Red vs Film

[Lee Skinner]

So I'm sure this has been discussed ad nauseum for most of you, but I guess I'm kinda new here, so I thought I'd open it up for discussion...

Has digital video come so far as to make film obsolete? How close to the "film look" have we really achieved? And on top of that, is it really the "film look" that we're going for? Some argue that film does a far better job of capturing the look of true biological vision. This makes sense to me since both the grain upon the emulsion of film and the light receptors upon the retina of our eyes are scattered at random. They are not spaced out in a perfect grid like pixels. While I and many others subscribe to the notion that film is still (perhaps only marginally) superior, others insist that film is dead. From what I understand, film still manages to capture more detail in dark and blown-out areas, whereas video is still limited in this area.

But perhaps you know something that I don't?

[Steve Sherrick]

If you go into it not comparing the two so much but rather looking at the strengths and weaknesses of each and then choosing the one that best suits the project, it works out much better. But always a fun battle when this comes up.

[Andrew Walker]

As Steve said their are strengths and weaknesses for both. But if both are shot right to use the medium as effectively as possible then both will produce amazing results.

[M Most]

Has digital video come so far as to make film obsolete?

No.

[Steve Sherrick]

No.

And to elaborate on Mike's point a bit, film will only be obsolete when they stop making it because there will always be a creative use for it, even if digital is to someday technically exceed it. In terms of Hollywood, economics may win out and digital may become the norm with film use becoming the minority someday, but there will still be filmmakers who will want to fight to use film because they feel it tells their story better.

What's great is how many options exist right now. A truly amazing time to be a filmmaker.

[Wesley Scoggins]

Digital technology will eventually make film totally obsolete, since it simply won't make sense to shoot it.

I think it's (at most) decades down the road, but digital will eventually be able to completely outperform any kind of film under any circumstances (I think it'll happen long before that, but it'll take a while for people to simply stop using film altogether).

But currently, I can't see a significant image difference between something like "Knowing", and something that was shot totally on film. So obviously, digital cinema is already practically indistinguishable from Film in many circumstances, especially to the audience at large. Most people I talked to had no idea that half of Slumdog was digital, even though I could clearly see the digital artifacts and noise in many shots.

So in many ways, we're already there, with many people being totally oblivious that many movies were shot digitally instead of film. As the camera's get smaller, lighter, and more powerful, and the workflow becomes more efficient, we're going to see more people shooting on the easier format that offers more options, and that format is going to continually be digital more and more in the future.

[Stephen Gentle]

Take a look at this quote from Albert Hughes, co-director of 'Book of Eli.'

[Stephen Williams]

Digital technology will eventually make film totally obsolete, since it simply won't make sense to shoot it.

Hi,

People still carve stone & use oil paints, both well proven for their archive ability. Making ones own film emulsion can be fun. Art is more than 1's & 0's.

Stephen

[Dan Hudgins]

From someone who has worked with 35mm in all aspects I can say that for a no-budget filmmaker using 2K or better Digital cameras and workflow is more or less the only way to go.

Maybe the ONLY reason film looks good as it does for high budget films is the degree of digital image processing that is applied. If you try to do all aspects of film handeling yourself you quickly learn how impossable it is to get results anywhere close to what is called the "film-look" which is not really the "film-look" but digitally processed negative scans.

Film-to-Film printing requires the highest degree of dust and gunk control, and if you try to do your own negative cutting you will end up with visable signs of dust, pits, and scratches on the film. I saw a original print of A Clockwork Orange (1971) and there were printed in marks all over it from damage and gunk on the negative, at that time such marks were part of "The Film Look", and if you go that way still are. Today "de-dusting" software is applied to remove marks and dust from the digital frame scans, as well as manual frame by frame had re-tuching of each and every frame as needed.

As for 35mm prints, they for the most part only resolve about 1280x720 resolution when projected because of limits on how long the projector can stay in focus without a projectionist to keep re-focusing the projector like they did until the introduction of the platter, before the projectionist would adjust the Carbon Arc light to keep it burning and tuch up the focus every five minutes or so, and the images were brighter and sharper, no so anylonger.

The use of DI has already removed some of "random" nature of film grain, since the negative is scanned on a digital sensor with grid pixels. Today films are output on film recorders that have a grid pattern, and sometimes show aliasing. So what does "Film Look" mean any longer, when most of the look comes from a digital LUT and digital filters?

We are "Going Digital" because it lets you get a standard of result that you cannot get with Film-to-Film printing on a zero budget, and it is easer and faster to manage, and in the end gets a more salable or presentable result.

Using a REDONE with our "freeish" DI system can get you something to show at lower cost and looking better than maybe taking your ECN to a "cheepy" lab with warn out printers and fadded CC filters, doing your own negative cutting, and not being able to re-tuch the damaged frames or to have the wide grading control that doing a good digital DI gives you. Direct printing to the 2382 or 2302 print stocks of an LCD monitor reduces the cost and dust and gunk issues from making a printing negative and having a print made at a lab, you can have that done from the CCed frames later on a ARRI laser rilm recorder by the distributor if needed if the film sells, which it probably would not so why spend money that your not going to get back anyway?

There is no contest any longer, even a camera like the true RAW SUMIX can be better than shooting Super16 film, look at this sample SUMIX footage and then look at this Super16 scan (taken from sample Super16 ECN sent to me by another REDUSER, see that post if you can find it in my "other posts"), (you may need to click on the thumbnails at the bottom of this post after logging in and rightclick "open in new tab" to see the full size images of the Super16 scans, they are for viewing at gamma 2.2 to 2.4)

Link to SUMIX digital fooatge,

http://vimeo.com/2851696

I read that Kodak says "they will continue to make film as long as they can", but they are selling off their buildings and divisions to keep out of the red, so how much longer can they do that? Maybe 20 years? Does anyone think movie film will be made in large volume 100 years from now?

[mike ogden]

Yeh. But someone just needs to invent a good way to archive digital formats that'll last as long as film does. If NASA can't read digital information from its own interstellar probes from 30 years ago, what hope do film makers have in convincing distributors to buy our digital films if they are unarchivable?

Please don't say LTO drives or solid state media. This is really part of the production chain everyone forgets about and its potentially the most important as it's our cultural history. C'mon Jim, invent somethng to solve it fast :D