Film Is Dead
- Thread starter sonnyboo
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So not only do most people feel film looks better, but analog tape sounds better too. Well the reason why film is dead is because it costs so much more. And there is less you can do with it in post.
Do you know this from personal experience? How much have you worked with analog tape?
Look, I've plenty of time for informed speculation, but you don't know what you're talking about and it's not helpful to other members to pretend you do.
Film does look better and analog tape does sound better, to me. The second something becomes digital it takes on a certain "cold" cast in my opinion. Analog sound is a continuous unbroken wave. It's organic and mechanical. Digital sound is a sample, and will always be. You can with improving technology makes those samples infinity close together, but they are still only samples, they aren't a complete representation of the original.
What makes digital "better" is cost and convenience. It will (again IMO) NEVER be better aesthetically.
I was referring to how other people felt about it, previously on here, and in general. I never used it myself.
Ah, but magnetic tape is ALSO not a representation of the original. It introduces compression and harmonic distortion...things we've come to find aesthetically pleasing but not, in fact, an accurate representation of the sound. These are inherent to the medium, above and beyond any processing the sound goes through before being printed to tape (usually more than you'd think). I'm with you as far as preference; I grew up on vinyl records and still love and buy them today. But a well produced digital master (note: not a cd and DEFINITELY not an .mp3) can sound indistinguishable from a tape master...if that's the effect you're going for.
As an aside, a lot of people record digital, and then print to a master tape to get that analogue "sound". Sort of a best-of-both worlds solution. Either way, we're a long way away from the awful digital recordings of the 80s, and even worse cd mastering.
We were already doing an ADA (Analog/Digital/Analog) back in the day when I was originally recording (early 90's). We recorded on 1/2 inch magnetic tape, that was mastered onto a DAT then it was taken back to Analog for the vinyl. As long as the final product is analog it does still seem to have the analog feel.
We can debate the "look" of film vs. digital images until the cows come home. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. To me, however, the bottom line is the relative impermanence of digital.
We can dig a film out of a vault somewhere that was shot 100 years ago, hold it up to a light source and see the images. With a little work, it can then be restored and enjoyed again as though it were shot yesterday.
What happens 100 years from now to all these billions of digital images we're creating today? The technology shifts every few years, which means everything must be transferred/translated into the new paradigm or those bits and bytes are gone forever.
The enormity of what is being lost will not be felt until our great-grandchildren try to assemble an unbiased account of our era. It's incredibly tragic.
We can dig a film out of a vault somewhere that was shot 100 years ago, hold it up to a light source and see the images. With a little work, it can then be restored and enjoyed again as though it were shot yesterday.
What happens 100 years from now to all these billions of digital images we're creating today? The technology shifts every few years, which means everything must be transferred/translated into the new paradigm or those bits and bytes are gone forever.
The enormity of what is being lost will not be felt until our great-grandchildren try to assemble an unbiased account of our era. It's incredibly tragic.
You reminded me of a thread i started a while back
The discussion is along the same lines incase anyone is interested
http://www.indietalk.com/showthread.php?t=29713&page=2
Hardly. The enormity of what is being created - thanks to digital technology - will far, far exceed that which is lost.
We only need to look to video games for an example of what the future of digital media looks like. At this point you can play any of your favorite games - from just about any obsolete, long-dead game system created in the past 20+ years - on nearly any device you care to via emulation.
Here's a thought exercise - imagine yourself as a kid, playing Zelda on your nintendo, and somebody walks into the room and says 'hey kid, when you're grown up you'll be able to play zelda on your phone! Not just Zelda, but every game ever made for the Nintendo!'. Would you think that was cool? Would you believe them? Or would it simply be so far off from your reality that it would seem absurd? I mean seriously, would the idea of playing video games on a telephone even begin to make sense back then?
Only now we're the kids, playing with our digital cameras, thinking the future will look like the present.
Yep, I'm with ItDonnedOnMe. The digital gap is shrinking, ever so rapidly, and I see that as nothing other than cause for celebration. Filmmaking is no longer the Haves vs Have-Nots, at least not to such a great extent.
"Tiny Furniture" was made with $50,000! And that movie isn't gimmicky, like "Blair Witch", or "Paranormal Activity". It's a "normal" narrative movie, made with a nothing budget.
Rejoice, indie filmmakers. Rejoice!
"Tiny Furniture" was made with $50,000! And that movie isn't gimmicky, like "Blair Witch", or "Paranormal Activity". It's a "normal" narrative movie, made with a nothing budget.
Rejoice, indie filmmakers. Rejoice!
I wouldn't say it's dead. Green Zone and The Dark Knight are two of the most recent films I recall that I know were shot on film, and there are probably a lot of others. It might be dead in the indie scene, but mainstream, it still seems pretty big.
I love you, harmonica44. Is it okay for me to say that? 
Thanks, I think. Yes it's okay.
Yep, I'm with ItDonnedOnMe. The digital gap is shrinking, ever so rapidly, and I see that as nothing other than cause for celebration. Filmmaking is no longer the Haves vs Have-Nots, at least not to such a great extent.
"Tiny Furniture" was made with $50,000! And that movie isn't gimmicky, like "Blair Witch", or "Paranormal Activity". It's a "normal" narrative movie, made with a nothing budget.
Rejoice, indie filmmakers. Rejoice!
Just remember.... the devil is in the details that aren't made public. The tools are the last thing separating anyone from grabbing that recognition, the gap is only slightly smaller than when the DVX came out.
You probably don't, but thinking that "she just made a movie" and that's it is setting yourself up for fail. She didn't, and there's a reason why it got to SXSW in the first place.
As for the topic: Film > All
It's a shame that the creation of the medium costs so much. =[ Need to hit that few million dollar level to shoot at least one 35mm Feature before it goes away.
Of course I think digital is awesome and empowering. But I think 2001 is also correct. I wouldn't count on much of what's being created today to still be existent in one-hundred years...or even less. But that's not to say it won't either. Who knows. But like Ken Rockwell has written: film is the Original Raw. You never need a computer or internet access to use it or to view it or to preserve it. It never needs to rely on being converted to the new technologies as they are rapidly being invented and distributed and then made obsolete and scarce. I hope not, but I think there's plenty of potential for things to get Orwellian, actually, or...just sad.
Sorry, but that argument does nothing for me. Yes, the big, profitable stuff will be carried over, of course. That's about one-tenth of one percent of everything that's being produced. I'm not just talking about mainstream material -- that's arguably the least valuable stuff from a strictly historical perspective. I mean EVERYTHING from feature films to news footage to home movies to wedding photos. To only save what we feel is important at the time is to skew the historical record.
No one is saying that digital doesn't have it's positive aspects; certainly it creates opportunities for those who might not otherwise have them, myself included. But that's beside the point.
Then you didn't read the article (or quote I used from it...). No one is left manufacturing film CAMERAS.... Kodak's stock is barely $1 a share. Panavision uses ARRIFLEX cameras mostly as the basis of their cameras, so no ARRI means no PANAVISION. If there's no film or cameras being made, even Christopher Nolan will have trouble shooting on film.
Basically in 10 years there will be no support for film outside of a few niche shops that still have film cameras, can scan film, and allow it to be edited and worked with. It will not be financially advantageous for the entire film workflow to exist. Most labs are out of business or going out of business or converting to digital.
As for "mainstream", show me how many new TV shows are shooting film versus digital. One of the industries staples for film & celluloid post production is now having the MAJORITY of narrative shows shot on digital. Showtime is on an entire digital acquisition. To save on costs, most networks have mandated that all new series get shot on digital, with an incredibly small number still shooting on film.
I love film and I love digital. This was never my intent to spark the eternal debate of preferences where no one is right or wrong, but strongly expressing opinions. The reality is that celluloid film's death is nearing. I simply do not see anyone stating anything that can show how film will survive the business trends before us.
I agree I think a lot of professional movies are still made with Film. I know that Terminator Salvation was filmed with film. There was a story about the process they did to make the film have the look they wanted. While doing the process some of the footage was destroyed and they had to make the movie work with out the parts that were lost.
"To pervade the imagery with a post-war tone, McG and his director of photography Shane Hurlbut shot the film using an experimental version of the “Oz process” in film processing. “We took an old film stock from Kodak and we let it sit in the sun too long to degrade some of its qualities,” explains McG.
“Then we processed it in a way where we added more silver than you would traditionally add to a color film stock. And we went even further to manipulate that in the digital intermediate to give the film an otherworldly quality that gives you the impression that something’s just off with the way this world looks, which is in keeping with the mood of the entire picture.”"
http://www.emanuellevy.com/comment/...building-the-world-of-terminator-salvation-4/
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