How long until film is dead?

M

mmm

Veteran
With all the advances in HD, how long does everyone think it will be before HD is responsible for 90% of cinema realease.

I say 90% to allow for people who continue to use film for traditional/artistic and just stubborn reasons. I think it will be 100% one day, but that could easily be 100 years from now.

I would have said 20-25 years last year, now I think more along the lines of 10 years.
 
Q - "How long until film is dead?"

A - "It's dead now, but it doesn't know it."

Seriously, 5 years ago I said 10 to 15 years. Today I think that HD is the most appropriate media to shoot practically everything, for practically everyone. The HDCAM v Film demo I went to a few years back put on by the SMPTE in Toronto showed that even back then, HD was "good enough". Today it's more than good enough.

Graeme
 
not soon hopefully. film will never die, even though within the next few decades digital might start replacing it bigtime, you will still be able to shoot on film. i mean they still make all sorts of film the mainstream doesn't use. digital cameras have also replaced more than enough film cameras for family use, fun use, etc. and i don't see still film dying anytime soon, just because SOME people prefer it.
 
Next Tuesday, 3 p.m.

The death of film would be a sad state of affairs. I still prefer editing on film, but those days are long dead--impossible to find a couple of upright moviola's now days. I saw the very first avid at NAB years ago, and thought who the hell would want to edit with these crappy digitized images. Boy, how things have changed. I'm sure shooting on film will suffer the same fate about the same time studios figure out how to bounce a feature to 2000 theaters through the ethers.

Dan
 
I never knew it was alive... oops bad joke.

Basically what Michael Summers said. It won't go away until the studios want it to go away.
 
I think the studios want digital now. No more paying for prints, instance screen turn-around, no couriers etc.

Filmmakers on the other hand don't want to sacrifice their latitude... and ....er what other advantages are there?
 
..actually digital cameras like the varicam and cine alta can match alot of film stock for lattitude, and cameras like the DALSA origin or panavision genesis can surpass most film stocks for lattitude.

one issue though is with people like that guy directing the new superman movie who want film prints for dailies from every digital scene instead of embracing a total digital workflow and worrying about the 35mm transfer when its all said and done and ready to be transferred. it slows things down and brings cost up.
 
I read where Spielberg did War of the Worlds digital. He loved it. It only took like 72 days to film (video!!)
 
iamloser said:
..actually digital cameras like the varicam and cine alta can match alot of film stock for lattitude, and cameras like the DALSA origin or panavision genesis can surpass most film stocks for lattitude.
Click to expand...

Really, I didn't know that. But their handling of highlights is still worse though, at least to my eyes. Is it in the blacks that they catch up lost ground?

I can't wait to see Genesis footage on the big screen.

Digital workflow should be a lot easier than 35mm, people just need to adjust to it. Once data storage catches up, it will be a breeze... :)
 
yeah, the dalsa can get apx 13 stops , and the genesis is supposed to be on par. im sure youve seen regular high def, but have you seen 4k res HD from the dalsa or genesis.. they eat highlights for breakfast.

..lol.. ok so they dont eat anything... but you get the point. :)
 
"I read where Spielberg did War of the Worlds digital. He loved it. It only took like 72 days to film (video!!)"

No he used film. He hates video (see quote below). He did do digital previzualization. Perhaps that is where the error comes in. Even cuts it the old fashion way. As for film is dead, who said that? Even 16mm is now being used more than it has in the last five years. And 35mm is far from dead. Video has its place but it is not and will no replace film in the major motion picture industry unless the new Panavision camera gets some use and folks like it. HD (HDCAM and VARICAM) is somewhere between 16 and 35mm in quality and the new Panavision camera is even par with film, but as I said, its up to the filmmakers. Just because you invent something does not mean everyone will use it.

From:

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.06/war.html?pg=4&topic=war&topic_set=

"Neither pre-viz nor Zeno has softened Spielberg's almost fetishistic appreciation for film - not just shooting on film, which is still the norm in Hollywood, but editing on film, which is all but unheard-of anymore. For most directors, editing a huge, rush picture on film would be a suicidal luxury; for Spielberg, who's worked with the same editor since 1977, it's just a luxury. "I love being able to have an actual byproduct of photochemistry in the room with me," he says. "I love the smell of it. I love being able to hold up the film and see actual frames. I love hearing the butt-splicer cut through the celluloid. I'll do everything else in the digital era, from pre-viz to digital dinosaurs. But there are certain things I'm hanging on to tenaciously."

Lately, Spielberg and Lucas have been arguing over whether to shoot the fourth episode of Indiana Jones, one of the many projects on Spielberg's to-do list, in digital. "If anybody is able to get me to shoot on digital, George is the one," he says. "But do we want to evolve things to a clarity that is indistinguishable from real life? Movies suspend reality - suspend and extend reality. We're interpreters. If things get too clear, it won't look like there's an interpreter."
 
Once again many of you are confusing cameras and fomrats as if they are anything but commodities. From some films it is easier to shoot digital, and others film. That a camera is so and so stops of latitude or even par with X mean little. It's not about cameras or formats, they are commodities. Its about art and what people want to use to create that art.
 
Film will live on for years to come. As long as people are afraid of ones and zeros there will always be an analog medium. We have seen this with the analog/digital audio world.

There are also the ones that will never admit digital sounds or looks as good as analog because they are afraid of learning new things or just afraid of change in general.

A few years ago I had a client in the control room with me who considered himself to be a true "audiophile" and while we listening to a solo piano piece being played in the studio he told me how great the piano sounded because of the analog mixing console and Neuman mics that were being used. He then explained that he hated digital and how much it "hurt" his ears to listen to anything other than vinyl or reel to reel. I almost felt bad telling him we were monitoring through a DIGITAL 16 bit/48k DAT deck.

After proving to him that he was indeed hearing a post analog to digital to analog signal he still said he would never own a CD player.

My point is....even after hearing that digital can sound good he still refused to give it a chance. He is probably the same guy who pays $600 for interconnect cables between his preamp and amp to listen to an album recorded on an analog console trough half a mile of belden 8451 cable that cost about $.02 a foot.

Viva la FILM!

I am going back to 16fps 8mm. Let digital try to reproduce that look.


dolby
 
I haven't seen 4k res HD from the dalsa or genesis, but want to! Apparently it is damn good. Not a nail in the coffin of film, but a young gun who can do the old timers job just as well...?

Walter, you are confusing my question. More and more films are going to be shot digitally...fact.

I am asking how long before 90% of cinema releases are HD? I chose 90% to allow for people who are irrational in their hatred of digital, as the audiophile mentioned below.

I am sure it will be in my life time unless I die young.

Digital will surpass film eventually, in every technical aspect. If you irrationally hate HD then you won't have to use it, but there will come a time when 90% of cinema release is shot digitally. How long do you think/guess it will take??
 
The 4k demo Sony had running at NAB was mighty impressive - I've not seen Film look that good or lifelike before. I don't know how practical 4k is, but it had this sort of super life like smoothness and continuousness to that that was just walk-in reality. Nice.

Graeme
 
be sure to check out the new superman flick when it comes out.. shot on the genesis. should yealid a good idea of what the new top dog digitals can do.
 
I love these debates; especially when I am jonseing hard for a smoke. Damn the Apes! Just one smoke! Sorry...

Film is dying as we speak. Film is most definately a dinosaur. Now; today if I had my choice I would shoot film; no question about it. Tomorrow is another story however. I say within 10 years Digital surpasses film in chosen work format.

Can you even imagine what cameras in our rice point will be available to us in 10 years? :O

Anyway. I love film. I'd shoot film. But it will die. It's inevitebale. Anyone who says it is not is either a fool or just fooling themselves. Better embrace the idea and the change or be left behind.
 
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