Video as a cheap imitation of film.
 

I'm a student at SFSU's Cinema program. We had this guest speaker yesterday in one of my production classes that annoyed me and I thought I'd share.

He made this big presentation about how film is how the human soul wants to take in information and that film is analogous to the way we all dream. Video is just a cheap imitation of film, see. I was getting really tired of this guy by ten minutes in. He said that one of the big differences between film and video is that film is projected, of course the classroom we were in has a video projection system. He had to fire up a film projector and show the images side by side with the video projector so we could all see how much more pleasing the film images were. He also said that the flicker is what makes film so special and that all projectors flicker 24 times a second. I said, "Hey, projectors flash each frame twice, don't they." He'd never heard that.

Then he said that video isn't a complete frame and that it consists of alternating interlaced frames, so I told him that progressive scan video doesn't interlace and can run at 24 frames per second if you have equipment set up to run it that way. He said that film images are inherently higher resolution than digital images and I pointed out that digital still photography has already surpassed the usable resolution of 35mm film. I was talking about my experiences last summer using a Canon EOS 1-Ds, which I explained was outputting 11 megapixel images that I found superior to my experience with 35mm film. He sarcastically said, "Oooh, that's a lot of megapixels." Then he said that even if I'd had a positive experience with digital it was just another example of how desperate manufacturers are to copy the look that film already achieves.

Then he said that data vanishes unexpectedly ("sometimes I try to burn a CD and end up with three or four coasters before the data "sticks" to the CD", the guy said) and that we still have films that are a hundred years old. I asked him how many movies made before 1940 had spontaneously combusted or dissolved in their cans.

Then he started talking about how he soaks his film in urine or berry juice or digs a hole and buries it for artistic effect and asked me if I could do that with video. I told him I could do more interesting things with my video than urinate on it.

Finally he started talking about how video is too inexpensive and how anyone can afford to shoot on video, so it kind of removes the incentive to work hard to get to a place in your life where you have the opportunity to shoot film. He also said that you are more discriminating when you're burning money up every time you fire the shutter release.

I'm no kid. I'm 38 and just now getting to film school, so I'm kind of opinionated and set in my ways, anyway. I've worked in video for nearly 20 years and I've watched quality improve from the old U-Matic decks to the various digital formats we have around today and I try to keep an eye on what's announced and coming. On the other hand, I've shot a lot of double-8mm and Super-8mm home movies and student films, as well as a lot of 35mm still photography. I like film and I know there's a lovely tactile experience to be had when you have a negative. I just think fetishing over format is a waste of effort. If I could shoot video right now in the same resolutions that digital still photography is currently able to achieve I'd never even think about film again. And I'm sure someone could write me a convincing filter to simulate soaking my negative in urine if I really needed to feel like an art school student.

I'm done ranting. I guess my point is that I think we're being fed a really counterproductive message about what's important about filmmaking. In fact, I said the phrase "digital motion picture photography" during the lecture yesterday and was told that there's no such thing. There's motion picture photography and then there's video (said with sarcasm). Ugh.

-Rob

<<<-- Originally posted by Robert Jackson :
Then he started talking about how he soaks his film in urine or berry juice or digs a hole and buries it for artistic effect and asked me if I could do that with video. I told him I could do more interesting things with my video than urinate on it.
-Rob -->>>

ROFLMAO ! That's a good one !

Seems he must be really pissed off (no pun intended!) to see filmmaking (and I do mean filmmaking) finally accessible to more people.

The part about people being more careful about what they are doing because film costs more money than tape is a classic argument, but a very crappy one. You are careful because you want your images to look good.

I believe we have just scratched the surface as far as video's potential for filmmaking and storytelling.

Sounds like he is Pissed off about film not being so elitist for only the upper-class elite. He sounded like he has unrinated on to many films over the years and his brain has gone out of his hole.

<<"data vanishes unexpectedly">>........Like you dont have to take care with film? What happens if your pee is a little to alkali, you could loose valuable film stock And you cannot use one of the good old school classic....the dog pee-ed on it! with the crew could you?

I would have loved to have been there and asked him to show so of his filmed stuff.

<<"Then he started talking about how he soaks his film in urine or berry juice or digs a hole and buries it for artistic effect and asked me if I could do that with video.">>..........mmm maybe Rodriquez should have washed film in tequila to give it an authentic mexican feel.

I would have asked him for a quick draw gunfight-style on Film vs Video and then asked him to see who can film and playback to the audience the film footage the quickest, for a little show of flexibility with different formats. You could have recorded it, edited artistic effects on the footage and played in back using HD or DV format even before he finished his bottle of water to build up his urine content to urinate on his film to get "artistic style". Never mind develop and fix his film stock properly.

Holding on to the past is a bad trait....just imagine if we had not burned sand to make lenses, as artistic paints were better. Of if AGFA or Kodak had been just content with Black and White film...where would we be today I wonder?

You're right. Projectors flash each frame twice because they have dual-bladed "bowtie" shutters. Some projectors like the Christie P35 have a single blade shutter, but it spins twice as fast. You can also get three bladed shutters for projectors on which the light output is extremely high, thus having an image that cycles at 72Hz instead of 48, pretty much eliminating flicker and producing an outstanding, flickerless image.

I think film is a better method to shoot on than video for the time being if image quality is your main concern and/or you want a theatrical release. But I certainly wouldn't use the guy who visited your class to try to make that argument for me.

This guy doesn't know what he's talking about or he's one of the real artsy types with long hair and tie-dyed shirts.

By the way, 35mm film is generally considered 12mp to 25mpixels depending on the study.

There's nothing wrong with shooting in black and white.

One of the things I think he's ranting about is the ability of anyone to just pick up a camera and shoot a "movie". And here is where the true film artist and others diverge.

The shortest time spent in making a movie is the actual filming of the scene. Months are spent just deciding camera angles, lights, lenses to use, colors, background, etc. Each job is done by an artist, including cinematographer and soundman. Even the actors are generally a calibre higher than actors in your local area.

I just got off the set of a department store commercial that took 4 days to shoot using 35mm. But DV would not have sped it up in anyway.

Some in the film industry find this "anyone can pick up a camera" as a watering down of the quality, beginning with the amateur lower quality cam market. Today, some films coming out are poorly done because it was under time pressure to rush it through and some will blame it on the dv revolution creating a "I don't want it done right, I want it done now!" environment.

Uh, oh. I'm spinning off into a tangent!

Robert J, thanks for posting that. I'm sorry to hear that an individual who is so mis-informed with the facts and biased against new technologies is being presented to impressionable ears.

For myself, with a background that has some early parallels to yours (I too started in video), I've found that my background has helped me now that digital is infiltrating all levels of filmmaking. I have very specific opinions about the merits of both film vs digital origination, depending on the project.

Christopher: I appreciate your humor, but let's not counter one guys blindsided-ness with similar thinking. No question that digital is a quicker medium to work in than film, but unless the project requires speed specifically, quicker is only better if the results are as good. If however you feel that DV or HD is every bit as good-looking as 35mm film, then fair enough.

Rob: regarding this statement:

""The shortest time spent in making a movie is the actual filming of the scene. Months are spent just deciding camera angles, lights, lenses to use, colors, background, etc. Each job is done by an artist, including cinematographer and soundman. Even the actors are generally a calibre higher than actors in your local area."

I only wish that every show I've worked on, or even some of them, afforded the opportunity to plan out angles, lighting and lenses ahead of time. Production design is decided in advance of course, because it requires blueprints, material costing, prop shopping etc...but that's not to say that last-minute fiascos are thrown at production designers every single day. The DP hopes to be able to create a lighting scheme for a given set and have his pre-rig crew do as much as possible, but many times the lions share of lighting is done immediately after the rehersal and just before shooting. Angles and lenses--again, occasionally there's things in mind, but more often than not you pull this out of your a** on the day. This is the way of most features. Commercials require more specific storyboarding because of the input of the agency. And then you have your Coen Bro's who storyboard every frame well ahead of time, but they are the exception in this day and age.

Long and short of it, even with all those trucks and people, I've worked on many movies that have about as much pre-planning as your average DV film, weird as it seems! It's the way a lot of directors like it these days.

"" Today, some films coming out are poorly done because it was under time pressure to rush it through and some will blame it on the dv revolution creating a "I don't want it done right, I want it done now!" environment."

Once again--virtually all films these days are under extreme time pressure, except for those select top filmmakers who have earned the right to spend a lot of studio money making films their way.

For everyone else, the studios push the production to get the show done as quickly as possible and cut every corner they can, and pay everyone the least they can, because the studios are all run these days by friggin' bean counters. It's ugly and getting uglier. Watch me get off on a tangent about this one--the industry is not at all what it was when I was a humble PA, watching the camera crew like a hawk, waiting my turn to get in.

OK, I pulled out of it...! I'm back.

Anyway, the DV "revolution" hasn't really hit Hollywood significantly. It was flavor of the month a year or two ago, and is back out again for the most part. Digital in the film world is really more about digital intermediate than origination; there's not a whole lot you can capture on HD that you can't on film, but there's a LOT you can do in post with a digital intermediate that you can't with chemical/optical printing.

Do people actually soak their film in urine for artistic effect?

The more interesting question might be, "What do you have to drink to achieve certain effects?".

<<<-- Originally posted by Charles Papert : Digital in the film world is really more about digital intermediate than origination; there's not a whole lot you can capture on HD that you can't on film, but there's a LOT you can do in post with a digital intermediate that you can't with chemical/optical printing. -->>>

This is another aspect of the process that didn't come up in class, but it's a really good thing to point out. A digital interpositive really frees up filmmakers to use existing cameras and lenses and still use digital technology to achieve results in their film that would have been impractically time-consuming, if not impossible not long ago.

I'm kind of over my freakout now, but it really caught me off-guard to hear someone talking like that about the process. He showed us Mothlight and said that Brakhage would never have been able to tape moth wings to videotape. Comments like that annoy me. It's so shortsighted. Right here in my little workroom I could scan high-resolution images of moth wings right off my Firewire flatbed and assemble a project like Mothlight a frame at a time, probably about as fast as Brakhage was able to assemble his work. It's about inspiration and creativity, IMO, not which tools are used to do the work. If Truffaut or Godard had been all wrapped up in worshipping the way people worked before them there would have never been a French New Wave movement...you know, 'n stuff like that. ;-)

It's a double-whammy for me, though, because I really do like film. I love shooting film. I really like pretty much everything about the experience of shooting film and I'm usually pretty indifferent to video. It doesn't stir passion in me like sitting down to a 70mm print at a good theater does, but that's all image quality. Digital stills may be there already, but digital as a motion picture medium has got a little way to go still. When you can pick up a six pound camera that can capture Imax quality images to whatever digital storage medium is available by then I won't think twice about the loss of film, though.

I told someone after class Wednesday that I wondered if all the "No Digital" film fetishists with their PETA stickers and Meat Is Murder buttons had any idea where the gelatin layer of film emulsion comes from. ;-)

-Rob

Oh man!... Where to begin....
I had a few teacher like that bak in film school... not for one lecture.. but for a whole trimester (twice)...

Anyway I think there are few missing point around here:

1. - The STORY. Don´t get me wrong... I like to see great images... but I´d better like to see great stories with crappy images... than great images with crappy stories... I don´t care if it´s video or film or a flash movie or a slide show peed by an elephant... but this people usually never give the STORY, the importance it has...


2.- Why there is allways someone making an "artistic-subjective-competitive" compairson between media?... that´s what they are... just tools and technical stuff to help you tell your story... So I think compairson between these should stay in the technical side, and avoid the "which is better" instead of the "What can each achieve".. and also leave the fetish-religious-fanatism out...

3.- So, you get whatever media you can or need, and start telling your story...

4.- And afterwards you drink the berry juice, dig a hole and pee in it.. the film? just send it to the lab...

Funny you should mention Godard, he was the first big proponent of pushing video way back in the 80's, he switched all his filmmaking to video. Just a little tidbit.

Zac

Robert,

Tell him that there are a lot of us here who are open to both film and video and that to show our willingness to show support for his opinion... and that we don't discriminate against film... we'll be glad to urinate on some of his films for him.

I totally agree that the story is the most important ingredient.

I got in another conversation with someone, I don't think it was here, about the audience not knowing the difference between something shot on film vs video.

It's a paradox because because the audience DOES know the difference when they have something to compare it to or it's obviously video like Blair Witch. For the production company to choose the lesser of the two means short-changing the audience and not giving them all you can. Excepting of course when a certain affect is desired, such as 28 Days. I'm also assuming the company has the funds to make an either/or choice, also.

A great example of this is the original "Blair Witch Project" and the sequel. The original had a great story, but was pretty rough around the edges production-wise. In contrast, the sequel was polished but had a lousy story.

I've watched the original several times. I only watched the sequel once...about 3/4 of the way through I put in another video.

This guy sounds like the pick of the litter. I wonder how much he was paid for this speech, er, lecture? I belive that one day, Digital will replace film outright. It is just a matter of technology and evolution. I personally love film, and if it was affordable, would use it.

I'm not sure if this guy was operating on an agenda or not, but, with the invent of DV and 24p (both of which we will continue to see quantum leaps in quality) it has opended up the playing field for wannabe filmakers. Something the world has not seen since, hmmm, the 60's?

It's an exciting time. I am 33 and have spent my entire life wanting to make films, working on lo/no's, etc and was literally about to just forget about one day making my own films, and then, wham! DV 24p, etc. I'm on pace for my first DVX100 24p and have a renewed passion in filmaking. Something I at once thought was never going to happen. Are there better cam's out there than the DVX100? Hell, yes. But for my budget and level, it will do just fine in learning the art of DPing and Directing.

Sounds like you gave him a tough time. Good for you! Your right, film has really become an elitists club. Not anymore. There is alot of talent out there and artists who are finally being giving a chance to make some really great pieces of work without maxing out 10 credit cards and mortgaging the house for a feature film shot on Super 16!

To bastardize Marshall McLuhan's title handle, "The Medium is NOT the Message". This "lecturer" clearly sees the inexorable march of digital technologies into film's domain. Even Kodak, the great bastion of film technology, is giving ground to this march. Their stock lost nearly 18% of its value yesterday as they announced that they will, in essence, refocus their attention from consumer film to digital products (a bit too little, too late in many investors' minds).

Fifty years from now some lecturer, perhaps one of us, will stand before a classroom of eager, young faces and bemoan the gradual loss of two-dimensional digital imaging. We'll wail that the trend towards immersive, holographic entertainment chokes viewers' imaginations, that it does not have the richness of imaging detail that digital 2-D featured, etc.

Time and progress wait for nobody. Buy the fellow a drink (being careful to take note of any post-production requirements he may imminently face) and bring him into the fold by sharing some plug-ins with him.

That drop might be due to cutting dividends by 72% but I've never understood Kodak's management anyway. The WSJ doesn't either.

(off-topic side note): Kodak cut their dividend to channel cash in that new direction.

The speed thing rings a bell...
 

About a year ago I read this book, by a french philosopher, don't remember the name right now, a great thinker. The point is, he spoke about how society is so keen on speed, how technology propels us in a direction that has to do with making things go faster and faster. We human beings have limits, we cannot just go on and on in that direction, and I think if there is a lesson to learn from filmmaking it is how a work can have this great meaningfulness because time is put into it's making. Let us not loose that.

Speaking of Blair Witch.

The reason this film succeeded was the freakin millions of dollars spent on advertising and hype.

It was an interesting concept, although I didn't really dig it. Did it open up some new ideas? yeah, it did. But as an example of what can be accomplised using VIDEO, I think it is one of the worst examples.

The film that is being released called "In this World" is done with VIDEO and it looks epic. I mean it looks really good. I'm babbling now, leaving work, going to get my son.

Re: The speed thing rings a bell...
 

<<<-- Originally posted by Ignacio Rodriguez : The point is, he spoke about how society is so keen on speed, how technology propels us in a direction that has to do with making things go faster and faster. We human beings have limits, we cannot just go on and on in that direction, and I think if there is a lesson to learn from filmmaking it is how a work can have this great meaningfulness because time is put into it's making. Let us not loose that. -->>>

See, that was part of the lecturer's point. He was talking about how he used ProTools to do the audio for one of his projects and the work went too fast. He said he was on autopilot through most of the process and it frightened him. He went on to say that during an appearance on some television show Speilberg said that he likes to edit on a flatbed because it's more time-consuming and it gives him time to think about what he's doing.

Me? I'm no Oscar-winning filmmaker, but I just like to take breaks and walk away from editing from time to time. A cup of tea. A walk. A cigarette. I used to work at a music video station where I shot and edited short "comedy" bits and I'd invariably get home from work and think of something I wanted to try as I was falling asleep, so I'd get back in the car and go back to the edit suite in shorts, a T-shirt and Birkenstocks. Thankfully I edit about 20 feet from where I sleep anymore, so when those brink-of-slumber ideas dawn on me I don't have to go out looking silly.

I agree to a point, though. If the process becomes so expedient that you don't have time to think about it too much there's always the chance that you'll make a film that only comes from the most superfcial levels of your consciousness. The meditative quality of a craft can really bring inspiration to the surface. That doesn't mean that sitting at a flatbed is the only way to find your muse, though. Sitting in a hot tub with a frozen drink on a starry night and turning things over in your mind seems to work, too. ;-)

From another Rodriguez: ;-)

Another thing Rodriguez is zealous about is shooting on high-definition digital film. "I shot a bunch of movies on film but I hate film!" he cries. So why do so many directors still use it, I ask. "Because they're stupid," he replies, the note of petulance sounding a bit like a stroppy teenager frustrated with the idiocy of the adult world.

Just an excerpt from
http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/f...p?story=447050

THE STORY PEOPLE... do whatever you can or like with whatever media it´s available to you... Take as long as you want/can/need... (I had a teacher that´s been making a movie for 8 years... ????)... Do whatever it takes and suits you to tell THE STORY...

But whatever you do, don´t lecture people on which is the better way to do something... or which media is better... or how long should I take... Or how lame are those using video.. or how "artsy" are those using 16mm, or whatever...
I don´t care if you are Robert Rodríguez or Alfred Hitchcock... don´t tell me that your way is the only way... that sounds like religious fanatism...

There´s plenty of ways of doing things.. of course some work better than others depending on your goals... And lot´s have proven to be good enough that they become standards..

One thing is for sure... video is making it a lot easier for some of us that just don´t have any other option to give it a try... Or should I spend my whole life sending Scripts waiting for the "chance"... no way..

Enough said.. give me good stories.. I haven´t seen many of those lately anywhere...

Well put.

It's like arguing over music/art/literature styles.

You need to read the book "Art and Filmmaking" by I.P. Daley

Perhaps someone should show him 28 Days Later or one of those
other fine pieces of DV stuff people here turn out every time!

Things like this get me quite sad. Know why? Because he takes
way too much for granted. Take the film industry here in Holland
for example (or the lack thereof). Whe have a filmschool here
which I visited once to see if it was something. From watching
people talk and seeing the things they required I could easily
see they were all in the same "box" so to speak. All the same
mindset, rules to follow etc.

If I ever want to make movies here I'd have a very hard time
getting into that filmschool. Then I'd be learning to make movies
THEY want to see (artsy probably instead of really interesting)
and then start to work somewhere low down in the chain if
I get to work in the business at all which releases only a couple
of movies which in my opinion aren't that great.

Guys like this need to learn that not every place on earth
works like Hollywood. I want to make movies of my own and
the best way (in my opinion) to do that NOW is to do it myself
with my video equipment. And one thing I know for sure is that
a lof of people have commented on how GOOD my episode for
Lady X looked (only talking about the look here) and that
definitely did NOT originate on film. Enough said about that.

We all want to be creative and people like that just want to
hold you back (for some reason, probably fear). As pointed out
were would innovation be if we all were like sheep. I say
be creative, be scary and lets make some beautiful movies/films
whatever!

Actually, he talked about that film in particular and said that the poster should have carried a warning that the images contained within originated on an Atari 2600. Then he did a little dance to show how characters moved on old video game systems.

Personally, I thought the ratty image quality in 28 Days Later was great. I thought it worked with the story really well.

<<<-- Originally posted by Rob Lohman : Perhaps someone should show him 28 Days Later or one of those
other fine pieces of DV stuff people here turn out every time!
-->>>

"28 Days Later" was a fine film, using DV was an interesting artistic choice, and I can't wait to see how great it will look on DVD.

That guy was a friggin' loser. Sorry.

It's that kind of thinking that caused me to drop out of NYU film school after my freshman year. Never looked back. Never missed it.

My little half-brother wants to make films one day as well as I do. (Can't imagine where he gets it?)

He is savings his money (well, my moms money) to go to NY Film Academy Workshop in LA next summer. It is going to cost him over $3000.00 (not including food; lodging, etc).

I told him : Hank. (Yes, his name is Hank; after Hank Aaron) take that cash and buy a camera (Xl1s or DVX100; or whatever else is on market next summer) and start making films.

Does he listen? No.

Just thought I'd add that to your "Dropping out of film school" comment. I personally think film school is a waste of time, er, money.

<<<-- Originally posted by Charles Papert : "28 Days Later" was a fine film, using DV was an interesting artistic choice, and I can't wait to see how great it will look on DVD. -->>>

Me too! I cannot wait for the DVD. It will be great. And I'm a sucker for the zombie film. I'm currently writing a script (one of a few I have going) on my own take on the zombie genre.

The home video version of Blair Witch Project was transfered from film instead of using the original Hi8 as source material. 28 days might look equally bad unless they decide to do a DV transfer like they should.

<<<-- Originally posted by Ted Springer : The home video version of Blair Witch Project was transfered from film instead of using the original Hi8 as source material. 28 days might look equally bad unless they decide to do a DV transfer like they should. -->>>
Or equally Good... as "beauty is in the eye of the beholder"... :-)

Can anything look as bad as Blair Witch? Maybe America's Funniest Videos.

It's intent was to look video, aside from the fact it was. Remember it was a tape that was found recorded by the victims.

Which would have made it even more realistic if they had made the home video versions from the Hi8 tapes, in my opinion. Anyone else notice that the video was presented inside a square border onscreen?

I know, I know. I think BW was a good idea. The hype (marketing campaign) around it was even better. I think it made for an interesting peice of work; unfortunatley I still thought it was crap. Props to the filmakers for taking the resources they had at thier disposal and running with it, but it kills me to see other bodies of work getting passed by. I think Miramax purchased it for a mil? And then proceeded to spend 7 mil more on advertising.

I could be way off on those numbers (correct me if needed). I just remember walking out of the theater thinking: I just paid $7.50 for that?

Yes, I know the intent was to appear as if: Thir footage has been found...

But who cares. If a dog does "his business" on a canvas, does it make it art?

It might! <g> ... I've seen far weirder things already

First.. I didn´t like the BW... But I knew all the fuzz about the movie before watching it... so I was not surprised by it...

But I got to admit I liked the STORY.... not the one in the movie.. but the whole thing surrounding it..

But hey, marketing is an art in itself... put it like this.. the typical teenage camping night ghost story is not scary when you are 16, loitering in the mall drinking a coke. So these guys tried to make people feel like they were 10 sitting by a fire in the woods listening to a Witch story... and pay for it.

And in other "art" forms.. the same thing happens.. a guy who paints crap... get´s famous because some New York Magazine made a good review.. and all of sudden you have a half million dollar piece of canvas with two red dots in the middle...
And then have real artists with real talent not getting recognition and selling their paints in streets for 10 bucks..

At least the "movie-industry" is more sincere in the fact, that they admit is an Industry... although some of us want to believe there is still art somewhere in there...

Uff... it´s out of my chest now...

Although I am a former film snob, I really enjoyed both the Blair Witch Project and 28 Days Later. With both films the story and style were captivating enough that I forgot about the medium and was drawn into the story.

I also feel that transferring both films from the film sources instead of the original video sources in entirely appropriate. The very fact of putting 60i video content on 24p film changes the temporal nature of the image substantially, not to mention the film texture, contrast and color changes that are imparted on each frame. At least for 28 Days, this process was an intregal part of the cinematographer's palette in creating the final look of the film.

To say that you'd prefer to see the original video footage on a DVD release is like saying you want a one-light transfer of the original film negative, so as to avoid all those silly color timing and printing tricks that cinematographers use. How dare they muck around with the image liek that - I want to see the film the way it left the camera ;-)

Home video releases should adhere to the theatrical experience as much as possible, or at least to the extent that the director, DP and studio choose. I, for one, would hate to sit through a video version of either of these films - I'll bet it would look like hell.

Real world comparison
 

Besides the funny/dramatic story that started this thread, I feel it has gone through pathways that are not quite real. Or practical from an independent filmmaker point of view.

Let's state a point first: do you REALLY think that video, the highest gear available now, state of the art, gets even close to what film has to offer?

Has any of you really carried on serious tests to prove so?

Not many years ago, maybe 12 or so, when some people were shooting features in super-8 for home-video released, it was suggested that a super 8 frame had similar information capacity than an analog Betacam or 1" taped video, whatever the camera you were using.

16mm or 35mm were miles better than video, particularly because the high-lights knee and low lights knee still were too evasive for video resolution. You learned to cheat them in video work or video for film, but they were still there.

That has not changed too much, in spite of HD video!

Maybe resolution is getting now close to what a super 8 or maybe 1:33 16mm frame can achieve, and the grain can be a problem on 8mm, but any video image can be shamefully defeated by a properly shot super-16, 35 or super-35 negative.

Using film for the original material is still the rule for serious theatrical fiction releases, and it will probably continue to do so for at least 10 years or more, because resolution is much better. Film is like a carrot and the proverbial donkey. When the video industry thinks they got there, Kodak pulls a fast one and there they go.

Some years ago I had the chance to go back to shoot a film after years of doing broadcast video on the best equipment available. This documentary was shot in 16mm color, and I had to shoot a scene in mid-day Brazilian sun. No lighting was possible because the hand held camera was shooting cars stopping at a light and went to interview the drivers when the red was on. No diaphragm correction either.

I metered the hot sun and the deep shadow, which was about 8 stops from each other. That means you had about 20 stops between high light and deep shadow! So I went for the middle and left the correction for the lab. And off we went.

At the lab, when color correcting, I was amazed to see how much film had improved in the last 15 years. The information was all there in the negative! You could pick your copying light for the car's interior or the sun and it would be fine. In fact I told the director to cut that scene in the middle, editing something in between, so we pick the right light for high light and shadow.

And we weren't using fast lenses or anything.

Now go do that with video!

This is only to demonstrate my case. In "normal" situations, you get a more natural look when shooting film, because resolution is more forgiving. Nowadays you can almost get what the eye can see, with high ASA film and fast lenses. That is why film continues to be used.

This doesn't mean that we shouldn't use video. We must! It's a tool like any other. And it's alright trying to emulate film, as I did that many times on most videos I shot. Hopefully will continue to do so on several projects to come that I expect to tell about in this Community.

Film is certainly more expensive and far from practical, as it takes a lot of time and work until you get your results. That is the main reason why video had to get serious investments to get closer to the film look, but it's only a resemblance.

If you move away from HD video, with their very expensive Panavision or Sony cameras (that are not easy to get and are quite fragile) you get nothing even close to what you can get from film in image quality.

Please don't take my word for it: if you never shot a film, do go follow someone that is doing so, if possible in 16mm and 35mm, and look at the final picture on a film theatre.

We will probably have film for many, many years to come yet, and also video for we low-budget folks to work on. And I think it's fine for that to happen, as both should have their niches.

Considering film as a "better" medium is not being snob, is just acknowledging how things are.


Carlos