Is film dead?

[Kacey Baker]

Film may not be totally dead, but it's certainly been replaced.

Robocop
X Men
Iron Man 3
Sky Fall
Pacific Rim
Hobbit
World War Z
Kick Arse 2
The Conjouring
Whitehouse Down
Captain America 2
RIPD
The Avengers
Godzilla
Elysium
This is the end
The Great Gatsby
Oblivion
Grown Ups 2
The Amazing Spiderman

All digital.

And for the record, IMOP, hated the look and feel of Man Of Steel, would have loved to have seen it shot on digital non hand held.... gritty aint Superman as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Terry VerHaar]

The brightest future for film may be for archival use.

 

[Marc Wielage]

Read this list:

http://motion.kodak.com/motion/Customers/Productions/index.htm

Star Trek: Into Darkness
Lone Ranger
Hunger Games
Hangover 3
Fast & Furious 6
Mud
Blue Jasmine
Amazing Spiderman 2
Men in Black 3
Now You See Me
The Butler
G.I. Joe
Percy Jackson
Don Jon
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Star Wars: Episode 7

There's a lot of surprisingly big movies still being shot on film. I think there's three things to remember:

1) the visual look is going to be influenced more by the work of the cinematographer; the lighting, the lenses, and the exposure are arguably more important than the capture format per se, assuming that you start at a reasonably pro level

2) even film images are heavily, heavily manipulated in post these days, so there's almost always some "digital" involved, particularly when VFX and color correction are involved

3) shooting on film basically costs adds $25,000 a day to an average feature production. If you assume a modest 30-day schedule, you're looking at another $400K to the budget. Bear in mind that digital cameras are typically three times more expensive to rent than a film camera, and the lenses and mounts actually can cost more than the camera rental. If you have a production where the budget is already $20 million or above, shooting on film might potentially cost less than the catering for a production that size.

It's amazing the number of people that slam shooting on film who have never shot on film before. I think there are good things and bad things about shooting on digital, and I also believe the best DPs have no problem switching back and forth. It's just another medium -- it's not a way of life.

 

[Mark Toia]

It'll die when the old schoolers die...

I'll rephrase that....

It'll die off when it becomes unaffordable to make or use or develop or scan...

Phil's correct, it's all paint.

 

[M Most]

It'll die when the old schoolers die...

I would hardly classify Chris Nolan and J.J. Abrams as "old schoolers."

I don't understand the point of this entire thread. Why should anyone here care if film is still being shot? If you don't want to use it, don't. If you do, then do. What difference does it make? Why does everything have to turn into some sort of contest?

 

[Phil Holland]

It's just paint. And that paint set a bar, which is a good thing.

Film is a medium. Luckily for everybody there are several different mediums out there now.

It's all just paint.

 

[Kacey Baker]

I would hardly classify Chris Nolan and J.J. Abrams as "old schoolers."

I don't understand the point of this entire thread. Why should anyone here care if film is still being shot? If you don't want to use it, don't. If you do, then do. What difference does it make? Why does everything have to turn into some sort of contest?

Where did I at any point state I did not want to use film, and further more Mark did not single out Nolan and Abrams. Why are you starting arguments with words no body ever said

The point of this thread? Was off the back of some interesting late night reading and wanted to demonstrate just how popular digital has become with a list. I never said film is dead, I asked the question, after all this is digital cinema forum and I don't need your approval to decide if it's relevant or not, of course its relevant.... this is a digital forum

 

[Kacey Baker]

It's just paint. And that paint set a bar, which is a good thing.

Film is a medium. Luckily for everybody there are several different mediums out there now.

It's all just paint.

Love it.

 

[Pablo Moreno]

Prediction: Even Kodak is going to jump into digital, if they manage to replicate the look of their film stocks in digital all the way, is just a matter of time.. if that happens, remember me..

 

[Marc Wielage]

It's just paint. And that paint set a bar, which is a good thing. Film is a medium. Luckily for everybody there are several different mediums out there now.

Very well-said, Phil. My joke is, "I don't care if they shot Lone Ranger on a Red, the Alexa, or an iPhone, the movie still would've been a bomb."

What you tell the story with is not as important as how you tell the story. The camera won't make it good, it won't light the movie for you, and it won't make the movie successful (or a bomb). The camera itself does very little of the work.

If it were that easy, I could buy the same word processing program that Stephen King uses and crank out 50 best-sellers, like he has. It's the archer, not the arrows.

I never said film is dead, I asked the question, after all this is digital cinema forum...

You said:

"Film may not be totally dead, but it's certainly been replaced."

and my point was: film has not been replaced for some filmmakers at a certain budget level. Rabble-rousing sweeping generalizations will always inspire a comeback, especially on the net.

And I again say that it's interesting to note how few filmmakers under 30 have actually never shot film before. It's sad, because I think it's educational to understand why film ruled the industry for 100 years, and what we lost (and what we gained) going to digital. What's surprising to me is how many TV shows continue to shoot on film; I would've thought this would be a market where it would go 100% to 24fps digital HD a long time ago, but it's taken much longer than I expected.

Ultimately, I don't care what the director and DP choose to shoot on, as long as it looks good, it's efficient, it's reliable, and it tells the story. My advice has always been, "the good thing about film is that if you screw up exposing it, there's usually a way to salvage it in post. Digital is much more unkind in that regard, especially in overexposure." And that goes across all cameras.

 

[Christopher Mills]

3) shooting on film basically costs adds $25,000 a day to an average feature production. If you assume a modest 30-day schedule, you're looking at another $400K to the budget. Bear in mind that digital cameras are typically three times more expensive to rent than a film camera, and the lenses and mounts actually can cost more than the camera rental. If you have a production where the budget is already $20 million or above, shooting on film might potentially cost less than the catering for a production that size.

Seems high to me..
Having just shot a 1 day shoot on film for $3500.. where film was the entire budget

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

Film is nearly dead. It's one perfect 3DLUT away from extinction. I don't think anyone enjoys shooting *film* they just like the product. It's only a matter of time before there is a product which perfectly bit for bit matches a scan of a negative. At that point film will only be a drawback. Film isn't like paint or sculpture where the digital equivalent is a largely different process. To a DP or Director film is as much a black box process as digital. Box attaches to camera. Someone pushes a red button and later they see dailies. If they really want the clatter of film someone could always embed a tiny speaker and play back a recording of a film camera. There's something to holding a brush and letting the paint dry that's incredibly difficult to impossible to reproduce even in something like Corel Painter. Comare that to every single feature film is run through a DI now. That's to say... every major film is digital now. Some just more so than others.

As to its usability as an archive medium... I say over rated, for the cost of archiving a film on film you could make 100 LTO tapes and store them in locations around the world. Sure 50 of them will undoubtedly die and 30 more will have glitches... but 20 will be perfect. And I will wager that finding a functioning LTO tape deck will be far easier than finding a functioning spirit or Davinci in 30 years. In fact you could afford with the cost difference of printing out a couple film prints to buy a palate of LTO decks on ebay in 30 years and undoubtedly find a functioning one.

 

[mikeburton]

Well, I'm shooting film this week on our Arri 435es on Kodak 5219, 5213 and 5207. I haven't shot with it for about 6 months so other than practicing loading the mag again I'm sure its going to be a blast. I'm actually really excited about it. Its so rare an opportunity I get anymore to shoot with film that when i do it excites me all over again like the first time. The wait for processing / Scans doesn't discourage, but rather excites me. I know what will be there but its always amazing to see once it goes up for the first time in our screening room. Its a different process and discipline. There's something way more rewarding about it to me. And the images are always stunning.

 

[Will Keir]

Yup, with less trying time though.

It's just paint.

 

[M Most]

What's surprising to me is how many TV shows continue to shoot on film; I would've thought this would be a market where it would go 100% to 24fps digital HD a long time ago, but it's taken much longer than I expected.

There are very, very few television series still on film. Going into this season, I count only 6: Boardwalk Empire, Two and a Half Men (believe it or not), Grey's Anatomy, The Walking Dead, American Horror Story, and True Blood. Since True Blood won't start shooting their final season for a little while, that's still an open book. I guess you could also count Breaking Bad, but they're already wrapped. And I believe Glee has switched to Alexa for this coming season as The Mentalist did last year and Mad Men did the year before that.

 

[M Most]

As to its usability as an archive medium... I say over rated, for the cost of archiving a film on film you could make 100 LTO tapes and store them in locations around the world. Sure 50 of them will undoubtedly die and 30 more will have glitches... but 20 will be perfect. And I will wager that finding a functioning LTO tape deck will be far easier than finding a functioning spirit or Davinci in 30 years. In fact you could afford with the cost difference of printing out a couple film prints to buy a palate of LTO decks on ebay in 30 years and undoubtedly find a functioning one.

Every person involved in archival operations disagrees with you. The archiving of digital assets is the biggest single problem the industry now faces. It's not a matter of finding decks, and it's not a matter of finding scanners. Film retains an image that is recovered simply by shining a light through it, regardless of the technology that records the resullt. All digital formats need not only the hardware that can read the stored media, but a description of the format of the media, the format of the files contained on it, the compression scheme used (if used), and other details. And this is IF it survives. There is no real current solution to digital archiving today beyond constant migration of the assets, something that is costly and not always practical. There are many entities working on the problem, but dismissing film as an archival medium goes against what every archivist is currently doing.

 

[Blair S. Paulsen]

Film is still the best archival medium available. I make that claim buttressed by the fact that we actually have a hundred years of data to analyze.

Keep in mind that while the rapid pace of technological change is enabling some amazing capabilities, it's anathema to crucial metrics used in evaluating archive viability.

Cheers - #19

 

[Blair S. Paulsen]

There are very, very few television series still on film. Going into this season, I count only 6: Boardwalk Empire, Two and a Half Men (believe it or not), Grey's Anatomy, The Walking Dead, American Horror Story, and True Blood. Since True Blood won't start shooting their final season for a little while, that's still an open book. I guess you could also count Breaking Bad, but they're already wrapped. And I believe Glee has switched to Alexa for this coming season as The Mentalist did last year and Mad Men did the year before that.

I thought Grey's Anatomy was still a film show. I guess I haven't been keeping up.

Cheers - #19

 

[M Most]

I thought Grey's Anatomy was still a film show. I guess I haven't been keeping up.

Isn't that what I just said? :001_huh:

 

[Les Hillis]

Film smells better. Old or fresh, processed or unprocessed. It feels better in the hand and between the fingers. In terms of actual taste, I couldn't honestly say, but film is undoubtedly better to chew on. It's physical form is more aesthetically pleasing and sculpturally versatile than digital. It's colours and tones are more tantalizing when held up to a light source and viewed with the naked eye. It has more potential uses as an improvised weapon and rescue or restraining tool than digital media. All in all it still has a lot going for it compared to digital. But times have changed, the world is moving on. As it will, as it must. There's no cause for fretting or mourning though. The film that already is, will remain. And the film that is yet to be, will be. All things in this world are temporary and fleeting and film is part of that. It's only natural that it eventually becomes the stuff of memories and legends. What's important is that you were there with it, sharing all those beautiful, priceless moments together. Moments that, at their essence, continue on today, and tomorrow, and forever. Enjoy it while you can, then let it go. It wasn't the film that you loved, but the love itself that found form in the film. The forms change, but the love remains. That can never be taken away from you, you simply choose to either ignore it or embrace it. So I say, embrace it, be with it, even now in this digital age. The digital, technological means are there, it's up to you to make use of them, just like it always was.

The film is dead, long live the film!