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Views from Talent & Tech - Chemical film is finally dead & the GH2 rates close to the big dogs!
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  • BlackoutBlackout

    As to audiences preferring dumb movies... that's because the current generations brains are retarded from all the meds their parents and they are taking.

    The Wrestler rocked and there were no exploding robots dodging slow motion bullets while asteroids farted.

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    @Blackout

    We have topic for Zacuto shit. Please, keep discussion inside it :-)

  • BlackoutBlackout

    Ohhh.. didn't see it didn't know what section it would be in. Anyway... as I said I'm not a fan boy of any brand - it was just fun to see - finally - the hacked GH2 get some respect. Now onward to making more movies.

  • SightfulProdSightfulProd

    I just saw Side by Side at our local film festival. It was quite interesting seeing the different Director/Cinematographer's points of views. It was unanimously acknowledged that the film chemical processing has reached it's peak. Starro and Cameron advised that we move forward to the new technologies and help the new digital medium to grow as it gives us new ways of storytelling, archival, delivery and production. Unlike conventional heavy cameras the new digital cameras are making film-maker's rethink of new ways of mobile cinematography of which Lon Trier's Celebration and 28 Day's later were cited as great examples.

    Film will still be a choice for those who want it but it seems the future is about small cameras with great images.

  • P4INKillerP4INKiller

    @Roberto

    Yeah man, I'm using a Krasnogorsk 3. Still in mint condition : )

    It pains me that more and more shops in my area are discontinuing their film services. Seems like I'm going to have to learn to process my own stuff.

  • jleojleo

    Will the internet free motion pictures from the old ways of telling stories?

    Just as some painters advanced their art after photography, the redefinition of filmmaking in a digitally networked world comes with opportunity. Some pioneering painters seized the moment in the 19th century: Who are the young filmmakers today who will be remembered tomorrow for their innovative contributions to the aesthetics of modern filmmaking?

    http://trulyfreefilm.hopeforfilm.com/2012/08/will-the-internet-free-motion-pictures-from-the-old-ways-of-telling-stories.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

    Stan Lee goes to China:

    http://herocomplex.latimes.com/2012/06/18/annihilator-chinas-next-sizzle-or-another-stan-lee-fizzle/

    ( HULK say ME tired of Superheroes! GRRRR!!)

    Tribeca Future of Film Website

    http://www.tribecafilm.com/tribecaonline/future-of-film/

  • goannagoanna

    Martin Scorsese, "Digital lacks a used feeling"

    image

    Short audio interview clip from, "Cameraman: The Life and Work of Jack Cardiff" (documentary, Feb 26, 2009 ... A tribute to the great British cinematographer Jack Cardiff, who sadly died on 22 April 2009 aged 94)

    Scorcese.wav
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  • jleojleo

    Trailer for SAMSARA shot on 70mm film, with a five year shooting schedule

  • ahblezaahbleza

    Another nail in the coffin of film as Fuji may be pulling out of the filmstock business.

    http://www.deadline.com/2012/09/fuji-to-cease-motion-picture-film-manufacturing-by-end-of-the-year/

  • BlackoutBlackout

    Samsara looks breathtaking and I have scene all of that director's films. I doubt it will be presented in 70mm in many places though as few theaters still have 70mm projectors.

  • jleojleo

    At a film panel discussion several months ago, a programmer at the Bell TIFF Lightbox Theatre in Toronto Canada, said the U.S. studios no longer ship 35mm prints of older movies across the border let alone 70mm prints. So it's put a damper on revivals and retrospective showings of classic films, unless there are existing prints in Canada.

  • BlackoutBlackout

    Will look nice on my epson projector on a 14 foot screen.

  • JanHJanH

    @jleo Is Canada an important market in the overall world market? More like a niche market IMHO. Not a market driver. Vinyl anyone?

  • jleojleo

    Canada is considered as the Domestic Market, part of the U.S. distribution network, since the major chains are owned by American exhibitors. The term always used is U.S./Canada box office:

    http://blogs.indiewire.com/thompsononhollywood/global-box-office-climb-continues-in-2011

    But older movies may be a niche anywhere, not worth the effort, since Bluray. Some revival theatres just project Bluray copies.

  • jleojleo

    Why I’m Going to Miss Film Art Adams | 09/29

    It’s so much easier to shoot than HD, and it’s so much more artistically freeing… but if it’s still around in five years I’ll be surprised.

    Excerpt: I love HD. I thrive on HD. I love its complexities and possibilities. I love that there are so many different flavors and sizes of cameras. What I don’t like is that everyone else gets a say over which one I have to use on a project. In the old days the DP usually chose the type of camera package—Arri, Panavision, Moviecam, etc.—and the film stocks, and had a say in the lab used to process and print everything. There were exceptions to this rule (Disney famously dictates that its film productions can only use Kodak stocks, and even specifies which stocks!) but generally it held. Now I’m often hired after the camera package is booked.

    The bottom line is that film DPs had to be REALLY, REALLY GOOD to shoot film. These days… it feels as if the art and craft of cinematography is diminished because anyone can make an image with an affordable camera. The quality of the image gets lost in the affordability of recording the image. It’s great that the barrier to entry is low enough that filmmakers who wouldn’t have had a chance otherwise can strut their stuff, but it’s unfortunate that their first films may suffer because they don’t have the skills yet to capture their vision.

    full article:

    http://provideocoalition.com/index.php/aadams/story/why_im_going_to_miss_film/

  • bwhitzbwhitz

    The bottom line is that film DPs had to be REALLY, REALLY GOOD to shoot film. These days… it feels as if the art and craft of cinematography is diminished because anyone can make an image with an affordable camera.

    I don't think it's diminished... just changing. This next generation of directors are probably just going to do their own cinematography... and editing. I mean, you have to have to learn photography and cameras initially anyways, and since the process is just so much easier these days... you might as well just do the photography yourself. Filmmaking is just becoming more inclusive.

    I'd love to see an actually study somewhere, but I suspect that the learning curve with the internet and affordable digital gear has decreased 20x-fold. A craft that would have taken 20 years to develop 10 year ago (cinematography)... probably takes about 1-2 years now. And that's alongside learning other things. If you're a visual person with an eye (which you arguably need anyways) and ONLY focus on shooting... I'd say it could be developed in 6 months. Of course, working on actual sets and in stressful situations is a different story... I'm just talking about the raw skills.

    It's just another ball-game. I think we're at the beginning of the shift away from the old exclusive, one-person-one-job, type of production. Films in the future will probably be made with tightly-knit teams of 10-20 with overlapping duties... instead of these monstrous and inefficient crews of hundreds. Jobs will simply be condensed as filmmakers are able to develop multiple talents in multiple areas. This should, in theory, lead to better overall quality and efficiency. If the whole model of production were to be re-written tomorrow from scratch... I think we could make the $100 million dollar summer block-buster for around 10. Studios could take more chances, with more unique ideas... and... the tickets prices could be lowered, getting more people in the cinemas again. Right now we've got too many people, too much complication, too many "family/friend jobs" that do nothing but rake in exorbitant checks. We need a film-making re-boot!

  • FrameFrame

    Film will not die because we simply need a media for preserving digital cinema / data. I have heard, that it is even discussed not to only print the image to film, but to use filmstock to preserve the raw data... As an editor, I am happy with digital cinema. I edited 3 feature length films, shot on Super 16 and 35mm. In one feature film, a scratch ruined one actor´s only take of a dialogue. The take, shot in the dark had to be blown up and looked awful. In another film, a whole reel of 20 minutes edited negative got scratched, because the film laboratory did not use a wet gate for telecine...

  • goannagoanna

    Digital's only enemy in the stakes of winning our hearts may well be itself - and its own meteoric growth.

    Last week I saw an ABC Australia interview with Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling. It was sumptuously art-directed, lit and shot in gorgeous digital 1080.

    image

    see preview at http://www.abc.net.au/tv/watchnow/#id=jkrowlinglifeafterpotter

    That much sought-after, narrow DOF - which tended to distinguish film-look narrative TV from 2/3" ENG news items - is spreading fast. We regularly see a feature-item within the evening news which endeavours to change the pace by separating the talent from the background bokeh.

    A few weeks earlier I saw the notorious, badly conceived, acted and shot anti-islamic film that set off all that trouble. It was also shot on gorgeous digital, but that didn't help it much.

    If film maintains its prestige ticket in movies, it is likely to be because we will come to associate the digi-film look with the company it keeps: from high quality documentary and advertising, through to news and all the way down to the worst.

  • jleojleo

    Indie Filmmakers and the Digital Dilemma

    The beauty of digital filmmaking -- unlike celluloid, digital data lives forever. Right?

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-csathy/digital-film-making-_b_1937489.html?view=print&comm_ref=false

  • GravitateMediaGroupGravitateMediaGroup

    My favorite part of the article is where it mentions not everything shot with a camera is film. I hate to be brutally honest but anybody that calls any form of digital footage "film" they lose a lot of credibility with me (not that it really matters). I've seen a lot of people on PV and every other online forum say "check out my new film". When somebody says "let's go out and film" I have to correct them with "shoot or capture footage" If i had to guess, it's probably disrespectful to the pioneers of the movie industry and the DOP that still live and die by film to call digital "film".

    Just thought I would get this off my chest, sorry if what I said is hard to understand, I'm posting from my phone and tried to keep my post as simple as possible. Lol

  • jleojleo

    The Fall of Berlin 1949

    The film was originally made in not-so-glorious Sovcolor, actually German Agfacolor, captured from the UFA studios in Neubabelsberg by the Red Army as war booty in the conflict that the film so heroically depicts. Some of this precious film stock was also used by Eisenstein for the dance sequence in the second part of Ivan the Terrible (1945; released 1958).

    http://www.kinokultura.com/2007/15r-padenie.shtml

    Compare the depiction of Hitler in "Downfall" to this!

  • BlackoutBlackout

    jleo

    There are already optical media sytems - one made out of a type of rock - that last over 100 years. That article is off course.

  • sam_sticklandsam_stickland

    @GravitateMediaGroup I agree. Along with people that 'rewind' MP3s, 'dial' a number on a touch screen phone, and talk about the dashboard in their cars (don't they know that a dashboard is the bit of wood on the front of your carriage that stops the mud thrown up by horses hooves from hitting you in the face?) ;)

  • agoltzagoltz
    Photographic film has nearly completed its transition from the mass market to the artisanal. Memories of analogue film fade each year. Older folk pass away, materials become more expensive and developing labs close. And darkrooms let in light.

    http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2012/11/end-analogue-film?

  • goannagoanna

    @agoltz

    Thanks for the link. Ironically, Princeton Architectural Press have chosen to publish Burley's book on old-fashioned paper. I'll look out for the e-book copy.

    image

    FILM WAREHOUSE, AGFA-GEVAERT, MORTSEL, BELGIUM 2007

    The economy of scale required in the manufacture of photographic film only becomes evident when confronted by the spaces in which the product is made or stored. The small rolls that photographers use (or used) in their cameras start out as enormous master rolls manufactured to high standards in a very few specialized facilities around the world. These rolls are some 54 inches wide by as much as 2 miles long. A typical master roll will produce approximately 50,000 rolls of 35mm film, or over forty hours of 35mm motion picture film. This Agfa warehouse contains an estimated 1, 500 master rolls of film — enough to make 73, 500,000 rolls of 24-exposure 35mm film.

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