How has the change from shooting on film to digital affected things on set?

[Brian Drysdale]

If you want to discover more about the issues raised by digital preservation you'll find two reports here. It's not a simple matter of ones and zeros.

 

http://www.oscars.org/science-technology/council/projects/digitaldilemma/index.html

 

http://www.oscars.org/science-technology/council/projects/index.html

Edited April 25, 2013 by Brian Drysdale

[Oliver Hadlow Martin]

Where are these people and their stories, how many digital masterpeices have been ravaged by time?

 

You set a very negative tone sometimes and the sarcasm is not appreciated either.

 

I'm sure it is a simple concept that hard drives break all the time. Plenty of stories out there for you to research I am not hunting for you. I'm not saying film is infallible but as a long term storage device it is significantly better than digital. The Academy of Motion Picture Science and anyone who has a very limited understanding of emulsion and digital formats will be able to tell you this.

 

Digital storage is over time more expensive, more time consuming and extremely fragile. Digitally shot feature films are archived to separation film for a reason. You cannot trust Digital.

 

Read the reports than Brian posted and you will feel educated, I guarantee it.

[Phil Rhodes]

Hard drives fail constantly and nobody considers them a long-term option. That's the whole point of magtape. Hard disks are a working medium, not an archival one. That's not controversial.

 

It does worry me slightly that LTO is the only option, but as I say, at least we don't have a standardisation issue, which is the very last thing you want for an archive. Any alternative would almost inevitably be based on the same underlying techniques, and it is manufactured by several different people. More than that you can't really hope for.

 

As to actual archival longevity, we don't have as much evidence as for film because magnetic tape has only been in widespread use for about half a century. We do know that high frequences are gradually attenuated by the slow rotation of the earth's magnetic field, although digital formats are unlikely to become unreadable in timescales of decades. There have been problems in the past with the storage life of the plastics, coatings and lubricants used to produce magnetic tape stock, although it's probably reasonable to assume that most of these have now been solved, at least for archive lives up to as long as the technology has existed for.

 

If you actually want to make a comparison, I don't think there's any particular reason to consider LTO less reliable than film. You could contend that we don't know how reliable it is over, say, a century, because it hasn't existed that long, but I'm not aware of any evidence that there is anything particularly wrong with it. Film does require good processing and quite carefully temperature and humidity controlled storage to achieve really good archive life, and I don't think there's much century-old film around that you could reasonably throw straight on a projector and show, if it's recoverable at all. Colour film is subject to fading depending on how well processed and stored it was, which is a concern given that as a practical matter, most film that's archived will be colour. And of course, film cannot be precisely cloned.

 

 

Talking about archival permanence is intrinsically an attempt to predict the future, and I don't think there's any purpose in being needlessly alarmist about this. Human factors are far more likely to cause archive problems than the underlying technology.

 

 

P

[Oliver Hadlow Martin]

While I agree with most of what you are saying I still believe tapes could still be an issue. They still requires a machine reader to read said tapes.

What if that machine doesn't exist anymore? You may have your material there but no way of accessing it.

 

Shifts in colour film can be avoided by doing black and white separation archives. OR Kodaks new archival film which doesn't have the issue of fading (apparently) and stores the footage in what looks like something like LOG-C which can then easily be returned in a later grade. No one seems to know this new film exists though for some reason...

 

And I don't think it is alarmist. We seem not to learn from our history. Over a century we have lost so much footage and heritage due to our failure to take preventative measures. So many tapes from the 50's onwards have been lost and god knows what else.

 

Anyway I seem to have hijacked the thread. I do apologise TS :P

[Oliver Hadlow Martin]

And you would be surprised Phil at the amount of independent film-makers surveyed by AMPAS that stored their master archive on a "hard drive" in "no climate control".

 

A lot film makers simply don't know that digital devices (ie HDD'S on a shelf) are extremely vulnerable.

[Guest Christopher Sheneman]

I guess we'll see.

 

My guess is they'll have some kind of ultra-stable digital storage soon that we haven't thought of yet, which isn't a magnetic or tape driven.

[Freya Black]

It ought to be OK; the financial services industry seems to trust it,

 

Ohhhh My God! That is like the worst argument from you ever Phil!

I can't believe you said that.

I suspect YOU can't believe you said that!!!!

 

"Don't worry folks, the world is in safe hands, trust me I'm a banker..."

 

seriously!!!!

 

Freya

[Freya Black]

As to actual archival longevity, we don't have as much evidence as for film because magnetic tape has only been in widespread use for about half a century. We do know that high frequences are gradually attenuated by the slow rotation of the earth's magnetic field, although digital formats are unlikely to become unreadable in timescales of decades. There have been problems in the past with the storage life of the plastics, coatings and lubricants used to produce magnetic tape stock, although it's probably reasonable to assume that most of these have now been solved, at least for archive lives up to as long as the technology has existed for.

 

Phil, you appear to be glossing over some very serious issues that have occurred with tape.

Many television programmes were lost due to the deterioration of videotape to the point it became unplayable.

There's been very serious problems with audio master tapes, especially as you suggest some of the materials used to make them that deteriorated badly over time.

 

I don't think it's reasonable to assume that these issues won't surface again at some point, or new ones. What you are suggesting is not evidence based, it's just a hopeful assumption. Tape has had something of a bad track record over the long term, and we don't have enough time since then for there to really be evidence that this is a situation that has changed.

 

Freya

[Freya Black]

I think a lot of this talk about the archival properties of film is nonsense.

It's based on the assumption that the film industry will continue in the same way as it is today.

Digital has already bought about massive changes and it will continue to do so. You just aren't noticing it because you are in the middle of it.

 

It's perfectly possible for example, that people won't bother to archive movies so much in the future and that they will become more ephemeral. The new model doesn't have to be the same as the old when you are changing so many things already. To some extent this has always been the case even with film based stuff anyway. A lot of stuff only survived by accident because it happened to be shot on a very durable archive medium. That will be less and less the case going forward.

 

Alternatively, the whole model of archiving may end up being a very different one.

 

Freya

[Phil Rhodes]

It's not assumption.

 

Early problems with the deterioration of magnetic tape led to improvements in manufacturing processes which should preclude those problems recurring. It may not preclude other problems, but that applies to more or less anything.

 

P

[Freya Black]

It's not assumption.

 

Early problems with the deterioration of magnetic tape led to improvements in manufacturing processes which should preclude those problems recurring. It may not preclude other problems, but that applies to more or less anything.

 

P

 

There were magnetic tapes before the bad ones that lasted longer tho. I don't think we can really assume that newer magnetic tapes will last longer than the older ones did, certainly not longer than the older ones without the bad formula. I also don't think it will matter though because the tapes will last long enough that "the important stuff" will get transferred to a newer backup and the other stuff will just be lost. That will just be the way it will be and people will get used to it like a lot of things.

 

Freya

[dan kessler]

 

Your numbers are ridiculous. The rates you quote for Alexa are representative of a pretty decent shooting kit with good modern lenses and so forth, which is both far from the minimum cost, and will massively inflate your BL4 purchase numbers for matching equipment. Your 5:1 shooting ratio is effectively impossible to achieve for all but the simplest productions. Digital post for Alexa can be effectively free, as ProRes can be posted on computers that many people already own, and in any case remains a consideration for film as well unless you want to spend thousands creating workprints.

 

 

Look, I threw out some ballpark figures to try

to illustrate that you can definitely reach

a point where running 35mm short ends through

a camera that you own will beat paying lofty

rental fees, whether digital or otherwise.

 

The longer the clock runs, the greater the

advantage accrues to the one who doesn't

have to pay for the time.

 

And, hey, the same thing applies if you

own your own digital camera, and if you

pay little enough for it, your break-even

point arrives even sooner.

 

Edited April 26, 2013 by dan kessler

[Mitchell Perkins]

And so you see, Peter, just how much things have changed on set.

[Freya Black]

And so you see, Peter, just how much things have changed on set.

 

lol! ...and on internet forums! ;)

 

Freya

[Pat Murray]

In retrospect, that statement from Coppola was perhaps a little too off-handed.

It never was just about the camera. It is far more about what happens in front of it

and behind it, both of which still demand "professionalism."

 

Agreed. I think it was John Waters who said the pen and paper are the cheapest artistic medium and the 20th century produced no Shakespeares. The comment about the camera was surprisingly ignorant anyways. Some poor farm girl isn't going to be able to afford, nor will a rental house give her, a digital camera that gives comparable images to 35mm. Her "masterpiece" is going to be in some crappy low end "HD" or "Standard Definition" camcorder, which is no different than back in the film days when aspiring farm girls and other future directorial greats shot movies on Super 8 and later 16mm.

 

Spielberg shot and presented a feature film on Super 8 when he was a teen and reportedly got his money ($500) back selling (four walling) tickets to the see the movie. I don't know what inflation is today from when Speilberg shot his Super 8 film, but I've got a buddy who shot a short film on a standard definition camcorder and the final bill was $5000.

 

Regardless of your medium and Chris' bullying in this thread, to shoot a proper professional film costs a lot of money, whether you use digital or film. The true democratization of film, IMO, doesn't happen because people can now shoot on cheap low quality digital cameras versus cheap low quality film cameras, it's the access to distribution. You can set up a website and a paypal account, post your trailers and voila! You're a film maker and distributor. No more four walling in church basements and wherever else you can set up a Super 8 or 16mm projector cheap.

 

It's also cheap to send out your movie to film festivals, agents, other distributors etc.

 

I also agree that Coppola is probably a little too off-handed because his comments completely ignore the works of John Cassavetes, the French New Wave, the British New Wave, the Midnight Movies of the late 60s and early 70s, etc. I'm sure people can add an even larger list of independant filmmakers who used cheap cameras and film stock to create low budget Mozartesque cinematic masterpieces that broke the "professionalism" barrier.

 

At the end of the day, the only thing new about digital is digital itself.

 

Pick the medium that works best for you and good luck with your financing. :-)

Edited May 1, 2013 by Pat Murray

[Pat Murray]

Where are these people and their stories, how many digital masterpeices have been ravaged by time?

 

Films get ravaged by time for the same reasons digital files are damaged, laziness, lack of interest in spending resources on maintaining commercial properties that no longer hold much commercial value.

 

If you want to improve archiving of films, you've got to make it profitable for the people who own the rights to the movies.

 

There was an LA Times story posted here, you can look for it, about some of the problems with digital.

 

1. There have been 20 format changes in the last 5 years. The cost of continually updating the digital files reportedly closes the gap in costs between film and digital considerably. Even the super digital archiving device you think will be invented one day will likely have multiple format changes. What's the point in sticking to one format? Where's the money in that??

 

Beyond my cynicism, there's also the fact that humanity is a long way from perfect technology. We're always looking for ways to improve upon our technology, that means eventual obsolescence for whatever it is you think will be the perfect digital archiving tool.

 

2. There was an example of Toy Story 2 nearly being lost forever because somebody hit the delete button. We can watch the movie today because an employee made a copy to show to her kids the day before.

 

With film all you have to do is pick it up and project light through it and you've got an image.

 

I'm 50/50 on both mediums, so spare me your childish immature vulgarities and consider as a student how much more useful (employable) you'd be once you leave school if you weren't so aggressively one dimensional.

[Guest Christopher Sheneman]

 

Films get ravaged by time for the same reasons digital files are damaged, laziness, lack of interest in spending resources on maintaining commercial properties that no longer hold much commercial value.

 

If you want to improve archiving of films, you've got to make it profitable for the people who own the rights to the movies.

 

There was an LA Times story posted here, you can look for it, about some of the problems with digital.

 

1. There have been 20 format changes in the last 5 years. The cost of continually updating the digital files reportedly closes the gap in costs between film and digital considerably. Even the super digital archiving device you think will be invented one day will likely have multiple format changes. What's the point in sticking to one format? Where's the money in that??

 

Beyond my cynicism, there's also the fact that humanity is a long way from perfect technology. We're always looking for ways to improve upon our technology, that means eventual obsolescence for whatever it is you think will be the perfect digital archiving tool.

 

2. There was an example of Toy Story 2 nearly being lost forever because somebody hit the delete button. We can watch the movie today because an employee made a copy to show to her kids the day before.

 

With film all you have to do is pick it up and project light through it and you've got an image.

 

I'm 50/50 on both mediums, so spare me your childish immature vulgarities and consider as a student how much more useful (employable) you'd be once you leave school if you weren't so aggressively one dimensional.

Who cares if they're been 20 or a hundred or a thousand million format changes in the last five years- it doesn't mean anything. Nothing has been lost, digital dreams are forever.

 

Now, how many 35mm films have been lost, especially early cinema?

[Adrian Sierkowski]

I believe a good deal of Dr Who is missing due to the BBC taping over them. Also, the main difference is that digital cinema, specifically, is about 15 years old now, give or take. There haven't been many films lost in the last 15 years. Granted, a lot of early film has been lost (and found) for it's over 100 year history. The problem, then, is not the suitability for digital to retain information for the short term; but rather for the long term.

I for one am saddened, often, to think that my children, or friends, will find fewer and fewer boxes of old photographs and thoughts when I am gone owing to our increasingly digital-centric lives. But that's another topic really.

[Mitchell Perkins]

"Who cares if they're been 20 or a hundred or a thousand million format changes in the last five years- it doesn't mean anything."

 

It means you have to buy new gear. Who shoots movies and doesn't care about money?

 

"Nothing has been lost, digital dreams are forever."

 

MiniDV-captured home movies belonging to people I know have been lost due to dropout, for starters...(!)

 

"Now, how many 35mm films have been lost, especially early cinema?"

 

Only one that matters - "Mahoney's Last Stand".

 

Mitch

[Guest Christopher Sheneman]

"Who cares if they're been 20 or a hundred or a thousand million format changes in the last five years- it doesn't mean anything."

 

It means you have to buy new gear. Who shoots movies and doesn't care about money?

 

"Nothing has been lost, digital dreams are forever."

 

MiniDV-captured home movies belonging to people I know have been lost due to dropout, for starters...(!)

 

"Now, how many 35mm films have been lost, especially early cinema?"

 

Only one that matters - "Mahoney's Last Stand".

 

Mitch

Digital dreams are forever, Mitch. It makes sense because it's feels true and you know it does. It's the physical that doesn't last, our bodies, cars, building etc..We see physical "decay" all around us, don't we?

 

 

What I find ridiculous is that your entire arguement hinges on the idea that the digital film hardware is and for the foreseeable future unstable and varied in manufactuing and therefore the data itself will automatically be corrupted or lost because it exists right now. Haha, that's naive.

 

 

Any "bugs" will eventually be worked out and you will be eating crow. It's a far more promising technology than motion picture film ever was.

 

 

Rome ne s'est pas faite en un jour.

[Brian Drysdale]

The naive part is assuming that just because something is digital you can always make use of it or has long term storage that's meaningful. File formats change, how many of the numerous codecs around today will be accessible in 20 years?

 

http://yorkdl.wordpress.com/2013/01/30/bring-out-your-dead/

[Pat Murray]

Now, how many 35mm films have been lost, especially early cinema?

If the films were lost it was because of a) negligence/fire (same can happen to digital and almost happened to Toy Story 2)

b) because the studio tossed the prints and negatives once they were no longer deemed profitable.

 

I hate to break it to you, nothing lasts forever, but some things last longer than others if they are taken care of. We can still watch film from a hundred years ago. Leave a digital file in its original format and see how easy it is to watch 100 years from now.

 

Anyways, my point is, doesn't matter, film or digital, they both have their archiving challenges and whether or not a movie survives is up to the people charged with its protection and pirates/movie theaters that kept their prints.

[Brian Drysdale]

Also, early 35mm films were on nitrate stock, which is pretty unstable. http://www.bfi.org.uk/live/video/383

 

Nitrite is used in explosive devices.

Edited May 2, 2013 by Brian Drysdale

[Mitchell Perkins]

"Digital dreams are forever, Mitch. It makes sense because it's feels true and you know it does. It's the physical that doesn't last, our bodies, cars, building etc..We see physical "decay" all around us, don't we?"

 

But film exists in my mind as a whirring purple hamburger, whereas digital seems to be a cat wandering off in the distance. I know this makes sense because I can feel something in my shoe.

 

"What I find ridiculous is that your entire arguement hinges on the idea that the digital film hardware is and for the foreseeable future unstable and varied in manufactuing and therefore the data itself will automatically be corrupted or lost because it exists right now. Haha, that's naive."

 

It is a well-known fact that anything that exists right now will automatically be corrupted or lost, probably within the next five minutes. What we need is a format that doesn't exist. Now!

 

"Any "bugs" will eventually be worked out and you will be eating crow. It's a far more promising technology than motion picture film ever was."

 

I met an old lady who ate crow once. She said it tasted like chicken....and bugs don't need to work out, that's naive!

 

"Rome ne s'est pas faite en un jour."

 

Vous ete un mouton seule.