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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

looking for an excellent condition Bolex super 16mm camera package....

Gunleik

Why do you show us several links of old Bolex cameras on ebay??

Guy
 
Tim

Tell me what good movies were shot on digital? I say good by the quality of the picture not about the action or story.

Yes, 95% of the Pro DP do not want to hear about digital .

Just look around you. All big production and even small productions are shot on film.

Alexander, Master and ommander, Troy, Gladiator, Titanic and Robin Hood. Robin Hood is a brand new realease. Why they choose film and not digital if it's so good?

Are those director idiots? I do not think so! Think about all the reasons of choice!

Guy
 
Joe Taylor

About what web site are you talking about? Are you sure that you have the right one?

Try Optical Electro house and the Kodak site . You will see that we have the same opinion about video.

What do you think that you can shoot on digital and how much it will cost you. Film price is nothing compared to the entire production. Nothing at all. And Digital is flat as a pancake. It's a dead picture. If you cannot see that, you are not a real DP. I am sorry!

Of course I am against digital for the master. I am for digital transfer. But as you have much more experience than I have I assume that you are right!

For the last time! Digital is not as good as film. Period!

Guy
 
Here is my web site (Old) We are making a new one.
I do not talk about digital on my web site. But I will explain to people what is film on the new web site (In construction)

http://www.cameraspro.com/

Guy
 
I can think of a couple if I may. First of all there's a little movie out now that is considered one of the best film of the decade, The Social Network. Shot with a Red One. Another great two part movie, Che. Visually stunning. Red Prototype. Zodiac, Slumdog Millionaire, Knowing $50,000,000 low budget film, Winter's Bone, Public Enemies $100,000,000 budget, Collateral, Miami Vice, AntiChrist, District 9, Unbelievable, a good chunk of Tree of Life (Terrence Malick who is are hack, The Book of Eli.

These are off the top of my head, all highly regarded, many Oscar Winners and Contenders and this shot list makes your not-so eloquent argument "film and not video if it's so good," moot.
 
Guy Bofdart said:
Try Optical Electro house and the Kodak site . You will see that we have the same opinion about video.

For the last time! Digital is not as good as film. Period!

Guy
Click to expand...

Kodak says that? I can't imagine why. You win.
 
Joe

Maybe I know you!!! I live in Green Valley (Henderson). Do you know Rusty Meyer (He acted in Silverado). We have a meeting every last thursday of each month. I talk to a guy who has a studio and a lot of equipment . Red one etc...Maybe it was you. That person told me : 'I wish to shoot on film, but I do not have the money for it"

Guy

Guy
 
FROM KODAK

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Why is Film the archival media of choice?

(Ana Castro, Archiving, Digital Hype) Permanent link

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​
The Society of American Archivist defines Archival Media as ‘resistant to deterioration or loss of quality, allowing for a long life expectancy when kept in controlled conditions’.
If we try to apply this definition to the different types of storage media currently used in the motion picture workflow as it is structured today, it is highly unlikely that we will be able to find many media that fit this definition: other than film, that is.
Whether the production in question uses hard drives, CD’s , tapes or DVDs to store their content, there is always the very real probability that a hard drive will crash, that a tape will get scratched, that the format used will be obsolete and render the information unreadable in a few years (even if the information is still intact). What good does it do to have perfectly good information that you cannot access?
Film is a very mature technology compared to “digital.” We have had a long time to learn and apply those learnings along the way in order to make products that best meet our customers’ needs. Many years of research have gone into understanding and optimizing film formulations to ensure its archival properties. Motion picture film, if properly processed and kept under recommended conditions can last for several hundred years, no other currently used storage media comes anywhere close to that. In addition, the “filing” system is very simple and does not require much maintenance. Entire productions can be stored away for many years until someone decides it is time for a re-release or a special “coming out of the vault” edition.
One key feature of film has always been the long term stability and usefulness of the images. Three factors that make this possible are: 1) the stability of the image itself; 2) the stability of the base/support; and 3) the means to extract the image/information.
For well processed B&W films, the image is actually made up of metallic silver, which is VERY stable... providing Arrhenius predictions in terms of centuries. Color films use organic dyes for their images. Improvements in the dyes themselves and in the methods to incorporate these dyes into the films, have yielded large improvements in the stability of these images. Although not as stable as metallic silver, these new dyes can provide stability of many decades based on Arrhenius predictions.
The use of polyester for the film base provides a very stable material for the images. This has greatly extended the stability of films. Finally, since film images are optical (meaning what you see is what you get) it is VERY easy to see and extract the image... no complicated electronic format (that usually becomes obsolete) is needed.
For productions that originate digitally the amount of data that is generated is very large (much like me taking 15 still pictures of my daughter with my digital camera, whereas in the past I would probably have taken 2 with my film camera). The volume of data only helps compound the dilemma that follows once the production is finished and now content decisions have to be made as to what will be kept and what will not. If the ultimate intention truly is to preserve the content, then this content will likely be transferred back to film and be tucked away safely in a refrigerated vault until needed again. If the production was originated on film and the entire flow went through a traditional optical film process it is significantly easier to archive all the elements.
Furthermore, according to “The Digital Dilemma” report released back in 2007 by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, it costs almost 12 times more to store the digital master of a movie than it costs to keep a conventional film master. If, as mentioned before the production was originated digitally the cost of preservation becomes significantly higher especially when compared to the low cost of storing several reels of film and sound negatives from an all film production.
Not only is film the highest quality media, with the longest life expectancy and guaranteed access, in the long run, it is also the most inexpensive. So you tell me, why would you NOT choose film as your archival media?
 
Joe Taylor said:
a good chunk of Tree of Life
Click to expand...

Is this true? I'm curious what your source is just because I'm such a huge fan of Malick and his collaborators, not because I have anything invested in this stupid argument, and am curious how he used digital in the new movie. Days of Heaven and the New World in particular had very interesting and slightly daring cinematography and almost all his movies are beautiful.

Has anyone here seen it, btw? I hear it's incredible but I'm wary of anything that has dinosaurs and Brad Pitt....
 
Joe

You are no a fool !!! We are all friends talking about movie making. Everybody has his own opinion. But the fact is that film has a much higher definition than digital. Kodak and Fuji say that on their pages, because they are right and know about what they are talking about. I am talking about the master. Shoot on film and make a digital transfer and you will get a wonderful photography.

Guy
 
Matt

I agree with you. Film photography is far suprior than digital. I tried so many tests with still and motion picture cameras at the same time,same place,same minute of the day....Same shoot to see the difference between digital and film. Film was always better. I suggest people to try it !

Guy
 
Guy Bofdart said:
Matt

I agree with you. Film photography is far suprior than digital.

Guy
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I never said that! (Even though I sometimes think it.)

They are two different media. Neither is good at being the other.

Kodak (manufacturers of the most advanced CCDs available, ironically) makes most of its money on print stock, hence why they promote film and its archival abilities so heavily. They do have a vested interest.

You're on a digital video forum so it's not very nice to tell people digital is no good, even if you honestly believe it and even if there are reasons to. I would use film if I could afford to, but I can't and there are benefits to digital on the micro-budget sets I work on, not in terms of image but in terms of speed. I have seen large budget movies that use digital well, too, in my opinion. If digital cameras didn't exist I would probably never have been hired on a set in any capacity.

If Malick is indeed using a large amount of digital footage, it's a big deal. He doesn't make choices half-heartedly and I trust his eye and experience far over my own (or anyone else here's). If it's for budget reasons it would make me sad, though. I will be sad the day Spielberg shoots digital.
 
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Matt

I agree with you. But Steven will never shoot digital. I know that for sure.
Digital has good stuff, but film still better. It's not my fault....I did not invent digital. I just see the result. I do not want to offend anybody here, but I do not want them to beleive that digital is better than film. It will be no honest for me to say that

Guy
 
Broad, general, strokes like "film is better than digital!" or "Apple is better than Microsoft" is complete and utter bullshit and they hold no meaning at all to anyone looking for useful information on the subject.
Anyhow, why the hell did this turn into film vs. digital? This was a nice thread that I genuinely wanted to read about Bolex S16 and film and then this crap got on? Really? Why is there that we cannot have a discussion about a medium without it turning into this vs. that? We know that RED makes beautiful images! We know film has an amazing aesthetic! We know that video cams can make beauty too!
So, no offence, but derailing a thread like this is just disrespectful to the original topic creator -- let's leave out the debate and focus on providing useful information and tips!
Keep it positive and let's not get all the negative mojo going - okay?
 
Long life the Red Camera and film too. Happy? One complete the other. Digital help film and film stores digital.It's perfect!
Guy Bodart
Filn Director/DP/Engineer in Cinematography
 
Guy I've no wish to argue with you as I see the benefit of film as much as the next 'level-headed' guy. My point is that times are changing and only people with a blinkered understanding of the industry will think otherwise. They both have their own aesthetic but to me when it comes to latitude the line is now getting very fine. This is something that has only just really started to happen.

If you want to stand hard and fast on the film front fine. I've shot film many times and personally I just prefer to shoot digital. My choice. Although 'Digital Cinema' and Video are not the same 'crap'. Maybe from your side of the fence it is, but for us the difference between raw and baked in/compressed footage is more than worth noting.

Don't think that we are film haters though, that is absurd but don't think that all DPs who shoot digital are 'not real DPs' that is laughable. I'm sure Jeff Cronenweth, Christian Berger, Anthony Dod Mantle, Steven Soderbergh to name but a very few that shoot digitally regularly would have something to say about that. David Mullen who has a lot of input on this site is very level about shooting both film and digital. They can live together but why spend so much time on a forum lambasting a format the forum was created for (Red is at the forefront of this digital growth) Or were you just in defence mode?

As far as a list of digitally shot films you know what they are so I won't list them...but here...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Films_shot_digitally

My argument is purely the fact that the next few years are going to very interesting for digital cinema, and the audience (who are the people that matter at the end of the day) won't care as long as the stories are compelling and it looks how the director/cinematographer envisioned it. Us non-DPs shooting on Epic/Scarlet will be having the time of our lives...

PS. Apologies to original poster this thread went very south.
 
Johnny Friday said:
Benjamin Button, Slumdog Millionaire, Miami Vice, Collateral, Knowing, Superman Returns, There will be blood, Starwars episodes 2 & 3, The Game, The book of Eli, Pirates of the Caribbean: on stranger tides, The lovely bones, Superbad......

Oh...and Avatar

.....sorry if i missed hundreds more, but aren't these films shot on video or a significant portion shot on video? Guess video is not really dead now.
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Guy Bofdart said:
By the way, 'Pirates of the Caribbean" was shot on film. Some shots whith Panavision and other shots with Arriflex cameras. Please check!

Try to have good information!

Guy Bodart
Cameraspro
Click to expand...

Guy, the statement was the Pirates 4 is being shot on digital. Which it is. Red Mx 3D rigs... beasts!
 
Guy Bofdart said:
Joe

You are no a fool !!! We are all friends talking about movie making. Everybody has his own opinion. But the fact is that film has a much higher definition than digital. Kodak and Fuji say that on their pages, because they are right and know about what they are talking about. I am talking about the master. Shoot on film and make a digital transfer and you will get a wonderful photography.

Guy
Click to expand...

Others know more about this than me, but I'm pretty sure film can't resolve 5K, even 4K is questionable.

Also, might want to check out shot on red.

Bolex's are super cool, although they can be a huge pain in the ass if they haven't been well maintained.
 
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