How long until film is dead?

thisiswells, I agree with with you.

As a young director, always struggling with budgets, I can just about afford film and prefer it aesthetically for most projects, but find it very limiting. This is probably because I grew up with video. I did a lot of 35mm stills and developing when I was younger, but finally the rational side of my brain has made me sell my Super 8 Nizo and my darkroom kit :cry: I had stopped using them because I can do better with a DV camera and photoshop. Not a single person has critised the aesthetics of my last film (shot on DSR 570). Many people say how good it looks. It may have looked better on film, but the film would not be so good due to film's other limitations.

Film will always have its limitations, it may improve aesthetically a little more though. The only way for HD is up, and the limitations are far fewer.

Pookie,
I am asking you to explain your opinion... You are obviously more experienced than me and I am interested to hear your reasoning. I started this post to see what you guys thought about the HD transition, not to be critised for having an opinion.

Your "number" is important to me because I value your opinion... I don't see why you are so annoyed about that? I wanted different opinions, not everyone to just say "yeah, spot on 12 years, definitely!"
 
thisiswells said:
Hey Dave!

My point is it would be more helpful, imho, to a new filmmaker (which isn't the point of this thread, I know...) to have access to features like a variable shutter to try out different looks. SFAIK, no new film camera below 60K offers a variable shutter angle. That's something you get on a DVX100 used for $2K that isn't even found on a $15K used Aaton LTR-54 or used Arri SR.. Sure, it is there on SR2 or 3, but that package would be way more expensive to own/maintain than a 24p DVX. Point is: you can't adjust the shutter on a film camera without spending big bucks. You can adjust the shutter on a 24p camera (or nearly any video camera for that matter).

Film still offered a benefit for budding cinematographers in the variable frame rate category, but it appears the HVX200 will plug that gap as well. Sure, there's the film aesthetic, but what's more important when someone is learning how to take motion pictures? A beautiful aesthetic they can't afford to use often, or a camera that offers a similar flexibility (especially combined w/ 35mm lenses and depth of focus) to a film camera, at a tenth the price? Sure, it doesn't look the same, but it lowers cost of entry to traditionally high-end feature sets. I see that as being quite valuable. :thumbsup:

brian
Click to expand...

Brian, I understand completely.

But let's imagine a completey unrealistic hypothetical, bear with me.

Imagine you could get a brand spanking new Arri 535 with two batteries, two 1000' mags, 2 400' mags, orientable view finder, video tap and a full set of Super Speeds for $3500 and imagine that you could get a 1000' roll of 35mm color negative film, with processing and telecine to Digibeta (or D-5) for $20. What would you shoot your next project with, the Arri or the DVX?

Of course this is a ridiculious example.The reality is that the camera package I described costs about $150,000 (at least).

We have to use the best tools that we can access to and for most of us it is, right now, DV. As for young filmmakers, absolutely, DV is the way to go. However, if someone is in a filmschool and does not get learn film techniques at some point, they are not getting a full education. IMO.

BTW, hate to be nit-picky, but shutter speed and shutter angle are not exactly the same thing. Video cameras can simulate changes in shutter speed. film cameras are limited by the physics of the mechanical intermittent movement when it comes to variations in shutter speed, which is pretty much limited to about 1/60th of a second (give or take). Changeing frame rates will change shutter speed, neccesitating changes in exposure control. Some film cameras do have the ability to vary shutter angle, from, sometimes 0deg, to about 180 deg. Changing shutter angle does vary exposure time, but nowhere near as much as the shutter speed changes in video camera (and still cameras). Variable shutters are an expensive feature however, the Bolex cameras have it available. My Rex 4 has it (paid $400 used, with 10-1 zoom, MST motor and battery). I think that the largest angle is 170 deg and you can close it all the way down. Remember in camera fades and dissolves? Yikes!

Anyway though, you are right, there are things that can be done with a DV camera that can not be done with a film camera.
 
Does Walter Murch predict five years?

Does Walter Murch predict five years?

(perhaps it's four years if the speech he gave was in 2004)

Well, it's food for thought.

From a keynote speech that can be seen over at dv.com: http://www.pqhp.com/cmp/dvxw04/

"right now there's a standoff between the studios and the exhibitors of who's going to pay for the digital projectors, but when that finally happens, when either the price goes down low enough, or the studios realize that they're going to save so much money that they might as well buy it for the exhibitors, celluloid will simply disappear, and it won't only disappear as a tool to watch film, cause that's where the labs make all their money, is in making 5000 prints of a film, once that's no longer the case, then there's going to be no profit in shooting film, so even if somebody wants to shoot film it's going to either become impossible, or increasingly difficult to do"

he describes the current state of filmmaking as...

"a digital sandwich between analog slices of bread"

saying that "these are very thin skins on either side, and I would guess within five years they're going to drop away completely"
 
I understand we are agreeable in there are things more easily possible on video than film, shutter speed namely. Sfa angle/speed, it's merely a matter of nomenclature so far as I'm concerned.

I consider the Saving Private Ryan/28 Days Later hellish kind of look very cool and getting that look requires a faster-than-normal shutter speed only available on exotic film cameras (or affordable video cameras). The published methodology has been to use a 45[font=arial, helvetica]° [/font]shutter at 24Fps (1/192 of a second) but after watching quite of bit of film at that shutter speed, I'd care to speculate SPR had it closed down even further. You really have to have a fast shutter to recreate the insane staccato effect like those shots! More importantly, however, is the lack of a 144[font=arial, helvetica]°[/font] (1/60) shutter on more kind-of affordable S16 cameras. Without one, the roll bar present in NTSC television is captured on film.

Any camera I've considered owning and that I could reasonably afford (10K->less) has been around 20-25 years old and did not have an adjustable shutter. Essentially any camera that looked like a good value had a major limitation, I discovered. At least on a DVX100a I can "dial out" a roll bar when shooting a monitor! It's almost absurd to think that a (seemingly) simple shutter adjustment would cost so much. A guy here in town looked into having his Arri 35-3 converted to a "15-180 shutter" and the price was around $19K. It seems surprising that only the most recent (1994 and newer) Aatons have included an adjustable shutter until you consider that in the entire history of Aaton, they've only manufactured around 4500 cameras. Compare that to DVX sales....

The Bolex shutter is completely confusing to me:
http://www.cinematography.net/Pages%20GB/Bolex%20Shutter.htm
 
IMO, five years is a little too short. Many filmmakers will want to see firm results on the big screen, before they even consider moving to HD.

Superman may well show this, I don't know, but even if Panavision's Genesis blows 35mm away, which I doubt, the transition would still take a while. For one thing, how many working Genesises are there? Also, I would guess that a Genesis workflow is still more expensive than 35mm...? Does anyone have any information on it??

Is anything currently shooting on the Arri D-20? If anyone has seen any Genesis or D-20 footage, I would love to know how it looked.
 
thisiswells said:
The Bolex shutter is completely confusing to me:
http://www.cinematography.net/Pages%20GB/Bolex%20Shutter.htm
Click to expand...

Wow, that Bolex shutter discussion is FUed.... My Rex 4 goes from 170 to 0, I'm pretty sure. It is difficult to get used to and is really in the camera for fade-ins and outs with (the Rex-o-Fader!)

For shooting monitor screens, the best results I'v ever gotten was with a Cinematography Electronics electronic motor, and had to dial it in with small incremental changes in FPS...

It would be very cool to have the pull (and dough) that Janusz Kaminski has and get Panavison to modify a camera to your specs. I don't know what shutter speed he was pulling, but I do know that he had them build a whole set of uncoated lenses for the shoot to get that cool flare look... how cool is that!!!
 
thisiswells or Rosestar, would one of you be kind enough to explain the concept of shutter "angles" and "degrees" as applicable to DV cameras? Unfortunately I don't have a background in traditional 35mm/film cameras and haven't the foggiest idea how these words and concepts relate to DV (if at all). On the other hand, if you know of a great article that explains this, please advise as I've been doing a few web searches and haven't found anything yet that's making the light bulb go off.

*I keep thinking that these terms imply an actual shutter mechanism that is somehow tilted (not parallel) in relation to the film or ccd's, causing some kind of a distance/delay in light and exposure for one part of the frame... any guidance and clarification is greatly appreciated. Thx!

**oh, and if this is too off topic I could post a new thread if anyone deems necessary.
 
It doesn't apply to a DV camera at all.

In film cameras, the shutter is typically a physical rotating disc, with a pie-shaped wedge cut out of it. That wedge is a "hole" which the light gets through, so as the disc rotates, the solid area covers up the film, then as the disc rotates further, the wedge/hole exposes the film to light.

The angle of the hole is the "shutter angle", which can be expressed in terms of degrees. A full circle is 360 degrees. If the shutter was 1/4 open, 3/4 closed, that would be a 90-degree shutter angle.

Typically in film cameras you'll see somewhere between 144 and 180 degrees, meaning that the shutter is almost a half-moon (a 180-degree shutter would be exactly half of a disc).

Some film cameras can actually have more opening than closed -- i.e., for some Super8 movie cameras they had shutter angles of 220 degrees or more. That means that the shutter itself would be the pie-shaped wedge.

Film cameras operate at various frame rates, and the shutter (being a mechanical rotating thing) is tied to the running speed. So a 180-degree shutter would expose the film for 1/2 the time the frame is present. That means that at 24fps, each film frame would be held in the gate for 1/24th of a second, and the shutter would expose for half that amount of time, or 1/48th of a second. But that shutter speed is constant only if the film frame rate remains constant... if you run the film faster, the shutter speed becomes shorter... i.e., at 60 frames per second, that same 180-degree shutter angle would be providing 1/120th shutter speed.

Almost no video camera has a rotating shutter, instead they rely on an electronic timing system (meaning, there's no physical shutter at all; instead they let the CCD expose for a predetermined amount of time, and then just stop collecting data... so, say, 1/48th of a second they let the CCDs gather electricity, and after that they just stop, effectively shutting off the flow of light). Similar to, but not exactly simulating, the way a film shutter works.
 
Shutter angle and shutter speed are closely related concepts. Lets start with shutter speed. Shutter speed, in photography is one of your primary elements that you have for creative control. Shutter speed is just that. How fast the camera shutter opens and closes, letting light in to make an exposure. In the beggining, films were so slow (i.e., had very little sensitivity to light) that exposure times could be as long as several minutes. Now, I use exposure time instead of shutter speed to describe this because in the exposure time was controled by actually removing a lens cap and replaceing it when the shot was over. Fast forward to more modern cameras with faster film (more light sensitives) and cameras that control exposure time with a fast moving blade (shutter) at the focal plane (right in front of the film). This exposure time is now expressed in terms of the speed of the shutter, and in most uses, fractions of a second (1/4, 1/30,
1/10,0000, ect). Now there are shutter speed basics the lower the number, the longer the shutter is open and more light moves through the lens and hits the film. So, shutter speed can be used to control exposure, i.e, if you are in very low light situations and you have a slow speed film (light insensitive) you can get a decent exposure if you chose a slower shutter speed. Now, there is a drawback. blurring. The longer the shutter is open, the more blur a moveing object will have on the film (the object moves while the exposure is being made).

Faster shutter speeds (higher numbers) have the exact opposite effect. The faster the shutter speed, the less light that hits the film, so faster films, wider apeatures or more brightly lite subjects must be used. Faster shutter speeds also freezes motion (less blur) and are very prevalant in sports photography. The classic example of a slow shutter speed is the night city scape that has a highway with the car lights streaking on the highway. The classic example of high shutter speeds are the soccer player caught in mid air kicking a ball, and the motion is frozen crystal clear.

Now throw in motion pictures. Motion pictures work a little different, in that they are still pictures shown over time. Modern motion pictures are standardized (in North America) at 24 frames per second (there have been different frame rates used in the past). Also, motion pictures us intermitent movement to move the film through the camera. That means that the film moves into the focal plane, stops, an exposure is made, that exposed frame moves and a new frame comes into the focal plane and an exposure is made, over and over and over.... . Because of the physics of this intermitent movement, the motion picture camera has less control on the exposure time that the shutter can allow. The motion picture camera uses a rotating disk and shutter angle is the expression, in degress, of how much of this rotating disk lets in light (a disk has 360 degs total, 180 degrees would be a half disc). The lower the number in degrees, the faster the shutter speed the higher the number the lower the shutter speed. The film camera because of the intermitent movement, is limited in how slow of a shutter speed can be obtained. Most modern video cameras have much more control.

Just a note, super high speed film cameras, like those used to capture the bullet shooting an apple, do away with the intermitent movement and run the film continuisly through the camera. The motion is captured with high speed stobe lights illuminating the subject.
 
Thanks Barry, greatly appreciated!

one mistake I was making was in visually thinking of an iris mechanism and confusing it with the shutter, admittedly I'd never seen a diagram or visual of a shutter design.

I see now... this picture seems to represent what you described, with the 180 degree plate and the component underneath that allows it to be variable:

shutter.jpg
 
Rosestar, thanks for the effort nonetheless.

Indeed, I do understand shutter speeds and how they relate/correspond to aperture and frame rates (though it used to be VERY confusing thinking that a frame rate was the same as the shutter speed)

The main confusion was that I had no visual idea as to what the mechanical shutter mechanisms looked like, so a term like "angle" was getting misinterpreted. The notion of a CCD simulating this electrically makes perfect sense now.
 
Barry_Green said:
Film cameras operate at various frame rates, and the shutter (being a mechanical rotating thing) is tied to the running speed. So a 180-degree shutter would expose the film for 1/2 the time the frame is present. That means that at 24fps, each film frame would be held in the gate for 1/24th of a second, and the shutter would expose for half that amount of time, or 1/48th of a second. But that shutter speed is constant only if the film frame rate remains constant... if you run the film faster, the shutter speed becomes shorter... i.e., at 60 frames per second, that same 180-degree shutter angle would be providing 1/120th shutter speed.
Click to expand...

I actually been stuck with the sun going down and needing just 1 stop to get the last shot. Shot at 12fps and had the actors walk slow... the director thought I was crazy, 'til he saw the dailys. Not recomended as a normal way to do things. I lucked out that it was a long shot with no dialog.
 
Shawn Murphy said:
Rosestar, thanks for the effort nonetheless.

Indeed, I do understand shutter speeds and how they relate/correspond to aperture and frame rates (though it used to be VERY confusing thinking that a frame rate was the same as the shutter speed)

The main confusion was that I had no visual idea as to what the mechanical shutter mechanisms looked like, so a term like "angle" was getting misinterpreted. The notion of a CCD simulating this electrically makes perfect sense now.
Click to expand...

I am not that big of a fan of the faster shutter speeds offered by the video cameras, but have seen some cool stuff shot with it. I do want to experiment more with them though.
 
Hey Guys!

Looks like I missed an interesting discussion today! My experience with film cameras has been strictly on the following: SR2, SR3, 35-3, A-Minima, Scoopic.

I'm probably mixing terms but in my mind they boil down to the same thing, it's mostly an exercise to not be pinned down into one vernacular or another because on a regular basis I'll work on bigger film shoots in various capacities or my own DVX shoots. Digital Cinema cameras like VariCam and D20 and Genesis have user definable terminologies and I'm doing my best to make sure I'm prepared if an opportunity arises to shoot those cameras that I'll be prepared to use them in whatever way they are setup, whether in angles or divisions of a second and know what they mean and know what I'm doing.

Of the cameras I've recently considered purchasing: Aaton 7LTR, Aaton 54LTR, neither had an adjustable shutter. Of course, exposures would be different for each framerate selected, but the ability to shoot 1/60 at 24Fps was not possible. 1/60 at 30Fps is possible, but creates a limitation. Neither of them could shoot 24Fps at 1/192 shutter speed (45 degree shutter angle) for a SPR look, which is disapointing. So, I'm sticking with video for my own shoots. But, my point is out of the cameras I've assisted on and the cameras I've considered buying, there were none I could afford with the basic features I wanted that a HVX200 will have: adjustable shutter speed, selectable framerates up to 60Fps... Even the $15K used 54LTR could not shoot 60Fps.......

I know very little about Bolexes. I heard the registration isn't so good and the film flops around visibly... Hence, the fairly poor shutter. Some of the old Mitchells could open to a 220 or 235 shutter (1/37 second) but only because of the dual pin registration in the cameras enabled them to be stable enough for that long of an exposure. The motion was creamy, you know, much a DVX in syncro scan at 1/36....... Can the Bolex do a 1/192 exposure at 24Fps (in other words be adjusted to 45 degrees?) I'd really like to know.
 
Barry_Green said:
It doesn't apply to a DV camera at all.
Click to expand...
The terminology may not apply to a DV camera, but it would be a mistake for someone learning/using film and electronic capture to NOT understand both. It's an exercise, yes.

As an operator, assistant camera, or D.P. we need to know the visual difference shutter speeds can bring to a picture and the appropriate nomenclature to communicate with other crew members. Maybe it's overkill for a run and gun miniDV weekend movie shoot, but nonetheless, it's a crucial habit to get into.

It's important to know how a shutter angle effects shutter speed on a film camera, how shutter speed and framerate interrelate to each other, how framerate and shutter independently can affect exposures, what are the safe framerate/shutter speed combinations when shooting under magnetic ballest HMI lights so your image doesn't flicker, and many other things if someone plans on using a HVX200 with a clue.

Maybe this conversation is an extension of my personal independent study and if talking about it in a public forum is a disturbance, my apologies. I figured others would be interested as well.. If nothing else, it shows how we all have a lot to learn. If nobody cares then fine, but this is my rant and I'm sticking to it. :)
 
The Bolex is adjustable, however, you are using a knurled nob without settings and to say that you are at 45 degs is not possible. The Bolex registration is nowhere near the dual pin registration of the Mitchell movements, however, they use a roller pin kinda set-up that is more steady than would be anticipated. The Bolex has more problems with bad glass that out weighs any steadiness problems. As far as the shutter angle stuff that I have been giveing you slack about, yes it is adjustable and you can get the "stutter effect" but what you get today may not be the same as you get tomorrow. That is a function more of the lack of precise control of the shutter angle, than an issue of registration. Sorry, Brian, I think you are right in saying that we have been splitting hairs,...

Dave Smith.
 
BTW, I am keeping my eyes open for camera bargins. Variable shutter is a factor, just not at the top. I think that, for right now, MOS 16mm cameras are selling at a steal. Look around for an Arri S, or an Arri M or an S/B. If you can find a package with mags, batteries, lenses, matte boxes, ect. for not too much $$, I would get it. These Arii cams were the **** in their day and will still make outstanding images that can not be duplicated, for the same price, with video. (oh no here comes the video vs film debate post).
 
Shawn Murphy said:
Thanks Barry, greatly appreciated!

one mistake I was making was in visually thinking of an iris mechanism and confusing it with the shutter, admittedly I'd never seen a diagram or visual of a shutter design.

I see now... this picture seems to represent what you described, with the 180 degree plate and the component underneath that allows it to be variable:

shutter.jpg
Click to expand...

It's interesting you found THAT one. The 35-3 here is revision 2 and has only a 135-180 shutter. When I was taught how to adjust I was forefarned not to scratch the mirror with the tweak screwdriver because a replacement mirrored shutter would cost $10K to replace. Interestingly enough, the one in your picture would be a $19K upgrade for the camera here, hence the basis of my rant.

45-degree shutters on film cameras are obscenely expensive and the same effect is possible on a cheap video camera for around $2K. Herein lies the problem, we as video-filmmakers learn our techniques from film shoots. When I read an article in American Cinematographer about how so&so's movie used a 45-degree shutter at 24Fps, how do I translate that and use it on my DVX. According to a well known author, I should use a 1/1000 shutter. But, that isn't the same as they used on the movie. The movie used 1/192. So, I stand by my beliefs that it is important to know the difference and be able to "translate" so to speak film terms to video if you want to have video look like film. Which is the point of this camera and message board, right?
 
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