Question concerning 35mm film and digital projection

[D'Arcy Foley-Dawson]

At least in the high end Digital Projection DLP projectors we work with, the chassis are modular and all components are field serviceable.

well the projectors i work with we're not allowed to even look at for too long! everything is cloaked in secrecy like they're special magic light box machines.

 

[Elvis Ripley]

I disagree with some of the earlier comments. All the digital theaters I have been in have a much higher brightness and contrast along with more saturated colors. The projectors are also able to show colors outside of what is normally seen in a film print. Most movies don't push it as far as Speed Racer but that really did show that film prints just can't go that far when the source is artificial to begin with.

Digitally projected images from a film source retain plenty of organic film look where film prints usually look muddy and out of focus by comparison. I really don't like the way film prints look and I don't like the black frame. Having a digital projector at home made me get used to that always on picture and I never liked going back.

From a couple Red projects that I have worked on and then seen projected on film in a theater I know there wasn't nearly as much information on the screen as there was when I was grading them. I am sure it could work and look better but my experience is that it usually doesn't.

 

[Craig Ryan]

How do digital projectors function in terms of shutter or Hz? This is an area of confusion I have. I've heard that film projectors have a 2 or 3 bladed shutter, which would be the equivalent of 1/72hz with digital displays right?

 

[Elvis Ripley]

Most of the time it is 24 Hz or 1/24th of a second. There is not blink. Solid frame 1 then instantly frame 2 for another 24th of a second. 3D might be 1/144the of a second. Right Eye/Left Eye 3 times a frame making 6 short bursts.

 

[David Rasberry]

All digital projectors refresh the screen image at at least 60fps these days, most are faster. The 3d capable ones do at least 120fps refresh with the newest ones doing 240fps. They show the same 24fps frame 3 to 5 times to eliminate flicker. Without fast refresh rates the flicker would make 24fps unwatchable on digital systems as there is a brief blanking interval between frames. Even film projectors use a 48fps shutter to reduce flicker.

 

[David Rasberry]

I disagree with some of the earlier comments. All the digital theaters I have been in have a much higher brightness and contrast along with more saturated colors. The projectors are also able to show colors outside of what is normally seen in a film print. Most movies don't push it as far as Speed Racer but that really did show that film prints just can't go that far when the source is artificial to begin with.

Digitally projected images from a film source retain plenty of organic film look where film prints usually look muddy and out of focus by comparison. I really don't like the way film prints look and I don't like the black frame. Having a digital projector at home made me get used to that always on picture and I never liked going back.

From a couple Red projects that I have worked on and then seen projected on film in a theater I know there wasn't nearly as much information on the screen as there was when I was grading them. I am sure it could work and look better but my experience is that it usually doesn't.

I agree. Brightness and contrast are deliberately limited on projected film to keep the flicker from being objectionable. Digital projectors can run much higher screen brightness levels for better contrast.

 

[Willy Bearden]

I'm finishing a Red project in 2K. We're putting a regional theatrical release together. Is there jpeg2000 software which will allow me to project in DLP equipped theaters?

Thanks

 

[Dave Beard]

I'm looking to put on a trailer release fundraiser for a film that I'm working on. I would love to project it 2k DLP at a local theatre, but I need to find a projector to rent. Any idea's where I can find something like this? Is this even realistic?

 

[Michael Olsen]

Local theatre generally played things in 35mm. Recently (I actually believe with the release of Avatar) they acquired some digital projectors. The quality difference is astounding. I don't know if their 35mm projectors were under poor maintenance or if the film they ran was of subpar quality, but virtually every element of the viewing experience has been enhanced with the addition of digital projection.

 

[Craig Ryan]

Film: Better color depth and richness (subjective). Stronger blacks (depends on print and projector lamp).

I always notice how much richer the blacks are in a film print.

This is a pretty glaring issue with digital projection I think. Communal experience and sheer size aside, the home theater experience on a nice plasma system, a good 5.1 or even 7.1 system, with a 1080p bluray is pretty much better than 2k digital projection right now becasue of black level IMO.

Is it even possible to get black levels significantly lower on projectors, or contrast in general?

IMO, if we could get more DR on projectors/monitors/TVs, it would be more effective than getting more DR in the cameras themselves. Brighter whites and darker blacks.

Then the question would become whether or not we'd reach the point of diminishing returns; if screens matched the DR of the human eye, it would be a huge burden on our iris with quick cuts changing from bright to dark that would probably cause headaches for most. I guess it would be ideal to extend the DR from where it is now, but not so much as to where it becomes an issue.

 

[Matt W.]

IMO, if we could get more DR on projectors/monitors/TVs, it would be more effective than getting more DR in the cameras themselves. Brighter whites and darker blacks.

It's not one or the other; there's a complicated relationship between the two. Increased dynamic range in the viewing medium allows for greater dynamic range to be represented in the processed footage without the image looking milky or too dark. This issue extends all the way from film stock to lighting to grading.

For instance, 35mm negative film may have 12 or more stops of dr, but lighting ratios for dramatic television are generally exceptionally conservative because most tvs have terrible contrast ratios. Compare the way night is lit in Buffy with like a (pre-digital) David Fincher movie, which may even use the same stock. Since most people watch tv with the lights on (which ruins the already-poor black levels on cheap tvs), television dps try to keep the vast majority of meaningful image information in a range of just a few stops. That said, it's always nice to have the extra information in the negative in case you expose wrong or want to grade with a really aggressive knee and hold on to highlight detail that's visually pleasing but isn't essential to the narrative.

But if you had some sort of magical camera that could capture 20+ stops of dr, most of your footage would look absolutely awful until you graded it because whatever you view it on has a way smaller contrast ratio so it will just look flat and lacking in subtle gradation. This is why lighting will always be important, because you're limited by exhibition more than by your camera so ratios really matter no matter what camera you shoot with. But a better camera gives more latitude for missed exposures (and more flexibility for grading throughout) and negative film compresses highlights in a very nice way.

That said, my personal preference tends toward what you've mentioned: low dr for the recording medium and high dr when exhibited. For still photography, I am totally nuts for fujichrome velvia, which has a maximum of five stops of dr and TERRIBLE highlight detail. Maybe 1.5-2 stops above 18% gray. But, beyond having the best color rendering I've ever seen, it also has an incredibly deep dmax (dynamic range), deeper than any other film. So when you project it or look at it through a light table it's got the punchiest image with the most incredible subtle gradations in color. But it's special-purpose stuff, for landscape and commercial photography only (it saturates skin tones too deep and if you light caucasian skin one stop over you may already be losing highlight detail with it). One of the reasons professional still photographers went digital so fast is because they were switching from reversal film, which has less dynamic range and a relatively similar "curve" to digital.

This explains my one concern with 3d. 3d usually means digital projection, which always means flat black levels, and then the polarized glasses create glare and cut out nearly two stops of light, but they don't really block the ambient light in your peripheral vision, either. So most 3d films have terrible contrast ratios for exhibition, and so you have to light very flat and colorful like with Avatar--which looked great and deserved its cinematography Oscar because of it, but murkier films look dreadful with current 3d technology. To me, most 3d films look like they're lit for tv and with so many movies already being directed and written like tv (read my favorite critic Armond White's crazy rants about this if you'd like) it seems like a bad blurring of the media. I like good television, but I don't go out to the movies to see it. (Of course this is fairly ironic since I otherwise dig 3d and think it helps differentiate cinema from television.)

 

[Marc Wielage]

I agree. Brightness and contrast are deliberately limited on projected film to keep the flicker from being objectionable. Digital projectors can run much higher screen brightness levels for better contrast.

That is not true, in my experience. As far as I know, SMPTE has had standard projection levels of 14fL for both film and digital cinema for a long time. They don't arbitrarily jack up the brightness just because they can. And in fact, a lot of digital projectors -- even the high-end 2K/4K models -- will bloom white detail if you go much beyond that. Flicker is reduced by using a multi-bladed shutter, not by reducing brightness.

This is still an ongoing problem in 3D, where you commonly lose at least 50% of the light through polarized or LCD glasses. And silver screens are even more problematic, with hot spots and other issues.

Black detail in film prints has always been an issue. Put up a piece of lightstruck (black) leader in a film projector and run it in a dark theater, and look at where the blacks really are. You can get a little darker than that with current DCI standards in digital, unless you use Vision Premiere print stock (which not a lot of filmmakers do).

If you ever want to run an interesting test, take a 1-minute film negative sequence and contact print it to an answer print. Now, take the same negative, scan it out to 2K (or 4K), and do a D.I. on it. Then compare the two prints. The results are very interesting. Chris Nolan did this, and it's one reason why he chooses to do most of his projects photochemically.

 

[Ken Waller]

I've been watching both a 35mm and digital version ( at a New Technicolor Digital Theater) of the same movie on the same day just to make my own comparisons between the two. Last week I watched PREDATORS both ways and two shots jumped out to me that didn't do well Digitally. One was a tilt down shot from some tree branches that were swaying back and forth against a white sky and another bad shot was when Topher Jumped down off the drill right after the Russian was killed, that shot in the dark was covered in blue digital noise. Both those shots looked fine in 35mm. Also the RED color in the hallway from the flare looked better on 35mm. KICK-ASS had the same problem with the wide shots of the city and the shot of the guy falling in the red cape, it looked better on film. Now the trade off is most of the other shots look fine or even better in digital. FAST Action scenes seem to flow better on film. Just my 2 cents