Tell me again why 70mm Film is better than Dragon or Arri images?

[Craig W. Bickerstaff]

I saw "Samsara" (shot on 65mm) projected at 4K and it looked SO GREAT. Sometimes I think guys like Tarantino are missing the boat with 4K and 4K laser projection. They are going to lose a lot of image quality making and sending out chemical film prints, when a 4K DCP will not have any analog image loss at all - no scratches, no generation loss, no image shake, etc.

Considering the size and nature of their roadshow style screenings I can't imagine they will have the sort of issues traditionally associated with a film release since no doubt it will be carefully quality controlled. That said I don't think any of that stuff bothers him, all the flaws of screening on film the dust, scratches inconstant colour in prints and even missing reels etc. are all a part of the cinema experience that he grew up with and fell in love with as seen in the Grindhouse project he did with Rodriguez. Even with myself, the most enjoyable viewing of Ghostbusters I ever had was a fairly poor 35mm print, it was this extremely inconsistent print with all sorts of dirt and scratches and the sound was all over the place but it I dunno it had character or something I guess and I don't even have the same anti digital screening attitude that he has.

 

[Tom Lowe]

Considering the size and nature of their roadshow style screenings I can't imagine they will have the sort of issues traditionally associated with a film release since no doubt it will be carefully quality controlled. That said I don't think any of that stuff bothers him, all the flaws of screening on film the dust, scratches inconstant colour in prints and even missing reels etc. are all a part of the cinema experience that he grew up with and fell in love with as seen in the Grindhouse project he did with Rodriguez. Even with myself, the most enjoyable viewing of Ghostbusters I ever had was a fairly poor 35mm print, it was this extremely inconsistent print with all sorts of dirt and scratches and the sound was all over the place but it I dunno it had character or something I guess and I don't even have the same anti digital screening attitude that he has.

No, no, I totally get it. I also have a long-time love affair with film. Some of my favorite experiences in cinemas were watching film prints of Lawrence of Arabia in 70mm, Gone With the Wind in 35mm. But there are two sides to every story, and some of these hardcore film guys will barely even openly acknowledge the positive aspects of digital cinema acquisition and projection.

 

[Mark Toia]

No, no, I totally get it. I also have a long-time love affair with film. Some of my favorite experiences in cinemas were watching film prints of Lawrence of Arabia in 70mm, Gone With the Wind in 35mm. But there are two sides to every story, and some of these hardcore film guys will barely even openly acknowledge the positive aspects of digital cinema acquisition and projection.

For what your currently doing Tom, 4k DCP projection is the only way.
To see the world the way it really is.. Awesome.

Look forward in seeing your next film.

 

[Glen Powell]

For what your currently doing Tom, 4k DCP projection is the only way.
To see the world the way it really is.. Awesome.

That's part of the equation that some people seem to miss - Format (film Vs. digital, aspect, colour, etc) are essentially part of the casting process. Your capture format is as much a part of the cast as your lead actor, or your art direction, or your wardrobe choices.

 

[Ces Peynetti]

Once I was speaking with Rian Johnson who is also a big film enthusiast over digital, and his bottom line was that though digital has improved and maybe has surpassed film in a lot of a aspects, for him personally it came down to the "romanticism" mixed with the nostalgia that shooting with film brings to him. He knows that when he talks about the advantages of film over digital he treads over very subjective descriptions, and when he argues for the quality of the image of film over digital, he knows it's subjective as well.

I thought that was a very valid point. I find myself doing similar things when I write. When it's a quick idea I'll just take my computer and write until I can't write anymore. Sometimes I write on a typewriter because the sound of the typewriter makes me happy, but my most personal and favorite projects I tend to write with a fountain pen my grandfather left me and I write on old leather journals. It's horribly impractical, and three times the amount of work since I'll end up transcribing to the computer anyway. But I enjoy that process so much I really think it brings the best writing out of me.

Sometimes I guess it can be about the process and how that gets your creative juices rolling.

 

[Elsie N]

Is there such a thing as too much perfection?

That is, do we marvel at the image itself and does that actually take us out of the story, where an imperfect visual becomes background to the story?

 

[Gabriele Turchi]

To me it's not just about the specs , the image or the look , there is much also about the process involved ,
the idea of having a unique moment in time captured on a UNIQUE piece of film that you can look trough and hold in your hand versus holding a Lacie or a Gtech or a Glyph ...
the idea of not seeing and having to wait wait , the idea that the neg in your hand is the only copy that exist in the world ...
for many , all the above (and more) trigger a different attitude, therefore their process ,therefore their work,
not everybody benefit from an easier workflow or having 4k live preview on set...

g

 

[Freya]

To me it's not just about the specs , the image or the look , there is much also about the process involved ,

There is a weird thing about the different formats that affects the kind of films that get made.
It's very weird because often movies could be made the same whatever the format to some extent, obviously different formats do change looks but there are some things that can be very difficult on different film formats. This leads to people working around those issues and you end up with a different kind of movie being made. For example, the huge 70mm caneras affect the speed the camera can move at or being forced into really tight shooting ratios can affect the end outcome too meaning that certain kinds of low ratio, low budget movies, are largely not made anymore.

For instance it's harder to make certain kinds of "bad" movies anymore because it's much easier to achieve mediocre results and at the same time the lack of the restrictions to struggle against often means that people are not in that battle that might create something really special either. Movies made after the digital revolution are thus different although they also have their own qualities and I suspect that in time we will see new types of digital movie styles arrive that we havn't had before.

Freya

 

[Glen Powell]

Here's a (partial, unsubstantiated) listing of theatres showing the 70mm print on Christmas day:

http://www.in70mm.com/news/2016/hateful_8/index.htm

It has to be partial since there are no listings for cities like New York or Toronto where there are 70mm houses and most likely ticket demand. The link also has lots of geeky info about the 'struggle' to show a film print in 2015.

 

[Steve Sherrick]

Here's a (partial, unsubstantiated) listing of theatres showing the 70mm print on Christmas day:

http://www.in70mm.com/news/2016/hateful_8/index.htm

It has to be partial since there are no listings for cities like New York or Toronto where there are 70mm houses and most likely ticket demand. The link also has lots of geeky info about the 'struggle' to show a film print in 2015.

Hoping I get to make it to the Boston screening. My December is booked solid at the moment but I feel like it would be unfortunate to miss this.

 

[Björn Benckert]

For me it´s hard to believe that we actually are like months or even weeks away from playing around in 8k makes it hard for me to sleep at nights. Today I finnished a sony commercial in 4k, thinking that next year we do the same in 8k makes my head spin.

 

[Marc Wielage]

If film is so good why Kodak went out of business? And why all you guys use Reds? And for every "Mr. Tarantino" why there are another 300 respectful film makers who use digital? Are all those idiots and Tarantino is the "purist"?

Kodak went bankrupt for a lot of reasons, but 90% of them were economical, not technological. The bean-counters at studios realized they were spending literally billions of dollars a year for film prints in theaters, and the costs could be reduced by about 75% going to all-digital exhibition. One little secret of Kodak's is that most of their profit came from print film, not from negative, so this torpedoed the company when the DCI trend started 10 years ago. (I'm still waiting for somebody to write a great book on the rise and fall of Eastman Kodak; it's a fascinating story, and digital is only part of what ultimately killed them.)

If you took the 300 members of the ASC and asked them, "cost no object, choosing between any camera in the world, what would you use?", I would bet that the vast majority of them would pick 35mm film. To me, the reason why is that if you screw up the exposure, the film can recover more gracefully than digital. There are things I've never liked about film, but the last few generations of Vision 3 were mind-blowingly good, and done well, it can still look spectacular. Bear in mind that three of the biggest Hollywood blockbusters of the year were shot on film: Jurassic World, SPECTRE, and Star Wars VII. Those three movies would still have made billions regardless of what they were shot on, but note that each film looks completely different from each other. I'd say most audiences are unaware and don't care what the medium was.

The problem now for production is that the choices for labs and finishing become more constrained and more difficult. BTW, I find it interesting that most of the people slamming film are people who have never actually shot film.

I personally try to remain format agnostic. I don't care what anybody shoots on as long as it's well-exposed and well-lit, and it tells the story. But film is a perfectly reasonable choice for projects budgeted above a certain level. Trust me, for a $60M+ studio feature, the catering bill will cost more than the negative stock, film processing, camera rental, and dailies. It's bullshit money. My personal preference (cost no object) would be for productions to shoot on 35mm negative and then post entirely on digital, because then you get the advantages of both worlds. But I respect Tarantino and Richardson for having the courage and ambition to try something that's very, very difficult and impractical, just to prove it could be done and to show audiences something they haven't seen for a long time.

The film will ultimately live or die totally on the basis of whether the performances and story are good, not what it's shot on. I think Bob Richardson could still make brilliant images on a GoPro, so the choice of camera almost doesn't matter for cinematographers at that level.

 

[David Battistella]

Better etc. is all sort of subjective.

As an archival medium film is king. in 500 years you could hold film up to the sun and see what is on it. Not so sure that is the case for any digital medium. But I get the point of this thread.

Our ability to acquire film quality images for a fraction of the cost/hassle/instantaneousness that the digital paradigm has offered trumps everything. Film is a lovely way to capture a film and so are many digital cameras. I just look at the digital realm as more creative choices and the ability to use different tools for whatever job/creative choice you have.

Some people want to preserve Film. I get that and it doesn't bother me, everything can coexist. Film served us very well and many peoples earliest memories of moving images are connected to film images and the particular aesthetic (one digital has been chasing since the first HD cameras).

There was a time everything had to be Film over HD, digital was harsh, shit colors, no DR, blah, blah, blah. Thats all over now.

Everything has changed now and capturing high resolution 6K on Dragon isn't just an alternative it is in fact a replacement.



David

 

[Elsie N]

As someone who has no experience with film, it just seems to me that film had to give way to digital as it has matured. That is, film is as good as it is ever going to get.

Digital on the other hand probably is only about half-way through its cycle of development so it is only natural that it has become the de facto platform, going forward.

Still, there is always some overlap between the old and the new, especially when they are similar. As the OP pointed out, it can be done to make the two indistinguishable if trying to make the new look like the old.

Film will probably be around in a small way until digital stops trying to emulate film and instead tries to distinguish itself FROM film.

 

[David Battistella]

I guess my point is sorta this. I'd put a film negative in a time capsule before a hard drive.

The rest. Image quality etc, everything is on par in terms of the aesthetic you want to achieve, but people want to associate a "specialness" to film and the "special" people want to feel special because it's part of their special creative process. That's cool too.

 

[sam karr]

Film will probably be around in a small way until digital stops trying to emulate film and instead tries to distinguish itself FROM film.

But digital doesn't try to emulate film for romantic reasons, it simply tries to be as good. To get the same amount of colors and tones, the same color separation capabilities, etc.
I just tried once to shoot the same guy with a 5DII and a film Mamiya7 side by side, just because both cameras were on the table. Mamiya scanned without retouching anything on a crappy epson scanner. Nothing scientific at all. Small part of the original photos.
I've got many still cameras, and had many in the past, digital Leicas etc. Shooting with a medium-format film camera is always a great and satisfying experience to me. To the point that I sold almost all my digital still cameras and kept film ones. You get good things just out of the scanner. Film is like painting, there is a filter over reality that make things more gorgeous IMO. I understand why people still wants to use film, as I understand why people prefer digital which is so convenient and easy. I really hope that next Red sensor will be more about colors than about Ks.

Mamiya 7:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B60diOZ-Edi3SEZtX1VOa2FaLVE/view
5D:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B60diOZ-Edi3RUhHOWRXTU4tNUE/view

 

[Patrick Tresch]

As an archival medium film is king. in 500 years you could hold film up to the sun and see what is on it.

But I suppose you'r not talking about the negative nor the distribution print? But another archival method of color separation in 3 black&white layers?
Color film is probably one of the worst archival medium... (with hard drives)

 

[Björn Benckert]

But I suppose you'r not talking about the negative nor the distribution print? But another archival method of color separation in 3 black&white layers?
Color film is probably one of the worst archival medium... (with digital)

Agree, I restored some old Ingmar Bergman films and from that I know film is not really a good way to preserve a picture film is deteriating by the day.

 

[Phil Holland]

Getting away from the film versus digital debate, for me The Hateful Eight is more of tip of the hat towards medium, format, and movie going experience.

For me the format itself is what's interesting here as well as the lenses used. 65mm 5-perf + Ultra Panavision 70 process with Panavision 1.25X Panatar lenses. Though some are marked 1.33X, but they are actually 1.25X as shown below.



I've answered my own questions regarding the medium, at this point RED has nailed so much with the Dragon sensor tech. For me it's my "digital film alternative". I have no reason to shoot on anything else because the Dragon sensor technology checks off a lot of things on my personal list, a list that has a lot to do with film's technical and aesthetic merits no less. It's tremendous in my mind that we got "here".

But this particular film is much more about capturing something that hasn't been done in cinema for a long, long time. It's a message I think is valid, especially in our media on demand lifestyle today. The on set workflow is even effected by the choice to shoot film, that effects the pacing of a shooting day and how it "feels" for everybody. Not everybody shooting digital today creates that same atmosphere or sense of importance, but for those who do you find out quickly that people want to work on those productions.

Tarantino is a well studied lover of film and cinema. This pretty much emanates from him at all times and is seen with various nods to films of yesteryear in his productions. He knows the history and he knows what he likes. It's been a moderate insane journey just to get the roadshow theater's projection lenses assembled, let alone finding a way to project the final longer cut in the selected theaters. This might be the last time we ever truly anything like this done.

Another thing I think is great about The Hateful Eight is the use of the 2.75:1 aspect ratio. This is happening mostly due to the Ultra Panavision process, but it will be nice to see a wider aspect ratio in cinemas again. It's something that's not explored enough in my opinion. Films are destined to end up on mostly 16x9 screens these days, commercially speaking, it makes sense to deliver in an aspect ratio that's closer to the 16x9 standard to fill the screen. But film is a visual art form. Composition as well as framing doesn't necessarily need to be held within the walls of the most common standard. I personally don't mind letter boxing, especially if the film's intention was to be seen at a wider aspect ratio, but it is something studios and filmmakers take into consideration before filming.

 

[Jeffery Anderson]

Movies and promoters love anything that makes a movie seem important or spectacular. I'd imagine that this is just that, an attempt to make an indie film seem like it's 'Cinerama' or 'Cinemascope' ... it was all hype and in the relevance of Tarantino, be the exploitation films. Guess he's keeping it interesting and personally I do like watching 35mm prints, but not sure it's superior to digital