Kodak's Marketing

[Ryan Patch]

So, I'm at the Palm Springs Short Film Festival, and was amused by Kodak's marketing strategy: they're hosting a "Stop By, Shoot Film" program where participants get to "learn how to use a S16mm camera, and see how easy it is to get the best images you've ever created."

http://www.psfilmfest.org/festival/events/sec.aspx?FID=44&SID=314

Who woulda thought, even 5 years ago, that Kodak would be scrambling like this to market to young filmmakers.

 

[Ryan Sims]

Kodak has been doing this exact thing "Stop By, Shoot Film" program at various film festivals for the past five years (maybe longer). It's not a new program. I left the "film" world a long time ago. No plans on going back.

 

[Matthew Bennett]

Great idea, it's lovely for students to interact with film in some way!

 

[David Rasberry]

Great idea, it's lovely for students to interact with film in some way!

Film schools should not give in completely to digital. It is important to learn the skill set it takes to shoot film well as the principles carry over to the digital world.
It helps to break the automatic everything lazy ENG mentality that video cameras make so easy. Get people really thinking about what goes into an image.

 

[Dan Hudgins]

To film or not to film...

To film or not to film...

Film schools should not give in completely to digital. It is important to learn the skill set it takes to shoot film well as the principles carry over to the digital world.

What is odd, is that film students don't have money, access to labs in out of the way towns, or time to finish on film.

With the lower costs of digital, the speed and ease of use, and not lab fees as well as not high film costs, and the image quality from newer Digital Cinema Cameras being close enough or better than film in some ways, why students would want to learn out-of-date skills.

Their chance of working on a major feature shot on 35mm film are about zero, and shooting 35mm yourself is pointless now, as the money is better put into sets and costumes.

Having done all aspects of film work from load to project, I can say that anyone who thinks dust mitigation is not a big deal has not tried to frame line cut negative without using TCE, and an untrasonic cleaner (something else you have to pay the lab to do for you also, plus shipping).

What are people using now for film print lube that you can no longer get TCE anyway? What do you add to Perc for lube and where do you purchase it? ("green" prints chatter too much in our 35mm DeVry interlock projector)

 

[Martin Weiss]

I'm glad I learned on film - it makes you more conscious about your choices. Each time you roll the camera, it costs. Each time you make an edit, is takes some physical effort. Each time you add a sound, you have to sync it with all the sound tracks.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

We have over a 100 years of cinema shot on film, so I think it's nice if students get to handle it, get a feel for what was involved for so many of the great filmmakers and cinematographers of the past.

 

[David Rasberry]

What is odd, is that film students don't have money, access to labs in out of the way towns, or time to finish on film.

With the lower costs of digital, the speed and ease of use, and not lab fees as well as not high film costs, and the image quality from newer Digital Cinema Cameras being close enough or better than film in some ways, why students would want to learn out-of-date skills.

I spent my early production career mostly shooting film for video finish. One does not have to go through the whole film chain to release print process to benefit from film as a medium.
It is the discipline of learning to expose and shoot film for consistent predictable results without relying on a host of electronic crutches that is most important: lighting, color balance, contrast ratios, latitude, dynamic range, filtering. These are important skills to learn for any photographic medium.
Shooting film well demands forethought and discipline that the immediacy of video doesn't require. Ease of use is exactly the problem with video. With video alone most students won't take the opportunity to explore that interface of light to medium that is the essence of photography to the fullest possible extent. Film is still the golden standard by which every other medium is judged. Your education is incomplete without the direct experience of dealing with it even if you never touch a film camera again.

 

[Leo Ticheli]

Let's be honest about this. As a tool for learning the art of cinematography, film sucks.
Why? The delay between shooting and seeing the results of what we did; this simply cannot be overcome.

I strongly disagree that the immediacy of video is somehow a "crutch." Real-time monitoring and immediate playback are tools, not crutches. Does shooting video somehow diminish the importance of lighting, color balance, contrast ratios, latitude, dynamic range, filtering, etc. etc.? Of course not! And shooting video allows us to instantly see the results of our setups and modify them on the spot. This is the way learning should be.

Would we teach marksmanship by having the student shoot and then find out the next day where the bullet hit? Obviously not. Shooting video, would we deliberately turn off our HD monitors and light only by eye on the scene? Certainly that's the way most of us start, but who does not tweak if the image on the monitor demands it?

This is not a "film is dead" discussion; the endgame should be obvious to anyone who understands cost/benefit and the inexorable march of technology. Film costs a lot and the price is not heading down. Period. Video gets better at a steady pace with no end in sight, and it's virtually free. I know there are storage costs, but those are also dropping precipitously while the costs of film archiving are definitely not dropping.

Good shooting and best regards,

Leo

 

[Elsie N]

If there was ever a chance that film would in some way make a future comeback, I could see students needing to know about it. But I think film is sorta like Morse Code... it's nice to know if you want to work in a museum or in an archive, but if your goal is to use the current technology for communicating, then you should train in that technology.

 

[Elsie N]

We have over a 100 years of cinema shot on film, so I think it's nice if students get to handle it, get a feel for what was involved for so many of the great filmmakers and cinematographers of the past.

I also think it is good to have a sense of what came before.

 

[Leo Ticheli]

Just to be clear, I'm not saying that film shouldn't be taught! As doubtful as the long-term future of film may be, it's going to stick around for a long time and film students need to know how to shoot it and how the complete process works. Obviously much of the old workflow is gone, such as printing lights and optical titles.

I am saying that it's awful as a teaching tool for the arts and crafts of image making, composition & lighting, etc. for the reasons I stated.

Good shooting and best regards,

Leo

 

[David Rasberry]

Let's be honest about this. As a tool for learning the art of cinematography, film sucks.
Why? The delay between shooting and seeing the results of what we did; this simply cannot be overcome.

I strongly disagree that the immediacy of video is somehow a "crutch." Real-time monitoring and immediate playback are tools, not crutches. Does shooting video somehow diminish the importance of lighting, color balance, contrast ratios, latitude, dynamic range, filtering, etc. etc.? Of course not! And shooting video allows us to instantly see the results of our setups and modify them on the spot. This is the way learning should be.

Would we teach marksmanship by having the student shoot and then find out the next day where the bullet hit? Obviously not. Shooting video, would we deliberately turn off our HD monitors and light only by eye on the scene? Certainly that's the way most of us start, but who does not tweak if the image on the monitor demands it?

This is not a "film is dead" discussion; the endgame should be obvious to anyone who understands cost/benefit and the inexorable march of technology. Film costs a lot and the price is not heading down. Period. Video gets better at a steady pace with no end in sight, and it's virtually free. I know there are storage costs, but those are also dropping precipitously while the costs of film archiving are definitely not dropping.

Good shooting and best regards,

Leo

I don't disagree with this for the most part Leo.
My stepson just finished film school at SUNY Purchase and before that spent a year in the NYFA program. Both required a mix of mediums, most of it was video obviously, but shooting 16mm and finishing video from one light transfers was also part of the requirement. He learned valuable lessons about the process of exposure control, latitude and dynamics shooting film precisely because the feedback is not instantaneous and one has to actually think it through ahead of time and deal directly with the measurement,manipulation, and judgment of light independent of an image on a monitor.
Within a couple of more technology cycles it will likely become moot anyway. Film as an acquisition medium is fading quickly as digital reaches similar performance capabilities. But that level of performance in digital cameras is a very recent phenomenon. It did not exist four years ago when Matt started the SUNY program.

 

[Hans von Sonntag]

I'm teaching at university. And I'd say that the RedOne is a blessing.

It gives the students the possibility to work with a camera that has most of the troubles of 35mm (except the fear for a black image) and does not cost a fortune if we talk about stock, development and transfer. With the RedOne students learn all the important film designing skills such as DOF, FOF and lighting without the high costs of 35mm. In the end we are realizing much more projects and learn more in-depth knowledge than with 35mm because we can shoot much more footage.

I never went myself to university but bought my own Arri SR S16 camera and invested a lot of money in stock, development and telecine to teach myself - a kind of a private university. I love film and to me it's always been the "only" right format. The last two years I haven't shot one single frame on 35mm. I'm missing it but then I know that times change and post production is becoming more and more important. Not only for me but also for the students. For my own projects I invested into a Autodesk Smoke and not into a MX sensor upgrade. For an ex-DP a tough decision but based on the markets demands.

This and the fact that for film students budget is an important fact I did not put much effort into shooting a student project on 35mm. I find it more important to focus onto lighting (instant feedback with digital), colour correction and the overall post production not to mention storytelling.

35mm is not gone yet. But it surely is not a format that is required to make successful films. I don't see a point teaching 35mm if we talk about filmmaking in a whole. 35mm's costs would draw away budget from more important things in the process of filmmaking such as talent, location and post production.

I the pro world with sufficient budgets the format one chooses is an artistic decision, of course. How ever, this does not apply for under-financed projects at university.

Hans

 

[Peter Hodgins]

This is not a "film is dead" discussion;

No, that discussion is over. But is Kodak, that great American Icon dead? Maybe they should partner up with RDC and Adobe or FCP and Apple.

 

[Ryan Sims]

Here's some old links on my thoughts about RED and film school back when the REDone had just been released.

RED should be well suited for schools. It's an all manual camera. You'll learn a lot more from it than an all auto DVX or PD150. RED is a cinema camera. The best benefit is that a RED will not cost you $200 in film and lab work to just see your under-exposed, out-of-focus class projects.

Asking a student to shoot and edit film to appreciate the masters now after RED is like telling the kid he can't enjoy a Playstation3 until he has mastered Pong and completed all levels of Pacman. Checking the gate?

I was forced to take FORTRAN as a computer language as well in college to get my degree. C was a non-credited option in another department. I never have used FORTRAN again, but I sure could have C.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

Personally I think that students don't get enough history of cinematography, and when someone asks WHY a particular movie looks the way it does, it's hard to avoid discussing the state of film technology in the day, and nothing gives a student a brief time machine into the past that loading some film into a camera, shooting something, and looking at the print. Talking and reading about it is important too, but getting your hands dirty is useful.

No, it's not necessarily the most practical or cost-efficient teaching method in the digital age, but there is nothing wrong with injecting a little romance into a lesson. I think it's important to get an understanding of the photochemical process which allows light to be converted into silver and retain an image. It's almost like alchemy.

To use your Playstation analogy, it would be like teaching a course in the history of computer games and not covering anything before this decade. Where we are today is partly due to the years of discovery and invention before us, and to not respect that and honor those pioneers when teaching the fundamentals of your chosen art form is to render it a somewhat soulless topic. I mean, how can anyone really study David Fincher's movies without learning anything about Kubrick? And how can one understand Kubrick without studying Ophuls or Welles?

I'm not saying that a student can't learn filmmaking without using film, just that it would enhance the learning experience if he tried it at least once. We're talking about an artform here, there should be some depth and some expansiveness in its teaching, not turn a film school into a technical trade school.

 

[Dan Hudgins]

True RAW vs. Film

True RAW vs. Film

Your education is incomplete without the direct experience of dealing with it even if you never touch a film camera again.

If you give a film student 300' of 16mm film and let him shoot for a day, the get back a "one light" video transfer (not "best light"), for the most part all he will learn is film is hard to expose right to get a one light transfer to look good.

If he never shoots film again, all he will remember is how much better video is to film for getting usable results on the first try.

To learn how to shoot film well takes years of shooting film and looking at a workprint on a movie screen to see the exact effect of exposure, filters, and lighting and gels on the windows and lights, line voltage and all the other issues with light K value that auto-white-balance have done away with.

==

If you give a film student a true RAW Digital Cinema Camera he can shoot all year 100 shots a day at no "cost" and that is a MUCH better way to learn expsoure than shooting movie film.

If you want students to learn film exposure have them shoot slide film in an SLR and look at it on a screen with a slide projector, its lower in cost, can be processed in two hours at the school lab, and lets them see the results of their mistakes on a shorter cycle at lower cost, and without any grading.

A DLSR can be set to Manual exposure and get more or less the same result if you save in RAW mode and use manual de-Bayer software like I am working on now, at lower cost and faster turn around.

Something like the Acam dII that shoots true RAW and has open DNG file format lets film students get the "film expsoure" experence more than shooting a camcorder, and lets them LEARN from their exposure mistakes by doing things over again, something that they cannot afford to do on film because of the high cost and long cycle time.

If you have a 6 month cource and shoot film and need to ship each roll to LA or NY for processing, it is going to take about week to see what you shoot, and cost $50 or so for each edited minute. If you use an Acam dII you have the true RAW files in a few minutes at almost no cost, and the exposure range is close to slide film or Kodachrome so its better for learning expsoure control since you have less latitude and no auto-white-balance if you use manual de-Bayer.

The same will be true to some extent with Scarlet, except you will not have the option of DNG output for true RAW manual processing, but you may be able to leave the ISO and K fixed, and save a linear light TIFF and use that like a linear DNG (linear DNG are RGB not Bayer) so that is close to a "one light" and the student can learn how to expose for that.

Maybe it is good to learn to use filters and such, but in the real world people will use auto-white-balance and other features of their Digital Cinema Cameras, so students need to learn how to use those features, and in the short time they have to learn the skills that will get them work, do they have time to waste learning about "dead" arts? And it does take time to learn how to expose film right, and many cycles.

Stanley Kubrick's first feature film had so many exposure problems and other issues he purchased back all the prints and tried to destroy them so that people would not see his "education".

If you are just making a one-light-transfer to video files, rather than a workprint, then how is shooting film any different from using a DNG based camera?

You say "film has more highlight detail and latitude?, well that means that learning to shoot true RAW takes MORE discipline, not less, because the current sensors are a little less forgiving.

 

[David Rasberry]

Matt had to plan and shoot complete short films on 16mm as part of his requirements. For some projects, students were allowed to choose film or video as they preferred. A few did have the money to spend several thousand dollars on film and processing. In many cases they shot black and white, an education in itself. I guess the more appropriate term would be "best light" transfer rather than one light, as they did participate in the transfer process in some cases. But this is in NY.
I'm not questioning the ultimate shift to digital, but that doesn't negate the value of the experience of shooting film any more than learning digital media negates the value of learning to paint with oils for a fine artist, or to draw with pencil and paper.
Digital raw motion cameras are still very rare in most university film schools and will be for some time, Red 1 being the only practical reasonable cost solution for that at present. Like Scarlet the Acam DII is not available yet.
Video is in many ways an unsatisfactory substitute
The extra sensitivity and dynamic range afforded by film is a valuable tool to have access to. It opens a broader range of creative choices.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

We're talking about an artform here -- filmmaking in general and cinematography in specific -- it shouldn't be taught in a completely technical manner.