Tired of hearing "Film is Dead?" Well So Are We!

[James Steven Beverly]

Film died thirty years ago on the precise day that news cameramen replaced their 16mm cameras with video. That was the day that film died. It would be decades later before this news would reach Hollywood.

 

So to those who keep predicting that the death of film is sometime next week - wake up - it's been dead for thirty years.

 

What has been happening ever since that day has been two histories - the use of film by those who didn't know it was dead, and the use by those who enjoy and appreciate it's beauty, power and history.

That argument kinda negates the whole"Film is dead" argument, not to mention the fact that almost every one of the tent poles were shot on film along with a LOT of smaller indies. The BEST argument you MIGHT be able to make is it's slightly zombieized, but even THEN there's that whole "Most tent poles are shot on film along with a LOT of smaller indies" thing which would ALSO mean video just winged it which probably just pissed film off and it's coming back with a VENGEANCE. Just because one wishes something to be true, doesn't make something true.

[Carl Looper]

That argument kinda negates the whole "Film is dead" argument

 

Yes, you got it.

 

It negates the "Film is dead" argument.

 

Not sure I follow the tent pole indie thing but I think we're on the same page ...

 

Carl

Edited August 1, 2013 by Carl Looper

[Carl Looper]

To be a little clearer, the argument that "film is dead" is a thirty year old argument. But it only had legitimacy thirty years ago. Film gave birth to video. Video rejected it's parent with the quite legitimate argument, for it's own purposes, that film was dead. And for video, and it's digital future, film was dead. Film is dead. It's been dead for thirty years.

 

But for film, it's future took two paths - one a dead end, where those who should have converted to video and then digital didn't do so. They continued using film in a state of stupour, eventually sinking into nostalgia and loss, or jumping at the last moment. BUT on an entirely different path, thirty years ago, film was reborn, by those who have always actually understood the beauty, power, and history of film, and how to deploy it - those who actually enjoy it - and if doing so with a vengence can make it even more enjoyable, then that is what can also be done.

 

The point is that we are sick of hearing the argument that "film is dead" precisely because, for those who witnessed the death of film, it is very very old news.

 

C

Edited August 1, 2013 by Carl Looper

[James Steven Beverly]

 

Yes, you got it.

 

It negates the "Film is dead" argument.

 

Not sure I follow the tent pole indie thing but I think we're on the same page ...

 

Carl

Ah, I'm a little slow on the uptake sometimes. Too much defending the obvious on this particular issue I suppose. I apologize for that. The tent pole / indie defense was just a practical example of the wide spread use of film in motion picture production despite the need for more technical expertise do to due to the desire for the superior image quality inherent in film acquisition.

 

I have noticed it's mainly film students exulting the virtues of digital acquisition and pronouncing that "Film is DEAD!!"......for as you say, the last thirty years. I get the sneaking suspicion that universities may actually be behind this demand to learn video only. Lord knows that universities will generally keep as much money in reserve for the elite of their schools, IE the tenured staff, getting BILLIONS off the sweat of student athletes while paying them NOTHING!! So why would they NOT press an agenda like shooting video on cheap cameras in their film making programs to keep as much money as possible in their pockets while covering their asses by announcing LOUD AND CLEAR that the movie industry doesn't USE FILM anymore!!! FORGET QUALITY, FORGET PRODUCTION VALUE and PROFESSIONALISM earned through YEARS of training and practical experience!! CHEAP DEMOCRATIZING VIDEO is the FUTURE!!! Don't get me started on higher education in this goes to the highest bidder democracy of ours!....BUT I digress. Film is alive and well and drinking a rum daiquiri poolside with Leonardo DiCaprio and Scarlett Johansson at Chateau Marmont.

[George Ebersole]

Film died thirty years ago on the precise day that news cameramen replaced their 16mm cameras with video. That was the day that film died. It would be decades later before this news would reach Hollywood.

 

So to those who keep predicting that the death of film is sometime next week - wake up - it's been dead for thirty years.

 

What has been happening ever since that day has been two histories - the use of film by those who didn't know it was dead, and the use by those who enjoy and appreciate it's beauty, power and history.

 

I have to admit, that I shot a couple of pieces on film, telecined them, then just used a video editor to put the project together. It was a hell of a lot easier than using an editing bay with glue and tape.

 

But film, until recently, still had the monopoly on image quality (amount of information/definition), so the history isn't as linear as it seems.

 

The film going public will tolerate Snakes on a Plane, Two Headed sharks tossed in a tornado, giant robots from 80's kids' cartoons turned into mainstream action-family entertainment, but they won't tolerate that stuff being shot on low grade film and being projected on the big screen.

[Carl Looper]

 

I have to admit, that I shot a couple of pieces on film, telecined them, then just used a video editor to put the project together. It was a hell of a lot easier than using an editing bay with glue and tape.

 

But film, until recently, still had the monopoly on image quality (amount of information/definition), so the history isn't as linear as it seems.

 

The film going public will tolerate Snakes on a Plane, Two Headed sharks tossed in a tornado, giant robots from 80's kids' cartoons turned into mainstream action-family entertainment, but they won't tolerate that stuff being shot on low grade film and being projected on the big screen.

 

Yes, if you don't enjoy working with film, then video/digital is probably the solution. For those who do enjoy it, any issue with glue and tape is, by definition, not their particular problem.

 

As for image quality one can create just as crappy results in video/digital as one can in film. Or just as beautiful.

 

In terms of information theory the way in which film encodes an image, in relation to the way in which digital encodes an image, are completely different. It is very difficult to propose an appropriate metric that would be respectful to both. A metric will be geared one way or the other, and give correspondingly different results. Digital is easy to define and that is one of it's virtues. It is based entirely on a rational model of the universe. The properties of film are a little more difficult to define. But that is one of it's virtues!

 

The death of film occured thirty years ago (actually earlier, but 30 is a nice figure) but unless you understood the difference between film and video at that time (not in terms of what was then achievable, but in terms of what the future held) you will have missed it.

 

For those who did miss it, but continued to use film, the future would, I imagine, be a mixture of turmoil. But for those didn't miss it, but continued to use film anyway, it's completely laughable to listen to the death of film as something recent.

 

Let me try and explain it in another way. For those programming a Commodore 64 in 1982 it was silly the questions as to what a computer was for. It was a programmable machine. You programmed it. But the questions continued. For the clueless they had to wait another decade, for things like Photoshop 1.0. As if it just popped out of nowehere and revolutionised photography then and there. But it completely ignores all of the work on digital photography that was going on for a decade up to that point. Indeed it ignores much more than a decade. History creates the "present".

 

The sense of film being dead recently is just a distant echo of things taking place a long long time ago.

 

To continue working with film, knowing that, is to understand something a bit more profound. It is find that position where one can laugh at those who've just picked up the latest digital camera and find themselves empowered to declare, as if it was something that just happend last week, that film is dead.

 

 

C

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

C

 

 

 

 

 

C

[David Cunningham]

I still use my Commodore 64 for video titling some times and my amiga for green-screen... just thought I'd through that out there. :)

[George Ebersole]

Carl; I love'd the image film captured, but I hated its bulk. I loved the compactness and ease of video, but I hated the image. It wasn't until SONY (and I guess Canon too) introduced variable speed shutters for video that people took it seriously as a medium for major projects. Otherwise, according to you, video should have taken over from the get go back in the 50s and 60s. But it didn't. And even with Betacam it still didn't.

 

Film captured images more clearly, showed them in a way that mimicked how we humans collect imagery (roughly ~24fps), and captured more information than a video camera could scan.

 

If you're arguing that it was only a matter of time before the technology caught up with the artistic demands of the user and consumer of feature films, then there's no argument. But as long as film gives the end user image that they're comfortable with, then there will be film.

[Brian Drysdale]

I'm not sure film was dead 30 years ago because video was used for shooting news and other standard TV programmes. That freed film to be good at what it does best, while the video (high band u-matic for a few years) replaced reversal film, which was then physically edited and then transmitted. Film then became the process that higher end documentaries and dramas used, shooting on neg stocks, it meant that these didn't have the video look that you spent your time with filters etc trying to overcome.Now, with Log curves and RAW, the digital cameras get images that are no longer locked into a video look (which worked in other ways), so you have an increased.number of options

 

Very few people physically edit on film, they haven't for quite a few years, but In the end, having film around gives people another choice.

[George Ebersole]

The thing I couldn't understand is why the technology wasn't tweaked for motion picture standards; i.e. scan at 24 or 25fps as oppsoed to 30p or 60i or whatever it is video used. I actually know the history and background, but it just strikes me as odd that there wasn't a bigger effort to make both standards more compatible with one another.

 

Film isn't dead, but I think it's singing its swan song.

[Pavan Deep]

I think the debate of ‘film is dead’ is somewhat absurd; people have been making these statements since the early 1970’s and some probably started predicting the death of film before then. I think for artists to get embroiled in discussing this further and intellectualising it deeper makes little sense. Film is still a viable option for filmmakers and it will be used for a long time yet, though its role is changing constantly, the only certainty we have is change. Many feel that the future of film lies with Kodak, I don’t think the future of film is inextricably tied to the future of Kodak, a few days ago I heard that the Italian company Ferrania will start to manufacture new film, so far from being dead it's very much alive and provides a great option for filmmakers to tell their stories.

 

Pav

[Gregg MacPherson]

 

.........Digital is easy to define and that is one of it's virtues. It is based entirely on a rational model of the universe. The properties of film are a little more difficult to define. But that is one of it's virtues!.......

 

 

The death of film occured thirty years ago ......

 

If one sees a skeletal figure approaching in a black cloak holding a scythe, knowing he may take 30 years or more to arrive, does one consider ones self dead? No.

It may be that the end of VNF for TV 30 years ago prefigures the death of film. May be. But it was not the death of film. Why add this confusing language to an already confused and missunderstood thing?

 

Cheers,

Gregg.

[Gregg MacPherson]

I have a problem with edit function. It always times out. I wanted to add.

 

PS. I'm refering to the second quote, challenging it. The first quote I much enjoy, just didn't get time to say much about it today

[James Steven Beverly]

 

Yes, if you don't enjoy working with film, then video/digital is probably the solution. For those who do enjoy it, any issue with glue and tape is, by definition, not their particular problem.

 

As for image quality one can create just as crappy results in video/digital as one can in film. Or just as beautiful.

 

In terms of information theory the way in which film encodes an image, in relation to the way in which digital encodes an image, are completely different. It is very difficult to propose an appropriate metric that would be respectful to both. A metric will be geared one way or the other, and give correspondingly different results. Digital is easy to define and that is one of it's virtues. It is based entirely on a rational model of the universe. The properties of film are a little more difficult to define. But that is one of it's virtues!

 

The death of film occured thirty years ago (actually earlier, but 30 is a nice figure) but unless you understood the difference between film and video at that time (not in terms of what was then achievable, but in terms of what the future held) you will have missed it.

 

For those who did miss it, but continued to use film, the future would, I imagine, be a mixture of turmoil. But for those didn't miss it, but continued to use film anyway, it's completely laughable to listen to the death of film as something recent.

 

Let me try and explain it in another way. For those programming a Commodore 64 in 1982 it was silly the questions as to what a computer was for. It was a programmable machine. You programmed it. But the questions continued. For the clueless they had to wait another decade, for things like Photoshop 1.0. As if it just popped out of nowehere and revolutionised photography then and there. But it completely ignores all of the work on digital photography that was going on for a decade up to that point. Indeed it ignores much more than a decade. History creates the "present".

 

The sense of film being dead recently is just a distant echo of things taking place a long long time ago.

 

To continue working with film, knowing that, is to understand something a bit more profound. It is find that position where one can laugh at those who've just picked up the latest digital camera and find themselves empowered to declare, as if it was something that just happend last week, that film is dead.

 

 

C

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

C

 

 

 

 

 

C

OK, like I said, I'm a little slow on the uptake so let me get this straight, Film is dead although nearly EVERY film with a reasonable budget is shooting film, has been doing so for THIRTY YEARS and shows NO SIGN of stopping. Well, HELL, you've convinced me. I'll tell ya what, it 30 years when people are STILL shooting film, I vote we start a protest movement called "People who can't kill film with a hockey mask and a machete,"

[Carl Looper]

Yes, my approach to this is purely rhetorical. Here is a more vicious version:

 

Instead of trying to defend film in relation to the digital declarations of it's death one instead says: "yes you f**kwits, it's been dead for f**king decades, tell me something I don't f**king know".

 

I'm not here to argue whether this is true or not. It is purely rhetorical.

 

I'm here to say I very much enjoy film. It is has a beauty, power and history I appreciate. And I continue to enjoy it very much, despite the fact, that in 1982, I could see the future as clearly as it eventually became. Indeed I am very much part of that movement which created the digital present - the point being that despite this I still enjoy film. Always have, always will.

 

If someone has some other way of explaining this I am all ears.

 

C

Edited August 2, 2013 by Carl Looper

[Carl Looper]

But to be a little less rhetotical the point I'm trying to make is that at a particular juncture in history film gave birth video, or we might say - it gave birth to TV, which gave birth to video. Video gave birth to digital. At each juncture film died, only to be reborn the very next day. What has happened in recent times was always on the cards for a particular type of movie making.

 

In each case film has continued, but in a new direction. Alongside it's children.

 

It is moving into old age but not without the power and a history behind it which is still capable of surprising us in the simplest of ways.

 

There is a saying that goes: The King is Dead. Long Live the King.

 

Now here's some older history. Once upon a time, at the birth of photography, there was the cry that rang out - that "From this day forth painting is dead". And by painters themselves! But what followed on from this is that painting changed direction. What follwed was Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Surrelaism to name but a few movements.

 

All that died was a particular type of painting, one which photgraphy was better equipped to replace.

 

The same goes for TV, video, digital. It replaces a particular type of movie making, one that was better handled by TV, then video and then digital.

 

Now it may not be so easy to map this history onto the situation between film and digital, but it's certainly informative. Today we would find it impossible to understand how people could have ever believed painting was dead. But they did.

 

It may very well be the case that today people believe film is dead. But as I 've rehetorically arguing, it's been dead for thirty years (from a particular point of view) and what has hapened during that time, alongside the evolution of video into digital, is complete awareness of that evolution and corrsponding ways of differentiating itself from such.

 

The friction between film and video/digital has been going on for a long time, enough time for film and film makers, who have understood this, to reinvent film. This will happen and more and more.

 

C

[James Steven Beverly]

You know, Carl, I've never had much use for "rhetorical" debates about indisputable facts. They're kinda a waste of time. I did however, notice your occupation is "Digital Image Technician" which would seem to indicate an inherent bias towards motion picture film production. That, of course, would be perfectly understandable as it IS part of your job to exalt the virtues of digital acquisition no matter HOW overly exaggerated they might have evolved during the last thirty years or so. It would certainly explain why you've been on a "death watch" for the last three decades. After all hope DOES spring eternal and one must keep a vigil when certain eternal rest looms so eminently upon one.......for SSSOOO long therefore please keep up the good work. In the meantime, I'm gonna keep shooting raw film stock every chance I get just to keep busy while you're waiting for the untimely demise of motion picture film. Oh, and PLEASE let me know when that ACTUALLY happens. BTW, I really enjoyed your "vicious version" comment. I found it rather.........colorful.

[George Ebersole]

Carl; what are you working on now?

[Carl Looper]

Carl; what are you working on now?

 

Well I've actually started shooting film again. I had been working on film to digital transfer research, and that's still ongoing, but have picked up the camera again and gone out and actually exposed a roll of 16mm film. I haven't had as much fun as I've had in twenty years (the last time I shot 16mm). Have been putting together cameras, motors, lenses and etc.

 

Anyway what I did do for the first time in my life, is actually process the roll of film. In a Lomo. In the past I just happliy sent my film off to the lab. Today there isn't any labs left in my neck of the woods - they've all closed down, save one. But around that particular lab an offshoot started - a film workshop, and it is there that I can see film is quite happy to continue being done. One of the workshop guys has almost finished a feature film on 16mm - and the material I've seen looks absolutely gorgeous.

 

I've still got to get my wet lab skills up to scratch but I was glad to discover I hadn't lost any camera skills. It was like putting on a pair of old shoes. Extremely comfortable. Very enjoyable, and filled me with an exquisite sense of optimism.

 

And the number of people asking me about what I was doing was extraordinary. I haven't talked to so many complete strangers in ages.

 

C

[George Ebersole]

But what's the project called?

[Freya Black]

But to be a little less rhetotical the point I'm trying to make is that at a particular juncture in history film gave birth video, or we might say - it gave birth to TV, which gave birth to video. Video gave birth to digital.

 

 

I would say computers gave birth to digital. I don't think video had a great deal to do with it.

 

Freya

[George Ebersole]

 

I would say computers gave birth to digital. I don't think video had a great deal to do with it.

 

Freya

 

Absolutely true. I rmember Amiga, Intel and Apple (and a couple other companies) were all working on refining video compression and digital storage. I used to see demo reels of the stuff when it was first coming of age, and it was all related to the computer industry. The only thing it had in common with video was that both were electronic media.

[Carl Looper]

You know, Carl, I've never had much use for "rhetorical" debates about indisputable facts. They're kinda a waste of time. I did however, notice your occupation is "Digital Image Technician" which would seem to indicate an inherent bias towards motion picture film production. That, of course, would be perfectly understandable as it IS part of your job to exalt the virtues of digital acquisition no matter HOW overly exaggerated they might have evolved during the last thirty years or so. It would certainly explain why you've been on a "death watch" for the last three decades. After all hope DOES spring eternal and one must keep a vigil when certain eternal rest looms so eminently upon one.......for SSSOOO long therefore please keep up the good work. In the meantime, I'm gonna keep shooting raw film stock every chance I get just to keep busy while you're waiting for the untimely demise of motion picture film. Oh, and PLEASE let me know when that ACTUALLY happens. BTW, I really enjoyed your "vicious version" comment. I found it rather.........colorful.

 

I'm interested in the film to digital pipeline - but I haven't been on any death watch. As far as I'm concerned film died thirty years ago. But it was reborn the very next day. This is perhaps purely personal as much as rhetorical but I think it might also have currency just beyond myself. Thirty years ago it was no longer a case of film being better (or worse) than video (or what I could see video would become). It was a case of film being intrinsically and fundamentally differerent from video, and from digital. The mediums were different. Both physically and conceptually. Both practically and theoretically. At every single level.

 

Film was reborn in this moment for me - no longer in competition with video/digital. It was film as a parent who has love for it's children, but also film as something capable of change and evolution - not the medioum itself so much although great things have happened there as well, but in terms of what artists, who understand the medium, can do with it. This was thirty years ago.

 

Believe me. Thirty years ago the same thing was being said as is being said today. Film is dead. By which was meant, it will be. One day. The electronic bandwagon was leaving town for the big smoke. Are you interested or do you want to persevere with this old Victorain age technology? And it was completely obvious. But film is a powerful ghost, far more powerful than digital. It is capable of haunting the present in ways that digital can't. Digital would have to die first. But digital can't die. It can not, therefore, return from the grave.

 

Now since that time I've always treated film as completely secure, not in terms of day to day deals on film stock and whether this or that production will be done on film or video or digital (ho hum), but in terms of the massive history behind film. It's a huge legacy. It's has a legendary foothold in cultural memory. And the fact that today, despite the death of film thirty years ago, one can get a camera, a roll of film, shoot it, process it and screen it and see exactly what I mean - a spectre, a ghost, a poltergeist, a zombie. A beautiful, spooky and powerful force.

 

I'm not on any death watch. Film died thirty years ago.

 

Carl

Edited August 2, 2013 by Carl Looper

[Carl Looper]

 

Absolutely true. I rmember Amiga, Intel and Apple (and a couple other companies) were all working on refining video compression and digital storage. I used to see demo reels of the stuff when it was first coming of age, and it was all related to the computer industry. The only thing it had in common with video was that both were electronic media.

 

Well yes, we should put the computer in there. Very good point. The interesting there is that digital photography begins with a video cameras plugged into an analog to digital convertor. Eventually the video sensor is replaced by a digital sensor.

 

But the computer has it's own strange history, completely different from the history of image making. The first thing computers did, in terms of imagery, was to synthesise an image rather than encode a camera image. The rise of computer generated images. The synthetic image. Camera (emperical) image encoding would mature somewhat later.

 

Perhaps we can say that digital photography has two parents: video and the computer.

 

C

Edited August 2, 2013 by Carl Looper

[Carl Looper]

The computer is what it's inventors aimed at: a "universal machine". The idea of such. The ultimate generic machine.

 

What is built around this universal machine are things like: keyboards, screens, mice, xbox kinect sensors, cameras, modems, which are called "peripherals". They are not part of the computer proper. They are add ons around the central idea.

 

This idea is as old as mathematics - of a universal system. A rational system. A logical system, that would account for anything and everything. At the heart of this system is the simplest of number systems, the binary system. Which can be physically implemented by a single switch. The first computer is an on/off switch. The switch that turns the computer on. And turns it off.

 

Within the universe of computation there is no such thing as digital photography. The computer itself doesn't really give birth to digital photography. It's fundamental consciousness is not built on data but on a priori algorithms. Mathematics. The abacus. Data is something that happens later - imposed from outside this system. The digital photograph arrives in the form of data. Not much needs to be done with this data other than re-route it to storage. When something does need to be done it is algorithms that come into play, to manage and massage that data into some alternative form or not as the case may be. The data is then re-routed to the screen, to drive a display.

 

The real power of the computer is not tested in any way by this. As far as the computer is concerned the data is just dumb information to be occasionally massaged. The computer's central consciousness is much more tested by the art of computer generated imagery where the computer creates the data in the first place, according to ancient and modern laws of physics, ie. where mathematics is king. The synthesised image.

 

But in recent years an alternative role for computation has emerged, (other than simple data management) and that is the world of machine vision. This is where it gets far more interesting - where digital photography and computation actually start interacting with each other in interesting ways. Here it is not mathematics which is king, but statistics.

 

And soon there will be quantum computation where statistical theories of the universe will need to be properly dusted and reworked.

 

This is where digital really lives. Digital photography is just one small and insignificant part of the digital universe proper.

 

C