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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 :)

There Are No Bloodless Revolutions

David Mullen ASC said:
I think there is a bit of ego wrapped up in using technology, on all sides, whether digital or film. People want to perceive themselves as being ahead of the pack in some way or the other, or bigger or better or more artistic than their competitors. 10 years from now when everyone is shooting digital, and film is likely to be gone, there won't be anything to brag about by shooting digital, instead it will be something else that will be used to make oneself seem to be visionary and everyone else to be old-school.

"You're shooting 2D but I'm shooting 3D", "you're using a five-year-old camera but I'm using a camera that hasn't been released yet", etc. This will never end because people form emotional attachments to things, to pieces of technology. So for some reason, if their choice in technology becomes successful, it means they were "right" and somehow that makes them more successful or better, whatever. I just don't get it.

Technology keeps changing, making some things easier, faster, cheaper, whatever. That's great, and it's fun as well. But fundamentally, do important things change? Does art therefore become more meaningful, deeper, do human relationships improve across the planet, do we treat each other better because now we can control our TV set from our iPad or because the home movie we shoot with our friends on the weekend has the same resolution as "Lawrence of Arabia"? These are all just tools for artists, and tools are important as a means to an end, but they are not the end, the art is the end, the IDEAS are the end.

Last century, film was the primary tool for transforming visual ideas into concrete images; now it's becoming something else. Technical change is somewhat inevitable. But what I'm asking is how much that matters in the big picture so to speak. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Are the movies I have a choice to see this weekend fundamentally better than the ones I would have had to choose between on a December weekend in 1979 or 1939? After all, we've had digital tools for this past decade. So was "The Social Network" a fundamentally better movie because it was shot on the M-X Red One rather than in 35mm? I'm just asking for some perspective here. What does it really mean, or matter, if more Disney films this year are being shot in 3D Digital? Does it mean they will be better movies than what I saw a decade ago?

Technical innovation is important and helps enable creative ideas, but it's important to be honest about what technology is doing to the process, pro and con, by asking if some other technology had been used for a particular project, would the artistic intent have been lost, or merely altered cosmetically? Will Terence Malick's digital movies be "better" than his movies shot on film, or just different?
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+100
 
Tom Lowe said:
Well, whatever the reason, digital is taking over fast. You say it's because of 3D? Well, everyone is shooting 3D these days, so it will make the move toward digital go even faster, as evidenced by Disney. Once Epic hits, it will be a tidal wave that will sweep the industry with incredible speed. Watch and see. These types of trends build slowly at first, then the chart basically goes vertical at some point.
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We shall see if the 3D thing keeps happening after Tron flops in a few weeks. It's tracking to open at less than $35million on opening weekend which would be a major disappointment for a movie that Disney has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on. All those 3D productions where greenlit after Avatar made megabank, but the whole 3D thing has cooled off since the early summer. If Tron flops as big as it's projected to studios will think twice about shooting in 3D.

Digital quality will be on the same level with film very quickly, but film is not going to die as soon as digital matches it. It still going to take time for digital to earn the trust of studios and filmmakers. Then slowly, year by year, more films will be shot digitally than with film, until film is no longer financially viable.
 
David Mullen ASC said:
Yeah, that perfectly describes John Waters making "Pink Flamingos" in 1973 on 16mm stock for $10,000. Or Kubrick making "Killer's Kiss" in 1955. They were powerful corporate stooges.

The way you guys talk, there was no such thing as independent filmmaking before the video camera was invented!
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Exceptions to the rule. Slim, rare, spare exceptions at that, IMO. I'm sure every dime of that $10K went to the lab-- which is exactly the point. How many potential Kubricks lived and died as artistically mute filmmakers? These were the guys that could scrape together the barest minimum of budget in the film era. The digital era multiples this likelihood by orders of magnitude. You're right, Independent films existed in the past, but always with some basic restrictions on the tools they had access to. Those restrictions are falling away and someday they won't exist at all.
 
Tom Lowe said:
Well, film NO LONGER has a stranglehold on the filmmaking business. That's a valid point. But it did for a hundred years. Only recently has digital been able to match 35mm, and that is when the floodgates open. All the young filmmakers now are 100% digital, so it's almost become a moot point.
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"Stranglehold"? For all of that hundred years, film was the film making business. There was no other way to make motion pictures. (Flip books for an audience of 100's just didn't work so well.) Film was the enabler of the filmmaking business. Every camera didn't cost 100K, but in the hands of a talented artist, film looked just as good coming out of a cheap camera as out of an expensive one. In that sense, film was very democratic.

Where film is not democratic is that it requires that you know something in order to make it look good. With film, it is much more apparent if you don't know what you are doing. Digital makes it possible for anyone to get pictures out of a camera, but has it really democratized knowledge or talent?
 
Jeff Coatney said:
Exceptions to the rule. Slim, rare, spare exceptions at that, IMO. I'm sure every dime of that $10K went to the lab-- which is exactly the point.
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$10K wouldn't begin to buy a Red package. There are all kinds of reasons not to make a film. Money is no less of a barrier now. But no more of one either.
 
David Mullen ASC said:
But fundamentally, do important things change? Does art therefore become more meaningful, deeper, do human relationships improve across the planet, do we treat each other better because now we can control our TV set from our iPad or because the home movie we shoot with our friends on the weekend has the same resolution as "Lawrence of Arabia"? These are all just tools for artists, and tools are important as a means to an end, but they are not the end, the art is the end, the IDEAS are the end.
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That's precisely my point. You always mis-interpret my excitement for film passing away as some great love for digital technology. I don't care what platform or technology we use-- as long as everybody with an idea has access to it. We should have the ability to present the idea without bankrupting ourselves or a small country, or giving some corporate monopoly a license to print money off our basic need to communicate.

There should be legions of potential Kubricks and Waters making cinema. It should be no more inaccessible than making an oil painting or writing a novel-- by that I mean: your greatest expense should be the amount of personal labor you want to expend in the doing of it. Should it cost money? Of course, there are expenses, but the goal is reachable for the average working person, not just somebody with a rich uncle.
 
Jeff Coatney said:
Make a friend with a Red and RENT the camera for beer and a car wash. Now, try to get that same deal from Kodak.
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And what is the difference between this and having a rich uncle?

My point (and I think David M's point too) is that you create art because you are driven to create art. It's not film that keeps someone from making a movie, or the cost of a Red. Is the cost of paper standing in the way of all those writers who don't finish their novels? Not likely. It's the personal commitment and vision required that stands in the way. Art isn't easy.
 
Tom Lowe said:
I see film as a barrier to talented people with no studio funding or personal wealth. Digital is a revolution that is democratizing filmmaking, and that's not just a catchphrase. It's real.

RIP film.
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Flip that round Tom. Do you think everyone in film is either funded by a studio or was born with a silver spoon up their rear end? Frankly, that's very naive and fairly insulting to most people in the business.

It's not the demise of film that is democratizing the industry - it's the rise of the internet. You should know this more than most.
 
Jeff Coatney said:
Make a friend with a Red and RENT the camera for beer and a car wash. Now, try to get that same deal from Kodak.
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But it wasn't kodak's fault or a conspiracy that a "film" shoot was using up a pretty sophisticated, precision chemical and plastic medium that has real cost as opposed to digital that doesn't really use up anything.

So yes, the revolution - as far as acquisition - is over and is completely "democratized". But along with digital acquisition has come infinite digital distribution. It will be interesting (and maybe a little sad) to see whether there is much of a living to be made in motion picutes in the era of YouTube, vimeo, facebook, etc. As the saying goes " ... Be careful what you wish for..."
 
Jeff Coatney said:
I don't care what platform or technology we use-- as long as everybody with an idea has access to it. We should have the ability to present the idea without bankrupting ourselves or a small country, or giving some corporate monopoly a license to print money off our basic need to communicate.
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In other words, everything should be free, or cheap enough that it's basically free. Uhhhh, OK. I won't ask why.

There should be legions of potential Kubricks and Waters making cinema. It should be no more inaccessible than making an oil painting or writing a novel-- by that I mean: your greatest expense should be the amount of personal labor you want to expend in the doing of it. Should it cost money? Of course, there are expenses, but the goal is reachable for the average working person, not just somebody with a rich uncle.
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It's always been accessible to those who have their eyes open. To those who are waiting for someone to knock on their door and say "Hey, Try This, It's FREE!!", that's not particularly obvious.

It seems to me there are two things going on here. First, those who are screaming for "free this" and "free that" have not gotten to a position in life where they actually have to think about trying to make a living, because if they had, they would be looking for financial opportunity to do so as much as the personal expression and fun part. Second, it seems that many, if not most, of the posters here read what David said, but didn't pay attention at all. They all keep harping on the "hindrances" and completely ignore the opportunities, most of which have been around for years. They repeatedly point out how only those with connections were "allowed" to make visual art, how in some way "the indie" has been screwed by "the system," how greedy companies like Kodak have conspired over the years to keep down the "little guy," how independent cinema apparently hasn't existed until Red came along, and yet only once or twice in many pages of posts have I heard any reference to talent. What David REALLY said is stop looking to outside factors as reasons for anything. Those who have wanted to create visual art have done it for many, many years, regardless of "the system" and regardless of the lack of "free" tools. The rise of the Internet might be celebrated by some, but the fact is that the very "democratization" that seems to be so frequently mentioned here can also be referred to as "the cheapening," and that isn't so good for those who not only want to create visual art, but be able to make a living at it.
 
Liam Hall said:
It's not the demise of film that is democratizing the industry - it's the rise of the internet. You should know this more than most.
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Interesting point. I think it's advancements in the technological combination of digital video cameras, increases in affordable computing power, easy to use (and inexpensive) software tools, and the internet.

Inexpensive VHS camcorders allowed people to shoot whatever they wanted and watch it almost immediately, and have been around for about 30(?)years now. But editing systems were not readily available, easy to use, and for most cost too much to rent.

But just like the digital photography phenomenon so quickly made film photography no longer the first choice for so many, once video became easy to shoot, load into a computer, edit and then output to DVD and the web, it became the sensible choice in the eyes of consumers.

This same thing happened in the world of audio. Once DAWs (Digital Audio Workstations) became accessible to the masses, recording your music in a professional studio became optional, especially for those who wanted to start their career in music production but previously couldn't afford to go into a studio to record a demo tape. Studio time and/or professional tools were typically paid for by the record labels.

This is a grass roots (r)evolution powered by mass consumers, but just like the audio revolution, started and driven by people in the middle. Not the high end working professionals, nor the average consumer, but those who aspire to make a career in audio, photography, motion pictures, or just want to take their passion for these arts to the highest level they can.

The correlation to the cost of pursuing this passion/hobby/career path is apparent.

This is an economic (r)evolution driven by, you guessed it, the cultural revolution of the internet, and consequently new and emerging media options (webisodes, iPad, digital magazines, VOD, etc) and social networking.

2inch 24 track analog audio tape disappeared to be replaced by non-linear DAW's. Digital photography has taken over film photography. Motion pictures (film) will follow a similar path.

Why? Because film is less practical, costs more, is more difficult to edit, and lacks the instant feedback that is now defacto in an age of instant information.

AND... because the tools to replace it are here.
 
Sure, I'll agree that it's easier and cheaper now to create movie images from a technical standpoint, though the issue in the past wasn't that there weren't alternatives to 35mm, just that they didn't look as good technically and they required a bit more knowledge to use and edit.

But the reason you haven't heard of a lot of other Waters and Kubricks in the past wasn't solely due to the costs of shooting on film! Growing up, through college, the decade afterwards, I knew a lot of filmmakers making movies... and most of you have never heard of them. But they made their movies, that wasn't the problem, they just couldn't get anyone to see them. So just because you haven't heard of any indie filmmakers from the 1970's than John Waters doesn't mean they weren't out there. Now with You Tube and whatnot, everyone can dump their weekend exercise shot on a DSLR and have thousands of people watch them. That didn't exist in the 1970's.

I just think far too much emphasis is being placed on the acquisition medium as if it were the primary thing that determines whether a film gets made or not, when it's often a minor thing in a laundry list of factors depending on the script. If a lack of a camera is the only thing stopping your career as a director, then how are you going to handle the much greater hurdles and challenges in life that will confront you as a director???

When I was in college , no-budget filmmakers were shooting on Super-8 and talking about buying a 16mm Bolex or Beaulieu, which the filmmakers with a bit more money and ambition were using. In the 1990's, the no-budget guys were shooting on Hi-8 and talking about getting ahold of a betacam, maybe beg or borrow one, or shooting on 16mm. Now they are shooting on a DSLR and talking getting a Scarlet, or beg or borrow a Red One. So what I see is a process going on of tiered tools for people of different budgets, the main difference being that the quality keeps increasing while the costs keep going down. What I don't see is some sort of fantasy world where there were no small guys out there across the country making little movies on the cheap before video was invented. Only someone too young to know about the past would think that.

As Mike says, I think of film as the enabler of cinematic dreams of the 20th century -- it allowed me to find a new career, all starting back when I was 12 years old in a small desert town, when I had the idea to enter a talent contest in the Latin convention I was going to by making a comedy film on regular 8mm (about the Trojan War, ala Monty Python). I found that every other person in town had an unused 8mm or Super-8 camera in their closet, so I borrowed one and started shooting. So where would I be today without FILM? I wasn't a rich kid, I didn't have connections, but that didn't stop me from learning about filmmaking and making movies with my friends back in the 1970's and 1980's. But now we live in some sort of world where people have short-term memory problems and think that only rich people in Hollywood were using celluloid technology in the past, that there wasn't this WHOLE OTHER subculture going on of small-time filmmakers, independents, etc. I mean, a lot of smaller cities used to have 16mm labs for what today would be called "corporate video" -- these weren't people working on huge budgets either.

I also think too many people are using the term "film" here to mean "35mm film".
 
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I think bottom line is badly lit, badly acted, and, worst of all, badly written productions shot on an Epic-M have no more chance of seeing an audience today than same shot on VHS in the past.

I used to have a manager who would test all his single new male clients in a funny way - if they failed he dumped them. The test was he would invite them to a party, and he observed they couldn't get a phone number off a hot girl he assumed that "If you can't convince a girl to give you her phone number, how are you going to convince studio execs, your actors or your crew to get behind you?" Think what you may about this test, but the parallel here is that "If you can't find a way to pay for some 16mm film..."

I work in highly visual and not so story driven mediums (music video, fashion video) and I do think that Red has now helped our prods here in Quebec, which tend to have less budget than U.S. ones, have a better fighting chance because gone are a few primary differentiators that used to always be there: They shot 35, we 16, they shot many roles of films, we could only do 2 or 3 takes.

That said, many differentiators remain: time, cast, art direction, crew size, access to accessories like cranes...

SO... The sum effect of digital has been to remove some differentiators, among many. Don't get me wrong, this has been extremely helpful, and I am very greatful to Graemme and Jim for this, but by no means is any camera the whole story of any production.
 
Jeff Coatney said:
Sure, but Kodak didn't exactly go broke doing that. They also made billions over the years.
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Why does that negate the fact that they did (and still do) support student filmmakers, in a very real way, for many years? What do you have against Kodak, anyway? I assume Red is or eventually will be profitable. Will you feel the same way about them?
 
M Most said:
In other words, everything should be free, or cheap enough that it's basically free. Uhhhh, OK. I won't ask why.



It's always been accessible to those who have their eyes open. To those who are waiting for someone to knock on their door and say "Hey, Try This, It's FREE!!", that's not particularly obvious.

It seems to me there are two things going on here. First, those who are screaming for "free this" and "free that" have not gotten to a position in life where they actually have to think about trying to make a living, because if they had, they would be looking for financial opportunity to do so as much as the personal expression and fun part. Second, it seems that many, if not most, of the posters here read what David said, but didn't pay attention at all. They all keep harping on the "hindrances" and completely ignore the opportunities, most of which have been around for years. They repeatedly point out how only those with connections were "allowed" to make visual art, how in some way "the indie" has been screwed by "the system," how greedy companies like Kodak have conspired over the years to keep down the "little guy," how independent cinema apparently hasn't existed until Red came along, and yet only once or twice in many pages of posts have I heard any reference to talent. What David REALLY said is stop looking to outside factors as reasons for anything. Those who have wanted to create visual art have done it for many, many years, regardless of "the system" and regardless of the lack of "free" tools. The rise of the Internet might be celebrated by some, but the fact is that the very "democratization" that seems to be so frequently mentioned here can also be referred to as "the cheapening," and that isn't so good for those who not only want to create visual art, but be able to make a living at it.
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Free? Is that what I said? Everything should be free? No, Mike. Not my position at all. David is a good writer, so I think I can interpret his meaning, no one needs to explain his posts.

I'm not disagreeing with anything here except the fact that: sad as it is, the industrial apparatus that gives us photo-chemical film is disintegrating and I say: its about time. Its really no more complex than that. I don't think anybody will be hurt by this-- the last time I was in a film lab the entire staff looked as if they were nearing retirement age anyway.

But to include Super 8 film as somehow the equivalent to 35mm is way over the top. I wonder how many features would have hired David as their DP if his reel had nothing but Super 8 footage on it? Somewhere along the way, if you shoot film, you gotta spring for 35mm, and it has never been cheap, even for a student.

I'm happy that is changing.
 
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