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Film is dead?


audio911

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I see it more as the same argument as the ones that were made against sound:

 

"It'll destroy physical acting" "We won't be able to distribute our films internationally" "Actors won't have any freedom; they have to stay near the mic hidden in the flowers" "The camera won't have any freedom; it'll always be tied down to that room full of recording equipment" and, most predictive of all, "There won't be any point to 2012's Best Picture, 'The Artist'...

 

Hey, journalists looking for a hook, and labs looking at the destruction of your business model: it's just the current disruptive technical change. Get over it. The industry will survive unscathed. 

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It would have been nice had this journalist bothered to be accurate and learn what he was writing about.

"Argo" was shot mostly on film with the few bits in Istanbul captured on an Alexa in order to create a different look. Six of the nine films nominated for Best Picture this year were shot on film ("Argo" used 8mm film, 16mm film, an Alexa, but mostly 35mm film). Three of the five films nominated for Best Cinematography were shot on film.

And the reason an actor would need to spend most of their time in their trailer being due to "reel changes"? Has this "writer" ever even been near a film set? If an AC were that incompetent, they would be off the set so fast their head would spin like Linda Blair's in the "Exorcist."

Whoops, I forgot, EVERYTHING you read on the internet is true. Never mind.

It's a different situation than just embracing a new technology such as "talkies" vs "silent." In this case it's about choosing a look that tells a story best -- unfortunately coupled with a discussion about expediency and pressured by the current trend.

What a movie is shot on shouldn't be about what camp one is in, it should focus on the aesthetics and what tools serve the story. If film has a look that serves the story better, then that's the tool that should be used. Likewise, with digital. Both are valid creative tools.

It seems people want to turn everything into a tribal competition -- my school is better than your school. Grow up, people -- it's time to leave high school. The cheap shot is when someone who prefers to shoot film over digital is labeled an "old fogey stuck in their ways." Most of these "old fogeys" are brilliant practitioners who choose aesthetics over trendiness and expediency.

Cost? With major features northward of a hundred mil, the cost of shooting on film is a specious argument. Drop just one "producer" from the budget and you've paid for it.

Just to be clear, I'm not making the argument for film over video here, I'm making the argument for maintaining film as an aesthetic choice.

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It's a different situation than just embracing a new technology such as "talkies" vs "silent." In this case it's about choosing a look that tells a story best...

 

It was exactly that, during the transition to sound. Chaplin among others felt that his stories could be told best silently... and bemoaned how the majority of actors were losing their ability to communicate strictly with their bodies.

 

Eventually the sound technology became well enough controlled that it didn't interfere with filmmaking, and market forces dictated that sound was the norm. Though some artists still approach silent as the best way to tell a particular story. (See the interviews Hazanivicius gave about making The Artist.)

 

Eventually digital image capturing will become well enough controlled that DPs and directors don't feel constrained by it, and market forces will dictate digital (because of the extreme cost when there are only a couple of companies making or processing film or scanning it to DCP for distribution). ... Though some artists will still insist on film for a particular story.

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Jay -- It appears we're really not in disagreement here.  Sorry if I misunderstood what you were saying. 

 

My point about embracing a new technology was that many oppose change just because it's change and others oppose established methods simply because they're advocates of the new technology. 

 

Neither adamant stance is where the focus should be, whether talkies or silent movies, digital or film.  It should be about choosing the medium that best tells the story.  Apparently, that's what we're both saying <g>.

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Well, note that out of the Oscar nominees for Best Cinematography, the ones in bold were shot mostly or completely on film:

 

Anna Karenina, Django Unchained, Life of Pi, Lincoln, Skyfall

 

and for the ASC Awards, the ones shown in bold were shot on film:

 

Anna Karenina, Les Miserables, Life of Pi, Lincoln, Skyfall

 

It's interesting to note that two of the biggest movies being shot in 2013, The Amazing Spiderman II and Star Trek: Into Darkness, are both being shot on film. But most of the biggest commercial successes of 2012 were shot on digital: Avengers, Hobbit, Skyfall, etc. It's fair to say the days of film are waning, but it's not completely down for the count yet. For TV, though, it's pretty clear that film has been on the way out for five years now... though some major cable hits are still being shot on film, including Walking Dead and Mad Men

 

I continue to believe that the DP makes the greatest difference in picture quality, not the choice of camera. Skyfall is a good example of a movie that looked fine in digital -- but it's because of Roger Deakins, not because of the Alexa camera used. 

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Seems like the hardest part of making films/movies is finding original material and stories worth telling and not the format and work flow. Seems like a crazy business model where the cost of making and marketing goes up n up and the quality of the product goes down. The number of movie goers decrease every year as the price for the experience goes up. 

CrewC

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John, yes, we agree: it's always about the story. You use what you feel is best technology available at the time for that particular story. 

 

 

If Melies were shooting for the moon today, he might want to use CGI. Or cell animation. Or clay models. Or a combination. Either way, it would still be a great film.

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We have the same thing in re-recording mixing.

Old style mixers still holding on to the old way of mixing with pre-dubbed stems, on large format consoles, vs. mixers mixing virtual, using control surfaces like Icons and Euphonix controllers that allow much more flexibility.

Q

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It's also interesting to note that, of the 40% of Best Cinematography nominees and 34% of Best Picture nominees acquired on digital, all were shot on Arri Alexas (with the minor exception of some second unit action footage shot on Red for Skyfall).

All four of the non-digital nominees are period dramas set in the 19th Century, which probably isn't a coincidence. Perhaps, going back to the OP, film will live on as long as we're still shooting horses and buggies! (OK, this doesn't apply to Star Trek...).

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"With a good script, a good director can produce a masterpiece. With the same script, a mediocre director can produce a passable film. But with a bad script even a good director can't possibly make a good film. For truly cinematic expression, the camera and the microphone must be able to cross both fire and water. The script must be something that has the power to do this." - Akira Kurosawa

 

What's the problem with RED cameras? The problem is it's on the wrong hands with bad scripts. Think about why the film or Arri it's on the market years and years and win oscars, festivals etc.

 

The best features doesn't mean best quality (included sound industry).

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Except, I read an interview where they said that when they started filming The Gladiator, the script was terrible. But they turned it into something great on the set.

But yes. The problem with inexpensive access to equipment, there are people making movies who shouldn't be.

And I dont even blame the scripts. It's the crappy " directors" with zero experience at all in any kind of role in the filmmaking process.

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This is the same argument that the horse and buggy industry had versus the automobile. Analog vs. digital anyone??

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/film-is-finished--this-could-be-its-last-oscars-8508257.html

 

Steve Wytas

www.audio911.com

 

Unlike film/digital, there is no romance to the days of analog tape masters and disc mastering for me.  I remember going to Capital Records in the 80s with my 30ips tape in hand and the disappointment of an acetate test.  Graininess throughout was bad enough but inner groove mod noise was awful.  I rationalized I was the only one to have that perspective of hearing the tape master vs. the eventual disc.  When budget allowed I used great engineers such as Ken Perry, Wally Traugott, exceptional at making a flawed technology (IMO) sound passable.  Still people out there today wanting discs for reasons lost on me.

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" If an AC2 were that incompetent, "

I'm used to seeing 1AC make (film) Mag changes...

 

" all were shot on Arri Alexas "

" What's the problem with RED cameras? "

ALEXA is a computer designed and built by a movie camera company

RED us a (wannabe) movie camera designed and built by a (wannabe) computer company.

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What's the problem with RED cameras? The problem is it's on the wrong hands with bad scripts. Think about why the film or Arri it's on the market years and years and win oscars, festivals etc.

 

I think The Hobbit looked very good, and there have been other Red camera pictures that I thought also looked very good, like Social Network.  One of those archers/not arrows deals.

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