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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Spielberg's latest...

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we dont have to feel threatened. its all about choices. a lot of people shoot film because they like it. they like the way it looks and they can afford it. its a valid choice. the rest of us would probably and happily shoot film if we could afford it. the fact is most of us cant so we need the next best thing in the digital realm and it affords us speed in workflow too

all the film dead statements wont make a bit of difference. not everyone feels they are stuck with film. some people actually enjoy using it
 
I have been shooting since 1973 and have been hearing the "film is dead" thing for 30 years. So far nothing can replace the film experience, the Red will definitely have an impact on motion picture production providing an alternative to shooting with photochemical processes. It will also provide opportunities to film makers who can't shoot on film for one reason or another. I did enjoy the early days of more or less portable video gear, RCA & Ike cameras with Ampex portable video tape decks, it was learning another way to speak or communicate. I made lots of awesome images working within the confines of the medium. Film was technically liberating compared to video but not necessarily better, video provided an immediacy that film couldn't.

I shot a commercial early on where we had camera problems, Eclair ACL's had lots of issues in the 70's, and had to reshoot the spot. I hand delivered the spot about a 1/2 hour before air time, at the time there was no other way to do that. The client was happy and the spot actually looked better than the film version.

As Darkkelt said it is all about choices and story is everything!
But pretty pictures help!
 
Ha ha...this love of grain makes me laugh..."it's such an organic look" etc. It's just an artifact of film technology that we're stuck with but which we now think is some kind of holy grail. I don't know about anyone else but my vision has no grain at all, so if you want realistic images shouldn't they be grain-free too? Having said that, "noise" is even worse :-(

David Wyatt.
 
davecw said:
Ha ha...this love of grain makes me laugh..."it's such an organic look" etc. It's just an artifact of film technology that we're stuck with but which we now think is some kind of holy grail. I don't know about anyone else but my vision has no grain at all, so if you want realistic images shouldn't they be grain-free too? Having said that, "noise" is even worse :-(

David Wyatt.
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Your vision isn't 24 fps either...

Who said hyper-clear immersive realism should always be the ultimate goal for a moviemaker? Doesn't leave much room for stylization then... Some movies are more like dreams than realities.
 
When I look at 2k film scans against 2k sub sampled very clean DSLR time lapse, of the same subject, I always feel film gives, by virtue of its grain, a half glimpse of more. It leaves me with the impression of 'there is more' in the way life does. Not the same experience but analogous..

Also seeing clearly is not always good for a film/movie.

When I first saw Apocalypse Now .. It was off VHS letter boxed on a 29inch 4:3 TV. The experience was amazing.. I felt that the film penetrated far more successfully than J.C 'Heart of Darkness' novella did.. Where the novel failed for me with clunky purple prose passages that talked about the un-talkable, the film succeeded.. When I finally, years later, watched in the cinema a new print of the film I was less convinced.

I'm not suggesting the film was better on VHS. Only that 'my' experience of watching it the 3rd time on a big screen, with 'best clarity', was inferior for the expression of the most philosophical of the films ideas. As a war film (action/political whatever) it was great in the fresh print.

Conversely I believe The Thin Red Line's philosophical ideas benefits from the BIG screen and a good print.. Different film different ideas!

Back to grain....?

Michael Lindsay
 
David Mullen ASC said:
Your vision isn't 24 fps either...

Who said hyper-clear immersive realism should always be the ultimate goal for a moviemaker? Doesn't leave much room for stylization then... Some movies are more like dreams than realities.
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Yes, indeed.

Also, I believe that a lot of what goes on in the human brain in between the 24fps interval (imagination filling in the gaps) is what makes each cinematic experience so amazing and unique.
 
davecw said:
Ha ha...this love of grain makes me laugh..."it's such an organic look" etc. It's just an artifact of film technology that we're stuck with but which we now think is some kind of holy grail. I don't know about anyone else but my vision has no grain at all, so if you want realistic images shouldn't they be grain-free too? Having said that, "noise" is even worse :-(

David Wyatt.
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Ha ha ... we tend to create better and better workflow and quality of picture all that only to find out that we are strongly sticked to that old dirty, grainy, flickering footage :biggrin:

Look at postproduction tools today. 70% of them are just for destroing all that perfect picture. Even color correction or lens flares just simulate all the flaws of DP, lenses, film stock, its development, enviroment or crew etc. Its just one big nostalgia and cliché which we love. :biggrin:

We are just used to it and call it magic :sorcerer:
 
Some will shoot film, some will shoot digital. The best news is that digital is now a legitimate alternative.

Jim
 
David Mullen ASC said:
Your vision isn't 24 fps either...
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Technically no, but I personally feel that 24fps (with the attendant 1/48th shutter) does the best job of simulating in consecutive still images the "motion blur" that you see with your eyes. There's still a bit of play there since you can't have a 360-degree shutter, but systems that try to match the "refresh rate" of the human eye by increasing the FPS, the attendant decrease in motion blur detracts from the "reality" of it.

(Though of course some would argue that less motion blur looks more like video, and a "video look" increases the sense of reality since people are used to shooting their lives with a video camera and having it look like that.)

Anyway, as I just said in the Hobbit thread, I also love the organic look of film. Of course they're "flaws" in the image, but as I said, life's no fun if everything's perfect, and IMO neither are movies.

I come from a visual effects background, and the one thing that all the really good VFX artists know is that "perfect is wrong." (Except when you're pulling a matte.)

You WANT to dirty up the surface of your spaceship with grunge and dents, you WANT to have your digital character maybe stumble a little bit. You want flawed because that's what's REAL. I believe I remember David M. saying that he likes to let one light in a scene be "wrong" for that same reason.

I still don't think I'll ever shoot film now that RED's here -- unless I need to shoot with 35mm DOF at more than 60fps, which given that I do a lot of action is a distinct possibility -- but I do plan to degrade the "perfect" image pretty heavily in the final D.I. to maybe make it LOOK like I shot film. Because I agree with Spielberg -- the flaws and minor imperfections are what bring the image to life.
 
I think the new generation of filmmakers are going to be shooting digital, its just the direction our society is going. We aren't using old mechanical methods anymore, everything is becoming electronic. Even though film seems to be quote un quote, "alive" Its going to become less and less common to see something shot on film when there are other alternatives you can use, like RED, the Genisis, and the one Arri has.

Production companies are interested in making money, when you can either shoot digitally and get the same look and feel as film, or you can spend thousands of dollars on film and get the same look for a less costly way, you are going to go with the cheaper method if you think logically.
 
film = a bunch of still pictures playing back at 24 frames per second.. an illusion of captured movement
Digital = captured movement.. playing back captured movement...

film will always look better.
 
Zakaree Sandberg said:
film = a bunch of still pictures playing back at 24 frames per second.. an illusion of captured movement
Digital = captured movement.. playing back captured movement...

film will always look better.
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Wow, Zak. This debate really was more relevant 4 years ago.
 
Steven is the most successful feature film director on the planet today... if you look at the list of hit movies he's been responsible for directing or producing... he is so far ahead of second place sitter that they can never catchup! he is the KING!

If he says film is better.. then it is. Even thought its blurry, soft and grainy and jitters in the film gate... Its just better. Its obviously all those charming old school textures and attributes that he likes. And I'm not about to argue with the King... nobody can. :))

I think its good that a couple of a the big boys stick with film... It keeps the world revolving :)
 
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