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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 :)

Why film will stay the king...

I've seen some F65 footage from major studios that I believe has some of that magical tonal characteristics of film you see in the footage you posted. I've also seen some very mediocre f65 footage. Perhaps Dragon is capable, it remains to be seen. Until a major studio with a multimillion dollar budget does a project on Dragon, I believe its too early to pass judgement.
 
The Side by Side documentary raised an interesting question... will the whole debate be answered by a different part of the pipeline? As theaters move to digital delivery, will film lose the critical sales mass needed for a viable business model? It would be a shame if film disappeared not because digital had grown beyond it's capabilities but because you couldn't buy the media any longer.
 
"better" or not, something to consider

"better" or not, something to consider

though I haven't really read any of this 7 page argument, I thought I'd throw this out:

Look, resolution, cost, feel, post, aside, there is just something about running a film camera. Hearing that mag spin, hitting run rather than record, checking the gate, feeling your negatives in weight. I may never shoot film again. And I love my epic. But there is one thing that is certain: when you shoot 35, people are more involved in your independent film. Actors take it more seriously, your crew is more exited. Everyone shuts up when you say "quiet on set," and when that celluloid starts spinning, magic happens. Everyone and their brother has an epic where I live. People even shoot weddings on it these days. And it takes a great image. But when you're trying to get people exited about working on your low budget film, and they say "what are you shooting on?" and you say "35," there is automatic interest and excitement...and that goes a long way.
 
Terry VerHaar said:
With no disrespect to the quality or legacy of film, but how many of you are still capturing audio with an analog recorder? :huh:
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Actually I think the Nagra might still be used for recording explosions and things like that, although even that may be changing.

And some musicians still record analogue but your point is accurate in that analogue is the minority.
 
Recently watched Chitty Chitty Bang Bang with the kids and they must have done a new transfer or something. It was Technicolor in its glory, colors jumping off the screen. A good scene to check out is The Child Catcher scene in the village.

As far as this thread goes, a colleague recently said to me and an AC on set to shoot more and talk less while we were in a discussion about medium format photography. If one needs to be convinced what capture format is best for a particular project, run a test. Shoot the same scene side by side and go with what works best. That goes for 35mm vs Digital or digital vs digital.
 
Steve Sherrick said:
Actually I think the Nagra might still be used for recording explosions and things like that, although even that may be changing.

And some musicians still record analogue but your point is accurate in that analogue is the minority.
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Steve - I think we are in 100% agreement but I would note that musicians who are recording analog are often doing so as something of a "marketing ploy" or to make a statement - probably like people shooting film in 20 years will be doing. :-)

And at 192kHz and 24 bits, I would think even explosions could be recorded pretty well digitally. But, yeah, there are always the exceptions. And the size, cost and quality of digital did win out over analog when all was said and done.

IMO -film will follow the same path. Although it is great, eventually it won't make sense at all.
 
Trey Chace said:
Look, resolution, cost, feel, post, aside, there is just something about running a film camera. Hearing that mag spin, hitting run rather than record, checking the gate, feeling your negatives in weight. I may never shoot film again. And I love my epic. But there is one thing that is certain: when you shoot 35, people are more involved in your independent film. Actors take it more seriously, your crew is more exited. Everyone shuts up when you say "quiet on set," and when that celluloid starts spinning, magic happens.
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I think Trey brings up a very good point. I think over the years in the transition from film to digital, we've managed to lose respect for the frame. Everybody was keenly aware that film was expensive, so the moment film rolled, everybody got into the moment, they shut up, people stopped walking around on the set, and the actors got a rush of adrenaline and got into the scene.

With digital, I think everybody on the set believes on some level that the process is not as expensive, they can always do another take, and somehow we've lost something. I think people are much, much more casual about shooting than they were in the film days. We've certainly seen this in the mountain of footage people are shooting today -- 5, 7, 7 hours a day of material on some shoots. This generally did not happen in the film days, where 35mm color film cost about $1000 per ten minutes (including processing).

Not every filmmaker or crewmember is like this, but I have seen this overall feel on the set change radically in the last 10 years, and I don't see it as a good trend. But I do feel that great lighting trumps everything; masterful lighting on digital will trump bad lighting on film. I just saw the new Tom Cruise movie yesterday, Edge of Tomorrow, and I was surprised when we got to the end credits to find that DP Dion Beebe (who did a great job) shot it all on Kodak negative. You couldn't tell whether it was film or digital -- it just looked like a great-looking, fast-paced action film. Terrific color-correction by Peter Doyle in London, too. At some point, I think no one cares, especially nowadays when the technology has evolved so far. The only things that really matter are story, character, direction, editing, and the technical considerations of lighting, camera movement, composition, color and exposure.
 
For some reason this topic looks familiar.
 
Steve Sherrick said:
Recently watched Chitty Chitty Bang Bang with the kids and they must have done a new transfer or something. It was Technicolor in its glory, colors jumping off the screen. A good scene to check out is The Child Catcher scene in the village.
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Naaa, not anything near actual 3-strip Technicolor IB. It's just a very nice transfer of a Kodak tri-pack negative, nothing special. Any film from this era can look this good if it's shot well and the people who transfer it use experience and good taste.
 
Have no need to take sides on film versus digital images arguments. Instead, in my understanding economical factors affect significantly individual choices. As the production costs of say RED DSMC and of other comparable solutions is much lower than those of film, digital images increasingly occupy space from film. This in turn increases the cost of film productions. Eventually the costs of film get so high that the business of producing film may evaporate into air. This is more or less what has happened in still photography, but also with computers. Originally the development of computers and software tools such as compilers were driven and developed by the needs of computing, but with time other factors have taken over. So although film stayed as a king, not sure it will stay alive.
 
Filip Orlandic said:
Of course you can get something similar but not the same look and not in 5 seconds ;)
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I'm afraid you can.

How do your think companies like Industrial light and magic and everyone else match 3d, matt paints and digital files into film plates so perfectly. Emulated film stocks from the last 40 years via well developed kodak film plugins.

Don't be kidding yourself. I did it for years as many others have.
 
Terry VerHaar said:
With no disrespect to the quality or legacy of film, but how many of you are still capturing audio with an analog recorder? :huh:
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This. This. This.

I don't hate film. It's been The King for over 100 years.
But man, I'm so happy we're moving on to digital.

It's just so good in so many ways.
 
its there, you'll see it once you get your hands on it. Pretty much anything David Devlin shoots on Dragon has great textures and colors in the vain of celluloid- i.e. Holy Grail & Tropico music videos
 
Mark Toia said:
How do your think companies like Industrial light and magic and everyone else match 3d, matt paints and digital files into film plates so perfectly. Emulated film stocks from the last 40 years via well developed kodak film plugins.
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I worked for ILM in San Rafael for three months, and from what I saw, they matched digital plates to film with skill, great experience, and good eyes. Plus they did lots of tests. The LUTs worked to some degree, but none of them did the real heavy lifting. Film grain and grain management are a separate issue, and that's still a part of every major film (even the ones shot on digital), just so they can match the noise pattern of all cameras.
 
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