A Sea Change for the Motion Picture Industry

[wilsonneal]

I read this article http://www.wired.com/entertainment/hollywood/magazine/16-09/ff_redcamera, and realized that one of the biggest pieces of the film business that was propping up the film coating businesses of Kodak and Fuji may be finally getting ready to change. Interesting only in that motion picture film is a big part of Kodak and Fuji's film business.

Neal

 

[cmo]

Interesting only in that motion picture film is a big part of Kodak and Fuji's film business.

Imagine the output of the "Big Six" studios like Sony Pictures plus the "mini majors" like Dreamworks.

Plus 200 to 250 "Bollywood" movies from Mumbai alone...


Can you imagine how many 135/36 that is?

 

[gr82bart]

Once more and more traditional still film photographers realize how dependent we (and Kodak and Fuji) are on Hollywood and Bollywood, only then can we understand their management decisions. We consume less in film than they throw away in the movie business.

Reality bites.

Regards, Art.

 

[Michel Hardy-Vallée]

I saw a RED one in person at a photo store a few weeks ago, and I must say it's an impressive beast. The guy who had it must be one of the rare owners in Canada. He came in to try the Nikkor lenses on an adapter (much, much cheaper than real cine lenses).

What he was telling me is that it is filling a niche for small production companies who want to own equipment, but could not afford to do so with 35mm film cameras. It's a little bit like the HD cameras for indie filmmakers: they can own it, shoot as much as they want on their undernourished budget, and get results that they can sell.

Earlier on APUG, someone was mentioning that film processing costs are the least important expense on a big-budget Hollywood movie. Paying for stars, tech, marketing, etc etc are way bigger expenses. So big productions do not have a monetary incentive to use digital. But smaller players do.

I guess we'll see if the feature movies by Soderbergh and Peter Jackson shot on the RED one will generate any buzz, but right now I'm so glad the last Batman was shot in IMAX: now that's kickass image quality!

 

[Michael W]

I'd take that article with a grain of salt. Wired is a fanboy mag & that story read like a lot of hype with no critical analysis. From what I've heard the camera will mostly be used on low budget stuff, which is fine, but I have my doubts about it being a film killer.

 

[HerrBremerhaven]

Distribution is one big issue, and sending reals of film allows tighter control, and provides more venues. This is why even projects that originate on video can get transferred to film later. In fact, there are two more newer and faster telecine machines now on the market that do video to film transfers.

Editing is another issue. I am reminded of this because I got talked into doing a rough edit as a favor, and it is quite a bit of work to edit video. The other recent and somewhat related problem is dailies on larger productions, since the time factor is more involved. The labor expensive of making features is often substantially higher than the material expense, and new technologies really only change material expense.

There will be more of these devices, and the expenses will continue to drop. The lenses will still be expensive, and on many projects the cameras will continue to be rented or leased. Motion imaging is somewhat going the way of music, either high end, or low end. The high can be film, and slick production, while the low end can be YouTube. There will continue to be more video, yet there is enough of a motion imaging film market for Kodak and Fujifilm to develop new products.

Projection expense is another issue, with many theatres wanting lower costs for digital projection. The margins just are not good enough for many of them, so they stick with the film projection gear they have now. There is also a variable of a different set-up and operation; complaints of colour issues being operator dependent led some to do film final pieces, even on projects that started on video. Obviously many more issues beyond technology, and too early to tell what and when each gets resolved.

Ciao!

Gordon Moat Photography

 

[Andy K]

They still have to lick the storage problem.

 

[Photo Engineer]

Red One is a very advanced Digital Cine camera which, I am told, uses the most advanced Kodak digital sensor. In fact, it is the most advanced digital sensor on the market.

PE

 

[JBrunner]

Red has been hyped and hyped and hyped for a couple of years now. It is an icon of things to come. It has made inroads into commercial production, but isn't a major player in the motion picture industry, for a variety of reasons, most of which have to do with workflow, support, reliability/ redundancy, and other on set considerations that are difficult to explain except when talking cinematography among cinematographers. I won't be shooting a movie on Red unless I'm forced into it, and would probably turn the film down at that point, unless it was specifically for TV/Video.

 

[Sean]

I downloaded a huge HD demo of what pjackson shot, played it back on my HD monitor and wasn't impressed in the slightest. As far as comparing it to other video cameras it was impressive but it stopped there for me. It still had that same compressed and what I find odd digital look to it. It's hard to explain but the eye can't seem to focus on the material properly. It also had that same vanilla DSLR look that I loathe and does nothing for me. Would be tragic imo if all films looked like this..

 

[HerrBremerhaven]

Film has a response that is a curve, with an entry and exit toe in the profile. Most video is very linear, and altering the curve tends to crush or expand tones, often in a way that seems somewhat unnatural. I find the differences more evident in low light and night shots; often those types of scenes are daylight shots altered later. One of the new Kodak Vision films is actually very good in low light conditions, which can allow some very interesting shot set-ups in certain scenes.

Ciao!

Gordon Moat Photography

 

[Phillip P. Dimor]

Schindler's List was shot on film. That is a beautiful movie. Compare that to the digital 'Star Wars' movies, displayed in a lousy theater without the fancy digital projectors but having been transferred back to film stock.. It's ...lousy.
IMAX, with it's glorious 70mm filmstock to me is the ultimate.. People are willing to settle for crap because they don't remember or know what looks good. Or they just don't care. They don't form opinions, they let the media tell them what is good. The media creates the hype for everything. Tells you what to think about politics, about music and movies, about art. Blah!

 

[JBrunner]

Schindler's List was shot on film. That is a beautiful movie. Compare that to the digital 'Star Wars' movies, displayed in a lousy theater without the fancy digital projectors but having been transferred back to film stock.. It's ...lousy.
IMAX, with it's glorious 70mm filmstock to me is the ultimate.. People are willing to settle for crap because they don't remember or know what looks good. Or they just don't care. They don't form opinions, they let the media tell them what is good. The media creates the hype for everything. Tells you what to think about politics, about music and movies, about art. Blah!

Don't sugar coat it, Phillip. Tell us what you really think.

 

[Sean]

I knew things were pretty much going downhill when I saw bottled water labeled as having "No Trans Fats"

 

[Kino]

I have a friend who just shot a feature on RED. I was on the set a few times taking stills and had free run to talk to the DP, the crew and the "data logger" (who took the digital memory cards and downloaded them to a laptop and verified the content PRIOR to moving the camera) and got a good look at the system.

Long story short, its a very impressive digital VIDEO camera; the output won't be confused with film unless heavily electronically processed in post production.

There were a whole raft of problems not widely known or publicized; sudden death of memory cards, loosing back focus on the target due to heat expansion of the plate the sensor was mounted on, sudden mysterious glitches that required a "reboot" of the camera and reloading all the presents.

Myself, I'd rather rent a BNCR package for little or nothing and pay extra grips to move the camera between shots...

 

[removed account4]

I knew things were pretty much going downhill when I saw bottled water labeled as having "No Trans Fats"

hehe

there was a place near me that was selling "diet water"

 

[Photo Engineer]

Film has a response that is a curve, with an entry and exit toe in the profile. Most video is very linear, and altering the curve tends to crush or expand tones, often in a way that seems somewhat unnatural. I find the differences more evident in low light and night shots; often those types of scenes are daylight shots altered later. One of the new Kodak Vision films is actually very good in low light conditions, which can allow some very interesting shot set-ups in certain scenes.

Ciao!

Gordon Moat Photography

Godon;

Digital has a V (voltage) Log E response curve as well that turns into density vs Log E (exposure) during final imaging. These two curves correspond 1:1 physically to the image recorded. It is the digital processing that alters the image in digital and the aliasing and the pixellization and. and. and. that makes digital so crappy.

I have just concluded a study of digital comparing it to Portra film to show what is going on, but I have hesitated to post this as it is dangerously near the limits of what APUG permits. Sean has said though that for teaching or exemplary purposes I might be able to post it without recrimination.

So, I will probably undertake to prepare a set of pictures showing this for all to see. Unfortunately, I have been tied up in the post production of the DVD, part 2. We just finished the UF washing section about 30 minutes ago, so I've been kinda tied up.

PE

 

[Kino]

Film has a response that is a curve, with an entry and exit toe in the profile. Most video is very linear, and altering the curve tends to crush or expand tones, often in a way that seems somewhat unnatural. I find the differences more evident in low light and night shots; often those types of scenes are daylight shots altered later. One of the new Kodak Vision films is actually very good in low light conditions, which can allow some very interesting shot set-ups in certain scenes.

Ciao!

Gordon Moat Photography

That's exactly right, but you left out that the dynamic range being compressed at the toe and shoulder is still linear, so it is compressing at a linear rate as it curves, rather than at a logarithmic rate like film.

So, when film is bottoming out on the toe and maxing out on the shoulder, it is taking multiple stops of illumination and compressing in in a gradual manner, while digital is either abruptly clipping the data on the toe and shoulder -OR- taking a very small part of the entire linear dynamic range of the image and artificially remaping those values to a curve that is *supposed* to approximate film response, only using a 1/3 to a 1/2 a stop of dynamic range.

Bleech.

 

[Photo Engineer]

Kino;

Did you miss what I said? Both are curves!

PE

 

[Michel Hardy-Vallée]

Ron, I for one would like to read that study, so you can put me on your distribution list if you don't post it in the forums.

 

[Kino]

Kino;

Did you miss what I said? Both are curves!

PE

I think we were "talking" at the same time; I saw your posting after I hit the respond button...

OK, so digital has a log e response that generates a curve; no digital camera I know uses that curve, the manufactures only use a straight line portion of the total gamma curve of the target chip and either clips or artificially compresses the toe and shoulder of the imaging data.

It is really beyond the mission of APUG to delve into this in greater detail, but I respectfully think we are talking apples and oranges -- you more theoretical, me more practical in application.

Anyway, here's a good paper on gamma in the "other" World if anyone is interested...

http://www.poynton.com/PDFs/GammaFAQ.pdf

Oh, and I'd be interested too in that paper if you've a mind to distribute it off APUG.

Cheers.
frank

 

[Photo Engineer]

Frank;

The article you refer to could be used for analog photography as well. They have avoded digital representation/correction and this invalidates the answer. The answer is outside of that "box" of curve shape. That is my point.

I looked at my digital and analog images right after your post and they verify what I say. Digital can represent an H&D curve very well, and if they talk in those terms they "fool" you into thinking it is good. But if you think outside the box, then you see the real "picture" so to speak. Ut us a set if quantized stepped imaging "units".

PE

 

[HerrBremerhaven]

Hello Ron,

I would be interested in seeing the curves comparison. I think in the video realm, it would be more valid to compare Kodak Vision film, rather than Portra. I did see a recent article in a magazine including stills from Vision film and a few high end video cameras; even when you considered all the steps to print in a magazine, the Vision example still was quite good. In other words, there are still things to like about motion picture films, and most viewers of movies would likely be quite happy with future films done on the current film stocks.

This slightly relates to still shoots, regular photography. The way film responds to a scene is what many of us, and many of our customers/clients/friends/fans, like about using various films. It is definitely a creative choice, and uniquely different than the way our eyes record a scene.

Ciao!

Gordon Moat Photography

 

[nc5p]

Folks,

I wouldn't put a whole lot of stock into this. This camera has been taking orders for years. It makes claims of performance that are an order of magnitude faster and higher than current electronics can supply. It is marketed under the megapixel myth, which ignores true image quality for image quantity. The studios aren't that dumb. Eventually they will stop using film but that is still a few years off. It will be on their own terms, using non-encoded 4:4:4 video, not MPEG encoded streams that can't be trusted for consistency.

 

[cmo]

hehe

there was a place near me that was selling "diet water"

I'll bet you, in polluted chinese cities, canned "Perrier Salt-Free Air" might be a success... President Skroob from "Spaceballs" can't be wrong.