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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 :)

DISCONTINUTATION OF FUJIFILM

In photography was that switch like overnigt.
 
Fuji still makes color slide film and a few negative films for still photography (I hope they don't stop either).

Kodak's Vision 3 is miles better than anything Fuji had, so they really couldn't keep up with competition. If they focus on their gorgeous slide film and Kodak on their negative film, I think they can keep it profitable.

Film won't ever completely die... there will always be film shooters. The chemical portion side for C-41 and E-6 though is questionable...
 
Film wont ever die... hmm, not so sure any more. The less bulk of film made the price per unit goes up exponentially same for lab costs etc. So I actually believe that there is no reason for dealing with long silver covered plastic stripes within 3 years or so. Even the archiving arguments and such are highly questionable all ready, there is such good file formats comming out and storing film is now more expansive than storing data.
 
Whether digital is better or not, doesn't change the fact that this is a defining moment. Though I'm a huge fan of digital, I still mourn the loss of film. It's a medium that has defined our industry for over a century. Digital has made it extinct; like the meteor that snuffed out the dinosaurs. It came so fast, and so sudden. No one knew film would fade...this quickly.

IMAX is film's last bastion. Once digital can match 65mm (which Dragon likely threatens todo), it will be the last nail in film's coffin.
 
Nick Morrison said:
Whether digital is better or not, doesn't change the fact that this is a defining moment. Though I'm a huge fan of digital, I still mourn the loss of film. It's a medium that has defined our industry for over a century. Digital has made it extinct; like the meteor that snuffed out the dinosaurs. It came so fast, and so sudden. No one knew film would fade...this quickly.

IMAX is film's last bastion. Once digital can match 65mm (which Dragon likely threatens todo), it will be the last nail in film's coffin.
Click to expand...

One thing I've noticed is that my monochrome epic beats 65mm as far as resolution... but what I am having problems with is in the dynamic range of digital projection. I think the dynamic range problems of projection are a bit more obvious with black and white vs color, on things like computer screens and theater projectors. With black&white film projection it gives a almost infinitely smooth dynamic range, while in digital projection I am seeing dynamic range issues like banding (the monochrome epic's dynamic range far exceeds current digital projection standards). I might have to start adding noise in the end conforms to "dither" the black/white to simulate that look that I get with black and white film projection to avoid dynamic range banding. Of course, there are so few of us that have actually seen the beauty of black and white film ... from exposure to projection ... that I'm not sure my concern matters.
 
We don't see banding in the raw R3D data (be that from a red one, MX, Epic or monochrome), and as low noise / wide dynamic range cameras you have to be very careful not to do anything that will induce banding. R3D compression is designed specially to avoid banding issues, but generally speaking, lossy compression should be avoided as one of the first things to get "thrown away" is the natural dither of the noise floor. Secondly, at any point where you're reducing bit depth you need to be very careful and dither the bit depth reduction if necessary. Thirdly, in a projector itself, there could be bit depth issues that need to be dealt with carefully, but obviously in-projector is out of our hands.

Film of course, has it's built in natural dither, which will not allowing banding to occur.

Graeme
 
Graeme Nattress said:
We don't see banding in the raw R3D data (be that from a red one, MX, Epic or monochrome), and as low noise / wide dynamic range cameras you have to be very careful not to do anything that will induce banding. R3D compression is designed specially to avoid banding issues, but generally speaking, lossy compression should be avoided as one of the first things to get "thrown away" is the natural dither of the noise floor. Secondly, at any point where you're reducing bit depth you need to be very careful and dither the bit depth reduction if necessary. Thirdly, in a projector itself, there could be bit depth issues that need to be dealt with carefully, but obviously in-projector is out of our hands.

Film of course, has it's built in natural dither, which will not allowing banding to occur.

Graeme
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Agreed, it's not an issue with RED at all ... if anything you guys are exceeding film in all ways with the monochrome Epic.
[i.e. when i move your r3d to 32 bit float in a linear format ... i swear I see a full 16 bits of dynamic range, and I see way less digital grain then 65mm]

As your stating, the problem is the current "compression" & distribution standards for projection and display. I can't wait to see what you guys are doing in your '.RED" format, and i'm hoping your laser projector has 12 bits of dynamic range(i think that's what is probably needed to simulate b&w film projection).


[edit ... just noticed the red ray is 12 bit ... uber : "BIT-DEPTH (COLOR): YCbCr 12-bit 4:2:2"]
 
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After Film ... (AF) Digital Capture --> Cloud Capture --> somebody way smarter than I predicted this. I said film would be done by now... I was wrong... 2015 might be a better number where maybe 95% of projects are shot via (DC).

Yell at me if you want to, film is great, it's not the future.

- E
 
Nick Morrison said:
Whether digital is better or not, doesn't change the fact that this is a defining moment. Though I'm a huge fan of digital, I still mourn the loss of film. It's a medium that has defined our industry for over a century. Digital has made it extinct; like the meteor that snuffed out the dinosaurs. It came so fast, and so sudden. No one knew film would fade...this quickly.

IMAX is film's last bastion. Once digital can match 65mm (which Dragon likely threatens todo), it will be the last nail in film's coffin.
Click to expand...

70mm will be around until the theater owners are forced or left with no other option but to go digital...and keep in mind the HUGE investments that Theater Owners have in 70mm projectors for true Imax & Dome theaters.....until those payoff, and they change to a new form of digital--IMAX has their own digital solution....then 70mm will still be around. But the theater owners seem to dicate that at the moment. They are still paying off very expensive equipment IMAX sold them not long ago...
 
Johnny Friday said:
70mm will be around until the theater owners are forced or left with no other option but to go digital...and keep in mind the HUGE investments that Theater Owners have in 70mm projectors for true Imax & Dome theaters.....until those payoff, and they change to a new form of digital--IMAX has their own digital solution....then 70mm will still be around. But the theater owners seem to dicate that at the moment. They are still paying off very expensive equipment IMAX sold them not long ago...
Click to expand...

It will go quick as the maintenance cost of the IMAX theaters are really high and so is the cost of the prints. So 4x4k laser projectors combined to show one image would be quite easy to set together today compared to running an Imax theater... So to me it's quit clear that the imax prints will not be around for long.
 
So film has one foot in the grave. Sad day, but it has passed the baton to worthy heirs...
 
I just attended (last night) a SMPTE meeting of the Hollywood Chapter. The subject was "The Technology and History of Film, presented by Beverly Pasterczyk of Eastman Kodak Co." Ms. Pasterczyk is a chemist with film R & D at Kodak, and she mentioned that Kodak Research is currently engaged in the continuing design and implementation of new emulsions, such as the new version of the Vision III product.

Regarding consumer films, she said that they are considering restructuring a new approach aimed at producing these at a reasonable cost in much smaller volumes than in the past. She said that new technology will permit them to continue to produce these in "boutique quantities" using single coating machines rather than the huge multiple coaters of the past. She said that basically, as long as they had sufficient orders for a minimum of a single master roll "54 inches (almost 1-1/2 meters) wide by whatever length - no minimum stated", they would consider examining production in terms of the economics involved. Future production would primarily be on an "on demand" basis.

This would include the infrastructure for processing, probably at a single lab, either in Rochester NY, or sub-contracted.
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http://www.apug.org/forums/forum390/103513-kodak-comeback-quick-read.html

I for one would like film to stick around as a choice for a bit more, both in motion and still area. Raising prices would kill it off for good, though, except for the elite shooters. I loved shooting portraits on film and still do occasionally for the odd dreamy look, especially happy with expired rolls. No grain reduction and artifact removing whatsoever, if I'm to shoot clean and fancy I just pick up digital camera. Newer sensors with super wide lowlight and overexposure latitude and color sensitivity will allow to emulate the look of older classic stocks down to a T, even more accurately than today with things like FilmConvert.
 
Graeme Nattress said:
We don't see banding in the raw R3D data (be that from a red one, MX, Epic or monochrome), and as low noise / wide dynamic range cameras you have to be very careful not to do anything that will induce banding. R3D compression is designed specially to avoid banding issues, but generally speaking, lossy compression should be avoided as one of the first things to get "thrown away" is the natural dither of the noise floor. Secondly, at any point where you're reducing bit depth you need to be very careful and dither the bit depth reduction if necessary. Thirdly, in a projector itself, there could be bit depth issues that need to be dealt with carefully, but obviously in-projector is out of our hands.

Film of course, has it's built in natural dither, which will not allowing banding to occur.

Graeme
Click to expand...

Are there any very good dithering or rounding apps for processing media ? Quantel used have an algorithm or process called Dynamic Rounding which seemed to work in the days of 8bit SD. Seems to me that a very good plug in or transcoding for rounding bit depth is needed here.
 
Last month I was looking for some b&w reversal for a film project... and found it had already gone away (with possible exception of a laboratory only film)...
Noted that Fuji was not taking orders for any motion picture stocks..
Now it looks like a more traditional negative/print workflow, though with a post print DI...
plan on creating a fake early Vitaphone project.. details to follow..

and of course.. have work for my RED this month in digital realm..
 
Park Road Post - where LOTR which was shot on Fujifilm stock was processed - has also shut down it's film lab.
 
LOTR was shot on Kodak stocks...

Most of us knew this day was coming, we only argued over the timeline. Considering Panavision is still quite busy renting out 35mm cameras and anamorphic lenses, I'd say that we are still going to be seeing movies in theaters shot on film for a few more years. Back in 2000 when the F900 came out and some people were saying that film would be dead within five years, I was saying that, factoring in the rate of technical change plus filmmakers' attitudes, it would be more like 15 years and some people thought I was being too conservative, but now it's 2013 and film has a few more years left, so my guess wasn't that far off. Personally, I'm glad it's taken this long because it's only now with cameras like the Epic, F65, and Alexa that 35mm film has serious competition in the image quality department -- imagine if film had been obsoleted in favor of the F900 or then the Genesis or F35 back when recording the HD tape was your best option. It's only now that we are in the world of RAW and wide dynamic range, and beyond 1080P resolution, that it even makes sense to begin the transition away from film.
 
+1 to what David is saying. I'm so glad film didn't roll over for any prior HD format with inferior quality. Film still has a few years of life left in it and I wouldn't be surprised if someone out there picks up the ball and continues to produce film stock after there is no Kodak or Fuji left to be had. With most distribution and presentation going digital at a rapid pace and acquisition not far behind, nearly everything going through a DI process in between these days... It makes less and less sense to shoot film from a business perspective. The thing with shooting film is that it's an art in and of itself. There are qualities to the process that digital can't replicate and some people will continue to shoot film just for the sake of the journey.

One factor that is working against film that I have been surprised has not become a larger factor in its downfall is the ecological concerns. There is nothing about film which is environmentally friendly. I suppose that would be a bigger issue these days if the masses were still consuming 35mm roll film and Polaroid packets by the shipload as we did 20+ years ago.
 
Jeff Kilgroe said:
The thing with shooting film is that it's an art in and of itself. There are qualities to the process that digital can't replicate and some people will continue to shoot film just for the sake of the journey. .
Click to expand...

The thing that keeps being said about Film is that it's a different process and mentality. Film is grounded in short bursts of energy; everyone is forced to focus more, pay more attention, and yet take more breaks. With digital, we can shoot for 60mins uninterrupted run more cameras; accumulate way more footage; and take far less breaks. We shoot for the edit now. We fire away and accumulate coverage, but in so doing possibly pay less attention to detail, and are forced to make less choices on set. We decide later, in the edit bay.
 
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