If Kubrick were alive today, would he have shifted to Digital, or stayed on film?

[Vadim Bobkovsky]

Since Kubrick was all for new technology, he would've probably switched to digital at some point. Not just any digital, though, only the best sensors and cameras.

 

[Milano Questa]

Subjective and contradictory.
We all know that film can't hold a candle (see what I did there?) to (top end) digital when it comes to low light.

He would still prefer current low light film over digital low light. Just for the look alone.
I own one of the lenses he was going to use for Napeleon, the film that was never made. A Perkin Elmer 50mm f/0.95 medium format lens.

 

[Martin Stevens]

Kubrick would probably have used digital today, but would have added grain etc. in post to make it look like film.

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

Everybody will eventually shift to digital except for purely superstitious reasons. Kubrick never struck me as a particularly superstitious fellow. If he did object to current sensors, clearly it would be on the basis of color rendition. I'm intrigued to see where sensors go next. Whether we'll jump to hyperspectral or if we'll move into lightfield first. It's important to remember that there is no such thing as "Primary" colors. The only reason they're the 3 "primary" colors is because they most closely align with our eyeballs. But there's a lot more to capturing an image than outputting the captured image directly to our eyes as captured. It would be interesting to have a Red, Orange, Cyan, Blue sensor. But you would lose more light with hyperspectral. Probably possible with a high enough resolution sensor to computationally eliminate the cross talk though with a broader spectrum hyperspectral array. The next generation of sensors are going to be so good though I have a really hard time seeing Kubrick being able to object to the image quality even if he did object to the current generation.

 

[Oron Cohen]

Why this have to be so black and white? Digital OR film... Kubrick for example decided to use 65mm for 2001, so what, after he done that he couldn't switch back to 35mm? of course he could...I honestly don't understand people that think it's just one or the other, real artist choose there tools from a variety of reasons, especially an artist like kubrick.

He could have chosen film for one film because he feels it's right for the film and not only for looks alone, some directors could choose film because the work process fits them better, what is wrong with that? the same goes to digital of course, is oil paints are better the water colour? I don't think so, it's a different feel, a different work process, films (as in pictures) is an art form and should be treated like one.

And one last thing, I bet many people that comment here never shot on film ever, I highly suggest you would, two-three days shooting even super16 not to mention 35mm will make you realise it is not the same work process, especially if you decide to do a 35mm print, which again it's a choice.

Anyways, this what I think about it

 

[Karim D. Ghantous]

I think we all agree that Kubrick was not a luddite and did not shun new things simply because they were new.

He liked computers, just as most of us do. He definitely would not do something for the sake of fashion (e.g. shooting wide-open on Super Speeds). He was there with super fast lenses way before the DSLR kids, whose knowledge of cinema goes back to no further than 1992, but he'd never shoot like that affectatiously.

 

[Aaron Hunt]

Why this have to be so black and white? Digital OR film... Kubrick for example decided to use 65mm for 2001, so what, after he done that he couldn't switch back to 35mm? of course he could...I honestly don't understand people that think it's just one or the other, real artist choose there tools from a variety of reasons, especially an artist like kubrick.

He could have chosen film for one film because he feels it's right for the film and not only for looks alone, some directors could choose film because the work process fits them better, what is wrong with that? the same goes to digital of course, is oil paints are better the water colour? I don't think so, it's a different feel, a different work process, films (as in pictures) is an art form and should be treated like one.

And one last thing, I bet many people that comment here never shot on film ever, I highly suggest you would, two-three days shooting even super16 not to mention 35mm will make you realise it is not the same work process, especially if you decide to do a 35mm print, which again it's a choice.

Anyways, this what I think about it

I very much agree, so I've changed the original post. Thank ya!

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

He could have chosen film for one film because he feels it's right for the film and not only for looks alone, some directors could choose film because the work process fits them better, what is wrong with that? the same goes to digital of course, is oil paints are better the water colour? I don't think so, it's a different feel, a different work process, films (as in pictures) is an art form and should be treated like one.

I agree up to a point. The problem with this argument is that you can nearly perfectly emulate film today (well enough that 99.9% of the audience can't tell the difference). Sculpting with a Waacom tablet is very different from sculpting with a knife and clay. Pressing "Go" on a film camera and pressing "Go" on a digital camera are exactly the same. Cameras are black boxes where light goes into a lens and ultimately a picture comes out in the computer. I don't think directors particularly care how the picture gets out of the magic box into the computer they just care about the image. A film camera should be quiet. A digital camera should be quiet. There should be no way for a director to know if they're shooting on film or not, and with a good color grade they shouldn't be able to tell in the dailies if it was film or digital. So all you're left with is a somewhat superstitious need for there to be the "Spirit" or soul of a bath of chemicals involved somewhere. That's very different from the difference between a water color painting and an oil painting. You would be very very hard pressed to make an oil painting look like a watercolor painting in the end. A better analogy would be painting with a modern oil paint and painting with a 16th century oil paint that dried in a couple minutes and required an assistant to keep "fresh". Nobody does that anymore. It doesn't really affect the result, it just is inconvenient and expensive for no gain.

 

[Steve Sherrick]

I agree up to a point. The problem with this argument is that you can nearly perfectly emulate film today (well enough that 99.9% of the audience can't tell the difference). Sculpting with a Waacom tablet is very different from sculpting with a knife and clay. Pressing "Go" on a film camera and pressing "Go" on a digital camera are exactly the same. Cameras are black boxes where light goes into a lens and ultimately a picture comes out in the computer. I don't think directors particularly care how the picture gets out of the magic box into the computer they just care about the image. A film camera should be quiet. A digital camera should be quiet. There should be no way for a director to know if they're shooting on film or not, and with a good color grade they shouldn't be able to tell in the dailies if it was film or digital. So all you're left with is a somewhat superstitious need for there to be the "Spirit" or soul of a bath of chemicals involved somewhere. That's very different from the difference between a water color painting and an oil painting. You would be very very hard pressed to make an oil painting look like a watercolor painting in the end. A better analogy would be painting with a modern oil paint and painting with a 16th century oil paint that dried in a couple minutes and required an assistant to keep "fresh". Nobody does that anymore. It doesn't really affect the result, it just is inconvenient and expensive for no gain.

I keep trying to convince myself of this but recently I was doing dailies for a feature where they shot Alexa Mini and Super16 in the same scene and there was a different "feeling" between the digital and the film and it's really hard to quantify. I kept telling myself I'm imagining it but kept coming back to the same conclusion.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

But you're talking about dailies, so I assume that the Alexa footage hasn't gone through any treatment to make it look like Super-16.

If you look at "Suffragette" (2015), they mixed Super-16 and Alexa, but the Alexa was used in very low-light night situations with a high ISO setting, and maybe some film grain added in post. It worked fine, but they were using the two systems in very different situations.

 

[Robino_J]

But you're talking about dailies, so I assume that the Alexa footage hasn't gone through any treatment to make it look like Super-16.

If you look at "Suffragette" (2015), they mixed Super-16 and Alexa, but the Alexa was used in very low-light night situations with a high ISO setting, and maybe some film grain added in post. It worked fine, but they were using the two systems in very different situations.

Had a unique opportunity to watch around 8min of a film you DP'd on 35mm a couple weeks ago until they stopped the screening because of a faulty sound issue at the theatre - they then restarted it using a DCP or Blu Ray (they said DCP but who knows..) and it was very interesting to see how much of a downgrade the DCP was - It really felt like going from crisp 4K with great contrast and lush colors to a decent HD presentation that was a little dull. Most likely due to an ok DCP or BR but still it was pretty incredible to be able to compare A/B right there. With all that aside, the movie looked exquisite regardless with its amazing cinematography.

About Kubrick and digital, Spielberg and Kubrick were pretty close and often discussed projects and film tech - Spielberg has never shot on digital and doesn't plan on it in the near future. My personal take is that Kubrick would be on team film acquisition with Spielberg but would be fine with digital presentation.

 

[Steve Sherrick]

But you're talking about dailies, so I assume that the Alexa footage hasn't gone through any treatment to make it look like Super-16.

If you look at "Suffragette" (2015), they mixed Super-16 and Alexa, but the Alexa was used in very low-light night situations with a high ISO setting, and maybe some film grain added in post. It worked fine, but they were using the two systems in very different situations.

Not to the full extent but just from a pure acquisition perspective, they just felt a little different. I believe the way it will be used in the final movie is the Super16 is part of a flashback. So I don't think they'll be cut together, so I was glad to be able to see them in their pure states.

Pretty sure I could make the Alexa approximate the look of the Super 16 and a colorist would get it even closer, but just seeing how film captured this naturally lit scene on a boat was interesting.

 

[Marc Wielage]

About Kubrick and digital, Spielberg and Kubrick were pretty close and often discussed projects and film tech - Spielberg has never shot on digital and doesn't plan on it in the near future. My personal take is that Kubrick would be on team film acquisition with Spielberg but would be fine with digital presentation.

I think a lot of that is a preference by Janusz Kaminski. Janusz has never shot a feature on digital, but I believe he has done (very high end) commercials on digital. I worked a little bit with one of the assistant editors on War of the World 10 years ago, and they told me Michael Kahn had lobbied for years for Spielberg to switch to digital editing; that film was (mostly) cut on film. Spielberg eventually did allow them to switch to digital not too long after that.

Tintin was "sort of" shot digitally, but that was motion capture. Note that the real budget for shooting on film (for a production with a budget over $60M) is going to be well under $800K for camera rental, raw stock, developing, dailies, and scanning. The final projected results are basicially the same as a digital production; once the image is digital, it stays digital to the end. It's possible to get that number down a lot lower if you shoot less material; I did a $5M indie a few years back (The Kids Are All Right) where the total film budget was under $200K, all in.

My guess is that somebody like Kubrick would test the crap out of everything available and then shoot on whatever gave him the best possible image. Knowing his penchant for 60-70-80 takes, he might well go Alexa 65 or Panavision DXL. I don't know if Eyes Wide Shut was edited on Avid or not, back in 1997-1999.

 

[Christoffer Glans]

My guess is that somebody like Kubrick would test the crap out of everything available and then shoot on whatever gave him the best possible image. Knowing his penchant for 60-70-80 takes, he might well go Alexa 65 or Panavision DXL. I don't know if Eyes Wide Shut was edited on Avid or not, back in 1997-1999.

He would probably create his own custom camera with a company that would provide such a service. That probably means Red since they are the only ones I know who does such things for a specific filmmaker. He would get a custom Red and create his own color science for it. He would probably also do special lenses with smooth internal remote focus.

 

[Robert Hart]

I think he would be like a ten year old kid at the Royal Show in 1960, all eyes and teeth and excited as hell. What a pity he is no longer around to enjoy today's modern tech like natural history guru David Attenborough who recently dove on the Great Barrier Reef in a submersable he could have only dreamed about when he first kicked off in his career.