Red vs Film

[Dancsó Péter]

with 100 000 k i would spend the money on great actors (guess the fucking great ones are out of budget?), production design and locations and a fucking great DOP, dont get me wrong, a movie isnt better because its shot on red or 35 or 16.

Yeah, like one of the newest Hungarian films here was shot on RED, and it's terribly awful.

 

[Wesley Scoggins]

true enough that EVENTUALLY storage media reliability and density might be capable of keeping all of your material forever.

but what about that job you shot last week (month, year)???

what about everything that's shot between now and that 'eventually'?

Should people have not ever shot anything on Nitrate just because it could explode?

No, they still did, and just tried to take care of it until better cellulose films were developed that they could transfer over too. We can't stop shooting on something until something that is 100% safe comes along, or we're all going to have to freeze all art for a century or so until we have nanoengineered crystalline storage that can survive being fired out of a railgun from orbit and hitting that ground like a meteorite.

I just don't think that because reliability isn't totally ideal in all cases right now should hamper people from utilizing digital, because in 5-10 years, all of these issues are going to be moot. If you can just keep your harddrive that your project is on from being thrown off your roof or eaten by a monster with magnetic teeth, then you can just convert it to a hyper-reliable solid-state multi-petabyte array in about 10 years, and not have to worry about it unless someone takes a sledgehammer to it then lights it on fire.

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

true enough that EVENTUALLY storage media reliability and density might be capable of keeping all of your material forever.

but what about that job you shot last week (month, year)???

what about everything that's shot between now and that 'eventually'?

Put it on LTO tape and two HDDs.

I've managed to keep all of my data without losing anything to corruption for the last 12 years on a budget of less than $1k. Our studio has never lost more than an hour or two to hardware failure. In fact I can't even remember a case where data was corrupted and lost at work.

You don't need to store it for 60 years since a solution will come along LONG before then.

When all I had for backup was a floppy I backed up to floppy. When all I had for backup was CD I backed up to CD. When all I had to backup was DVD I backed up to DVD. Now I just back up to 2 spare HDDs offsite.

Each generation has offered me enough capacity to store all of the previous generations' media plus my current data.

My stack of floppies all fit onto a CD. Then my stack of CDs all fit onto a DVD then my stack of DVDs all fit onto a 1TB HDD. Now I'm collecting TB HDDs.

If you can keep your film on a couple of HDDs for the next 10 years you'll be able to fit all of your films onto a few HDDs. Then 10 years from then you'll be able to fit all of the films ever made onto a few HDDs.

Your media doesn't have to last forever... just till the next generation which in digital terms is usually just a few years away.

Buy 10 1TB drives ($1,000). Let's say all the r3d files for your film can fit into 1TB. Now put your film onto 10 drives. Check them all every 6 months. If any one has failed then replace it. I guarantee you that you won't lose your data in the interim.

 

[Hans von Sonntag]

We use HDDs for convenient backup, restoring data from them is easy. We also backup to LTO which requires additional software and is great for long-term storage. In the end all data exists at least twice in two different locations, on HDDs and LTO tape.

In 5 to 10 years we will do what Gavin suggests: Copying all data to the new breed of storage device.

Pretty easy and cheap: 400 GB LTO costs 25 EUR, 1TB HDD is listed for 95 EUR. A LTO tape-drive costs 1.500 EUR, the HDD enclosure with FW800 is about 200 EUR.

Hans

 

[Shane Betts]

Hans and Gavin, I know you guys know this but for those new to the game, be really careful backing up to HDDs for anything long-term. Leave them untouched on a shelf for too long (as little as a year) and you may find they won't spin up again when you need them. Long term data should be duplicated on (data) tapes and they should be carefully stored somewhere away from extremes of temperature or humidity. One thing in favour of CDs and DVDs, they certainly were/are robust in storage.

 

[digitAlchemist]

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

perhaps the plausible way to archive digital footage is to print them back on film and we are sure to be able to view them hundred years later,coz am not sure digital can be retrieve later on...

 

[mike ogden]

Surely the point is that as film makers we can't spend half our lives constantly backing up our films individually every year just to make them compatible.

Film out always.

 

[Eki Halkka]

Hans and Gavin, I know you guys know this but for those new to the game, be really careful backing up to HDDs for anything long-term. Leave them untouched on a shelf for too long (as little as a year) and you may find they won't spin up again when you need them.

Connecting the drive once awhile (i.e. every 6 moths or so) should help a lot keeping the drives working...

 

[Jonathan L. Bowen]

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

Uh huh. You certainly know what you're talking about. You're totally right, film is great for archiving things, way better than infinitely backed up hard drives, that's exactly why the Star Wars print was NEARLY LOST ENTIRELY after fewer than 20 years and had to be completely repaired.

Wow. Not sure where you got your information, but film is a TERRIBLE format for archiving. I have cells cut from the inter-negative of some Star Wars prints that are just 12 years old, you can already see slight fading. Digital does not fade. It is THE PERFECT archive format. No arguments. This is ridiculous to even argue about that, lol, you have to be kidding me. If you want something backed up digitally, it's very easy to do. Get a RAID or two and put the data on there. Done and done. It's all about redundancy.

As for the film versus digital argument, I did this one over and over in the past, I don't find it interesting anymore. I never have had any interest in working with film, I don't like film, it's an old medium that was great for many years and all of that, but its time has come and now you can get great images with much less expensive and much better looking digital cameras. It's interesting the OP's eyes see grain all over. I sure don't. I like my images very crisp and clean when I want them that way -- if I want to add grain I can certainly do so in post and have it look just fine. The RED One can do anything you want it to do, any look you want. That is not so much the case with film. It's still too grainy and not clear enough, which I don't see as an advantage at all.

The argument has no meaning for me because it's like talking about whether one day we'll all fly planes to other cities rather than drive and the year is 1915. It was only a matter of time. Anyone arguing otherwise was an idiot. Same with the film versus digital argument. It's totally natural that people are still going to be around to defend legacy technology when it has JUST come to pass that digital is superior, but another 10-15 years and these people will truly be dinosaurs. The only thing that matters to me is that I can shoot digital and get great results, and that I live in this wonderful time where I don't have to deal with cumbersome film prints and nonsense of thousands of feet of film, labs, etc. What a joke. I'm very happy to live in this era and have these choices! Now whether other people want to use film, well, whatever, that doesn't affect me, so good for them, go shoot film, have fun with that. I'll enjoy better technology and be happy. They can enjoy their archaic legacy cameras and be happy with that. So everyone is happy! We're all just a buncha happy filmmakers. LOL.

 

[Antony M]

The argument has no meaning for me because it's like talking about whether one day we'll all fly planes to other cities rather than drive and the year is 1915. It was only a matter of time. Anyone arguing otherwise was an idiot.

Jonathan,

I agree with many of your points about archiving, however...

For many things (both film and travel) it is NOT just "a matter of time".
I still choose to drive 600 or 700 miles to other cities and other countries. Especially when I have lots of cases, or am travelling with children, etc.
It is "a matter of preference".
Some people will always prefer driving to flying.
Some people will always prefer film to digital.
It doesn't make them "wrong" or "an idiot".

 

[Graeme Nattress]

I think the important thing is not what format you archive on, but how many archive copies you have. Many a master tape has been wiped, hard drive dead, or film print lost. If you have multiple copies, you have a chance. Multiple copies on multiple types of media is better still.

I enjoy old British telefantasy, but the TV archives are full of holes. Sometimes, all that remains is a black and white telerecording of a colour programme, or a Shibaden tape, or even just a few photographs taken off the TV of the live broadcast, maybe with an audio tape recording of the soundtrack from someone holding a mic near the TV set. Sometimes a copy of a show was made to VHS before that master copy was lost forever, and it's only the VHS we have now.

Graeme

 

[david m friedman]

perhaps the plausible way to archive digital footage is to print them back on film and we are sure to be able to view them hundred years later,coz am not sure digital can be retrieve later on...

pretty much what AMPAS is suggesting and what studios are doing.

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

While JonathanLB chose a bad example with airtravel he is correct.

In the not terribly distant future there will be no advantage or even diference what so ever between film and digital. It will be like the difference between buying two cars that look and drive exactly the same... but one has the option of flying.

 

[mike ogden]

Jonathan is far from correct and I'm not going to have a pissing contest with someone who seems to have the industry experience of a gadfly. His dismissal of film is quite silly.

The only future difference will be the archivability of digital vs film. Stored correctly, film lasts for ages and is a cheap archiving solution compared to digital. Anyones reliance on an electronic medium for archiving beyond 20 plus years is nuts.

You can shoot on whatever digital format you like. Heck - it looks good (witness 'The Lovely Bones' trailer) but dismissing a problem with CURRENT solutions is short sighted.

 

[Graeme Nattress]

I don't think any archiving solution based upon multiple redundant copies with multiple locations could be considered "cheap" no matter the archival medium chosen.

Graeme

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Anyones reliance on an electronic medium for archiving beyond 20 plus years is nuts.

And what do you base this statement on, other than your own inexperience and fear of digital mediums?

I've been managing data for over 20 years now. Why would 20 years from now be any different? Storing and managing data gets easier and more efficient every year. It is also quite cheap and secure if done properly.

You can shoot on whatever digital format you like. Heck - it looks good (witness 'The Lovely Bones' trailer) but dismissing a problem with CURRENT solutions is short sighted.

Of course there are problems, but all are manageable. Just as there are problems with film archival, especially with the predominantly digital production processes we have today. To consider film archival to not be equally problematic is also equally short-sighted.

One of the "problems" with digital archiving that is ill-regarded around here, also happens to be one of its greatest strengths. The ability for digital information to be propagated and duplicated indefinitely to transcend, not only limited lifespan media, but also to continuously maintain a healthy and redundant archive. Film can not offer this. Can not in any way without inducing generational loss.

 

[Wesley Scoggins]

not sure digital can be retrieve later on...

Data is actually pretty regularly restored off of damaged harddrives and the such.

 

[Wesley Scoggins]

Leave them untouched on a shelf for too long (as little as a year) and you may find they won't spin up again when you need them.

Just wondering, I am not an expert on harddrive design so I could be totally mistaken here, but I don't understand why they wouldn't work after resting on a shelf?

I've had drives that sat in my garage for 10 years before I dug them out, cleaned off the dust, hooked them up, and they worked fine.

I have just never had a drive fail on me because it was unused for too long. If it's in a controlled environment (most long term storage i've seen is in temperature/humidity controlled rooms) I don't see why it shouldn't more or less last indefinitely? (Of course their are limitations, eventually the drive will degrade and fall apart, etc.) I just don't understand why a simple year in proper storage would destroy a harddrive.

Regardless, as Gavin's say, redundancy, redundancy, redundancy. Buy a bunch of (relatively) cheap harddrives, move your projects onto them, and you have a long term solution that is unlikely to be lost in the 10 years until we have even more reliable and hardier SSD options.

 

[Stephen Williams]

Data is actually pretty regularly restored off of damaged harddrives and the such.

Always seemed very expensive when I've asked, to the point of wiping out any potential savings. In many ways it can be cheaper to shoot on whatever camera you already own. It's often cheaper for me to shoot 400' of 35mm than rent a RED package with DIT.

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

Even if a hard drive doesn't work after sitting for a decade or two you can always take the platter out and still read the data off. It's just the motors and bearings that go bad.