Artist David Hockney: "I was invited to see ( the debut of) Photoshop in 1980 at Adobe. Silicon Valley. And I said Chemical Photography is dead. I was wrong by about ten years. It died around 1990."
Digital Acquisition alone didn't "kill film". Rodney Charters ASC tweeted a few years ago, that “the actors have single-handedly killed film.” To simplify it, Here are the two actor unions in Hollywood:
ACTRA = electronic acquisition
SAG= film acquisition
When SAG went on strike, TV producers turned to ACTRA talent, and the contracts required them to ditch film for digital. Overnight, out of a 100 TV shows shot on film, only 3 were now shot on film. If SAG didn't go on strike, most episodic television might still be shooting on film.
http://www.fxguide.com/therc/red_centre_029/
If film is dead, it may be just a zombie. Still walking around the streets of Hollywood, smiling at tourists and having it's picture taken. As I write this, the latest flyer from our local drugstore chain is advertising Dual turntables from Germany! Vinyl is Alive!!!
Of course, digital may mean something different for "no budget" movie makers than in Hollywood. I went to a "No Budget Film workshop" on the 20th Century Fox lot many years ago. We walked past the "Hello Dolly" set, which once bankrupted the studio. Inside they announced the exciting news that you can indeed, make your "No Budget" feature for a million dollars or slightly under. You still needed camera rentals, film stock, lab processing,etc. The reaction in the audience was, "Wow! These are exciting times! To be able to make your movie for a million!! " My, times have changed. Instead of scouring shops for tail end film stock, now moviemakers are just looking for cheap SDHC cards!
I still order 16mm tri-x, because I love it for its look combined with the Zenit Meteor lens.
I'd like to think film is not quite dead yet.
"it's the only human art form that combines ALL the disciplines of EVERY OTHER art form and science known to man into a new art form. Movies basically combine all of the the arts into one."
Video games don't count? It takes all of the artforms you mentioned and adds interactivity on top of that.
as @bheath says,
This thread you started is really great!
I echo bheath's sentiments exactly. It's the thread we had to have, shot out of a cannon with a blast of stream-of-consciousness because it was probably the only way to get us moving.
Your multidimensional,unstoppable creativity comes through and I'm sure we'll go on to see innovatiions in independent filmmaking from you.
*Chinese box office surpassed $2.1 billion in 2011 and could grow to $5 billion by 2015.
Analysts have said that even allowing 10 more [American] films [into China]could mean half a billion dollars per year for major studios, so 14 premium-priced titles could return even more revenue than that to Hollywood*.
from http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118050508?refcatid=13&printerfriendly=true
Whoa Nelly! This thread you started is really great! Like Roberto, I've shot about two feet of videotape and a zillion feet of film. And, I hope I'm not out of line, also excited with what's finally happening now with digital aquisition. And really the gh2 and what Vitaly and co. have done with it. Gear has always been pretty low on my list, way under cast and crew, so what happens happens. I still would feel more confident on a narrative shoot using 35mm film. Thats just me. Blackout. I'd love to sit and have a cup of tea some day. You're passion comes through in this article. That's so healthy! It's not to often that I meet folks like you. Jack of all trades and a master too. Keep it up. Roberto - I alway love reading your posts too. Journeyman filmaker. I hope all listen. Best, Bill
More from the interviews in IndieWire:
"Half the world's screens are digital, and 65% in US are, increasing daily."
"The studios are making larger productions, not getting quantity but larger cost productions.
100 films produce 90% of revenues."
" while the studios are producing bigger and fewer films,...the bigger films make the best box office returns and the industry as a whole is growing more smaller films".
“People are driven to fill theater seats by the promise of great films and a great, technologically enhanced movie going experience".
"But online content theft continues to threaten the economic success of our industry .."
Let's not re-hash up the Online Theft debate all over again :-) but in the context of box-office profits and the industry having to come up with ever better tricks to get people out of their homes and into cinemas, it is interesting to see that:
China is building 8 screens a day, 75 IMAX theaters this year alone
Population of China, 1961–2008
Population: 1,339,724,852 (2010 census) (1st) [Wikipedia]
WASHINGTON – The Motion Picture Association of America, Inc. (MPAA) today released its annual Theatrical Market Statistics Report for 2011. The report shows that global box office receipts for all films released around the world reached $32.6 billion, an increase of 3% over 2010, due to ongoing growth of box office in international markets. Each international region experienced box office growth in 2011. Chinese box office grew by 35% in 2011 alone, by far the largest growth in major markets.
... ...China is building 8 screens a day, 75 IMAX theaters this year alone. They're excited about developing their own product as well as coproductions. They want to produce product for sale nationally and globally. It's a great win for us, indies and studios, and foreign productions."
From Indiewire: http://blogs.indiewire.com/thompsononhollywood/global-box-office-climb-continues-in-2011#
Reuters : BEIJING Mon Jul 2, 2012
China's fast-growing services industry, which accounts for about 43 percent of output in the world's Number 2 economy, has so far weathered the global slowdown much better than the factory sector. ... China's official manufacturing PMI for June confounded market expectations of slippage into contractionary territory and clung to an expansionary reading of 50.2 when it was published on July 1 - albeit at a seven month low.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/03/us-china-economy-services-pmi-idUSBRE86201420120703
Right on - on both counts!
Nobody seems to be doing as much manufacturing any more, as Vitaliy posted im March http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/3090
(See Purchasing Managers Index ) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purchasing_Managers_Index
Meanwhile, (as I alluded to) , a closer look shows how much manufacturing in OECD countries is contracting partly because it is being outsourced to the poorer ones.
What country paying union wages is capable of manufacturing, developing and digitising emulsion film competitively ?
Which country, having paid below (OECD standard) Union wages to factory staff, now has a burgeoning service sector middle-class demanding those very Union Wages and free time to spend their money?
Arriflex 535B, Zeiss Master Prime, Ultra Prime, Cooke S4 and Angenieux Optimo Lenses
Moviecam Compact, Zeiss Master Prime, Ultra Prime, Cooke S4 and Angenieux Optimo Lenses
35 mm (Kodak Vision2 50D 5201, Vision2 200T 5217)
Digital Intermediate (2K) (master format) Super 35 (also 3-perf) (source format)
From IMDB http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1124052/technical
Kevin B. Lee (Cineaste Magazine)
What better way to beat Hollywood at its own globalization game than to appropriate the techniques of no less an icon than Spielberg. In many ways, Lu proves himself an apt pupil, taking Spielberg’s history-as-spectacle approach even further. Lu dispatches exposition in mere seconds with those postcards and leaps into a blood-pumping battle scene.
http://www.cineaste.com/articles/emcity-of-life-and-deathem-web-exclusive
Since we're on the subject of 'film is dead' and China, for those who haven't seen it, I suggest you go out and buy this on Blu-ray....
'City of Life and Death' - Written and directed by Chuan Lu (shot in colour on 35mm and converted to B&W.) What ever the true history of the Rape of Nanking, and while this film is undoubtedly propagandized (aren't all nearly all war films?), it is also an extraordinary piece of film making. Almost every scene is a work of pure cinematic art.
(Bear in mind there are extras a plenty available in China and I'm almost certain union rates don't apply!)
China still has Hollywood's complete Technicolor System intact. Cameras, Labs, etc. If you need to remake "Gone with the Wind" with Chinese extras, that's where to do it! Frankly, my dear, I don't give a Chang. Or a Woo!
Although I found Hong Kong movies in the 80's and 90's exciting. The new China co-productions seem to be over-bloated with CGI. One of the best I've seen can be considered a non-action action movie. The Sword Identity. Unlike HK swirling action, it's a quiet action movie:
Actual clips here:
http://wildgrounds.com/2011/09/03/a-first-look-at-the-sword-identity/
( The Lionsgate Studio release may have a different soundtrack. The trailer uses a loud Crash-Bang Hans Zimmer gone Oriental track. The original music is a very important element of the movie)
"ROTFL! remember revolutionary CB radio replacing the telephone? Or how Port-a-Pak VHS/Betamax was going to make us all famous?"
BetaCAM however DID take over the professional broadcast world and right now the internet has taken over the telephone. Cell phones use more a form of internet and are nothing like land lines... - land lines are pretty rare these days only in old people's and for backup safety.
@Roberto; oh; I have no doubt about that there will be clear aesthetics for our time and age as well. It's already obvious with full frame video; bokeh, oof galore now has become stamped with "full frame dslr". An effect that became overused overnight.. But this is only one part of a much more complex contemporary image making generation. I'm not familiar with the context of the Anthony Blunt quote but; it has no merit. An image that looks absolutely identical to another although acquired differently are identical; as pure images. (if you know the story behind, that's a different thing!) You cannot tell the difference apart. Not now, not over time. However, there are plenty of popular "As if" aesthetics; which mimick certain things from another, now here the acquisition may indeed shine through. Especially over time, for a number of reasons.
In an ideal world; If your digital shot frame is like a blank canvas; you can make it look like anything; doesn't that make the avid digital picture maker potentially a master of all aesthetics; including something else alltogether?
That said, what is achievable? There are pitfalls for every acquisition format. There are benefits with every acquisition format.
Delivery format will be digital, that much is certain, but fair point re: film availability.
excessive budgets are limited to very, very few
In case you didn't get my point, it's the high-budget & sales-volume productions which will pretty much determine whether emulsion film continues to be produced. Chinese audiences are massive.
We're just the little guys, along for the ride. Hey, I remember a time when an amateur could buy super-8 locally - but for 16mm you had to prove your credentials to Eastman and open an account before they'd begrudgingly send you your 100 ft roll. The rumour used to be it had something to do with the porno industry :-)
So "movie making is the only art form where the artist can't afford the material for his art." is a dead quote now. You can get a GH2, hack it, some simple, light kits and reflectors, and a decent computer for under 5K and make a movie and project it and audiences will not know. 5K rather than millions? That's amazing.
Not quite dead, I'd say. It goes without saying that decent production values do not of themselves make for a professional production, and nobody goes to low-budget movies for production value anyway. Success at this level is elusive and can't be readily quantified -- and even more so now, with the flood of cheapo productions -- but better production values won't make any difference in this niche.
Which is another reason I've never been able to understand the claim that the price of film made of filmmaking an elitist club. The barriers to competing are every bit as insurmountable as they have always been, even if the camera and film were free.
Of course, nobody wants to hear this, but if you've been around long enough, you've been hearing the same argument -- moviemaking is a democracy now! -- for years.
Yes, digital acquisition is not the one-trick wonder we'd hoped for; it also comes with a few traps for the unwary. True, we can all learn to "shoot safe" using a RED. But few operators know how to shoot fast as well as push the limits so as to get exceptional pictures - and these operators can command big-ticket wages.
I think we agree on everything here - except, as I say, the public eventually learn the difference between formats. Not always as you and I do, but in "Oh I guess it was OK as a film." or, "It looked like a 1970's Doctor Who".
Don't believe me? I find the way Anthony Blunt, as Queen's Curator, explains how even an faked imitation of an extremely old painting looks genuine when painted, but looks dated after a certain time. Now, I'm not talking paintings, or expert art assessors here, I'm talking about our perception as humans and how our minds work away at what we see, until we become, in subtle ways, more visually literate.
I'm willing to bet that, irrespective of style, a 2012 DIgi-film will look "so "early two-thousands" around about 2025.
@roberto; you forgot the pendang to that sentence. "Obviously the hand and eye that wields the tool needs to know how to use it, but that's as true for shooting with film as it is shooting digitally."
TV development and DSLRs marked the beginning of a great levelling process. Will you or I possibly see the difference between film and digitally produced images (if the latter is intended to replicate the former)? Maybe. Will the audience see the difference? No. What we have are different aesthetic choices, the acquisition in itself is more or less irrelevant these days; unless the film-maker stresses it's relevance in a feasible way. Obviously there are economic / practical factors that weigh in for most productions. (I say most, because excessive budgets are limited to very, very few).
Does this have any implication for the industry and the understanding of movies (cinema, tv, other delivery formats) ? Hell yes! It might be more interesting to think about that than about acquisition formats.
Film medium is on a rocky road and the factors end up being financial.
The perception amongst insurers that the slight lag between a) reviewing and checking scene's video-split rushes and b) getting the developed neg safely back in storage and digitised - is enough to send the biil through the roof for many producers. The fear that a lead actor might somehow not complete a movie or be available for a re-shoot is just one example of a single, analysed risk factor which decreases when you shoot digital.
The downhill trend for most technologies is the attrition of trained staff. Just like maintaining your perfectly working 1968 Mustang, the experienced mechanics are retiring and being replaced by 17-year-old apprentices who can work with chip circuitry.
Just like the Mustang, film might get cheap parts from Mexico or China - or even whole overseas camera rebuilds might replace the labour completely. But this is speculation.
A lot of what happens will depend upon what China decides to do. Their domestic market is important for European and American movies. [Not only do they make good movies; they have silver halide technology too - I've been looking for a Wolf 35mm camera for years because they're good and easily kept in good running order].
A vague hope of salvation via a Chinese film-industry notwithstanding, I see film technology losing relevance, personnel and ancillary technology - gradually but eventually.
Yes, if a budget comes to shooting costs alone, this is honeymoon-time for indy film makers. You can shoot using your dad's car, the best looking girl from the acting class and your mate's gloopy synthesizer music.
But for those who hire Paris's Gare du Nord overnight, decorate it to look like WWII under Nazi occupation, hire Depardieu, cranes, trains and the Vienna Philharmonic, the cost of the camera acquisition technology is not the main consideration - rather it's being certain that the right footage is in the can as dawn rises and 30,000 passengers want to use the railway.
I agree, I think you're right, partially.
Give me a 5k budget, and I will spend it on cast and crew, and a few rentals. Notice the difference between 5k and millions though? I don't care how talented you are, it will show. Massively though? No.
I love the GH2 system, as it allows me to always be practising, and spend money on everything else than the camera. Give me modest budget though, and it's unlikely it would be my A cam though.
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