Film’s Dead Sucker! Deal With It!
June 16, 2008 by clive
The Only Constant is CHANGE. (or how I learned to stop worrying and learned to love the DI)
As any dinosaur will tell you, furry mammals surprised everybody by adapting the best, and flourishing in their new climate. That’s what we have to do now in order to survive the digital holocaust.
The industry IS changing at an unprecedented rate, and we have the internet to blame (?) for it. No-one is going to the cinema anymore. And why should they? To the average Joe the argument is very simple; Why should I spent 15 dollars on a cinema ticket, when I can download the movie for free? The cinema experience simply isn’t worth it for many.
Hollywood isn’t helping much. They are making the same mistakes the music industry did at the beginning, -trying to enforce the illegality of the file-sharers. This will never work- you can chop one head off, but another will appear as soon as you can say ‘Bittorrent’. The industry needs to work with the internet, or die. as they surely might. The film industry is different to the music industry in that our product is so damn expensive to make. Distributers have come to rely on DVD sales to cover their costs, and if a summer tent-pole blockbuster doesn’t fare well, it can bring a studio to its knees.
What’s the solution? Hell I don’t know, but these are a few ideas;
Make the cinema experience appealing again- Last month, Disney announced that all their films from 2012 would be produced in 3D. I like that . No, I love it! I’m not suggesting that we should all follow suit, but there’s gold in them thar hills.
Make film production cheaper- without sullying content. Quentin Tarantino was lamenting the over-use of CGI at Cannes this year. People are bored of it. Me too. Good CGI should never ever be noticeable.
Use the internet. Work with it. Hell, it’s a whole new platform!
This is an over-simplified view, and I’ll leave others on the site to argue it properly. What does this mean for cinematographers? Going digtal IS the future.
This argument is very unpopular in some Lizard circles, and this is my take on it;
Don’t get me wrong. I LOVE working with film. The cameras make that lovely whirring clacking sound, and the pictures are so soft and forgiving… To understand how to use it properly, you need years of training, mentoring, and only the best among us can make a living from it. (This is NOT to say that you can pick up a handycam and produce Deakins like work, because you can’t.)
But the old boys network would have us believe that digital cinematography will never match the quality of good ‘ol 35mm. Here’s some news. It doesn’t. They’re right. It’s a whole new ballgame. And they’re the dads cheering us on, or in the bar over the street whinging about when they used to play.
Digital is something else. Used right, you can achieve that tiny depth of field, that lovely gamma curve, that richness. It can be anamorphic 2.35:1. You Can do real slo-mo.
It also gives us the freedom to do so much more for so much less MONEY. And that’s what counts. (I sigh.)
There’s a big argument about the Digital Intermediate (the DI, where you take your film, convert to digital, colour grade, or colour time, and add your digital effects work, before printing back to film for cinema exhibition).
Basically, where the cinematographer would traditionally shoot for a particular look, he would make notes for the colour timer, who would translate lots of numbers relating to the colour on the negative, and alter them for the print. This is complicated (sort of- you just need to know what you’re doing) Then the D.P. would present these rushes for the dailies. EXACTLY as he wanted them to look. Nowadays, what’s happening, is that the D.P. is locked out of the editing suite, while the colourist sits with the Director and the Producer, deciding on the look. This is understandably pissing them off. (I refer you to John Bailey asc’s tirade in the June edition of American Cinematographer)
To John. Why would you let them do this to you? You have an agent, an lawyer? Put it in your contract that you need final say on the look of you labour. It’s your job. But why are we worrying about those complicated numbers on the daily report? Why are we shooting blind? Hoping that the film will develop as we wanted it to? We can do better. We have the technology..!
This is what you do; You take you footage stored on your Raid drive in the camera truck as per your required equipment list. You take a still from each of your scenes, and you photoshop it to your required look. You send this photoshopped image to your colourist and editing team along with the rushes, and they can match it to your requirements. You can SEE what you’re going to get. Before it ever gets to the locked door scenario.
All you have to worry about is shooting the film well. You need to shoot FOR your look. You can’t rely on some miracle fix in post. It doesn’t exist.
Next time, I’ll show you how to do this. J.
This whole argument of “because X exists, Y must die” is absurd.
Only when:
1) Costs are significantly lower
2) There are more pleasing results
3) It can be produced regularly
4) The consumer will willingly stomach it
5) It offers advantages the predecessor cannot.
Does a technology supercede another in-use technology. More often, the only thing that a competing technology offers is an option, as in all of the films that don’t need to be shot in film won’t be.
So lets discuss the above:
1) Realistically speaking, the hundred to three hundred thousand dollars difference between shooting digital and doing an online in digital vs. shooting film and doing a DI is PEANUTS when films cost tens of millions of dollars to make and stand the potential of making far more than that.
2) More pleasing results? In the most recent Moviemaker Magazine, on page 48 there is an article on the RED camera. What I found interesting is the stuff none of the film-is-dead crowd wants to tell you. “…but, he adds, there is still a significant gap between film and digital moviemaking. He cites the recent ARRI 4k plus study, which documented a perceptible difference in how audiences respond to scenes when the 35mm film was scanned at 10K resolution. The study showed there were more nuances in colors and contrast, which affected perceptions of time and place as well as emotional flow of the scenes.”
Technologically superior? No. “Stump estimates that the new generation of KODAK VISION3 Color Negative film offers 20 stops of latitude. His tests, which are consistent with comments made by other cinematographers interviewed, place the dynamic range of the RED camera at around 10 stops.”
3) Digital can be replaced regularly. No doubt about it, in fact it is probably more reliable of a system to shoot digitally since you can immediately playback the actual aquired footage, ensuring the perfect capture each time.
4) Read my quote above. I think the audience will stomach it in certain circumstances. Just as they will stomach inferior art hanging in their homes. But the masters art and brushstrokes make them worth every penny. If Dali had painted on burlap, his artistry might not have been as well received. But that is besides the point. The point is, they are all just tools to achieve a desired look. Digital works for somethings. Film works for others.
5) Digital is a huge part of documentaries being done because it offers all of the afore-mentioned advantages. It is not sweeping major narrative cinema because it does not offer enough significant advantages. On a NORMAL film set, there is very little difference in crew it takes to shoot a digital movie vs. a celluloid movie. You still have the DP, the operator, the data guy, the wrangler, the grips, the sound, etc. all the same. The only difference is you’re not having a loader slap a new mag on and load/unload other mags. In a major city, you can have dailies back within hours. By the time you’re done with the day’s shoot, you’re looking at the morning’s dailies in film. Where is the advantage of digital there?
You make it sound like “shooting blind” like you’re walking around with a cane trying to make sense of it all. Pointing a light meter and figuring out exposure IS NOT HARD. And when you’re talking about 15 stops of latitude, fortunately you have a lot of overhead to work with, far more room for error than digital. You’re making it sound like the past 100 years have all been a bunch of “well I hope it comes out” and that is absolutely not the case. Not only is the art of cinematography down to a science, but there are libraries of books on how to pull the most out of an image. It’s like building a car engine - many people have ZERO idea what goes on inside, its all greek and hocus-pocus to them. To a high-school backyard mechanic though, its like cake. The gas and air mix, ignite, turn the crank, turn the wheels and you go. Its REALLY simple.
Furthermore, with the invention of video assist, now we can all see and playback, exactly what we shot, sans exact exposure. The framing is exactly what you’ll get back, the video tap is taken right off the viewfinder which shows you exactly what the film sees. So where is the advantage there?
Whirring, clicking, etc.. are you talking about a modern day camera? Modern cameras barely emit any sound, are digital crystal controlled, and really are quite sophisticate.
You can pretend, just as many have since the 1970’s when 3/4″ was gaining popularity, that video will kill film SOON. I’m telling you you’re wrong. Now in 20 years? Maybe. In 50 years? Probably. But not today. Not tomorrow. It is an OPTION, potentially a solid money saver in the hands of the no-crew no-budget no-stars internet filmmaker. But in terms of big-time movie making, don’t look for film to die for at least another 10 years, maybe considerably longer.
One of the X factors that you continue to forget is that while video and now digital video has indeed come a very long way in 30 years, so has the technology of film. Where computers have helped camera manufacturers of video cameras, they too have helped people at Kodak and Fuji discover incredible breakthroughs in the advancements of film. Today’s film stocks are simply incredible with their response curves and latitude. If the above comment of 20 stops is true, I mean that is nothing short of incredible. Think about how much data is in 20 stops of latitude.
The final thing I will add is, away from the technical and money side, there is an organic feeling to film. A human real life perception type of things. Now I’ve looked at a LOT of digital films over the past 10 years, and I never get that watching a digital movie. I’ve seen some that pass for cinema quality, but none that I get the same wow factor as watching a genius DP with super-35 in their hands.
Thanks Trevor,
There’s always room here at 1000dollarfilm for an intelligent and articulate counter position.
You make a lot of very, very good points.
My gut feeling though, is that the clock is ticking for film as a medium. I base that belief on what I witnessed in the radio industry in the 1990’s when digital completely destroyed analogue recording techniques in under three years.
Now, a lot of the points you made about film, are also true about analogue sound recording… in terms of the amount and richness of the data, analogue audio recording was and is better than digital. Not only that, the digital revolution in the audio industry meant that almost anyone could call themselves a sound engineer… and the truth is, quality dropped considerably.
I know this for a fact, because half of my radio show reel is analogue, recorded by a highly skilled sound engineer, using 2″ tape in a 24 track studio… and the rest was recorded on what was then state of the art digital. There is a genuine difference between the two halves of that show reel… and the digital half doesn’t come out best. Oh No, not by a long shot.
The truth is, digital killed analogue recording because it was cheaper and could turn out a reasonable quality product… and because it could be run by cheaper and less qualified staff… and, because when push came to shove audiences really couldn’t hear the difference… I can, most real studio engineers can, but the punter in the street doesn’t care or know.
It doesn’t take a genius, to see that, despite the completely true and reasonable points you just made, that just like analogue audio and film based stills photography, film is going to fall under the onslaught of digital.
There’s also a specific order these change overs come… so, they changes are felt hardest and first where the money is tightest. So, I remember predicting five years ago, in an indie film making forum, that HD would replace film as the indie format of choice. Man, it was like the scene in Shrek, where the villagers grab the ptich forks and chase the ogre out of town… I got shouted down and called a fool. They weren’t EVER going to go digital. And yet, here we are four years later and not only are almost no indies shooting on film anymore, the Kodak people at Cannes have resorted to hanging around “short film corner” like crack dealers at a play ground… “Hey, buddy… ever tried FILM… do you want to… it’s free! You look like the kinda guy who’d really like it”
If you look at recruitment trends in the industry, you can see the wave forming… ten years ago regional TV paid camera operators to go out and shoot the news. Which they did on expensive ENG cameras. These days most of those guys have either been made redundant or are facing redundancy, as these stations replace their pros with prosumer cameras, operated by their reporters.
From where I’m sitting, I’ve seen all of this before, in another industry… and despite the fact that from a quality point of view, it’s going to drive down overall quality and dilute the skill pool in the industry… it is still going to happen. Not only that, given that computer processing power doubles every two years, then I give film five years, until it’s a medium only used by a handful of die hard directors at the very top end of the game… and a few indies who see themselves as artists.
Hi Trevor,
Thank you for taking the time and effort to reply to my article. Your arguments are very strong- in fact I agree.
For the most part.
I think you have misundrstood the point of my article. I am NOT saying film is dead. I am catagorically NOT saying that digital is BETTER than film. It isn’t.
But it is a new medium running parallel to traditional film production and exhibition, and sadly, it has not yet been used to its full potential. (and to most indi’s it gives the freedom in terms of cost to concentrate on other aspects of the production.)
What I am saying is that digital is something different, something that can be beautiful when treated correctly. My job here is to show people how this can be achieved.
Perhaps the headline is mis-leading…. (thanks clive..!) lol.
J
Whoops… sorry James LOL (I wrote the headline)
Though I am not an experienced film maker, I do have an eye for quality images. A perfect comparison to make is John August’s film The Nines. He uses Super16, 35mm and digital and if you can spot a difference, your eye is better than mine.
I’m not agreeing on either side but I can say that the F23 from Sony may be the beginning of the end. It records to tape with 12 stops and made Speed Racer almost watchable even in DayGlow orange.
And with digital, there are plug-ins that can accurately recreate film grain, so as that software improves, so will the softness of images, especially with resolution creeping up to 4K with 4:2:2 color.
Again, I’m a newbie but I know movies and as stated a genius DP can work wonders with HD and engineers can improve on that so audiences still get that 35mm feel without breaking the backs of delivery guys.
I mean, most of the cost in P&A is the P, especially for 4000 theater releases. Many film makers like Speilberg are pushing for 2K projectors and even 48p so I guess even if film doesn’t go away yet, digital will continue to make inroads, especially with Red on everyone’s minds.
The biggest advantage that film has right now is storage. It’s hard to store GBs of data, while film stock can sit a long time. Once solid state devices become large enough even that advantage will be eroded.
Film isn’t dead, but it’s hurt.
That new fangled holographic storage is looking mighty long lived, mind.
in my opinion, DV looks cool when the gain is boosted. it almost looks like 16mm.
but it looks terrible when shot with a prosumer camera or in the same approach as a 35mm film (long static shots, dolly shots, lots of soft light).
As someone who has shot film, HD, and Red, I can say I have no idea why everyone is all up in arms over digital v film. I am so damn tired of it. Its a useless argument. As a DP, guess what? I don’t get to choose format. I come on board AFTER the production company has decided.
Also to reiterate a point made earlier, in most film (even low budget film) the media cost difference is NEGLIGABLE between film and digital. Especially if you need to finish with a 35mm print.
And that will never change. Film will cost roughly what a quality digital system will cost. And thats because simply digital is an expensive camera to build and technology changes quickly. I can still pick up a trust Arri IIIc and shoot. I can get an old kinor fitted for 3-perf movement. But the ZU1 I shot ‘Beekeeping’ on two years ago is now almost worthless compared to what production paid for it. And so rental rates reflect the quickly depriciating nature of digital.
Also about sound, someone mentioned all the ‘clicking’ and what not. On set I have never heard a sound recordist complain about film noise unless there is something wrong with the camera or threading (and if so my AC would have picked up on it while test running the camera just after load) but on my last red feature I can’t tell you how many times the sound guy complained of either hard drive noise or fan noise.
…..and I further want to drive home the point that even THAT is irrelevant because camera noise is far from the biggest concern a mixer has. Most times either its traffic noise or planes, or if your unlucky enough to attempt a slow dolly push during a dramatic softly spoken dialouge scene in an old location building, you’ll be hearing about the floor squeeking from the dolly grip.
There is so much to do and worry about with making a film, I cannot for the life of me understand why the damn box has suddenly taken the limelight. I remember a time when nobody really cared about the box. It was about the lens and the light and scene before the box. Digital won’t make or break you.
I think the attraction must be that now people have a feeling of empowerment with digital. If you have no money you could never get a film off the ground. But now if you can afford 15-30 DV tapes, a cheap prosumer camera and can find people who will donate their time, you can assemble a rough film together. But just because your now empowered and can’t imagine doing without digital, don’t think that makes digital the best way.
And to reiterate Trevors point…when shooting film, if you know what your doing, your not shooting blind. I have lots of trust with the image I am getting and know where I can go in post. With digital, actually, I am always a little more apprehensive. How many times did you think you saw detail in a shadow area only to find in post there is none. How many times did you have 3 monitors, all calibrated, none of them with the same image. Digital has way more headaches than film….and this comes from a guy who shoots both regularly.
Film will not soon die as a capture medium. It may be sidelined, it might be outmodded as a delivery format, but I doubt within 50 years there will be no feature films shot on film.
my final sumarry………….SHOOT YOUR MOVIES!!! worry more about the art that the technology. Even as a technician its possible to get too into the gadgets around you and forget the human story you are telling. Make the damn film the best way you know how. If its a good film, you might find yourself worrying about everything but the camera system (unless you chose the wrong system that is….)
Mark
It’s interesting… no one here is arguing about film vs digital … but thanks for taking the time to write what you did, I found it a very interesting and thought provoking perspective.
In terms of your observations and your conclusions I pretty much agree… for the last five years James and I have both been banging on that you chose digital as a creative choice, not just because it’s a cheap option… and at the same time, shooting on film is also a choice, not a necessity.
However, one of the reasons the argument rages on is largely because of the attitude distributors are taking to digitally produced films. Now, even more so than five years ago when HD was the new kid on the block, film is still perceived as the format choice of “professional” film makers… which these days is a stupid attitude for the business to take. The mythology is that digital is “cheap and nasty” still pervades much of the business end of the industry… and those are the guys to whom I was addressing the title “film’s dead sucker, get over it”… not the production guys who sorted all of this out five years ago! LOL
There are a couple of points you made that I see slightly differently… and the main one is the cost implications. The argument that digital is AS expensive as film only stacks up if you factor in constant investment in new technology as it pushes up the curve and then weight that against the solidity of film equipment.
The truth is, the HD camera that I shot my second feature film on (the Panasonic Varicam) is still capable of producing a cinema quality movie five years later… even though the unit itself has been overtaken by cameras like the RED. And in the hands of a serious indie film maker you can make savings in scale on a digital shoot that just aren’t possible on film… if you really have to on a digital shoot you can push the envelope from 3 minutes a day to nearer 9 minutes a day… in fact I know a crew in the UK who can clear 21 minutes a day… Unless you’re doing a multi-camera shoot… or knocking down the shooting ratio, it’s really hard to bang out 9 minutes a day on film.
Which leads me to my next point, which is that I’ve noticed in low budget movies shot on film ($2M-$8M) I can guarantee that they’ll be at least half a dozen shots in the end cut of the movie where the shot is soft…. this is because low budget movies shot on film have fewer shot choices and therefore have to use takes that would be unacceptable on a digital shoot… the physical cost of film as opposed to the zero cost of space on a HD actually effects the quality of the end product…. then on top of that you have two other factors… the actual cost of mechanical damage to the master footage in any part of the film process (you don’t get scratches on digital)… plus the fact on digital you can cut your rushes overnight on a laptop and quality control the entire shoot as it’s happening….
Once you start to factor in all the advantages and economies of scale and the risk reduction of working digitally, then film doesn’t stack up in straight economics…
However I’m totally with you when you say that people should shoot their movies on whatever they have… get the art right, and stop obsessing about formats and resolutions. In fact this whole magazine is founded on the premise of “get the script right” everything else is up for grabs.