Kodak's Marketing

[Frank Weeks]

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.

Really well put. Having shot since the 70's (yea I'm old) I remember the first time I shot film. The one light I received was so disappointing. Wow. It wasn't magic. Red gives you the chance to learn cinematography without the cost of stock, transfer and color correction. Red is the camera I dreamed of when I began in this business. A camera that shoots like video and has the ability to look like film. All you have to do is understand the basics of Cinematography. Red is not a magic wand. It is a huge leap forward in technology and a bargain for anyone with a clue. Shoot. practice, learn. With Red it won't cost you anything but time.

 

[Elsie N]

But I wonder if say, in the 1930s just to pick an arbitrary decade, if digital had suddenly become available... would all the great movies since then have been made on film or digital? And if digital, would they still have been art, only crafted differently?

But to complement David's point, the pre-1930s work would still be historical and should be studied. Yet I'm swayed by Dan Hudgins's argument that teaching film is no longer practical.

Someday film will not be readily avalable and the discussion will be moot. In the meantime, maybe it should be left up to the students themselves. Those who are interested should have an avenue to experience film. Those who just want to move forward should not have to.

I guess that's kinda what the Kodak booth is there for.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

Yet I'm swayed by Dan Hudgins's argument that teaching film is no longer practical.

I'm not arguing practicality, but I also disagree with the notion that film is too expensive for students to shoot and learn on, because film students have been managing to do just that for decades, so suddenly it's no longer possible??? I taught myself filmmaking with a decade of shooting Super-8, and then I shot over 16 short films in film school in 16mm.

I'm also an advocate for shooting digital as well because it is cheaper and it is the way most movies are going to be shot. But I don't get this notion that there is nothing to be gained by shooting a roll of film now & then! Jeez, you guys make it out like it's some sort of crime to even suggest that a student load a 100' roll of 16mm into an Arri-S and shoot something with it. It's like telling a painter that oils take too long to dry and he can learn everything he needs to know by painting with acrylics. Sometimes an artist works with more expensive materials... maybe he does this sparingly, like putting some gold leaf in a work of art, but he should have the option of doing so if it inspires him.

Again, we should be training future artists, not only technicians and engineers. And a beginning artist should have some fun exploring different materials and processes! Film school shouldn't turn into some sort of technical boot camp.

Film doesn't have to die for digital to succeed. Give the old girl some respect.

 

[Dan Hudgins]

Plus-X

Plus-X

Again, we should be training future artists, not only technicians and engineers. And a beginning artist should have some fun exploring different materials and processes. Film school shouldn't turn into some sort of technical boot camp.

What about a true RAW Digital Cinema Camera is less "artfull" than film?

Say, lets shoot Plus-X on our next "art" project, Oh, its not made any more, no more "fine grain" black and white film to shoot, so our art must be on granny Double-X, how many weeks before Kodak stops making that also? Lets shoot Agfa 362 why not, its not made any more, how about two strip Technicolor? 4-X?...

http://motion.kodak.com/US/en/motion/Products/Discontinued_Films/index.htm

http://www.cinematography.com/index.php?showtopic=45391

Quote: [This is a real bummer. I shoot 5222 and 5231 in my stills camera. Just glad I have some cans in the freezer but will visit my supplier today!]

(Don't keep it in the freezer TOO long, or there will be no lab to process it at)

Its not like "oil paint" that you can make yourself, film is not something anyone is going to make for their own use, and it is not going to be produced.

Its harder for film students outside of a few major cities to find a lab to work with, so the postage costs can get very high as not everyone who would like to make "cinema" has that cash, and my point was its BETTER to spend the cash on what is in front of the camera rather than lab and postage when you are counting pennies!

I have had a standing offer to PAY for 35mm film to shoot a feature in black and white (details on request) and to post the film to shake down our scanner and my DI system. Everytime the realities of shooting with a Mitchell NC, Eyemo, or 2709 comes into the picture at EI 3, people drop out, and its just too hard for me to lug all that around and driect and set lights by myself any longer. The days of shooting something like "Eraser Head" have past, and if you did shoot it where could you get it shown, not in a multi-plex?

"Everything" you do with a movie camera you can do with a True RAW Digital Cinema camera, you can use the same filters for manual color balance etc, you can use the same lenses, you can use extended dynamic range processing to get better than Kodachrome latitude (film students shot EF/VNF/ECO/Kodachrome before, shooting negative for transfer came in as film departments started conversion from film editing, A/B rolling, to digital editing on MACs etc.). How does getting dust, gate hairs, and camera scratches on your images, along with low resolution, heavy grain, and processing marks such as jet backing spots make it better let alone more "artful" than true RAW digital shooting?

Much of what people today think of as "film" look is not what the FILM looks like, software like ARRI relativity is used to "beautify" film, especially Super16mm. Without such processing film does not look the way people think it does, if you see original prints of film-to-film printing without DI, you can see dust and other marks all over it.

It seems the advocacy is that "film", probably "Vision 3" has an advantage over shooting Digital, well that will change very soon I would think, and you can use ARRI relativity on true RAW frames just as easy as film scans.

If you look at your film scans using a 4:2:2 tape, the chroma low pass makes the high chroma noise in film look better than it is, the noise in the yellow dye layer is huge. So what is the "film" aspect that digital cinema in True RAW cannot capture? SI-2K can output true RAW DNG, as can Kinor-2K and soon Acam dII, and it seems Epic will soon have "lossless" output, if it does then it can make Bayer type DNG as well.

Attached is a un-beautified (no low pass filter or temporal filtering) scan of a Super16 frame shot by another REDUSER and sent to me at my request to post here as an example of Super16 quality, it was made I think on Vision 2 with a Zeiss lens on an ARRI Super16 camera.

It cannot be sharpened like a digital image because the grain in the film is too high even in a RAW image without "extra" sharpen.

I don't know what software your lab is using to process the scans you are looking at, but some kind of low pass filter or temporal filters must be in use before you see the image because Super16mm RAW film scans look MUCH worse than even a HD true RAW Digital Cinema such as the example Acam dII frames I have been looking at close up on my 2K monotor. Side by Side, film is just not equal. Even the Kodak Digital LAD image looks at bit soft, and shows signs that it was sharpened if you look at the edge of the image near the black frame lines.

If someone has some more Super16, or 35mm camera negative scraps I can scan I would like to see WHAT you are talking about, since I have not found any film scans of real shots of people in movie roles that exceed the overall resolution of the REDONE sample images I have to view. Our scanner uses a Printing Nikkor so probably gets over the resolution of the best camera lens and all I see is grain and muck on the film when it is in focus, the image spots are about 9 pixels to 25 pixels in area at about 4K. So if you have a good negative scrap, you can let me scan it and we can all see what it looks like vs. any Digital Cinema Camera's results.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

What about a true RAW Digital Cinema Camera is less "artfull" than film?

I never said that. I just said that artists should be allowed to explore different media, techniques, processes, etc. and that a one-size-fits-all mentality may make logical, practical, and financial sense... but that's not how artists think. You're talking about logic, efficiency, flexibility, practicality... I'm talking about playing around with different tools and techniques, having some fun getting your hands dirty, making mistakes.

Shooting flawless high-resolution wide-latitude RAW digital images and doing image processing in post to create looks is certainly a valid way of expressing an artistic idea BUT IT'S NOT THE ONLY WAY TO MAKE MOVIES.

You seem to think that I'm suggesting that film schools not teach digital and students not shoot digital, when all I'm saying is that playing around with a roll of film now & then may be fun. You're acting like I'm suggesting that students take up a heroin or something bad like that. I don't get it, it shouldn't become a big deal to suggest that a student shoot a roll of film!

I don't subscribe to any notion that film = art and digital somehow is the opposite, but I also don't subscribe to the notion that we should all just shoot the same technology because we can do whatever we want to the image in post anyway. If someone wants to shoot with some funky old lens on a digital camera, then why not? If someone wants to shoot some Super-8 film, why not? Why not play around and try different things when you are young? This isn't an argument for resolution or some other level of technical quality.

 

[Dan Hudgins]

Play...

Play...

I'm talking about playing around with different tools and techniques, having some fun getting your hands dirty, making mistakes.

I'm not stopping people from "playing" but one day Kodak and Fuji may.

Nobody wanted to "play" filmmaking in 35mm with me because the cameras, tripods, lights and other stuf are too heavy to pack around, and they have ADHD, a life, or something and cannot work 12 hour days for 6 months.

Film School seems to be something different from "art school"? Maybe that is the issue, if I was a parent paying for my kid to learn a profession, I would rather they teach something useful than have him "play" with out of date formats.

 

[Ryan Sims]

You guys(gals) are why I love REDUSER.

 

[Jason Rudd]

Not at all. I know plenty of film students, community college all the way to USC/NYU, who are quite stoked seeing their first reel of film back from the lab, over exposed, underexposed, base side out, all the flaws that come with film emulsions and processing. As long as they see image, they're pretty much impressed, they're not at all discouraged. What do you think these people expect from their first rolls? What's the fun of having perfect looking imagery right off the bat? Where's the challenge and experimentation and learning? The only drawback of shooting film is not the process, not the craft, not the dust or scratches, nor the steep learning curve. For most young folk... it's the cost.

Many of you aren't giving kids that much credit. Young filmmakers are just as hard headed as the previous generation. They want all the options and they want the best format that suits their stories. Most of the guys/girls I know who are going to film school very much expect to be learn about film. They may not shoot their 30 minute shorts with it, but they respect the craft enough to know that it is one of the many reasons they want to go to film school: to learn how to load film cameras and shoot film. It's not something they can learn from a hvx200 manual on their own.

As it stands now, the faculty of most established film schools, USC, LMU, NYU, AFI, and UCLA, seem to be in agreement with the esteemed David Mullen. Film shooting is still very much discussed and encouraged by faculty. In some schools like LMU grad, the option to shoot HD or RED has only recently been allowed.

I'm not stopping people from "playing" but one day Kodak and Fuji may.

 

[Jeff Coatney]

The future fate of film is spilling into the Gulf of Mexico right now.

 

[Gunleik Groven]

I think sincerely that learning people to expose film is the best way for them to understand the RED. I see again and again that people with a video background struggles more with the exposure and workflow than people with a film background.

They basically say:
Daylight stock at 320 asa. OK I'm fine.

And it often looks very good.

So Kodak is IMHO doing RED a a favor - of anything - by educating people and learning them that:

NOPE. LIght is not digital. Nor is white-ballance.
It's physics. Analogue. And fun.

My 2c
Gunleik
Video-dude... -

 

[Tom Gleeson]

Bring out your dead....but I'm not Dead yet !

Bring out your dead....but I'm not Dead yet !

Their is a tone and position in this thread that Film is dead and is now a part of history. This at the present moment is not true. Film is still creating history and creating the most pleasing images of all the capture mediums. Its only Achilles heal is cost. If a 400' can of 35mm was $50 to purchase and process most digital cameras would struggle to make an impact.
As a Red owner and user of many other digital cameras I am not taking a biased position. I just know when well shot 35mm film is laced up on a good Telecine with a talented colourist, magic is going to happen. But don't flame me I also know well shot cine-digital material can be so good as to be indistinguishable from 35mm film but usually only in the hands of top notch cinematographers.
If there is no budget or technical restrictions film would be my first choice for narrative drama as it would be for many. To kill off film and assign in to the history books is premature. To close the page on Film Cine-digital cameras need to be better than Film and I concede that day is drawing closer. Where is my FF Epic?

 

[Cal Brunker]

For me the benefit of a student shooting film is learning how the process changes, where every second the camera is rolling costs money. It absolutely changes the way you shoot. For people who have been shooting film forever, having a RED on set is not so different. For people who have been shooting video only their whole lives, thinking about spending a 100$ on a take alters their approach (and I think, in most cases for the better).

I think school is a place to expand your education of a subject as a whole, not just learn a trade so you can go to work as a cog in a wheel. If anywhere should be the place to play around with this stuff, it's film school.

That said, I think they shouldn't need to do more than 20% of their shooting on film, as I believe shooting a lot without the pressure to get it right is an integral part of learning.

Cal

 

[Leo Ticheli]

Let's not forget two damning aspects of shooting film; the actor's performance and the chemical process.

Certainly we are more careful, more deliberate shooting film because every take costs money. Unfortunately, often the best, the absolutely unique, performance occurs on the first or second run through. Unless that take is captured, it may never recur, even with a hundred takes, which most of us can't afford anyway. Video is the actor's friend; every run is in the can. OK, no more cans, although I find myself still calling the digital media, "cans."

Worst of all, film uses natural resources and the manufacture and processing are not so good for the planet.

The beauty of the film esthetic needs no defending, but it's time is at hand.

Good shooting and best regards,

Leo

 

[Elsie N]

Their is a tone and position in this thread that Film is dead and is now a part of history. This at the present moment is not true.

I agree that film is not dead. It is, however, pretty much reserved for the elite. As a member of the *"Great Unwashed" it has never existed for me. Mini DV was about as close as I ever got to it so I have no sentimental ties to it as a user. I would dearly dread having to go back and fool with the messy stuff knowing that I was just doing film school "making work." Teaching methods in any school are usually well behind the curve because, let's face it, the teachers by-and-large quit actively learning when they get their jobs and start teaching what they have spent a majority of their lives learning. Sure they stay up with the latest ideas but don't necessarily "learn" them. In a lesson plan they may casually mention the new just so they appear to be in the know. And it's hard to do what Hans von Sonntag has done and make a clean break for his students' benefit.

It may take more austerity in the movie-making business to finally finish film as acquisition media. That and the fact that someday even the older elite may have a digital camera that they will feel sets them apart from the rest of the industry and they can adopt that as their "you can't touch this" tool.

* I credit Blackie Sherrod, a sportswriter for the Dallas Morning News for introducing me to this term. I do not know if he got it elsewhere or if it was original.

 

[David Rasberry]

Success and failure are both a part of any learning process. Matt learned the difference between latitude and dynamic range the hard way when he deliberately shot a roll of Kodak color neg 3 stops under without pushing it in the lab.
The efficient shooting discipline that film forces is valuable for shooting digital too. Shooting hours of takes where one needs minutes may be an affordable luxury with digital, but it is still costly and inefficient for a production as a whole in the professional world.
Film students may not have the practical option to shoot film for many more years as film stocks and labs gradually disappear and costs escalate. But that doesn't mean they shouldn't take advantage of the opportunity while it still exists.

 

[Leo Ticheli]

For students, is shooting film akin to studying Latin? Certainly Latin is useful, as it teaches the derivation of some words, those with Latin roots; I might suggest that much of the study of Latin is useless, except for learning study skills. The study of Etymology is far, far more useful, as it's not restricted to one language.

Similarly, much of the study of film is useless for shooting video; why spend time learning things that are completely passe? Just as Latin is helpful, only part of it applies to shooting with today's electronic tools.

Don't get me wrong; I'm a big fan of archaic crafts, glass blowing, blacksmithing, even a bit of film for students, but only for a historical perspective, the "art" in arts and science.

Good shooting and best regards,

Leo

 

[Peter Strietmann]

My son (14 years old) took his first photography class this year and his teacher made him shoot film. I could tell he had a sense of pride and accomplishment in the images he made which was different than when he makes his videos. It would be horrible if he could not use a process his father, his father's father, his father's father father and his father's father father father used to produce art. We have handed him these images and a piece of history and have all connected with each other in ways we will probably never realize. Film has been such a great tool for so long and there are so many talented people out there that still use it I hope is survives in some capacity.

 

[David Rasberry]

I agree that film is not dead. It is, however, pretty much reserved for the elite. As a member of the *"Great Unwashed" it has never existed for me. Mini DV was about as close as I ever got to it so I have no sentimental ties to it as a user. I would dearly dread having to go back and fool with the messy stuff knowing that I was just doing film school "making work." Teaching methods in any school are usually well behind the curve because, let's face it, the teachers by-and-large quit actively learning when they get their jobs and start teaching what they have spent a majority of their lives learning. Sure they stay up with the latest ideas but don't necessarily "learn" them. In a lesson plan they may casually mention the new just so they appear to be in the know. And it's hard to do what Hans von Sonntag has done and make a clean break for his students' benefit.

It may take more austerity in the movie-making business to finally finish film as acquisition media. That and the fact that someday even the older elite may have a digital camera that they will feel sets them apart from the rest of the industry and they can adopt that as their "you can't touch this" tool.

* I credit Blackie Sherrod, a sportswriter for the Dallas Morning News for introducing me to this term. I do not know if he got it elsewhere or if it was original.

Digital technology is just now reaching the level of quality that will make it a reasonable replacement for film as an acquisition medium. The emergence of affordable raw digital cinema cameras like Red is a spectacular and fascinating development to me.
I shoot mostly for fun these days with a Canon GL2 DV camcorder while waiting for Scarlet to be released. Decent little camera all in all, but as with virtually all affordable prosumer level video cameras, HD or not, including the new DSLR's, it is a frustratingly inadequate substitute for 16mm film and my old Bolex in many respects.
I just loaned my old Graflex XL medium format camera to my nephew Michael. He has several low cost digital still cameras, but currently is fascinated with exploring medium format film. More power to him.

 

[Elsie N]

Digital technology is just now reaching the level of quality that will make it a reasonable replacement for film as an acquisition medium. The emergence of affordable raw digital cinema cameras like Red is a spectacular and fascinating development to me.
I shoot mostly for fun these days with a Canon GL2 DV camcorder while waiting for Scarlet to be released. Decent little camera all in all, but as with virtually all affordable prosumer level video cameras, HD or not, including the new DSLR's, it is a frustratingly inadequate substitute for 16mm film and my old Bolex in many respects.
I just loaned my old Graflex XL medium format camera to my nephew Michael. He has several low cost digital still cameras, but currently is fascinated with exploring medium format film. More power to him.

This reminded me of something that Jim has revealed about himself. He has a HUGE collection of old cameras... and yet he creates something like Epic to shoot on. I think the term irony is correctly applied here, in that a collector of old hardware has created the new hardware that will make the old media obsolete.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

This reminded me of something that Jim has revealed about himself. He has a HUGE collection of old cameras... and yet he creates something like Epic to shoot on. I think the term irony is correctly applied here, in that a collector of old hardware has created the new hardware that will make the old media obsolete.

I'd also think that Jim would be the last person to suggest that a student shouldn't go out and shoot a roll of film occasionally if he wants to.