Perya (Town Fair) - a Canon 7D Short

daveswan said:
I managed to print something worthwhile even from plates so degraded that a digital equivilent would be totally unrecoverable.
Dave
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Data recovery companies specialize in recovering data from hard drives that have been irreparably damaged in natural disasters like floods, or even from drives that have merely been erased and reformatted.
 
can someone please host the raw file on some sort of mirror site? im dying to get my hands on this and play around with it in CS3.
 
ydgmdlu said:
And all of us have or can easily get projection equipment to play our old collection of 8mm or 16mm films without turning to antique stores or eBay? Just like film projection equipment will always exist somewhere and become re-manufactured by someone, so too will digital playback equipment.
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Oh yeah, than try to read a Syquest Cartridge.

If you find a player, a cable, a computer with SCSI I plug, a vintage OS an a even more vintage driver for the baby. Even if you got all that together you probably not be able to read the medium or if you can read it you have no program that reads the data format anymore.

Bin there, done that.

The "Digital Revolution" became to fast and furious to allow memorabilia.
We are the forgotten generation.
Lot´s of people don´t even have their digital memories (photos/video) from 5 years ago anymore. It´s all gone - forgotten by the so called Revolution.

End of rant, back to topic :beer:

Frank
 
Postmaster said:
If you find a player, a cable, a computer with SCSI I plug, a vintage OS an a even more vintage driver for the baby. Even if you got all that together you probably not be able to read the medium or if you can read it you have no program that reads the data format anymore.
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This presupposes that there will be no vested interest in maintaining the usability of a given digital format.

I suggest that you read about the COBOL programming language, one of the most outdated and difficult-to-use programming languages still in existence. COBOL really should be dead. Yet, many companies still rely upon decades-old COBOL programs, simply because they are too invested in them (and lazy) to have their programs rewritten in a more modern language. And COBOL programmers have unbelievable job security in the software development world.

When the studios and film preservation companies spend many millions of dollars to make digital archive copies of their movies, they have the vested interest in maintaining the usability of those files.
 
And what about forgotten FILM formats like 9.5mm film?

Digital files can be migrated to newer hardware, and they can be re-encoded to newer codecs. Any "criticism" that you try to level at digital can be leveled at film, and any defense of film can apply to digital. That's why there's no point in bashing or arguing about it anymore.
 
ydgmdlu said:
I don't think that you truly understand what "cinematography" is. The chemicals and processing are simply a means to an end. If another method or medium is available to achieve the same results, then cinematographers can and will use it instead. Your statement is exactly like saying that one doesn't "truly understand what 'editing' is" unless one cuts and splices celluloid on flatbed machines, and it's "not just assembling clips on a computer." Sure, one can still do that, and it's a great and valuable experience with its own advantages over digital editing. Just ask Spielberg, one of the last holdouts for analog editing.
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Comparing cinematography to editing is pointless. They have nothing to do with each other. Cinematography is a very poetic visual aesthetic. Editing is a system used to give structure to a film. Both are subjective to their respective artists, but are totally different art forms. I'm not down playing the importance of editing, but comparing analogue editing to analogue cinematography is absolutely pointless because their creation have nothing in common with each other what so ever.


ydgmdlu said:
Besides, those cinematographers that you mentioned, do they all routinely do the chemical processing in the labs themselves? I think not, which doesn't make your statement very meaningful at all.
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If my statement isn't "very meaningful", I think you bluntly saying, without evidence, that these cinematographers aren't responsible for the chemical processing makes your statement even less meaningful then mine...


I can only verify, from interviews I've read and seen, that Chris Doyle and Rodrigo Pietro chemically process their films. And I know Rob Richardson did for the BMW short-film that he shot for Alejandro González Inarritu (which was shot on 16mm negative film, then bleach-bypassed chemically).


ydgmdlu said:
If you pay attention, then you shouldn't be able to help but marvel at the miracles that genius computer programmers are achieving these days. Consider the RED Ray demo, for instance: 4K at 10 Mbps with no visible compression artifacts. Impossible, right? I have every reason to believe that someday in the not-too-distant future, some programmer will devise an algorithm that will perfectly emulate the "organic look" (the subtle, constantly morphing grain patterns) of film. And besides, film is not organic anyway, except maybe for the backing.
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See. I don't want to see cinematographers, and the art of cinematography, get replaced by some computer programmer and his/her algorithm. You can get all the computer egg-heads on Earth in one room, and I'm telling you, they will not be able to re-create the look of film no matter how hard they tried precisely because what they will be creating is not film. Why is that so hard to understand?

I think that's what you have failed to see in my argument - that there is a difference between cinematography and digital cinematography. In the end, the story of a film is the most important part, most, if not all, know that. However, digital cinematography and traditional film cinematography are two different animals. They share the same ancestry, but are not the same species.

Perhaps you failed to notice, but I actually started this entire thread because I love the evolution of digital filmmaking. I am not "bashing" digital filmmaking. I actually love digital filmmaking cause I'm a broke-ass student that will virtually shoot on anything to tell a story and make cinema, and digital filmmaking is what makes that possible. Anything that gets me close to the cinematic look of 35mm film, like the Canon 7D, I applaud with all my might. However, I refuse to get it twisted - digital will never be film, film will never be digital. And film will be around for a long time coming, I guarantee it.
 
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Jean Dantes said:
Comparing cinematography to editing is pointless. They have nothing to do with each other. Cinematography is a very poetic visual aesthetic. Editing is a system used to give structure to a film. Both are subjective to their respective artists, but are totally different art forms. I'm not down playing the importance of editing, but comparing analogue editing to analogue cinematography is absolutely pointless because their creation have nothing in common with each other what so ever.
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You are ignoring the point that I was trying to make. It doesn't have to be editing. It can be anything, like writing. Some screenwriters are die-hards for the typewriter, and they say the same kinds of things about typewriter screenwriting versus computer screenwriting that you do about analog cinematography versus digital cinematography. They will extol and romanticize the virtues of pressing chemical ink on a physical and organic piece of paper with just the touch of a finger. They'll talk about how in a hundred years, you can still pick up the oldest antique typewriter and write the great American novel, or the great American movie. And they'll talk about how they have nothing against the march of technology, but they just think that writing on a computer is not the same, wonderful, rich experience as writing on a typewriter. And they have a point.

If my statement isn't "very meaningful", I think you bluntly saying, without evidence, that these cinematographers aren't responsible for the chemical processing makes your statement even less meaningful then mine...
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I can only verify, from interviews I've read and seen, that Chris Doyle and Rodrigo Pietro chemically process their films. And I know Rob Richardson did for the BMW short-film that he shot for Alejandro González Inarritu (which was shot on 16mm negative film, then bleach-bypassed chemically).
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Are you saying that you know, for a fact and with documentation, that these cinematographers actually go to the labs and chemically process film themselves, with their own hands, instead of having technicians do it for them, according to their specifications? And that these cinematographers consider personally processing film with their own hands to be an essential part of their job description?

The chemicals and the processes are merely tools that DPs learn and know in order to achieve an end, just like digital tools and processes are. The cinematographer's job is to know about such things and know how to employ them, not to be able to use them personally. In the UK filmmaking system, the cinematographer doesn't even operate the camera; there, he or she is called the "lighting cameraman," while the technical operation is left to dedicated operators.

See. I don't want to see cinematographers, and the art of cinematography, get replaced by some computer programmer and his/her algorithm. You can get all the computer egg-heads on Earth in one room, and I'm telling you, they will not be able to re-create the look of film no matter how hard they tried precisely because what they will be creating is not film. Why is that so hard to understand?
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Who cares about how it's done or who does it as long as it is done to the client's satisfaction? Who should care? What I'm saying is this: Suppose that in the next few decades, programmers create software that will add a "film look" to digitally acquired footage that makes it look indistinguishable from actual film footage. You watch the footage, not knowing how it was created, and you think that it's film. Then somebody tells you that it was done digitally. And maybe you don't believe it, so that person actually shows you how it was done. Anyway, in the end, how would you feel? Would you like the footage all the same, or would you think less of it?

If you think less of that footage after you learn that it was all digital, then it shows that the "look" is not really what you love after all. You're really romanticizing something else. And I don't necessarily have a problem with that. But you have to be honest with yourself and everybody about what you really mean.

How do you know that programmers won't be able to precisely model and emulate the behavior of silver halide emulsion? They can already write artificial intelligence programs that model and emulate the behaviors of various animals (which are organic, living beings with brains). The programmer at WETA Digital wrote software that generates artificially intelligent combat forces; the software, called MASSIVE, was used on The Lord of the Rings. Could you tell the difference between those CG troops and an army of costumed extras?

And who says that cinematographers will be replaced by computer programmers? That's not what I'm saying. Those computer techs will serve the same role as film lab techs serve. Why is that so hard to understand?

I think that's what you have failed to see in my argument - that there is a difference between cinematography and digital cinematography. In the end, the story of a film is the most important part, most, if not all, know that. However, digital cinematography and traditional film cinematography are two different animals. They share the same ancestry, but are not the same species.
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No, you have failed to see my argument. In the end, real cinematography is not about celluloid or digital acquisition. It's ALL cinematography. The distinctions between the different disciplines are irrelevant. Within the film world, there are numerous disciplines (color, B&W, 8mm, 16mm, 35mm, 70mm, IMAX, sound, silent), and within the non-film world, there are numerous disciplines (analog video, DV, HD, digital cinema a la RED). ALL are cinematography. Notice that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and the various international cinematographers' guilds, don't make distinctions between the different disciplines of cinematography. The only distinctions are the tools and whatever special knowledge and experience is needed to make the tools work as one wishes.

Perhaps you failed to notice, but I actually started this entire thread because I love the evolution of digital filmmaking. I am not "bashing" digital filmmaking. I actually love digital filmmaking cause I'm a broke-ass student that will virtually shoot on anything to tell a story and make cinema, and digital filmmaking is what makes that possible. Anything that gets me close to the cinematic look of 35mm film, like the Canon 7D, I applaud with all my might. However, I refuse to get it twisted - digital will never be film, film will never be digital. And film will be around for a long time coming., I guarantee it.
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You are bashing it because you are making a bunch of unsupported negative assertions about something that you don't seem to fully understand. Your words betray a definite bias. As you can see from an earlier post of mine in this thread, I don't disagree with you at all in your final statement. Where I think that our perspectives profoundly differ is that I'm result-oriented, while you seem to be process-oriented. If the images are the same, or similar enough to be visually indistinguishable, then (to me) what's done to get them is irrelevant. The only people who are stubborn about film are those who either love the process of shooting film or who love the physical celluloid medium. To them, it's not just the final image, the results, that matter.
 
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hmmm, this thread has gone way off track.

Going to be uploading a video in a few minutes with blooms pulled clip.
 
"Most heartfelt, I thank my typewriter. My typewriter is a Hermes 3000, surely one of the noblest instruments of European genius."
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That's what Larry McMurtry said in his Golden Globe acceptance speech upon winning for Brokeback Mountain.
 
I think I heard a story once about two hifi geeks - they had a reference piece of violin music

one blinfolds the other and gets them to evaluate a they latest system

the second describes the sound as a bit toppy or something

then is unmasked and the violinist is in the room

it will happen
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A note on processing RAW - I have described it as being dropped into the middle of the ocean in a rowing boat - you can paddle in any direction that you want - but which way do you paddle ?

at some point in that ocean are the characteristics of various film stocks

so you have to consider - how to paddle there, and then do the paddling

I can see the argument for just shooting on that stock in the first place - less paddling

S
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bsWK22ATsI

Just tried to flatten it up, try to give it more of that red raw look that i've seen around.

I'd try to flatten it in camera first instead of having to bring back some of the blacks in post, but this is definitely a good example of how to flatten the look.
 
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