Still shot on film

roxics

roxics

Veteran
I notice there is still a lot of stuff being shot on film. I just looked up three shows I currently watch. True Blood and Falling Skies are both shot in 35mm. Walking Dead is shot on super 16mm.

I'm curious why? Especially TV shows, which unlike movies, have a faster turn around time and lower budget. You'd think they would all be shooting on a RED, Alexa, Blackmagic, Canon C series or hell even DSLRs. We use DSLRs for our stuff, why not for national TV shows?

So what's the deal? Why still film?

I know several shows are or were shot digital years ago. Such as these:
Battlestar Galactica (reimagined) was shot digital after the pilot
Sparatacus (Panavision Genesis)
Game of Thrones (Arri Alexa)

So it's not like it's so new it just hasn't been adopted yet. BSG came out in 2004.
 
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A lot of national shows do shoot digital, the vast majority do.


The AMC shows do it because they have the budget to do it, which is awesome.

It also sets the show apart and can help out with the look, like in the case of the walking dead
 
On a large production the cost of 35mm film is neglible. Cast and crew make up the largest part of the budget.

It's really a question of what medium the producer and director want to work with.
 
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roxics said:
So it's not like it's so new it just hasn't been adopted yet. BSG came out in 2004.
Click to expand...

BSG was definitely one of those shows at the forefront of the digital cinematography movement.

Besides budgetary reasons, I do think that part of why they shot in HD 24p was to give the show a hybrid look that wasn't exactly film but not exactly video either. It was somewhere in the middle which worked well for the documentary look they were going for. I remember watching some bts or commentary and they talked about how they didn't try to light the show "too pretty". There is lots of dark eyes on the actors and blown out highlights compared to how most shows would be lit.

Personally I love the look of BSG and thought that rough style and aesthetic worked great for the subject matter.
 
Tv shows are shot in systematic way. They try to shoot all the episodes for the season, in a few months. That means film doesn't slow them down. It might take film longer, but once you get on that system, it all flows. And others have said, the cost is negligible.

I disliked the look of BSG, but I liked the show. The overall visuals where not bad, just the video look felt off. The sets felt cheap, as lightning was very obvious. I liked the show though, and don't really care that they didn't use film, or whatever.
 
I saw the new Red Dragon footage. I bet that if you count the cost of storage to shoot on a Red Dragon camera that there's little or no difference in the cost of shooting film versus digital.
 
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