Why Digital is killing Film

[Quantel]

Check out this article to see the real reason why digital has seen off film for good in the movie business:

The rise of digital in motion pictures – Beyond the tipping point for film (part 1 of 2)

It explains why the likes of Kodak, the iconic photography firm, went bankrupt and the one game-changing event in 2009 that changed everything!

Do you agree with this?

[wwjd]

Good. Maybe we can finally be free from the limits of less realistic looking 24fps frame rates. FINALLY!

[charles maynes]

as a film professional, all I can say is good riddence. I am so tired of film prints wearing out, and movie goers suffering with a sub par experience. I know al the way up til around 2005 one had to see a film within the the first week or so of release if they actually wanted to hear the Dolby Digital/DTS/SDDS soundtrack in a reliable manner. Most end run screenings (at least that I remember) seemed to be using the Dolby Stereo stripe.

for the price that a cinema ticket commands, that is unacceptable.

that being said- I love the look of film, but this is truly a case of the convenience triumphing over the medium.

[Quantel]

Some really strong feelings in in favour of digital, feel free to comment on the actual blog as we'll be using the best posts on our Facebook page which has nearly 4,000 fans.

Plus we'll link back to your Facebook or site.. Whatever you prefer!

[wwjd]

Originally Posted by charles maynes

as a film professional, all I can say is good riddence.

I'm so glad to hear someone that works with it is ready to move on. Audio went digital about 20 years ago (much easier to do with less bandwidth needed than visuals) but SOME people still whine about digital wrecking everything, yet 99.999% of everything we hear nowdays IS digital. So, it must have worked out ok., Sometimes it sounds like film people are like, "we WANT juddering, washed out, bad sounding imagery, to remind us that this is NOT reality but fantasy on FILM" Whatever. I want great story and spectacular visuals, and digital is delivering in theaters as well as home these days just fine.

Yes, digital is not film, but one quick look at your old days standard instamatic camera photos verses one quick look at today's standard 5MP digital camera and you can SEE how so much better the new tech is in that respect: for the people anyway

[tom_lowe]

Originally Posted by charles maynes

as a film professional, all I can say is good riddence. I am so tired of film prints wearing out, and movie goers suffering with a sub par experience. I know al the way up til around 2005 one had to see a film within the the first week or so of release if they actually wanted to hear the Dolby Digital/DTS/SDDS soundtrack in a reliable manner. Most end run screenings (at least that I remember) seemed to be using the Dolby Stereo stripe.

for the price that a cinema ticket commands, that is unacceptable.

that being said- I love the look of film, but this is truly a case of the convenience triumphing over the medium.

Excellent points, but more an argument for digital projection rather than digital acquisition. Film prints were required regardless of shooting format until digital projection finally took off, which seemed a shame for a digitally shot film to have to end up on crappy film prints. Certainly one good thing the now defunct UK Film Council managed to do was invest and encourage digital projection in the UK.

Don't expect the problems to end though, now lots of cinemas are sacking projectionists as a manager or one projectionist can run 20+ screens from a PC in his office, so expect to see maintenance go down the drain and no-one who knows how to change the bulb. Of course, prices aren't dropping either despite less staff, due to the "huge investment" in digital, which they'll probably still be claiming in 10 years.

[charles maynes]

Originally Posted by tom_lowe

Excellent points, but more an argument for digital projection rather than digital acquisition. Film prints were required regardless of shooting format until digital projection finally took off, which seemed a shame for a digitally shot film to have to end up on crappy film prints. Certainly one good thing the now defunct UK Film Council managed to do was invest and encourage digital projection in the UK.

Don't expect the problems to end though, now lots of cinemas are sacking projectionists as a manager or one projectionist can run 20+ screens from a PC in his office, so expect to see maintenance go down the drain and no-one who knows how to change the bulb. Of course, prices aren't dropping either despite less staff, due to the "huge investment" in digital, which they'll probably still be claiming in 10 years.

server based projection is the present, and future- to say film is "better" for aquisition than digital is very much akin to saying magnetic audio tape is better- analog audio has a less than 100db signal to noise ratio - in most case MUCH less- and modern conversion has been shown to be adequate for most artists. we can talk about confirmation bias in that argument, but we do see that the performance is adequate. If we look at the other issues such as ecological ones having to do with stock and processing of film, it becomes a more compelling one for digital.

[charles maynes]

Originally Posted by wwjd

I'm so glad to hear someone that works with it is ready to move on. Audio went digital about 20 years ago (much easier to do with less bandwidth needed than visuals) but SOME people still whine about digital wrecking everything, yet 99.999% of everything we hear nowdays IS digital. So, it must have worked out ok., Sometimes it sounds like film people are like, "we WANT juddering, washed out, bad sounding imagery, to remind us that this is NOT reality but fantasy on FILM" Whatever. I want great story and spectacular visuals, and digital is delivering in theaters as well as home these days just fine.

Yes, digital is not film, but one quick look at your old days standard instamatic camera photos verses one quick look at today's standard 5MP digital camera and you can SEE how so much better the new tech is in that respect: for the people anyway

for the storyteller, the "film look" is an artifact of the process.

[tom_lowe]

Originally Posted by charles maynes

server based projection is the present, and future- to say film is "better" for aquisition than digital is very much akin to saying magnetic audio tape is better- analog audio has a less than 100db signal to noise ratio - in most case MUCH less- and modern conversion has been shown to be adequate for most artists. we can talk about confirmation bias in that argument, but we do see that the performance is adequate. If we look at the other issues such as ecological ones having to do with stock and processing of film, it becomes a more compelling one for digital.

I didn't say film was better for acquisition, I know server based projection the present and future, I was just saying it's not without it's flaws either.

The ecological point raised isn't necessarily black and white either, lots of toxic waste is produced in electrical manufacture.

[charles maynes]

Originally Posted by tom_lowe

I didn't say film was better for acquisition, I know server based projection the present and future, I was just saying it's not without it's flaws either.

The ecological point raised isn't necessarily black and white either, lots of toxic waste is produced in electrical manufacture.

the ecological cost revolves around film being in-essence, an expendable. And most productions shoot and process thousands of feet of it- It also use a myriad of chemicals for development purposes-

hard drives and most electronics are re-useable.

[ggegan]

Digital cinema and audio have reached a point in their development where they are technically superior to analog processes both in terms of resolution and the ability to manipulate the mediums to acheive a much broader range of useful results. There is no intrinsic reason analog media is inherently more pleasing aesthetically, other than that we have been conditioned to believe it is more pleasing aesthetically.

[Steven1145]

I, for one, am quite happy with Digital cinema taking over. The main reason being that (as Charles stated), we're closer to having all the spectators hearing the mix as it was intended to be heard (barring cinema maintenance and alignment problems...). Even though Dolby Digital was a great invention to put 6 tracks of digital audio onto a sprocket driven piece of film, the uncompressed 24 bit PCM tracks of a DCP master are a big boost in quality.
Moving from film in general to Dolby, I would love to see them create tools that autocheck that all speakers are on and playing within specs every morning or everning for each cinema. The tech is there to have "self-aware" audio systems in cinemas that can send maintenance alerts to the proper people. In all honesty it can only be better than what we have seen in recent years from poorly trained/educated/paid cinema personnel.

Now of course there will still be people who will pine for the good old days of film stock and chemicals, but with digital camera and projector technology rushing forward, for once I think that there is a future for beautiful pictures to be made. And with great sound to go with them!

[Quantel]

Are you all happy to be quoted in the next Quantel article on HD / 3D adoption speeds - and if 3D is being picked up by consumers and broadcasters quicker than HD was in the past?

Also feel free to comment on the actual blog source for this thread to be included in Quantel's promotion for the debate:

The rise of digital in motion pictures – Beyond the tipping point for film (part 1 of 2)

[Fredo]

In Belgium, we are full DCP for over a year.


Yesterday I was in one of the projection rooms of one of the bigger theatres, and found these "analog" items taped to the wall.
(Click on picture to see what's written on the Tape)



Fredo
Temple Of Tune
Belgium

[laddie.music2]

Alls I can say, digital or not,

Film looks and feels better, when I see movies shot on film, I feel as though i'm deeper into the film, more illusion.

Movies shot on digital don't give me that, I don't get sucked in, becuase it has the feeling of what I see on a home video, hahaha,


Digital audio, love it, to me it's exactly what films have always needed,

For music I prefer tape.

[oceantracks]

Originally Posted by wwjd

I'm so glad to hear someone that works with it is ready to move on. Audio went digital about 20 years ago (much easier to do with less bandwidth needed than visuals) but SOME people still whine about digital wrecking everything, yet 99.999% of everything we hear nowdays IS digital. So, it must have worked out ok., Sometimes it sounds like film people are like, "we WANT juddering, washed out, bad sounding imagery, to remind us that this is NOT reality but fantasy on FILM" Whatever. I want great story and spectacular visuals, and digital is delivering in theaters as well as home these days just fine.

Yes, digital is not film, but one quick look at your old days standard instamatic camera photos verses one quick look at today's standard 5MP digital camera and you can SEE how so much better the new tech is in that respect: for the people anyway

Not to me.

I prefer "Chinatown" to look like "Chinatown," not the NBC Evening News.

TH

[soundboy]

Originally Posted by charles maynes

server based projection is the present, and future- to say film is "better" for aquisition than digital is very much akin to saying magnetic audio tape is better- analog audio has a less than 100db signal to noise ratio - in most case MUCH less- and modern conversion has been shown to be adequate for most artists. we can talk about confirmation bias in that argument, but we do see that the performance is adequate. If we look at the other issues such as ecological ones having to do with stock and processing of film, it becomes a more compelling one for digital.

Notice that nothing has gone up where CFI used to be. It's probably a super fund site because of all the chemicals in the ground.

[Quantel]

Here's part 2 of the article on digital ending 35mm films dominance in the movie business. This part looks at the future trends in post production and the filmmakers, like Spielberg, who are still loyal to film:

The rise of digital in motion pictures – Beyond the tipping point for film (part 2 of 2)

Are there any other trends you can think of that will drive cinema forward?

[charles maynes]

Originally Posted by oceantracks

Not to me.

I prefer "Chinatown" to look like "Chinatown," not the NBC Evening News.

TH

the "look" of films like "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" and "Hugo" in my opinion nullify that argument- Digital can have the subjective "warmth" of film. and if we look at a film like Michael Mann's "Collateral" they can have a look that is sharper and more defined than film- even to the point of a subjective starkness of video. The quality that I see as attractive to film is the sense of its physical imperfections- ie its graininess- this has now become an option which might be available as a choice to the film maker, vs a harsh reality of its inherent limitations.

unlike digital audio, which in my humble opinion cannot rival the sonic quality of mag-stripe audio, and is used for its vast superiority of convenience, digital visual capture is actually moving past the capabilites of its lesser cousin sound in manners non of us really expected.

the arguments Tarantino and Speilberg make are not really based as much in the medium, but in their application of the editing process- on film, once a scene is cut, it is permanent in its playback- there is absolutely no question as to its timing of cuts and the way its transitions go past the shutter of the projector, whereas with digital, there is always a nagging doubt as to each play through being "EXACTLY" the same. It simply comes down to those directors having a very precise knowledge of what they intend to have happen in the editplayback process vs being in a state of a playback being "pretty much" what they did. Its that matter of decisiveness that I think is the issue. 35mm has a specific number of perfs per frame, and that relationship is absolute.

[ErikG]

Charles

I think you night be mixing it all up.
With 35 you never know how a reel change will feel/show. With a dcp it's always the same. With a torn 35mm copy you might have to trim the trashed frames in the projection booth. With digital it will be the same each time.
So what might be different on a digital film screening?

In the editing room a scene or shot won't change just because it's digital. It won't feel different between each time you view it because it's digital. It will pass the digital "shutter" the same way as long as you have proper fast drives.

Everything else is not the truth!
And I prefer 35 mm, but because of looks still, not anything else.

[charles maynes]

I am not talking about plattering or changeovers Erik- And I am frankly not really talking so much about the potential inaccuracy of edits in a digital picture editing system- though the lightworks was pretty awful back in the day.

What I AM talking about is the perception of the film maker. This goes back to using SMPTE time code vs bi-phase- the inaccuracy of timecode playback could be upwards of a half a frame slop. With biphase, there was no potential of rubbery sync (outside of the editors competence) if the dubbers were functioning to spec.

in the film world, it was why dialog and ADR were the last holdouts to digital- there was simply to much potential for sloppiness when using timecode back then- I might also add, most audio editors have relatively loose picture sync to audio as well- Quicktime is not that precise. I am not sure what you mean by the drive being the gating factor, because in my experience, there are many other issues- things like network traffic (and why the Sony Lot is literally 1/3 the speed for moving data as my cable service at my house (seriously), and other computer based slowdowns. It is far from perfect, and it is the reason we have crazy expensive digital picture servers at most of the dub stages here for their HD playback. Even with that- sometimes they go funny and dont playback right- something a film projector would never do sporadically in my memory...

I might also add- one thing from film I dont miss for an instant is one light transfers. now we actually tend to get digital picture outputs that actually are far closer to the color corrected final print than ever before.

as to the other stuff not being the truth- on the editorial side, I have worked with both Tarantino and Spielberg, and they did say that those issues were concerns for them.

On the qualitative side, well- the proof is in the pudding I guess- If Scorsese, Cameron, Jackson and Spielberg are willing to use digital, I will have to defer to them that it might be an adequate medium for their film making vision.

[ErikG]

Personally I do like the fact that the digital picture stability is quite good, focus is solid and film handling is no-more.

The next time you talk to the esteemed gentlemen, could you ask wether they'd like to wait for reel change overs, rewinding and waiting for the repair tech to get that old projector back online again?
And how they would feel when they ask "by the way Charles coul we review that scene in reel four again" and you reply "no problem just give us ten minutes to get there..."

[charles maynes]

Originally Posted by ErikG

Personally I do like the fact that the digital picture stability is quite good, focus is solid and film handling is no-more.

The next time you talk to the esteemed gentlemen, could you ask wether they'd like to wait for reel change overs, rewinding and waiting for the repair tech to get that old projector back online again?
And how they would feel when they ask "by the way Charles coul we review that scene in reel four again" and you reply "no problem just give us ten minutes to get there..."

in my experience with both men they always used their time efficiently- Spielberg is not a creature of the dub stage usually. Tarantino, at least when I worked with him loved the process- whether the film was rolling not- he is really a great person to dub with.

as to reviewing work in other reels- we usually dont dub in compound reels on large films- so we would probably need at least 10 minutes to changeover digitally anyway. So, I fail to see the point in that comment. Even back in the day- we wouldnt mount a whole film, because we simply couldnt. we would mount the predubs and play from there IF we needed to- but on a film like Starship Troopers or Twister- which were the biggest films I ever worked on using mag, there was no way in hell we could run a reel from units. The consoles werent big enough and we would have needed probably 5 times the number of playback sources- (Starship had multiple reels with more than 1300 channels of audio).

[ErikG]

Not trying to argue Charles, but I'm very interested.
I find it interesting arguing against a modern fast workflow. Sound and picture.

I also have a bit of wait time on big projects.
I'd say with digital picture it's never the picture I wait for.
For sound, I bet a mag reel change on troopers would have taken more than ten minutes?
How many dubbers did you run? How many support staff?

Today is it the console you have to wait for for ten mins when doing a reel change?
Most daws will open a reel based session pretty fast.

On a typical walk and talk we'd run super sessions. Then there's no time at all to change between reels, we click and it's there. On bigger films it's reel by reel.

But yes we are among the crazys that do it all ITB. But not one box though, multiple daws and a nice controller but no "proper" console. And truly, there's only a few things I miss from a real console, and hundreds of things and a lot of time gained.

I still love what mag did to a dialog dub, but I don't want to go back to waiting for dubbers and sr units getting calibrated (argh, back then it was I who did it, so no coffe for me). And I Definetly didnt enjoy the time I last had to mix with 35mm projection. Slow rewinds and changeovers made me stressed out.

If you want that SOUND I'm with you, still no way to get there 100% with digital. But to me it was a sound. It wasn't better sound, it was A sound.

[aaronsmith]

the girl with the dragon tattoo, changed everything for me, I always found very fast moving action in digital to look strange but this new 4K format, its the real deal, I had no idea it wasn’t film, its the future.

[rc99]

The thing to be concerned with isn't so much digital killing the innate quality provided by analogue and film, but the discipline that a slower, 'tougher' process breeds. I've always felt lucky that I started in editing and post during the 'cusp' of the changeover from analogue to digital years back....in that we learned in the 'old' way, but carried the things learned into the new tools. Like a lot of things, newer technology will keep progressing and the fact that it's not celluloid will become less and less relevant as far as image quality etc. goes. But again, the concern is in the sense of hand craftsmanship that's more easily lost because of it, as well as a more personal custodianship of workflows. You have to fight harder to emphasize that it's still important, and lots of times it's only after a lot of time and money has been lost that productions realize how much more they should have spent on the right people than on what they thought were the right machines.

When or if film 'dies', it'll be because it's film's time to go and to confidently leave the future in good hands, technology-wise. You just pray it doesn't take its craftsmanship with it when it does go.

[charles maynes]

Originally Posted by ErikG

Not trying to argue Charles, but I'm very interested.
I find it interesting arguing against a modern fast workflow. Sound and picture.

I also have a bit of wait time on big projects.
I'd say with digital picture it's never the picture I wait for.
For sound, I bet a mag reel change on troopers would have taken more than ten minutes?
How many dubbers did you run? How many support staff?

Today is it the console you have to wait for for ten mins when doing a reel change?
Most daws will open a reel based session pretty fast.

On a typical walk and talk we'd run super sessions. Then there's no time at all to change between reels, we click and it's there. On bigger films it's reel by reel.

But yes we are among the crazys that do it all ITB. But not one box though, multiple daws and a nice controller but no "proper" console. And truly, there's only a few things I miss from a real console, and hundreds of things and a lot of time gained.

I still love what mag did to a dialog dub, but I don't want to go back to waiting for dubbers and sr units getting calibrated (argh, back then it was I who did it, so no coffe for me). And I Definetly didnt enjoy the time I last had to mix with 35mm projection. Slow rewinds and changeovers made me stressed out.

If you want that SOUND I'm with you, still no way to get there 100% with digital. But to me it was a sound. It wasn't better sound, it was A sound.

I think you might have mistook my comments Erik- I am pretty happy with digital sound- that being said, fullcoat mag sounds better to me- better enough to step away from the convenience of digital- no, not by a long shot. As to workflow- again- there is no question that analog is a relic. It has been superceded in nearly every manner- However on the percption of directors, as I said earlier- its the perception of permanence that is (was?) the issue for them- the fact that when they hear and evaluate sync sound to picture, that the evaluation is something they can be sure of on subsequent playthroughs.

As to dubbing in supersessions- thats great, but if changes happen in the final with picture it can create its own set of issues with conforms.

as to dubbers back in the day- on starship we had I think (this was back in 1997) we had about 30 mag dubbers, I want to say 6 24 track 2 inch machines and around 10 DA88's.

It was a nightmare to say the least in getting reels up.....

[Airon]

I gotta chuckle at DA-88 tapes. I'd almost forgotten that I was shuffling ZIP disks around in 1997 and carrying VO recordings around $20 CD-R. Were there Kingston SCSI bays in use on Macs back then ? I can't remember.

I think I did the last full-mix six-track analog to digital transfer for a DVD transfer in 2003.

Can't say I miss tape a lot. It took 10-15 years for plugin tech to get there, but we have a couple of tape processor plugins that can achieve some neat effects.

Quite a few of us still like to compress VO or vocals with analog outboard, and I'm sure horns still sound great on tape, but that time is almost over as well. To me digital audio and picture have become like raw materials, rather than finals, which is what I often aimed for when recording to tape.

Tape's a processor to me now. You still have a Nagra, Charles ?

[charles maynes]

Originally Posted by Airon

Tape's a processor to me now. You still have a Nagra, Charles ?

I never owned one actually- I much prefer 96k/24 for my field recordings- as a dub stage master, I do find 35mm Mag with SR to be a very good sounding medium though.

oddly, as far as editorial and design goes, I would love to get a nice MTR 10 for tape manipulation effects- but the new generation of DJ tools are getting more and more compelling for that....

[rc99]

I've wanted to buy a NAGRA for a while, but the ones I've found worth picking up have been a bit out of my budget. Love that machine. Years back, while shooting a documentary on an acoustic band of four performers I recorded a few performances with just one shotgun to the NAGRA..stood just out of frame doing the balance by ear holding it in a pistol grip and got great levels..and it took me a while to prove to the producer that I did it with just one mic and not multiple and a mixer. Ah the good'ol days.....