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More blockbusters shooting film?


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How's the Jobs shoot going, Greg? Jon Bowerbank told me he got to work with you for a bit the other day.

All good Satsuki! It's a dream job. And yes, Jon was with me for one of our multi camera days. He did a great job.

 

G

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A few years ago when all movies were shot on film, a good chunk of them were consumer garbage just like now. As someone who sparingly shoots film on a personal budget, it quite irked me at the time as to how much 35mm film was being wasted on such content. I think Kodak's new "Film Worthy" campaign sums it up just right. A movie like "Scary Movie 15" would not be worth the silver.

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"With the support of the major studios, the creative community can continue to confidently choose film for their projects. We’ve been asking filmmakers, what makes a project ‘Film Worthy.’ Their responses have varied from the need for its exceptional depth to its distinctive grain, but overwhelmingly, the answer is ‘the story.’ They need film to tell their stories the way they envision them, and hold a strong desire for it to remain a critical part of their visual language. Enabling artists to use film will help them to create the moments that make cinema history. The agreements announced today are a powerful testament to the power of film and the creative vision of the artists telling them." – Kodak statement

 

Comments, anyone?

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I dunno if you guys watch Project Greenlight but film/digital was a big plot point and film won! I think it was manufactured tension personally.

 

You might simply be seeing a lot of film shooting because of the minimum order quantity as per the agreement with Kodak. That's a happy byproduct perhaps.

 

I had been saying for years that this rush to shoot everything in 3D was a waste of time since what they should have been focusing on is larger or more interesting formats! Imagine if instead of fumbling The Hobbit with 3D HFR, (which was so quickly forgotten because everyone hated it) that PJ just shot 65mm and IMAX. The Master looks incredible, and you don't need a 4k projector and a theater to see the difference. The larger format is obvious even at home in HD. It's not just the film itself btw, I'm really excited to see some Alexa65 work. If I had the option I'd skip 35mm altogether and go from Super 16 to 65mm personally. And even in smaller formats you get a ton of character. Super 16 brought Moonrise Kingdom to life and works well for that kind of fantasy world. I do Super 8 weddings because HD has not done the human race any favors. The film complete transforms the day and hides all the crap you might as well forget.

 

There needs to be better and more affordable scanning/Transfer solutions though! I don't mind digital projection if it retains the look of the original medium.

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I have a 70mm spherical film planned in a few years. The price to produce a 2hr film on 70mm photochemically, is around $1.5 - $1.8M, with 2 cameras on set (A unit, B unit) for a 28 day production with a 10:1 ratio. You can get that budget down a tiny bit if you only have one camera or of course, lower your ratio slightly. The lowest budget I could do for 70mm was still around 1M because you still need a 4k DCP, you still need to pay a timer to make it and you still need dailies, all of which are expensive.

 

So if your production costs were low, I can see someone making a $5M, 70mm film. The problem is, who would want to waste a minimal of $1M of your budget on the capture format? Investors would think you were crazy, so that's why most people still shoot 35mm if they're going to shoot film for theatrical.

 

In contrast, 35mm costs are pennies on the dollar, 2 perf 35mm being about the same cost (give or take 10k or so) as shooting in 4k digital. In my eyes, the only reason people don't shoot more 2 perf is due to the lack of equipment more then anything else. 3 perf does raise the price considerably and 4 perf even more.

 

16mm is still the cheapest decent film format and honestly, in the future I expect to see more 16mm films produced. Mostly because people want MORE grain to show they're shooting film these days and 16mm gives them that, all be it, without the super shallow depth of field which is what makes 35/70mm so nice.

 

I have a feeling film has already hit rock bottom. Now it's time for a renaissance, its time for filmmakers to embrace the technology for what it is.

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I've seen some really nice stuff that I guess faked? the 35/70 shallow depth of field. I have even written to a few cinematographers asking how they achieved such a look on 16mm and they always answer something akin to "it just worked I guess..." - Granted most of these persons are younger than 40, and may not actually know what film is; this is another interesting thing to think about, young persons making film on celluloid film negative learning the process which a lot of us already know so well.

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I have even written to a few cinematographers asking how they achieved such a look on 16mm and they always answer something akin to "it just worked I guess..."

 

If you shoot s16 with a set of Super Speeds wide open at t1.3, you get the equivalent of a t2 - 2.8 split in 35mm. That's a pretty shallow stop.

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Yea, just shoot all the way open with long lenses. I use that trick with my pocket cameras all the time because they have no visible depth of field otherwise. However, with a bigger imager, you can achieve shallow depth of field with shorter lenses. That's why larger formats are so powerful, you can tell right away if they're shot on 35mm.

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