Could Digital Kill Film?

[Stephen Perera]

Vive la difference i say...just look at the beautiful kodak colour palette in Viceroys House film....watching it now and it is so distinctive and unique....I've scanned a lot of film and it's like the KODAK PORTRA 160 NC colour negative film....same colour palette....PORTRA probably bronze from the Vision3 family I guess no?

[Tyler Purcell]

Guys, now cool it, everyone get back to work. Aren't we supposed to be working? Just kidding. I think this has been an interesting thread.

Work? what's that? I just mess around and people give me money for doing it.

 

Work.. pfft. :P

[Jon O'Brien]

There's something magical to me, I must admit, about the film compartment of a movie camera - the bit where the film gate and sprocket wheels are. Partly what motivated me back to a decision to get into film again (I was already moving in that direction but this helped to speed me up) was the brief shot in The Force Awakens 'making of' segment on location where they open up the Panaflex camera and run the mechanism. I was completely hooked when I saw that. It brought the magic back to me after many years of being bored by the idea of cinema. I'd still kept going to see movies but the flickerless video projection had reduced my interest in "film" by 'a lot.'

 

So to the people who made the decision to show that little tidbit of filming on that documentary: thanks!

 

And to the ones who think my thoughts above are pathetic and cinephile-esque, you don't have a leg to stand on! You are just as much in love with those ENG "cinema" cameras with Arri and Red written on the side, and little fans blowing to cool off all that technological hot air.

Edited October 18, 2017 by Jon O'Brien

[fatih yıkar]

Color, Crews and Shooting Digitally: Ed Lachman and Vittorio Storaro at NYFF 2017

http://filmmakermagazine.com/103696-color-crews-and-shooting-digitally-ed-lachman-and-vittorio-storaro-at-the-nyff/#.WeiAWmh-rcs

 

 

On the transition to digital

Storaro: In the last few years, the industry of cinema has changed drastically — almost completely, in the use of digital. Let’s face it: progress is a thing that we can speed up or slow down. But we cannot stop it. […] I remember when I did a test for Sony, in 1983, for the first time I saw the image in high definition while we were shooting. And I said: “Oh my God! This is what I’m doing.” For the first time in my life, I went back to the hotel where my wife and my children were waiting for me, and I was serene. There was no question mark. On Apocalypse Now, we were waiting for two weeks to see dailies. They were weeklies. Or monthlies. I was fine, because I had a good relationship with Technicolor in Rome, the color-timer was in Rome. He’d send me a telegram each day, and I knew what I was doing, so I felt comfortable. But today, that kind of innocence, that kind of mystery, maybe we don’t need any longer. We need consciousness. We need to know what we’re doing.

Lachman: We use light, space and time to create our images. From our heart and from our mind. But if I look at painting movements like pointillism, German expressionism, or modernism — they all used different tools to create those images. And I just don’t want to limit the tools. For me, the digital media is a different look and feel than the film media. Not all films should be represented by the digital media. I could explain technically why I feel that way. They can talk about 14-stop exposure range — but the color separation is different, the chemistry of RGB, the three layers is like an etching in the photochemical development. So, for me, there are certain films that I think should be photographed photochemically. It’s not because I can see it on the set. Even though it goes through a DI, and it’s gonna be projected digitally, I can tell there’s a difference in the feeling of the film. But I’m an old guy, and I’m trying to hold onto a photographic process.

Storaro: Don’t believe when somebody says, “Don’t worry about it, we’ll fix it in post.” That’s terrible.

 

[Lucas Fletcher]

 

So film kinda is dead when it comes to 1080p 8 bit 4:2:0 streaming/BluRay content. There is so much noise reduction, so much clean up work, so much compression and alteration of the image till it arrives on your non-calibrated monitor, in the end who cares what it's made with? Honestly I've watched several shows shot on digital and film on my laptop via shitty compressed files and it's hard to tell sometimes.

 

 

 

Extremely hyperbolic - it's nowhere near as bad as you say.

[Robin Phillips]

Well for me it's simple. It has to produce the same emotional response, as when you are watching, an actual movie shot on celluloid.

 

It's clear to me that something like "the uncanny valley" for capture medium is going on here, Alexa images just doesn't feel right, you simply can't enter the dream.

 

I'm a nowplaying podcast fan, so I have been watching the Death Wish series, and there is no question that Death Wish 3, is a pretty terrible film. But, it's big but, I have no problem sitting trough it. And this goes for a lot of older movies. While the opposite is true for modern films, even from directors I truly love, let's just take a few examples here because the list is endless...

 

Blackhat, Twin Peaks The Return, Alien Covenant, Crimson Peak, Dumb and Dumber To,31, and so on and so on... The problem is actually even worse on modern low budget films, where at best, they manage to feel like a long TV episode.

 

Now, for me this problem actually seems to go away for the most part if the film is shot with CCD technology. I doesn't seem to matter if it Genesis/Sony F35 or a 3 chip design F900/F23 even tough it doesn't look "filmic" per say, I'm still able to engage with the movie, like -- Rachel Getting Married for example.

 

I also want to champion a little known film, #Horror from 2015. It's a flawed film, but it's something there in it, and to my big surprise it was shot on a Digital Bolex another CCD camera, I had no idea when I watch it, other than I liked the look of the movie.

 

digital rolling shutter is one of those things that just never feels right, and once you notice it its like it can't be unseen. I've noticed adding a tiny bit of film grain can help reduce it, at least with Alexa footage, but why we've moved away from putting in the effort to do global shutter digital systems is just beyond me...

 

I was really hoping the panavision DXL was going to be global shutter. alas...

[Tyler Purcell]

Extremely hyperbolic - it's nowhere near as bad as you say.

Oh so you've projected film at the same time to compare the two?

 

I have.

[Aapo Lettinen]

 

digital rolling shutter is one of those things that just never feels right, and once you notice it its like it can't be unseen. I've noticed adding a tiny bit of film grain can help reduce it, at least with Alexa footage, but why we've moved away from putting in the effort to do global shutter digital systems is just beyond me...

 

I was really hoping the panavision DXL was going to be global shutter. alas...

 

Global shutter generally eats up about one stop of sensitivity so the camera also then has about one stop less dynamic range.

Nowadays cameras are sold by the dynamic range and sensitivity so no one wants to do global shutter anymore, it is bad business for them.

 

Of course the global shutter also affects the maximum framerates available from the sensor which is also a marketing point ;)

Edited October 21, 2017 by aapo lettinen

[Jon O'Brien]

Yeah, THEY might be, because they're the ones who have to come up with the ideas to make a movie work. The other 99.9% of people you see in the five minutes or so of credits at the end, basically do what they're told...

 

Directing suddenly seems very appealing. Come to think of it, I once directed a Super 8 production at school and got a reputation for being too demanding - but the film was a success.

 

Edit: correction, two films I directed at school, plus the ones I did at home. It's all coming back to me. Man, that was a lot of fun.

Edited October 21, 2017 by Jon O'Brien

[Karim D. Ghantous]

I am really enjoying this discussion. There have been some very interesting comments. Perhaps peripheral to the OP's question, but interesting nonetheless. And who doesn't love hardware porn?

 

If image capture was as simple as audio (it can't be, sadly), we wouldn't need these discussions. The most we would argue about is whether we should want an analog intermediate (some recording technicians really like the 'thicker' sound of tape) between our digital master and our digital release.

 

But to respond to the original question directly, I have two answers:

 

1. Digital has killed film for IMAX, IMO. RED has at least two flavours of 8K sensor, and this means that you have movie cameras the size of a Hasselblad 500 that can shoot images that fill a 100' wide screen. So in one specific instance, film has arguably lost. I would counter that by suggesting that 8-perf 65mm could replace 15-perf for IMAX, thanks to modern stocks.

 

2. When digital sensors can render light sources (like traffic lights) properly, only then can we begin discussing the OP's question. It has not begun yet. We still have aesthetic considerations, of course - which is why I said 'we can begin the discussion'.

 

 

Global shutter generally eats up about one stop of sensitivity so the camera also then has about one stop less dynamic range.

 

 

That is not correct. DR is not affected by the addition of a global shutter. You do lose a stop, that's true, but not DR. Unless you're talking about a specific camera?

 

BTW the notion that we prefer what we grew up with is nonsense (no offence, David!). In any case, I grew up with both interlace TV (both NTSC and PAL) as well as projected film in a variety of situations. I've seen video displayed on many types of device, from big, triple-lamp front-projection TVs to plasma TVs to different types of CRT to LCDs to... you name it.

 

Oh and for my fellow Twin Peaks fans, season 3 did not look as good as it could have if it was shot on film. Don't get me wrong - it didn't ever look bad. It just didn't look great. I loved Deming's work on Mulholland Drive, so I don't blame him. I blame the camera.

[Aapo Lettinen]

 

That is not correct. DR is not affected by the addition of a global shutter. You do lose a stop, that's true, but not DR. Unless you're talking about a specific camera?

 

Dynamic range is determined by the clipping point and noise floor and if the camera becomes less sensitive (the noise floor rises) then the camera loses dynamic range

[Robin R Probyn]

 

Dynamic range is determined by the clipping point and noise floor and if the camera becomes less sensitive (the noise floor rises) then the camera loses dynamic range

 

 

F55 has global shutter but claims same DR as the f5.. it has a lower "native" ISO those to compensate for the GS.. 1250 Vs 2000.. DR is solely based on the sensor .. nothing can change it..

[David Mullen ASC]

I didnt imply that one prefers EVERYTHING one grew up with. But a lot of peoples notions of what cinema should look like are based on what they admired at the most impressionable period of their lives artistically, often their teenage through college years.

 

My point is that as much as we like to think that there are scientifically objective reasons we prefer film or digital, the truth is that we are also talking about personal taste, aesthetics, and our emotional investment, which are highly subjective.

[Tyler Purcell]

I didnt imply that one prefers EVERYTHING one grew up with. But a lot of peoples notions of what cinema should look like are based on what they admired at the most impressionable period of their lives artistically, often their teenage through college years.

I wholeheartedly agree.

 

The only catch is... why are there so many kids today who grew up in the digital age, wanting to shoot film and hate digital? Did those kids admire older movies?

[Karim D. Ghantous]

I didnt imply that one prefers EVERYTHING one grew up with.

 

When I was 18, I wore white denim jeans. I hope to never make that sort of mistake ever again.

[Robin R Probyn]

I wholeheartedly agree.

 

The only catch is... why are there so many kids today who grew up in the digital age, wanting to shoot film and hate digital? Did those kids admire older movies?

 

 

No.. they just left film school, hang around in cafes, wearing berets and scarfs, smoking Gauloises .. they will grow out if it when they have to actually shoot/direct for a living .. :)

[Max Field]

I wholeheartedly agree.

 

The only catch is... why are there so many kids today who grew up in the digital age, wanting to shoot film and hate digital? Did those kids admire older movies?

Robin pretty much summed up the answer to this.

 

The retroactive has and always will be "in" when it comes to enthusiasts. If film and digital existed in the same eras, I guarantee most of them wouldn't try celluloid.

[Jon O'Brien]

Worth a read, if you haven't seen it:

 

http://www.ozmagazine.com/single-post/2017/09/22/For-the-Love-of-Film-An-Interview-with-Kodak%E2%80%99s-Michael-Brown

[Robin R Probyn]

There are so many other things that make a film good or bad.. competently shot film or digital is very low in the list.. in the words of the great Mr Deakins.. a badly shot film with good acting with will be a success .. but not the other way round.. all this pixel peeping and angst about grain.. and film weave.. from a bunch of cappuccino dilettantes who will never have the problem anyway.. :).. come on guys relax.. worry about the script /acting ..

[Karim D. Ghantous]

come on guys relax.. worry about the script /acting ..

 

There are web sites for those topics. ;-) But seriously, we all do care about writing and performances (and marketing and producing). We happen to also know and care about lights and cameras.

 

Edit: I finished writing a short film recently. I can't tell you if it's good, but I can tell you that I enjoyed writing it.

Edited October 24, 2017 by Karim D. Ghantous

[fatih yıkar]

There are so many other things that make a film good or bad.. competently shot film or digital is very low in the list.. in the words of the great Mr Deakins.. a badly shot film with good acting with will be a success .. but not the other way round.. all this pixel peeping and angst about grain.. and film weave.. from a bunch of cappuccino dilettantes who will never have the problem anyway.. :).. come on guys relax.. worry about the script /acting ..

 

I disagree that the idea, you really underestimate of movies look. Cinematography,appearance can be really decrease or increase power of the movie.

 

Did you watch last movies of Mr Deakins? which one has bad acting? but after the (A Serious Man) all of his movies are overrated for me and not that good cant compare with them his old ones,also they don't look good. Nowadays he can't reach that level of barton fink,Shawshank Redemption,fargo,Big Lebowski,The Village,Assassination of Jesse James etc.....

 

And what is the definition of success?

Box office, oscars, People always go to movies no matter what and every year academy must be give the oscars some movies, even the spotlight, moonlight won the oscars and how they look as cinematographically? for me cheesy,slipshod

The bad thing is not just audience even the academy no more care about the cinematography..

 

Can you imagine godfather look like this? Because i can't

Edited October 24, 2017 by fatih yıkar

[fatih yıkar]

I wholeheartedly agree.

 

The only catch is... why are there so many kids today who grew up in the digital age, wanting to shoot film and hate digital? Did those kids admire older movies?

 

And on the internet so many viewers start to open topics and asking why older movies look different? look so good?

 

http://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=264151

https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/42qdls/why_do_older_movies_look_so_much_different_than/

https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/4s1opp/why_do_relatively_older_movies_even_90s_era_look/

https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/2py8z8/why_do_older_movies_look_well_old/

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1194137

Edited October 24, 2017 by fatih yıkar

[Robin R Probyn]

 

I disagree that the idea, you really underestimate of movies look. Cinematography,appearance can be really decrease or increase power of the movie.

 

Did you watch last movies of Mr Deakins? which one has bad acting? but after the (A Serious Man) all of his movies are overrated for me and not that good cant compare with them his old ones,also they don't look good. Nowadays he can't reach that level of barton fink,Shawshank Redemption,fargo,Big Lebowski,The Village,Assassination of Jesse James etc.....

 

And what is the definition of success?

Box office, oscars, People always go to movies no matter what and every year academy must be give the oscars some movies, even the spotlight, moonlight won the oscars and how they look as cinematographically? for me cheesy,slipshod

The bad thing is not just audience even the academy no more care about the cinematography..

 

Can you imagine godfather look like this? Because i can't

Ads?z-min.jpg

 

 

 

Its a quote from Mr Deakins.. not actually about one of his films..the look is important of course ..I dont think I said it wasn't .. but whether the look comes from an Alexa or film camera is not really the big point.. the point is the look should never over power the script but serve it.. 10 years ago I would have agreed.. but these days .. digital camera,s and post can look amazing and well TBH it seems mostly students and those on the fringes that seem to have such a bee in their bonnet about it..where as some of the greatest dp,s and dir are just getting on with their jobs and creating amazing results.. when you are out there shooting or directing for a living.. as a job .. you'll be happy to take whats offered.. and if your skilled/ good script/actors etc.. it wont make any difference if its film or not.. I mean really, with the best will in the world.. a student saying Roger Deakins work is not very good recently, is a bit embarrassing .. :).. and Im sure the academy is still judging, at least the nominees based on their camera work..

[Simon Wyss]

Can film kill digital?

 

Some things you can’t do with an electronic camera:

• expose for hours, days, weeks, indefinitely long, without electricity
• expose multiple times
• expose with reverse film transport for backward motion in forward run (with some cameras)
• expose camera upside down for reverse motion
• expose with X rays
• focus and frame on the film itself without electricity
• use very low exposure indices like ISO 4, ISO 0.8 or less for very high resolution
• vary frame rate continuously
• shoot in the heat, most video cameras go mad; shoot in the cold when electric power becomes a problem

 

Some things you can’t do with an electronic sensor:

• pre-flash
• latensify
• fix the latent image and reveal it later with a physical developer (film appears blank)

 

Some things you can’t do with digital data files or analogue video signals:

• edit with a pair of scissors
• look at the images with the naked eyes
• look at the sound track
• make diagonal scribe marks as synch cues
• synchronize picture and sound on a simple bench
• project moving images without electricity; films can be screened with a limestone burner
• vary frame rate during projection

[Jon O'Brien]

Ah, the invocation of the cappuccino, beret and arty cigarette - the last desperate refuge in arguing a point of view. What's wrong with berets, anyway. Had a cappuccino the other day it was rather good.