Red vs Film

[Alan Rosenfeld]

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

It was printed in paper as well. Excellent book.

 

[mike ogden]

It's not a flawed argument at all, Jeff. Ignoring it and just saying that you can solve it with data migration every few years is just throwaway. Once a film has been shot and bought by a distributor, it sits in a library owned by them. If it's a can of film neg, it's easy to pull out and rescan. If it's in a digital format on a tape or whatever, you're relying on current systems to be able to read it. Frankly, not many film libraries in the hands of distributors pay much money to 'data migrate' as its just added costs. But that's just the end product. What about all the rushes? Aren't they valuable too?

And not everyone can afford to data migrate.

NASA - Some of the data from old probes is totally unreadable. If they can't figure out how what chance do we have. In a previous life, I used to work in a data centre and LTO tapes were always corrupting in archive.

I really do believe that there will be many films that will be lost from this era because we neglected to figure out how to archive properly, which will be a shame. Just saying that you can 'migrate' and that computers systems of the future will sort it out is a bit like sticking your head in the sand and pretending it doesn't exist as a problem.

 

[Tim Whitcomb]

It was printed in paper as well. Excellent book.

which is an interesting analogy to this discussion.

digital hasn't killed books either. nor will it kill film.

I like what Ridley Scott says:

they are two very different mediums, and digital really must be treated as a new, not replacement artform...

both are suitable for storytelling... the latter is all that matters.

 

[Humberto Rivera]

Revolution!

Revolution!

Revolution! That’s what the content of “Singin’ in the Rain” said about the “Jazz Singer”, when they were making a film in Technicolor in 1951 to 1952. They researched everything about the transition from the “Old” Silent days to the Talkies (in 1951).

I just got trough watching the film in DVD for the umpteen times, it STILL WORKS, and that is just amazing.

What about the transitioning from “Film to Digital”, we’re right in the middle of it, things shot on film are transferred to digital, we have digital VFX, generations are eliminated, we have digital finishes so it can be transferred to film for release. We’re almost at the threshold of Red coming out with a digital camera that will perform just as well as film, if not better. Digital screenings of films it’s all the rage at exhibitor’s conferences.

Don’t know which one it will be the S35, FF35, 645, or the 617, but one of them will surpass 35mm film, it’s just a matter of time. However I’m certain of something, while other people talk about 2K being the standard, Red talks about 4k, 5K, 6K, 9K, and 28K!

They are ahead of the computer revolution which keeps on doubling every six months. A friend of mine who is high up at Intel Costa Rica talks about incredible numbers of multi core processors (can’t really say what they are up too) but it’s just a matter of time and economics before they come out.
The revolution has been on-going for the last five years or so! Everywhere, except for Red, they announce their products way in advance, and then they continue to improve on them before they release them.

Again if anybody can get a hold of a copy of “The Name Above the Title” by Frank Cappra, I hilly suggested it, you’ll know how it all began and why we call things by such estrange name such as Gaffer, Best Boy, Director of Photography, even Director itself.

Humberto Rivera

 

[Humberto Rivera]

Revolution!

Revolution!

Revolution! That’s what the content of “Singin’ in the Rain” said about the “Jazz Singer”, when they were making a film in Technicolor in 1951 to 1952. They researched everything about the transition from the “Old” Silent days to the Talkies (in 1951).

I just got trough watching the film in DVD for the umpteen times, it STILL WORKS, and that is just amazing.

What about the transitioning from “Film to Digital”, we’re right in the middle of it, things shot on film are transferred to digital, we have digital VFX, generations are eliminated, we have digital finishes so it can be transferred to film for release. We’re almost at the threshold of Red coming out with a digital camera that will perform just as well as film, if not better. Digital screenings of films it’s all the rage at exhibitor’s conferences.

Don’t know which one it will be the S35, FF35, 645, or the 617, but one of them will surpass 35mm film, it’s just a matter of time. However I’m certain of something, while other people talk about 2K being the standard, Red talks about 4k, 5K, 6K, 9K, and 28K!

They are ahead of the computer revolution which keeps on doubling every six months. A friend of mine who is high up at Intel Costa Rica talks about incredible numbers of multi core processors (can’t really say what they are up too) but it’s just a matter of time and economics before they come out.

The revolution has been on-going for the last five years or so! Everywhere, except for Red, they announce their products way in advance, and then they continue to improve on them before they release them.

Again if anybody can get a hold of a copy of “The Name Above the Title” by Frank Cappra, I highly suggested it, you’ll know how it all began and why we call things by such estrange name such as Gaffer, Best Boy, Director of Photography, even Director itself.

Humberto Rivera

 

[david m friedman]

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.

i've also been having this discussion repeatedly.

digital archives are absolutely the achilles heel of the modern world.

ken/rick burns have been finding archive film & stills & HANDWRITTEN letters of soldiers on the eve of battle to make their documentaries, some of which are 150 years old or older.

we are losing our history each & every day. who in the future will be able to make the documentaries of this period in history when all of our existences become irreversibly inaccessible?

we've gone through 8", 5.5", 3.25" floppies; bernoullis, syquests, zips, jaz drives; parallel & scsi interfaces; 2"quad, 1" type C, u-matic, betaMAX, VHS. heck, LTO-4 is already out to replace LTO-3! the list goes on.

often it isn't even the MEDIA that's the problem... try to find either a deck to play tapes on, or in the cases of computer media, a DRIVER for your new computer to be able to access the hardware for your old media.

dan hudgens' 500 year cold storage pits & voids solution can ONLY work if 500 years from now someone has a machine/software to decipher what they've found.

i don't know what the solution is... but we shouldn't overlook that it's a HUGE problem.

 

[James Brundige]

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?

The eye has a resolution higher than film. That's why you see grain in a film print.

First, Red is not video, it is digital cinema.

If you want a film look, just add a grain filter to your digital media. The only other area where film can look different is in Dynamic range, especially in the way shadows are recorded. That difference should disappear in the next year as sensors approach the holy threshold of 14 stops. Certainly colors flow together better in film than video, but hi res digital imaging has accomplished that part of the film look, without the distortion of grain. Within 5 years, you will not be able to buy film stock.

 

[Eric Ulbrich]

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.

Couldnt disagree more. There Will Be Blood and Dark Knight were all done photo chemically, no DI was applied at all.

As long as 35mm is available, ill keep shooting it. Even though I own a RED camera and love it, Digital to me will always be second to film.

As far as cost is considered. the MPAA put out a very interesting article on the storage of digital prints for archive. Its called the "Digital Dillema"

Storage for digital negatives is exponentially higher than storing film prints. It might be easier and cheaper to shoot, but its a whole hell of a lot more expensive to store it.

 

[Rick Presas]

Frankly, not many film libraries in the hands of distributors pay much money to 'data migrate' as its just added costs.

from what i can tell it would just be a matter of redirecting the cost of archiving celluloid. Something tells me that distributors would actually come out ahead monetarily that way.

 

[Wesley Scoggins]

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

Yes, but far far far far far more people make 3D models, and more people are using digital mediums every year.

Making film CAN be fun, and like I said it'll still be around for a long time, but eventually it will stop being printed, and people will run out. So unless they have their own molecular reassembler to make their own film, they are simply going to run out of that option.

 

[Bing Bailey]

I feel a lot more fondness for films stocks of old from the 50s,60's than modern film stocks. which look beautiful in their own way but don't have the same emotional quality for me at least. I wish I could shoot on film stocks from those time periods. I'd recreate those looks if I thought it was possible using digital tools but I'm not sure it is. Film is great if you can afford it. I would never bash it. red is fantastic too although has room to improve dynamic range wise. we're moving into an era of digital projection and we're about to be spoiled for quality given how poorly film projectors are setup at most theaters. the less people use film the more expensive its going to get. maybe in 10 years only spielberg will be able to afford to shoot film. I'd hate for it to die completely. for the next few years its what we're trying to measure up to. we're still not there yet.

 

[Miltos Pilalitos]

Couldnt disagree more. There Will Be Blood and Dark Knight were all done photo chemically, no DI was applied at all.

Still, they were color timed.. and color timing can be very elaborate if needed. The point being that we didn't see in the cinema just a positive print from the negative that miraculously looked great just because it was shot on film.

 

[Tim Whitcomb]

Couldnt disagree more. There Will Be Blood and Dark Knight were all done photo chemically, no DI was applied at all.

As long as 35mm is available, ill keep shooting it. Even though I own a RED camera and love it, Digital to me will always be second to film.

As far as cost is considered. the MPAA put out a very interesting article on the storage of digital prints for archive. Its called the "Digital Dillema"

Storage for digital negatives is exponentially higher than storing film prints. It might be easier and cheaper to shoot, but its a whole hell of a lot more expensive to store it.

Then one can certainly argue that film will never be dead. Ironic indeed that Film sounds like the perfect archival medium in this context.

I think its obvious after watching Superman (1970'S version) that Krypton holds the clue in long term CRYSTALLINE DATA STORAGE. :coolgleamA:

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

It's not a flawed argument at all, Jeff. Ignoring it and just saying that you can solve it with data migration every few years is just throwaway. Once a film has been shot and bought by a distributor, it sits in a library owned by them. If it's a can of film neg, it's easy to pull out and rescan. If it's in a digital format on a tape or whatever, you're relying on current systems to be able to read it. Frankly, not many film libraries in the hands of distributors pay much money to 'data migrate' as its just added costs. But that's just the end product. What about all the rushes? Aren't they valuable too?

The thing with data migration is that it's a necessary process. Even if someone were to invent something right now that would store 100PetaBytes (that's 100 thousand TB's) into a space no larger than an under-counter dishwasher and guarantee a lifespan of 500 years and survival of a nuclear explosion, that data would still be migrated to the next best thing that comes along that lets the physical size shrink to 1/100th of it's size.

I agree that data storage, especially in the long term, is a problem for many businesses or even specific industries. It's something that doesn't fit within their current business models well, if at all. But now is the time for them to change. And the cost of creating and maintaining two or three generations of digital archives over the next 50 years should cost less than making two or 3 master prints that should "last forever". If not, then they're doing something wrong.

And not everyone can afford to data migrate.

Not everyone can afford to store film in an environmentally-controlled storage center either.

NASA - Some of the data from old probes is totally unreadable. If they can't figure out how what chance do we have. In a previous life, I used to work in a data centre and LTO tapes were always corrupting in archive.

That's an issue of corruption, not media or storage. Corruption happens. In NASA's case, the problematic probe data-- is it really a problem with the probe and media or is it that the bloated bureaucracy failed to manage their assets.... Film reels go bad too. Some decay at faster rates than others, many older color stocks from the 60's and 70's are fading fast and most any of the profitable films from the era have already been remastered digitally for transfer to DVD, Blu-Ray and other newer formats and the multiple film reels used to build the proper digital masters are in many cases retired or disposed of. Yes, really.

I really do believe that there will be many films that will be lost from this era because we neglected to figure out how to archive properly, which will be a shame. Just saying that you can 'migrate' and that computers systems of the future will sort it out is a bit like sticking your head in the sand and pretending it doesn't exist as a problem.

Many films have been lost due to negligence, careless storage and poor treatment of film, ever since film was new. I don't see how something being digital is going to be any different. It takes a conscious effort to preserve anything, be it film or data. I'm not expecting future systems to "sort it out", not at all. Data is data and it goes where we tell it to. Any storage container we put it in should not be considered as the last or only place it should reside. Anyone who does that, are the ones who are ducking their heads.

Unfortunately, film suddenly has this reputation of "lasting forever" and many have become complacent in the actual processes needed to properly preserve film. Allowing a digital archive sitting on a shelf for decades to succumb to obsolescence is no worse or different than allowing a film reel to sit in a similar location. I look at film I shot when I was a kid -- still negs / slides, some 8mm and the amount of decay is pretty bad. This stuff was well cared for too, short of the environmentally controlled storage facility. I look at films shot by others that are even older and the rate of decay is more apparent, even in big budget features.

To me, where film has an advantage over digital is in its physically analog nature. If I were to clean out an attic space and stumble across a 50 year old film reel. I could say, "hey, look at this!" and look at it with a light bulb and magnifying glass. 50 years from now, if I stumble across an LTO-4 tape in a garage, I would say "Ah, #@%$... Where do I have to send this tape and how much is that going to cost me?".

I guess my whole point is that data is something that must be tended to. And so is film, to a certain extent. People need to quit wishing for a magic way of storing digital files that will "last forever" because it isn't going to happen. Although, glass and gold manufactured discs should out-last any photochemical film product by a long shot. Nor does this magical forever data storage make any real sense with our current rate of technological progression. For proper digital archives to work, we must be responsible for our own data and intellectual property and seeing that it is preserved.

And there are companies out there that provide this service as a product, fully guaranteed, insured, etc..

 

[Dan Hudgins]

Dark Night?

Dark Night?

Couldnt disagree more. There Will Be Blood and Dark Knight were all done photo chemically, no DI was applied at all.

What do you mean? Dark Night has digital effects which were part of the film,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dark_Knight_(film)#Effects

Quote: "Cinematographer Wally Pfister found the city officials a "nightmare", and ultimately Nolan had to create Batman's jump from a skyscraper digitally."

As for There will be Blood, who are all the digiatl credits for if not making a filmout on a film recorder?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0469494/fullcredits

Maybe in those films some film dupe-negative was spliced in, but the trend for most major productions is to having all the footage scanned. IMAX normally it seems scans all their footage at 8K and filmouts on a 4K film recorder, and their films show an "IMAX Digital" type credit.

As long as 35mm is available, ill keep shooting it. Even though I own a RED camera and love it, Digital to me will always be second to film.

Most of the problems with RED footage I have seen are from people who are not lighting for the semsor or processing the footage to get film like results, most of that are artifacts of the way the Apple computers use compression or people are just using the output from REDCINE and such. From the frames I have processed I can SEE that REDONE can do better than unprocessed film scans if the lighting is done well. Side by side on the monitor T500 film grain, muck, dust, and scratches and un-evenness. REDONE has some vertical lines that do not show up in our film scans, maybe a sensor problem, but something that other sensors don't seem to have so it not a digital issue, just a RED ONE issue.

Film prodution will stop, probably not for 20 years but within the life of some on RED USER.

I think just saw an optical printer for for less than $300 on ebay!

I follow real world the prices of 35mm equipment and they are dropping. Most of the stuff we have will be worthless in a few years, my advice for people with an ARRI IIC or KONVAS is sell while you can get something. As for printers and older lab equipment it is already in the "crab weight" stage.

Most of the movie film labs have closed in N.CA and that trend will spread as fewer people shoot film, that will mean that you will need to ship your film back and forth to LA to get it processed, and it can get X-Rayed on the way, and the cost of shipping can be more than the cost of the processing.

As far as cost is considered. the MPAA put out a very interesting article on the storage of digital prints for archive. Its called the "Digital Dillema"

Storage for digital negatives is exponentially higher than storing film prints. It might be easier and cheaper to shoot, but its a whole hell of a lot more expensive to store it.

Most movies made with Digital Cinema cameras will not need to be archived, they will not be worth the cost of doing an archive version.

As for those that might be worth archiving, if someone thinks there is a market for long time archive of digital movies I can help you produce the equipment to punch holes in film base with a laser, those holes will be visable so anyone 500 years from now will be able to read those archive "prints" with a microscope. These problems are solved, quoting out of date arguments is pointless, its like saying the internal combustion engine would not replace the horse.

As for film staying around, color film is so much harder to make than black and white and the chemicals required to make it difficult to obtain, that once production falls below a point it will not be possable to do on a small scale. Thinking otherwise is just pointless and detached from reality.

==

As for the image quality issues, if you want three strip look, you can put three RED ONE cameras together on a jig and use filters and make a digital three strip camera.

As for HDR, you can put two RED ONE together on a jig and shoot split range to get your 14 stops (limited by the Solarization of the CMOS RED ONE sensor). There are true RAW CMOS cameras using Kodak sensors that might have wider Solarization limits you can also use, on the market right NOW.

As for the comment about DI software not being reliable, that is why I am using FreeDOS rather than WINDOWS or MAC, my system should be able to run for YEARS without a crash or issue, if someone knows of a problem they should tell me and I will look into the matter when I can. It does not good to bring up out of date arguments, today is today, its future shock, its real.

As for the IB Technicolor prints, if you watch those as I have, the weave of the MATRIX was quite large, the resolution of those prints was never better than maybe 720x480. Yes the dyes of the colors was beautiful, but todays print stocks have dyes almost as good if you can find a lab that uses fresh solutions to process the film in and uses bleach to remove ALL the silver, if the bleach is not the right kind some silver can be left in the print making the colors less bright and clear.

As for the production values, that does not have to do with being shot on film, that has to do with what was in front of the camera. Purchasing a Digital Cinema camera does not give you Gene Kelly to point it at any more than purchasing a BNC, ARRI IIC, or KONVAS will.

 

[M Most]

Still, they were color timed.. and color timing can be very elaborate if needed. The point being that we didn't see in the cinema just a positive print from the negative that miraculously looked great just because it was shot on film.

I don't consider the manipulation of only three parameters "very elaborate." Four controls if you count changing all three at once to be another control...

The picture didn't look great just because it was shot on film. It looked great because it was shot very, very well on film. And because it had terrific production design, costume design, visual effects execution, sound, editing, and any number of other things that make a great picture great.

 

[mike ogden]

'Most movies made with Digital Cinema cameras will not need to be archived, they will not be worth the cost of doing an archive version.'... Dan Hudgins

Glad you're not in charge of our collective cultural history. Holy cow!

 

[Miltos Pilalitos]

I don't consider the manipulation of only three parameters "very elaborate."

Don't say that to technicolor technicians. You will hurt their feelings.

 

[scott william]

'Most movies made with Digital Cinema cameras will not need to be archived, they will not be worth the cost of doing an archive version.'... Dan Hudgins

Don't say that to any digital filmmaker.

 

[Steve Sherrick]

'Most movies made with Digital Cinema cameras will not need to be archived, they will not be worth the cost of doing an archive version.'... Dan Hudgins

Don't say that to any digital filmmaker.

Perhaps a better way to phrase Dan's point is:

Of the thousands of movies that will now be shot with digital cinema cameras, only a small amount of them will make money. Some may never get distribution at all. How much will they be willing to spend to go to great lengths to preserve their films for eternity? My guess is budget will only allow for a low to mid level solution and that may not be good enough 50 years down the line. So there is a threshold, and perhaps that is what Dan was referring to.