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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 :)

Film isn't dead.... unfortunately.

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Van Royko said:
There has been the implication from Red techs on this forum that there is no difference in color handling between Red One and Epic. I clearly see it - so there is another mystery.
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I'm more basing that statement on the Original "color science", meaning 2007, versus the "now".
 
Dan Kanes said:
Phil, you rock.

@Van - yes I could achieve this look with my epic, some cookes, some filtration, some young people, a good location, proper time of day, some lights, a grey card, a large cappuccino , and some time in the color suite.
Oh, and I'd like to hire Phil to consult as well ;)
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Cheers to that :)

I'll add an interesting note that the early days of doing some R&D with the Genesis before things got up and running I had about 40 or so people in a screening room and projected some material with an accurate film grain pattern extracted from Kodak stock (scanned at 6k no less) and didn't tell them which was which. About 70% "liked" the grainy version. That was on a 2k Christie I believe at the time.

4k projection with higher resolution digital imagery, I personally don't like adding grain, but I've had to do it.
 
Van Royko said:
There has been the implication from Red techs on this forum that there is no difference in color handling between Red One and Epic. I clearly see it - so there is another mystery.
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They are saying there's no difference in "color science". There is clearly a difference in "color handling" as RED One is a 12 bit camera and epic is 16 bits.
 
Jake Bastian said:
They are saying there's no difference in "color science". There is clearly a difference in "color handling" as RED One is a 12 bit camera and epic is 16 bits.
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The key is that it's not just one reason why the two might look different. :-)
 
Was it Robert Altman that said, "the cheapest thing about shooting a film, is the film itself."

The last two "films" I saw were both shot on actual film. Carnage (fuji) and Tinker, tailor, soldier, spy (kodak). Neither of these films were 3D, neither were "big important films". Rather, both were well written, well acted stories. In both cases I think film offered kind of aesthetic to the overall story telling and in both cases the images were pleasing and added to the content.

The exact same way "the social network" looked added to the overall content and experience.

As much as everyone wants to swing their film or digital cock, the fact remains that how the tool is used will matter more than anything else.

Plenty of "digital" film will fail. Plenty of "film", films will fail. The failure will not depend on the medium but how the medium is used or abused.

In today's world stories matter more. In terms if 3d, digital matters more because of the precise registration required.

Films will always suck or succeed, but very little of it will have to do with whether it is film, RED, Alexa, EPIC, or Sony 4k. Nobody watches a film cheering for the format outside forums such as this.

David
 
David Battistella said:
Films will always suck or succeed, but very little of it will have to do with whether it is film, RED, Alexa, EPIC, or Sony 4k. Nobody watches a film cheering for the format outside forums such as this.
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I think the point is, that in the not too distant future, you will not be able to "buy" film.
 
David Battistella said:
Was it Robert Altman that said, "the cheapest thing about shooting a film, is the film itself."

The last two "films" I saw were both shot on actual film. Carnage (fuji) and Tinker, tailor, soldier, spy (kodak). Neither of these films were 3D, neither were "big important films". Rather, both were well written, well acted stories. In both cases I think film offered kind of aesthetic to the overall story telling and in both cases the images were pleasing and added to the content.

The exact same way "the social network" looked added to the overall content and experience.

As much as everyone wants to swing their film or digital cock, the fact remains that how the tool is used will matter more than anything else.

Plenty of "digital" film will fail. Plenty of "film", films will fail. The failure will not depend on the medium but how the medium is used or abused.

In today's world stories matter more. In terms if 3d, digital matters more because of the precise registration required.

Films will always suck or succeed, but very little of it will have to do with whether it is film, RED, Alexa, EPIC, or Sony 4k. Nobody watches a film cheering for the format outside forums such as this.

David
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I in no way disagree with you David. One of the greatest revelations in my life after film school was seeing Doris Deari's "Enlightment Guaranteed". Shot on Mini-DV. The first few images made me want to puke but then the story kicked in and I was entranced from there on. Its a great lesson for us cinema snobs.

But the conversation I am trying to have here is purely technical. Many people see something inferior about digital color. Unfortunately I include myself in that group. Phil and Dan seem to think you can can get skin to come out the same way on Red One/Epic given the right attention to detail. I partially believe this but I am yet to see it. I know its true when shooting photos with a Canon 5d MKII- so why not on Red. Maybe its just a question of compression and soon as we start to see professionally timed films coming out on Epic than this quandary will be solved.
 
Van Royko said:
I in no way disagree with you David. One of the greatest revelations in my life after film school was seeing Doris Deari's "Enlightment Guaranteed". Shot on Mini-DV. The first few images made me want to puke but then the story kicked in and I was entranced from there on. Its a great lesson for us cinema snobs.

But the conversation I am trying to have here is purely technical. Many people see something inferior about digital color. Unfortunately I include myself in that group. Phil and Dan seem to think you can can get skin to come out the same way on Red One/Epic given the right attention to detail. I partially believe this but I am yet to see it. I know its true when shooting photos with a Canon 5d MKII- so why not on Red. Maybe its just a question of compression and soon as we start to see professionally timed films coming out on Epic than this quandary will be solved.
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I think there's also somewhat of a psychological thing going on too...most people going for a sort of straight film look will just shoot on film. And it seems like Alexa gets the attention if someone really has to film digital (even though Red would do just as well). So right off the bat there's a bias just because of the default preferred format.

On top of that, the amount of control over Red images might make some people go grade happy because they can, when perhaps something more natural would look better.
 
I wonder if we could go back in time and some how create digital first and then have film be the new kid on the block if the results would be the same. Meaning that if we all used digital and then after wards someone came out with this film stuff... would we all be saying wow that film is almost looking like digital these days and soon digital will be dead. Only in art house theaters and some small back ally 52 inch screens....:laugh:
You so rock Phil thanks for all your info..
 
What I don't understand is that how a film shot on 35mm and then digitized for editing and then turned back into analog for a new negative could possibly look any better than a straight to digital shot. . . unless, for some reason, the digital scan done prior to editing is a better process than the original digital camera's sensor.

Stephen
 
Producers budgets and tighter deadlines will kill film off ... not the invention of a good digital camera.
Digital cameras are just a great backup plan for people with smaller budgets and tighter deadlines... which seem to be common the world over.

35mm images are amazing and always will be.

Guns dont shoot people, people shoot people... You cant blame the Digital for the demise of film.

Just my 2 cents worth.
 
We've seen this movie before. Beautiful B/W films giving way to murky color. Vinyl to CD. Film is fading, convenience and cost efficiency will win out in the end. We just need to push so that that gold standard is matched and surpassed before it fades away.
We shouldn't settle for good enough.

Alexa is beautiful, Epic is Stunning, F65 I hear is amazing.

Epic Dragon will rule them all : )
 
It's very simple.

Film can capture a full gamut of colors but the most of high end digital motion cameras can't.

It's obviously visible that film has an advantage especially at skin tones in many different lighting situations.

That means film is still a king of movie image acquisition.

Also it's unknown what Sony F65 can do until January when is available for a first public test.

I think Panavision Genesis 65 will strike back as a first digital movie camera that could replace film.

But this camera is still work in progress and will be finished during 2012.
 
Technology is an Intersting Phenomenon.

I remember writing a paper in Film school which covered how every new technology was said to ruin movies.

Sound, Color, 3D, Smell-O-Vision. LOL.

I feel film will become much like wax records. Great for what it is, some of the best DJ's still use them. But most do not any more for the sheer convenience of space.

Speed will also hurt film, so much easier, quicker, and cheaper to handle digital images.

Very shortly a whole generation will not know what 35 mm film is, much like many do not know what a cassette tape is. If film dies, its cause people will simply move on.

It will most likely happen.
 
Stephen Pruitt said:
What I don't understand is that how a film shot on 35mm and then digitized for editing and then turned back into analog for a new negative could possibly look any better than a straight to digital shot. . .
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One reason is because if you screw up the initial photography, film's greater latitude will hold up better, especially in the highlights. You can still get that detail back in a 4K 10-bit log scan from the film in the DI. Blow it out or crush the blacks with a digital camera, and it's gone forever.

Go out and shoot 10 minutes of film as a test sometime, look at what it looks like 1, 2, or 3-stops under and over, and see what happens. The texture of film is different and the feel is different. Film raw stock and developing costs can be a substantial part of a film's budget, but realistically, I don't think it's more than $20K a day, if you're looking at two hours of raw material. If this is (say) a $5M film, with a 4-week shooting schedule, $400K is a good chunk of change. But it can still work.

Where this goes out the window is if you shoot a ton of takes and do A&B camera. Then, all bets are off.

Experienced DPs and UPMs I know and trust tell me that the cost savings of digital aren't always as gigantic as producers want to believe. You lose the lab, but you have to have a D.I.T.; you don't have to do dailies, but you have to worry about LUTs and file copying (plus backups and renders). Film cameras never have to be rebooted; their noise levels are far lower than the fans of most digital cameras. Rental costs are often much, much cheaper with film -- I'm told you can get a decent 1-camera 35mm film package for well under $500 a day in LA, depending on lenses -- but realistically, I don't think film makes much sense for a lot of projects. I think TV is more appropriate for digital; I think most indies under $5M probably work better shooting in digital. Once you cross a threshold of, say, $10M, I'm not sure it makes a huge amount of difference. If you have to shoot 3D, hands down, digital is a better way to go. But film is clearly on the way out.

The sad thing that I see is if film dies, it's one less choice available to the cinematographer. If you're an artist who likes to work in watercolor, who's to tell you that you can't work in oils, or in chalk, or in acrylics? It's just another medium. There's nothing wrong with more choices. Lots of cameras are good, some are better than others, but from where I sit, the ultimate image quality really boils down to a) the lighting, b) the lenses, c) the exposure, and d) the final color correction decisions. The camera makes a difference, too, but it's much lower on that list.

BTW, there's a good article at this link in Studio Daily about more film labs closing, Kodak's problems, and how Panavision has stopped making new film cameras. I don't see anything to cheer about in this story. The reality is that much of this is happening not because of technology, but because of the bad economy. And it's certainly not because everybody suddenly decided overnight that film sucks.

To me, not a single digital camera equals the look of film in every way -- still. But they continue getting closer, and beyond a certain point, I'm not sure anybody cares or notices except for sharp-eyed DPs, colorists, and nit-picky film buffs who really care. For 95% of the audience, the image looks fine. For a low-budget film going direct to DVD, for TV shows, and for stuff like documentaries with narrow audiences, digital works brilliantly, and has for ten years -- regardless of resolution.
 
Ok.

I'll add this. For the past many years there were only relatively few types of film stocks. These stocks were developed and color matched and the number of facilities to process was few and there were prescribed chemical processes in place to ensure the continuity of color. Films whole aesthetic is based on reproducing true, lifelike images and color.

Over time human vision became engrained to seeing color the way these film saw color. The variables were filtration and processing and people often filtered but rarely did much messing around with processing because it was permanent and risky. So the color tone and texture became something familiar, something we were used to.

Then comes digital. A nightmare of color spaces, a sharp electronic look, framerates that took images into a different kind of elecronic image reality. Nine of these things were familiar and all hand to stand up to the visual bar set by film entrained in our human eye.

The first time I felt a digital image came close to that familiar feel was with RED.

So maybe it's not so much one over the other, but rather digital images didn't "feel" right until Red and even at that the RED had different noise characteristics.

Super 8 film stock still somehow commands attention.

Interesting.

David
 
Actually this thread is almost the same like the one here :

http://reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?63551-RED-examples-of-natural-quot-filmic-quot-color

It just a different form, but what seem to trouble people stays the same, skintone !

The differences of the technology lies down the very core of the sensor and celluloid itself (both produced different color palette). Not only color science

Here's the very core question to camera manufacturer. Is it possible to breakthrough RGB based sensor and color space ?

Rivai
 
Phil Holland said:
There is a "liveliness" to film that stems from the subtle effect of grain, slight gate movements, color imperfections, etc...
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There's an analogue to this in drawing and painting. An artist will deliberately allow slight tremors into his hand because it gives more life to the rendering. A similar effect is achieved by using a paper with some texture to it. It causes the tip of the drawing instrument to jump around a little, introducing a subtle vibration to the lines. "Shimmer" is another word that could be used: "to shine with a soft tremulous or fitful light."

Sometimes you want a sharp, clean look. Sometimes you want a shimmering look. With the advancement of post tools, I hope we gain the option of adding in just the degree and type of imperfection that our desired look requires.
 
Adam C Lubkin said:
There's an analogue to this in drawing and painting. An artist will deliberately allow slight tremors into his hand because it gives more life to the rendering. A similar effect is achieved by using a paper with some texture to it. It causes the tip of the drawing instrument to jump around a little, introducing a subtle vibration to the lines. "Shimmer" is another word that could be used: "to shine with a soft tremulous or fitful light."

Sometimes you want a sharp, clean look. Sometimes you want a shimmering look. With the advancement of post tools, I hope we gain the option of adding in just the degree and type of imperfection that our desired look requires.
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yes! I think that imperfection is artistically wanted by some, and always will be, and i agree that need is more embedded in the organic sensibilities and nature of fine art, (enjoyed, understood and advocated by many who shoot films) than it is to do with the nature of 35mm celluloid film... in some ways at least.

i do hope post tools will give that level of flexibility to create and control subtle imperfections in a perfect (thanks RED!) image.
 
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