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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 :)

35mm Film vs Digital - in depth article about the dangers of losing film

Benni Diez

Benni Diez

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The "dangers" of losing film. Highly flammable material and millions of dollars spent a year on dangerous chemicals, that isn't dangerous. But a new standard and skillset in new times, that's dangerous. Ok. Cool.
 
I think the main point of the LA Weekly article is: if a movie isn't available on DCP, then for all practical purposes it no longer exists. That means if you want to see an old movie like North by Northwest or Lawrence of Arabia, and you own a little repertory theater that only has film projectors, you won't be able to run it. Studios are slowly withdrawing all their prints from circulation, even for classic films. And if the studios haven't gotten around to transferring the movie to 2K or 4K, there's no DCP available, and nobody can see it (except an old copy on DVD).
 
Yes, but the problem is also future proof storage of existing movies including source material and intermediate stages.

Example: Right now you can dig out the 30 years old negatives of, say, Raiders and rescan them, remaster them and so on. Maybe 3Dify them like they're doing it with Star Wars right now. Of course it's a meticulous process.
But you can redo all the transitions and even the compositings (best case). They're doing that right now on Star Trek TNG with stunning results. And they had to go back to the negs because the final masters were only on SD tape.

Now take something like Avatar, and for whatever reason someone wants to remaster it to 8k multiview Stereo in 10-20 years (not that unlikely actually). I bet you they're gonna have a much harder time reconstructing the necessary data.
I recently finished a short film I started 12 years ago. All digital data. And it was a real bitch to recover everything, lots of reconversion to get it working, lots of 3D work that had to be redone.
I also remastered a 7 year old short that was shot in Pal to HD and already had trouble with missing frames.

Not at all saying we should stick with film in any stage. But the ever increasing amount of data that comes with digital and the evolving nature of it (HD -> 4K; 2D -> 3D; 24fps -> 48fps ... do the math for the next 20 years) makes it a huge challenge.
I'm already happy I'm shooting mostly Red and storing the Raw data in 4K. But I'm still working in 2k for performance reasons and I'm not at all looking forward to remastering any of that.
 
It's 100 times easier and cheaper to make a DCP than a 35mm print. And with RED's laser projector we'll see if costs can't be controlled for projectors as well. I you could buy a 4k projection solution for $30k there shouldn't be any reason an independent theater couldn't switch.
 
Gavin Greenwalt said:
It's 100 times easier and cheaper to make a DCP than a 35mm print. And with RED's laser projector we'll see if costs can't be controlled for projectors as well. I you could buy a 4k projection solution for $30k there shouldn't be any reason an independent theater couldn't switch.
Click to expand...
I wouldn't be surprised if many independent theaters will be using the upcoming $10K RED projector.

I have already seen a small theater using a $3K 1080p consumer projecter and no one complained...
 
Gavin Greenwalt said:
It's 100 times easier and cheaper to make a DCP than a 35mm print. And with RED's laser projector we'll see if costs can't be controlled for projectors as well.
Click to expand...
Actually, I've been involved with making at least 60 35mm prints over the last 10 years, and they weren't hard to make at all. Some of them were done in less than a day. It's not as hard or as expensive as you might think, depending on the deal you make.

And I've been involved with some DCP situations that were very complicated and problematic, including gamut problems, sizing problems, you name it. DCPs are easy if you do them every day -- but not if you only do them once every few months.

I you could buy a 4k projection solution for $30k there shouldn't be any reason an independent theater couldn't switch.
Click to expand...
Last I checked, a 4K projector was a lot more expensive than $30K (more like $125K). The other problem is the infrastructure, the drives, the power supply, the ventilation, the soundproofing, and so on. None of that is cheap or easy. The projector might be the easiest part of it, in some ways -- but it's not cheap at the moment. I expect there might be announcements at NAB that might lower the price somewhat.
 
Stefan Antonescu said:
I wouldn't be surprised if many independent theaters will be using the upcoming $10K RED projector.

I have already seen a small theater using a $3K 1080p consumer projecter and no one complained...
Click to expand...

Even if they used a 720 projector nobody would complain!
 
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