Jack (? - trailer looks like digital origination)

Burlesque (35mm)

Little Fockers (probably 35mm)

True Grit (35mm)

Country Strong (35mm)

 

Some of these are guesses, and there are some digital shots in the film shows, all the aerials in "Unstoppable" looked pretty HD-ish to me for example. So what are we talking about this season, about 25% of the studio product being shot digitally, and mainly because they are 3D productions? You can expect more next year of course, but no one is seriously going to say that film isn't a player, if anything, it's still the dominant player.

[Tim Tyler]

... we should use this thread to announce every Single FILM shot on 35mm...

 

This is just fueling a fire that should be extinguished. Let it go.

[John Sprung]

The love-affair with 500T filmstocks has made S16 incompatible with 1080p programming, sadly.

 

Yes, our network won't accept 16mm, primarily because of the grain. Because every frame has a different grain pattern, it's absolute hell on the MPEG compression used in ATSC.

 

 

 

 

 

-- J.S.

[Frank Glencairn]

So we are "running out of stock" (pun intended) because of codec compression issues?

 

Brave new world. :rolleyes:

 

Frank

[Shawn Martin]

Some of these are guesses, and there are some digital shots in the film shows, all the aerials in "Unstoppable" looked pretty HD-ish to me for example.

I thought they did too, and since Clairmont was credited for the cameras, I emailed them through the form on their site. I was surprised to get a response from Denny Clairmont. He said he didn't know anything about them using HD and that that look might have been done in post. Obviously that could just mean someone else's camera was on the chopper.

 

Narnia was F23, and Little Fockers was 35mm. Arricams, if I remember correctly.

Edited December 20, 2010 by Shawn Martin