Why film will stay the king...

[Brice Ansel]

Shot on Canon 5D. I think we can end this discussion now. Film is only chosen for emotional reasons anymore...

Good on a full HD Screen, but on a theater big screen it is another story. ;-).

 

[Paul Russell]

When's that last time someone shot a dead horse with film?

Speilberg shot War Horse on film

 

[Terry VerHaar]

Speilberg shot War Horse on film

Haha - priceless response. :smiley:

 

[David Battistella]

Shot on Canon 5D. I think we can end this discussion now. Film is only chosen for emotional reasons anymore...

What is the title, again?

"To the Wonder"ous" African Tree of Life?"

Ok, so Malik has had a clear influence on a generation of filmmakers. That's cool.

Battistella

 

[Philip Loo]

I think that digital has an almost limitless potential to improve, but film does not. It will eventually be able to emulate and probably surpass all the "magical" qualities that film currently has.

 

[David Battistella]

Dragon is already magic.

battistella

 

[David Kuhn]

I think that digital has an almost limitless potential to improve, but film does not. It will eventually be able to emulate and probably surpass all the "magical" qualities that film currently has.

There will always be some who will yearn for days of yore... just look at the vinyl fanatics. Some spend tens of thousands of dollars on stabilized turntables so they can listen to a technology that's been clearly outperformed for nearly two decades. The more you push them using hard data... the more they'll retreat to 'fuzzy' metrics that can't be quantified. At least the tube guys have real data supporting the love they have for their luddite glowey amps.

 

[Marc Wielage]

I think that digital has an almost limitless potential to improve, but film does not. It will eventually be able to emulate and probably surpass all the "magical" qualities that film currently has.

Let's flip that around. You could take a project shot in 1980 on film, rescan it today in 4K, and it'll look fantastic. Take a digital project shot in 2005, and let me know how it looks today... let alone 35 years after that. Digital is stuck with the picture quality of the pickup at that moment; a piece of film could potentially look better today than it ever did in its history, getting better as scanning and restoration technology gets better.

Sharpness is not everything, and I think ultimately content trounces everything else. And neither film nor digital can exist without great lighting. I'd much rather see a well-lit piece of HD than an amateurishly-shot piece of 65mm negative, and I'd rather see well-shot 35mm negative than a horribly-exposed digital project.

 

[Gabriele Turchi]

For a DP and the production : Today's digital camera make your life happy and easy .

But ask to any colorist in the world if they prefer receive film or digital : they will al say FILM , why ? because looks 100 times better out of the box and is very very fast to achieve great images . with digital camera ( Alexa and RED included you never know who you get ... i got material from the same shoot that was good , some was bad and some was terrible ( for apparently no reason because was all properly exposed ) sometimes is fast to grade and sometimes takes forever because there is no richness , nor color separation etc... sometimes they all ( arri and red ) looks fantastic , but most of the times it require a lot of work . with film that is never the case

if the sweet spot ( light conditions , contrast , image captured etc..) of film in order to get a good image as starting point is 145 degree , the sweet spot for digital is 45 degree

 

[Philip Loo]

Let's flip that around. You could take a project shot in 1980 on film, rescan it today in 4K, and it'll look fantastic. Take a digital project shot in 2005, and let me know how it looks today... let alone 35 years after that. Digital is stuck with the picture quality of the pickup at that moment; a piece of film could potentially look better today than it ever did in its history, getting better as scanning and restoration technology gets better.

Sharpness is not everything, and I think ultimately content trounces everything else. And neither film nor digital can exist without great lighting. I'd much rather see a well-lit piece of HD than an amateurishly-shot piece of 65mm negative, and I'd rather see well-shot 35mm negative than a horribly-exposed digital project.

I think it's ironic that you would be improving a film negative through a digital medium. Best of both worlds!

 

[Marc Wielage]

I think it's ironic that you would be improving a film negative through a digital medium. Best of both worlds!

Not ironic at all. Digital has saved countless hundreds of faded films, because at least now the tools exist where skilled artists and technicians can take YCM separation negatives (capturing the RGB from the original camera images) and align them together precisely, with far better quality than they could with original Technicolor. And the tools also exist to remove dirt, eliminate flicker, and maintain an even look throughout every scene. None of this was possible with photochemical finishing.

The problem I see with digital (or at least investing in a digital camera right now) is that the technology is changing so rapidly, there's a very real danger of getting caught with a digital dud. Software and firmware changes are nightmarish. Think of the people who rushed out to buy F900's in 2000-2001. Those are going for maybe a couple of grand on eBay nowadays; it's hard to give them away today. I think in the long run, the cameras that are going to survive are not just the ones that make the best pictures, but also the ones that have the clearest, least problematic post path, and also those that lend themselves to extremely reliable operation. I think all of that trumps resolution any day.

But as for film as a production medium, I think those days are gone, at least for all but fairly high-end studio features. I think there are great things about film that are hard to equal in digital, but for certain kinds of projects -- TV in particular -- I think digital blew film out of the water more than a decade ago. I can remember working on four or five TV pilots in 2001 that shot on Sony HD, and we got them in at Technicolor in Hollywood and I thought, "damn! This is it -- film's days are numbered." It took awhile for the major labs to shut down, but I think the closing of Technicolor and Deluxe in North America have made it clear that film is no longer practical for most people to shoot. Sure, it can be done at a certain budget -- the recent Tom Cruise sci-fi blockbuster, Edge of Tomorrow was shot on film and looked fantastic -- but I don't think film is practical for indie filmmakers, documentary people, or most TV. In the right hands, digital cameras can still look pleasing in every way -- but I'd always argue that I think lighting for digital cameras is slightly less forgiving than film just because of the latitude. But only slightly.

 

[Philip Loo]

Not ironic at all. Digital has saved countless hundreds of faded films, because at least now the tools exist where skilled artists and technicians can take YCM separation negatives (capturing the RGB from the original camera images) and align them together precisely, with far better quality than they could with original Technicolor. And the tools also exist to remove dirt, eliminate flicker, and maintain an even look throughout every scene. None of this was possible with photochemical finishing.

The problem I see with digital (or at least investing in a digital camera right now) is that the technology is changing so rapidly, there's a very real danger of getting caught with a digital dud. Software and firmware changes are nightmarish. Think of the people who rushed out to buy F900's in 2000-2001. Those are going for maybe a couple of grand on eBay nowadays; it's hard to give them away today. I think in the long run, the cameras that are going to survive are not just the ones that make the best pictures, but also the ones that have the clearest, least problematic post path, and also those that lend themselves to extremely reliable operation. I think all of that trumps resolution any day.

But as for film as a production medium, I think those days are gone, at least for all but fairly high-end studio features. I think there are great things about film that are hard to equal in digital, but for certain kinds of projects -- TV in particular -- I think digital blew film out of the water more than a decade ago. I can remember working on four or five TV pilots in 2001 that shot on Sony HD, and we got them in at Technicolor in Hollywood and I thought, "damn! This is it -- film's days are numbered." It took awhile for the major labs to shut down, but I think the closing of Technicolor and Deluxe in North America have made it clear that film is no longer practical for most people to shoot. Sure, it can be done at a certain budget -- the recent Tom Cruise sci-fi blockbuster, Edge of Tomorrow was shot on film and looked fantastic -- but I don't think film is practical for indie filmmakers, documentary people, or most TV. In the right hands, digital cameras can still look pleasing in every way -- but I'd always argue that I think lighting for digital cameras is slightly less forgiving than film just because of the latitude. But only slightly.

I agree with you, I think digital has basically won the battle, for better or worse. At this point one hopes that those who still have an intimate knowledge of film can use it to enrich and enhance the digital medium as it takes over and improves. In a generation or two all that firsthand knowledge of film will likely be lost forever.

 

[David Battistella]

Let's flip that around. You could take a project shot in 1980 on film, rescan it today in 4K, and it'll look fantastic. Take a digital project shot in 2005, and let me know how it looks today... let alone 35 years after that. Digital is stuck with the picture quality of the pickup at that moment; a piece of film could potentially look better today than it ever did in its history, getting better as scanning and restoration technology gets better.

this is exactly true of r3d material I shot in 2007, dragon color and REDlog film seriously enhances those images. So you'd have to put REDcode raw alongside film in that regard.

Battistella

 

[Ed David]

Dude this thread was like sending a bear into a bee's hive!! HOLY CRAP!!

But I agree - I feel so bad for the death of film. Snowpiercer and The Rover and Edge of Tomorrow look so beautiful. The Avengers shot on Alexa was the reverse.

How film handles color - green, skin tones, motion - it all feels so good and right.

I think Elysium is the best looking Red film I have ever seen.

Oh god this is an enjoyable thread

 

[Matt Ryan]

Personally, these RED films look the best to me:

 

[Marc Wielage]

Personally, these RED films look the best to me...

I think a bigger question is how well did the films do critically? How well did they do with awards, both with the ASC, the BSC, and with the Academy? And how well did they do financially? I think there are many, many ways to make beautiful images, and the choice of camera is only one of dozens that the cinematographer has to make that ultimately affects the look of the picture. The camera itself may be one of the least important on that list.

I used to say the same thing in the 1990s and early 2000s about choice of film emulsion. Kodak and Fuji didn't make the pictures; the DP did. If ten pictures in a row used a specific Kodak emulsion and won the Oscar for Best Cinematography, do you think it would make the slightest difference if you used the exact same emulsion?

 

[Matt Ryan]

I think a bigger question is how well did the films do critically? How well did they do with awards, both with the ASC, the BSC, and with the Academy? And how well did they do financially? I think there are many, many ways to make beautiful images, and the choice of camera is only one of dozens that the cinematographer has to make that ultimately affects the look of the picture. The camera itself may be one of the least important on that list.

I used to say the same thing in the 1990s and early 2000s about choice of film emulsion. Kodak and Fuji didn't make the pictures; the DP did. If ten pictures in a row used a specific Kodak emulsion and won the Oscar for Best Cinematography, do you think it would make the slightest difference if you used the exact same emulsion?

Agree completely. I just personally enjoyed the look of these RED films out of the many that there are. In terms of money, big money makers. Awards are very political which is sad so basing it on nominations is also subjective. Everything about liking a look is subjective because to someone else it may look like crap or no different than any other film...

 

[Trey Chace]

most people here are not hotshot DP's that pick and choose what high budget features to shoot next. Most of us are commercial DP's, and independent filmmakers. That said, in the indi world, I'd still say film gets the gold for one reason alone...people take shooting 35 more seriously. You will get crew, actors, everyone on board more easily dive in the minute you say say "we're shooting 35"

Obviously reds, alexas, f65, etc are awesome and the wave of the now and future. In the commercial and TV world, it's not even a question that shooting digital is king. But in the indi narrative world? I'd go with film for that reason alone...there is a certain respect that comes on set when the mag gets rolling.

 

[Kemalettin Sert]

Roger's post from his personal forum http://www.rogerdeakins.com/forum2/...5&sid=3cac9ca9fb300f834a4e8e83c6533f56#p14950

Talk about film having 20K resolution is just absolute rubbish. A film image is formed from grain and, although film grain is arbitrary in its pattern, the optical effect it achieves is not so different from a pixel array. The resolution of each is finite. You blow film up and you see grain just as you would see a grid pattern if you enlarged a digital image. You can't continue getting a higher resolution image from a film frame any more than you can from a digital frame. Scanning a film frame at 6K or higher will give you sharper grain but that does not necessarily equate with a more pleasing image.
I did these kinds of resolution tests for a film called 'Jarhead'. I wanted to see sharp grain for that film but the producers were hesitant to allow a scan of our film negative at 4K because of the costs involved. Many image technicians and effects personnel advised that there was no discernible difference in the image quality between 2K and 4K. I showed everyone some tests and it was quite apparent that the grain I was after was far sharper and more apparent in the 4K scan than in the 2K scan. Now, I had pushed the negative and overexposed it as well so the resulting image was quite harsh, to say the least, but that was the look we were after and that was the way we completed the project. There was not an increase in the amount of detail in the image but an increase in the clarity of the grain. That is the difference.
How is a film that is shot on film preserved for 'posterity'? If the production company or the studio really cares, color separation B/W negatives are struck off the original. For a film that is shot digitally there is just the same process available. Negatives are made directly from the digital master, whether that is in 2K or 4K or 2,000K. I find it interesting that many films that are shot on film, and touted as being so superior in image quality, are actually finished at a 2K resolution. So what does all that 'superior resolution' of film really mean? Just words! As has always been the case, its the script that really matters

 

[Vince Sweeney]

10 years ago I was told it was dead for sure.

I didn't listen either.

Maybe next year!