Red vs Film

[Lee Skinner]

So I'm sure this has been discussed ad nauseum for most of you, but I guess I'm kinda new here, so I thought I'd open it up for discussion...

Has digital video come so far as to make film obsolete? How close to the "film look" have we really achieved? And on top of that, is it really the "film look" that we're going for? Some argue that film does a far better job of capturing the look of true biological vision. This makes sense to me since both the grain upon the emulsion of film and the light receptors upon the retina of our eyes are scattered at random. They are not spaced out in a perfect grid like pixels. While I and many others subscribe to the notion that film is still (perhaps only marginally) superior, others insist that film is dead. From what I understand, film still manages to capture more detail in dark and blown-out areas, whereas video is still limited in this area.

But perhaps you know something that I don't?

 

[Steve Sherrick]

If you go into it not comparing the two so much but rather looking at the strengths and weaknesses of each and then choosing the one that best suits the project, it works out much better. But always a fun battle when this comes up.

 

[Andrew Walker]

As Steve said their are strengths and weaknesses for both. But if both are shot right to use the medium as effectively as possible then both will produce amazing results.

 

[M Most]

Has digital video come so far as to make film obsolete?

No.

 

[Steve Sherrick]

No.

And to elaborate on Mike's point a bit, film will only be obsolete when they stop making it because there will always be a creative use for it, even if digital is to someday technically exceed it. In terms of Hollywood, economics may win out and digital may become the norm with film use becoming the minority someday, but there will still be filmmakers who will want to fight to use film because they feel it tells their story better.

What's great is how many options exist right now. A truly amazing time to be a filmmaker.

 

[Wesley Scoggins]

Digital technology will eventually make film totally obsolete, since it simply won't make sense to shoot it.

I think it's (at most) decades down the road, but digital will eventually be able to completely outperform any kind of film under any circumstances (I think it'll happen long before that, but it'll take a while for people to simply stop using film altogether).

But currently, I can't see a significant image difference between something like "Knowing", and something that was shot totally on film. So obviously, digital cinema is already practically indistinguishable from Film in many circumstances, especially to the audience at large. Most people I talked to had no idea that half of Slumdog was digital, even though I could clearly see the digital artifacts and noise in many shots.

So in many ways, we're already there, with many people being totally oblivious that many movies were shot digitally instead of film. As the camera's get smaller, lighter, and more powerful, and the workflow becomes more efficient, we're going to see more people shooting on the easier format that offers more options, and that format is going to continually be digital more and more in the future.

 

[Stephen Gentle]

Take a look at this quote from Albert Hughes, co-director of 'Book of Eli.'

 

[Stephen Williams]

Digital technology will eventually make film totally obsolete, since it simply won't make sense to shoot it.

Hi,

People still carve stone & use oil paints, both well proven for their archive ability. Making ones own film emulsion can be fun. Art is more than 1's & 0's.

Stephen

 

[Dan Hudgins]

Film vs. Digital

Film vs. Digital

From someone who has worked with 35mm in all aspects I can say that for a no-budget filmmaker using 2K or better Digital cameras and workflow is more or less the only way to go.

Maybe the ONLY reason film looks good as it does for high budget films is the degree of digital image processing that is applied. If you try to do all aspects of film handeling yourself you quickly learn how impossable it is to get results anywhere close to what is called the "film-look" which is not really the "film-look" but digitally processed negative scans.

Film-to-Film printing requires the highest degree of dust and gunk control, and if you try to do your own negative cutting you will end up with visable signs of dust, pits, and scratches on the film. I saw a original print of A Clockwork Orange (1971) and there were printed in marks all over it from damage and gunk on the negative, at that time such marks were part of "The Film Look", and if you go that way still are. Today "de-dusting" software is applied to remove marks and dust from the digital frame scans, as well as manual frame by frame had re-tuching of each and every frame as needed.

As for 35mm prints, they for the most part only resolve about 1280x720 resolution when projected because of limits on how long the projector can stay in focus without a projectionist to keep re-focusing the projector like they did until the introduction of the platter, before the projectionist would adjust the Carbon Arc light to keep it burning and tuch up the focus every five minutes or so, and the images were brighter and sharper, no so anylonger.

The use of DI has already removed some of "random" nature of film grain, since the negative is scanned on a digital sensor with grid pixels. Today films are output on film recorders that have a grid pattern, and sometimes show aliasing. So what does "Film Look" mean any longer, when most of the look comes from a digital LUT and digital filters?

We are "Going Digital" because it lets you get a standard of result that you cannot get with Film-to-Film printing on a zero budget, and it is easer and faster to manage, and in the end gets a more salable or presentable result.

Using a REDONE with our "freeish" DI system can get you something to show at lower cost and looking better than maybe taking your ECN to a "cheepy" lab with warn out printers and fadded CC filters, doing your own negative cutting, and not being able to re-tuch the damaged frames or to have the wide grading control that doing a good digital DI gives you. Direct printing to the 2382 or 2302 print stocks of an LCD monitor reduces the cost and dust and gunk issues from making a printing negative and having a print made at a lab, you can have that done from the CCed frames later on a ARRI laser rilm recorder by the distributor if needed if the film sells, which it probably would not so why spend money that your not going to get back anyway?

There is no contest any longer, even a camera like the true RAW SUMIX can be better than shooting Super16 film, look at this sample SUMIX footage and then look at this Super16 scan (taken from sample Super16 ECN sent to me by another REDUSER, see that post if you can find it in my "other posts"), (you may need to click on the thumbnails at the bottom of this post after logging in and rightclick "open in new tab" to see the full size images of the Super16 scans, they are for viewing at gamma 2.2 to 2.4)

Link to SUMIX digital fooatge,

http://vimeo.com/2851696

I read that Kodak says "they will continue to make film as long as they can", but they are selling off their buildings and divisions to keep out of the red, so how much longer can they do that? Maybe 20 years? Does anyone think movie film will be made in large volume 100 years from now?

 

[mike ogden]

Yeh. But someone just needs to invent a good way to archive digital formats that'll last as long as film does. If NASA can't read digital information from its own interstellar probes from 30 years ago, what hope do film makers have in convincing distributors to buy our digital films if they are unarchivable?

Please don't say LTO drives or solid state media. This is really part of the production chain everyone forgets about and its potentially the most important as it's our cultural history. C'mon Jim, invent somethng to solve it fast

 

[Dan Hudgins]

Problem solved.

Problem solved.

Yeh. But someone just needs to invent a good way to archive digital formats that'll last as long as film does.

I posted a solution to that problem in an older post.

You brun pits or voids into film base without coating, that should last 500 years or more in cold storage, it takes quite a bit of footage about 32x the length and 70mm wide, but there is no problem doing it. It would take 30 or more pits per pixel if ture RAW, or less if delta encoded for lossless data size reduction.

If the voids or burned points are inside the film base (polyester or maybe Nitrate, yes Nitrate it seems in cold storage it is stable without emultion on it), you can "focus" the read lens past the surface gunk, or you can read from the back with a low f/ lens like a CD.

 

[Humberto Rivera]

Red Epic vs. Film

Red Epic vs. Film

What is the “Gold Standard” for film; it’s the old Technicolor Tri Strip process, where three different Black and White film strips ran through the camera simultaneously. It took huge building to process the film to completion; I remember there was one in Los Angeles.

Films like “The Wizard of Oz” and “Singin’ in the Rain” and many of other films that have been re-mastered to 35mm, DVD, Blue Rays and whatever other format we invent in the future, they will still be-relevant. And many of them continue to be on the “Top 100” list of the greatest film ever made.
That’s the standards that were striving for. I think that with the S35, FF35, 645, and the 617 we’re getting closer to eventually surpassing the film standard; “A Technicolor Film”, don’t know when but it’s in there somewhere, one day we’ll surpass it!

It is a coincidence that “Singin’ in the Rain” it’s about the time when films made a transition from the old silent pictures to the talkies. That’s ironic, because we’re now talking about going from Pictures made on film to digital and actually surpassing “film” on all accounts. If you put one of the new Red cameras next to an old Technicolor Tri Strip camera, the difference is monumental.

Humberto Rivera

 

[Rick Presas]

Film is to movies what Vinyl is to recorded music.

Vinyl still exists, in spite of the digital revolution making digital music recording much cheaper and easier.

As will film.

It will be a LONG time before film "dies"

BUT

Just as the music business had to change with the advent of digital music, so too must the film industry change with the advent of digital film.

The number of movies shot in digital (with the RED ONE imho being the flagship of the movement) is growing everyday.

Within 5 years digital formats will hold majority over major (and independent) films being shot.

but film will not die.

There will always be "Analog purists" (read: snobs) who will insist on shooting their movie on celluloid, just like the ones who prefer vinly to CD's to this very day.

Even though the difference in quality is quicly shrinking/on the verge of dissapearing/ maybe even favoring digital, film is going nowhere.

I think the biggest reason for this is simple: Digital keeps trying to look like film, but the truth is, you just cant out-film film.


*it should be noted that this is coming from a CONFIRMED DIGITAL filmmaker who will likely never choose to use celluloid

 

[Humberto Rivera]

“Name Above the Title”

“Name Above the Title”

If you’re lucky enough to find an old copy of the “Name Above the Title” by Frank Cappra, buy it and read it, it’s about the early history of Hollywood. You’ll most likely to find in a use book store, it was only printed in had back; it was a book of the month selection.

Humberto Rivera

 

[Miltos Pilalitos]

There will always be "Analog purists" (read: snobs) who will insist on shooting their movie on celluloid, just like the ones who prefer vinly to CD's to this very day.

I wonder where those analog purists will find film when the major film manufacturers will stop producing it. Unlike Vinyl, film is very expensive to make and when it stops making sense from a financial point of view (very soon IMHO) they will just stop making it.

 

[Tom.Wong]

when digital can give you 22 stops of latitude i think film will truly be in trouble then...

 

[Aaron Newsome]

Yeh. But someone just needs to invent a good way to archive digital formats that'll last as long as film does. If NASA can't read digital information from its own interstellar probes from 30 years ago, what hope do film makers have in convincing distributors to buy our digital films if they are unarchivable?

Please don't say LTO drives or solid state media. This is really part of the production chain everyone forgets about and its potentially the most important as it's our cultural history. C'mon Jim, invent somethng to solve it fast

I was thinking about this the other day. Before I saw this thread. I was considering how it's near impossible for me to get at my data from just 20 years ago, let alone 30. In 1989 I stored data on floppies and 10MB or 30MB hard drives. Yes that is megabytes. Those drives used ESDI, or MFM/RLL interfaces. IDE and ATAPI standards were not in wide use and SCSI was still fledgling, very expensive and not in general use either.

30 years ago, forget it. I stored data on cassette tapes. Good luck with that one.

Getting data out of *ANYTHING* I archived with 20 years ago is near impossible today. I'm guessing 20 years from now, getting data out of what I'm using today will be near impossible too.

 

[David Rasberry]

Film will be around for a long time to come. Most theaters around the world will not go digital for years. Even it film declines as an acquisition medium, it will still be there as the only proven archival medium and as a presentation medium for years to come.

The analog vs digital argument is sort of moot these days anyway since virtually every production goes through a digital intermediate edit/conform process whether originated on film or not.

Digital acquisition won't replace film until the cameras and the software to support them are as rock solid reliable as the film versions and the production/post production work flows are more refined.

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

Hi,

People still carve stone & use oil paints, both well proven for their archive ability. Making ones own film emulsion can be fun. Art is more than 1's & 0's.

Stephen

But that's because you can't actually get a very good simulation of paint or stone carving digitally. Neither allow direct interaction with the medium even with a cintiq.

Film on the other hand is a "magic box" that you point at your source and later get back imagery. Especially now that pretty much every single film goes through a DI. It's just a question of where the DPX comes from. While people love the look of film, myself included, it's going to be less than a decade before you'll be completely incapable of distinguishing between a digital source and a chemical source.

The dynamic range and gammut will be great enough that it'll just be a question of characterizing and warping.

Of course it isn't there yet but if it's between our rate of advancement in chemistry or silicon I'd put my money on silicon.

If some big name director was really, really into film he could pretty easily afford to gut an old film camera, hide a new digital camera inside, run the data cables into the film mag and then hand it off to a post house which will get it back to him later in the day or next morning.

If they really like the smell of chemicals it would be easier to just soak a few rags. The only thing that would be tricky to fake would be holding up a strip of film to the light.

I think a better comparison would be between the oil paints of the renaissance and our modern oil paints. I don't know any painters who use the extremely volatile, unsafe and finicky oil paints of ages gone by... they require an assistant to keep them prepared and it's a constant battle to maintain their quality.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Yeh. But someone just needs to invent a good way to archive digital formats that'll last as long as film does.

Plenty of methods and technologies exist, with new ones coming to market all the time. This is a very flawed argument against digital formats. When in fact, it actually consumes just as many resources, in fact more lately, to properly archive film than it does to archive digital media. The two primary reasons film "lasts so long" are that it's been in existence as long as it has, so it's been proven that it can last. Also because of its analog nature, over time as photochemical film may alter (and it always does), the image is still there. Ironically, some of the most common methods of digital storage are actually based on photochemical film processes -- like most writable optical discs. These are now showing they have a lifespan of about 12 to 25 years, depending on their make-up and storage environment. They tend to decay at the same rate as film, but when we're talking about digital bits instead of an analog image impression, the game changes. Even the slightest shift or bleed over time can scramble bits, whereas that could be an entirely unperceived change on an analog film frame. However, manufactured media using gold substrate laminated in glass or polycarbonate have been in existence for nearly 30 years now, with no signs of decay and should theoretically last hundreds of years if stored properly.

Digital storage and archival is a continuously evolving technology and the ability to continuously rebuild and physically shrink an archival library is a huge advantage. Creating copies of a digital archive makes a perfect 1:1 copy, whereas a copy of a film introduces analog variations and generational loss.

The vast majority of hollywood releases these days now undergo a DI process and even if they are shot on film, they are still digitally mastered and then distribution and archival prints are made from that digital master. The digital master is archived, just as are a couple original master prints. Those who are actually doing this are already archiving their digital media and in many cases now, not archiving film reels along with it.

If NASA can't read digital information from its own interstellar probes from 30 years ago, what hope do film makers have in convincing distributors to buy our digital films if they are unarchivable?

Not sure what the NASA reference is all about... What distributors need convincing? The big hang-up right now with distributors is digital distribution channels and how best to standardize them and make them profitable, while keeping them secure.

Please don't say LTO drives or solid state media. This is really part of the production chain everyone forgets about and its potentially the most important as it's our cultural history. C'mon Jim, invent somethng to solve it fast

Why not LTO? LTO and other forms of DLT have already been shown to have lifespans that will exceed 40 years on a typical office bookshelf. Yes, LTO/DLT has been around for over 30 years. But that is really beside the point. The strength of digital archival is as I mentioned above, it's ability to continuously evolve and transcend to new formats in a lossless manner, to continuously ride the flow of technological evolution. Not anyone out there managing large digital archives is looking for a one-stop-shop solution where they can archive it and forget about it for 100 years. That makes no sense for digital anything. IMO, a good digital archival format is one that can be shown to last a guaranteed 20 years (LTO, certain forms of optical media, potentially solid-state media, some forms of WORM SSD for sure).

With digital archives, it's not about the physical longevity of a storage media or the actual shelf-life as it is with analog formats like film. It's about continued technological progression and no one is going to simply invent something that is going to make technological evolution obsolete. I think the days of LTO and tape are seriously numbered. I'll be surprised if anyone buying a new archive system is buying tape within the next 5 years. Within the next 10, I'll have storage shelves full of LTO-4 tapes, probably zetabytes worth, converted to the next big thing and we'll all still be having this same argument...

I was thinking about this the other day. Before I saw this thread. I was considering how it's near impossible for me to get at my data from just 20 years ago, let alone 30. In 1989 I stored data on floppies and 10MB or 30MB hard drives. Yes that is megabytes. Those drives used ESDI, or MFM/RLL interfaces. IDE and ATAPI standards were not in wide use and SCSI was still fledgling, very expensive and not in general use either.

So did lots of people... And that data is still accessible. Floppy drives are still being manufactured and it's pretty damn easy to hook up an old MFM, RLL, ESDI or SCSI-I HDD. The real problem is hoping that the drive itself will still be functional. Same with old floppy discs. Those damn things usually had a poor shelf-life and short lifespan under general use anyway. Anyway, once again all beside the point. It's about migration and holding onto your data. I still have most all my important data from way the hell back when... My first computer was an Apple IIe, I was just a kid, but I still have many of my school papers and projects I created on that thing. No, I'm not kidding. My first computer with a hard drive was an IBM PC w/ 10MB HDD and 512KB of RAM, EGA video. I still have pictures I used to draw on that thing and a fractal program I wrote along with some of the images I would geekily watch that thing take hours to draw.

But like I keep saying... It's more about data migration and maintaining what you have. I didn't just wait until I had a Pentium PC to go back and hook up an old HDD to save all this data. I kept migrating it to new systems and newer backups. Maybe I'm just a digital pack-rat, but that's how it works.