Dan Hudgins
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Tipping point...
Tipping point...
Making high quality color negative film with a speed over EI 3 is not something that can be done in small batches by enthusiasts.
It took Kodak about 100 years to figure out how to make the current Vision film stocks.
The chemicals used to process color film are getting harder and harder to purchase, and those used to make color film are not even available on the normal market, some are only made for inhouse use by film manufactures.
There may be some small makers of black and white films for hobby use for maybe 50 years more, but making high speed color films with fine grain are totaly out of the reach of even medium size companies.
Having worked with film most of my life I am very sad to say that its days are numbered. Having worked with both 35mm film scans and some footage from the RED ONE for the last year or so I can only say that working with Digital images is the only practical path for indy filmmaking now. The cost, dust and scratches, labor, etc. that film involves are no longer a requirement for theatrical exhibition. With the low audience turn out these days, one wonders if theatrical exhibition for indy films is any longer an option anyway.
People who have not worked with 35mm movie film on every level have no idea how hard it is to work with and get good results. The more I do the more respect I have for the good labs that made great films, and for the people whose helth was wrecked by Carbon tetrachloride and all the other ghastly chemicals that were required to get usable results.
Studios are not replacing damaged prints of older "clasic" films. Every time I go to see the 70mm "restored" print of "Lawrence Of Arabia (1962)" it has more scratches and crazing from the heat of the light house, and it gets more and more faded. It was too high contrast when new because the new print stocks do not match the older negatives, but now it is losing its cyan dye to fade and looks brown and washed out. Same goes for the restored version of 2001, its scratched and faded now. I got to see the 70mm print of Apocalypse Now (1979) a second time, when it first came out it had great color and greens, but now it is faded tan and magenta, not just a little but quite a bit. It will probably not be projected again. If I had not seen it when it was new I would not know what the colors should have looked like, and you cannot make a new print to match the original colors since the new print stocks do not look the same.
Film is impermanent and not warranted against fading.
35mm film was never big enough for VFX, thats why VistaVision and 65/70mm were used. The matte jiggle was always obvious before sub-pixel computer processing to register the images.
By using more than one Digital Cinema camera to shoot HDR, there could be almost no longer any reason to shoot film. Digital images do not need to have "video" artifacts, and can be adjusted to have a softness close to film if there is a need for soft footage.
There should be no reason why RED Co. cannot make a 12K HDR sensor, not a 14 bit sensor, but a 2x 14bit sensor to give a 20+ stop range limited only by the lens flare like negative film. You would just have 6K of 4 micron pixels or so, and 6K of 1 micron pixels or so with ND, with dual outputs, and true RAW recording.
Tipping point...
Making high quality color negative film with a speed over EI 3 is not something that can be done in small batches by enthusiasts.
It took Kodak about 100 years to figure out how to make the current Vision film stocks.
The chemicals used to process color film are getting harder and harder to purchase, and those used to make color film are not even available on the normal market, some are only made for inhouse use by film manufactures.
There may be some small makers of black and white films for hobby use for maybe 50 years more, but making high speed color films with fine grain are totaly out of the reach of even medium size companies.
Having worked with film most of my life I am very sad to say that its days are numbered. Having worked with both 35mm film scans and some footage from the RED ONE for the last year or so I can only say that working with Digital images is the only practical path for indy filmmaking now. The cost, dust and scratches, labor, etc. that film involves are no longer a requirement for theatrical exhibition. With the low audience turn out these days, one wonders if theatrical exhibition for indy films is any longer an option anyway.
People who have not worked with 35mm movie film on every level have no idea how hard it is to work with and get good results. The more I do the more respect I have for the good labs that made great films, and for the people whose helth was wrecked by Carbon tetrachloride and all the other ghastly chemicals that were required to get usable results.
Studios are not replacing damaged prints of older "clasic" films. Every time I go to see the 70mm "restored" print of "Lawrence Of Arabia (1962)" it has more scratches and crazing from the heat of the light house, and it gets more and more faded. It was too high contrast when new because the new print stocks do not match the older negatives, but now it is losing its cyan dye to fade and looks brown and washed out. Same goes for the restored version of 2001, its scratched and faded now. I got to see the 70mm print of Apocalypse Now (1979) a second time, when it first came out it had great color and greens, but now it is faded tan and magenta, not just a little but quite a bit. It will probably not be projected again. If I had not seen it when it was new I would not know what the colors should have looked like, and you cannot make a new print to match the original colors since the new print stocks do not look the same.
Film is impermanent and not warranted against fading.
35mm film was never big enough for VFX, thats why VistaVision and 65/70mm were used. The matte jiggle was always obvious before sub-pixel computer processing to register the images.
By using more than one Digital Cinema camera to shoot HDR, there could be almost no longer any reason to shoot film. Digital images do not need to have "video" artifacts, and can be adjusted to have a softness close to film if there is a need for soft footage.
There should be no reason why RED Co. cannot make a 12K HDR sensor, not a 14 bit sensor, but a 2x 14bit sensor to give a 20+ stop range limited only by the lens flare like negative film. You would just have 6K of 4 micron pixels or so, and 6K of 1 micron pixels or so with ND, with dual outputs, and true RAW recording.
