Movie Studios want to abandon film.

[lacavol]

The article can say it much better than me.

http://www.laweekly.com/2012-04-12/film/35-mm-film-digital-Hollywood/

 

[wildbill]

no shit, what's cheaper?
You don't think those execs keep their montana ranches and beverly hills mansions by not cutting corners, do you?

 

[Klainmeister]

Give me convenience or give me death!

 

[Sean]

Very interesting read. Actors will also be kicked to the curb soon. You can now render virtual humans that are indistinguishable from the real.

 

[CuS]

Quentin!

I knew I loved Tarantino for a reason - from the article:

"Jefchak works at the New Beverly, which is owned by Quentin Tarantino. A regular at the art-house cinema, Tarantino bought the place in 2007, when it was in danger of closing. The New Beverly still plays traditional reel-to-reel 35mm, and Tarantino has said that the day the cinema puts in a digital projector is the day he burns it to the ground."

 

[Poisson Du Jour]

I knew I loved Tarantino for a reason - from the article:

"Jefchak works at the New Beverly, which is owned by Quentin Tarantino. A regular at the art-house cinema, Tarantino bought the place in 2007, when it was in danger of closing. The New Beverly still plays traditional reel-to-reel 35mm, and Tarantino has said that the day the cinema puts in a digital projector is the day he burns it to the ground."

Tarantino said that??
Very interesting.

 

[Ken Nadvornick]

Very interesting read. Actors will also be kicked to the curb soon. You can now render virtual humans that are indistinguishable from the real.

Just think... Once the threshold of creating a virtual viewing audience is breached, the movie studios will have finally closed the entire loop. All of their virtual theaters will always play to virtual packed houses who came to see virtual motion pictures created and presented by a virtual army of employees.

They will have finally freed themselves from dependence on those pesky real, analog human beings forever. No human actors, directors, cinematographers, projectionists, or anyone else. No human audiences, ticket takers, popcorn sellers, or janitors. Just an army of obedient digital clones, spun up like so many VMs of Windows XP whenever you need them. And disappearing instantaneously when you don't.

Let the real humans rot. We don't need them anymore anyway. Didn't really like depending on them in the first place. They just brought far too much uncertainty to our profits. And they smelled.

“Why is it every time I ask for a pair of hands, they come with a brain attached?”
-- Henry Ford, American automotive industrialist, 1863-1947

Ken

 

[semi-ambivalent]

Just think... Once the threshold of creating a virtual viewing audience is breached, the movie studios will have finally closed the entire loop.

Ken

Think about it; it's already being done. Studios trot out these quasi-fabricated numbers all the time. 'Biggest first week for a movie opening on a Wednesday', or '$300M opening day!' (Well, hell yes, the tickets are $30.00 each. I'm sure it beat Ben Hur and its what, $1.00 ticket price.

Movies are so expensive to make that the studio leaves nothing to chance. Not even attendance.

s-a

 

[amsp]

Related or not to this thread, I find it sickening that we live in a world where thousands of people can loose their jobs just so a few already extremely rich people can line their pockets with a couple of extra millions. Oftentimes at the expense of quality and workmanship at the same time. Ahhhh, progress.

 

[georg16nik]

lacavol, thanks for the article!
Last year, I have posted a link here for the Oscar's report called Digital Dilemma that is mentioned in this laweekly article.

...
I am not sure if You guys have seen the Oscars report called Digital Dilemma.
heres a link to the pdf Dead Link Removed
The pdf can also be downloaded from the Oscars website but You need a registration, so here You have it a click away.

 

[removed account4]

I knew I loved Tarantino for a reason - from the article:

"Jefchak works at the New Beverly, which is owned by Quentin Tarantino. A regular at the art-house cinema, Tarantino bought the place in 2007, when it was in danger of closing. The New Beverly still plays traditional reel-to-reel 35mm, and Tarantino has said that the day the cinema puts in a digital projector is the day he burns it to the ground."

there was a interview with him that was posted a few weeks ago
where quentin tarantino said he feels like he is being ripped off
whenever he sees a digital film ...

 

[TexasLangGenius]

[video=youtube;BON9Ksn1PqI]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BON9Ksn1PqI[/video]

One of the top commenters said this:

Pause at 0:22. That just about summarizes the average moviegoers understanding or how much they care about the difference.

And that's the real point no filmmakers seem to address about digital is that it's an evolving TOOL, not a standard. Just like shooting on FILM is a TOOL and? it evolved over the course of 100 years, like every other facet of filmmaking. Adapt or die, as the saying goes.

Adapt or die, as the saying goes.

That final line is the rallying cry of the modern world. *Begin sarcasm and cynicism* "Digital is the best thing since sliced bread. It's new! It's superior! The two technologies can't exist side by side! Analog is old and nasty!!!!!! EEEEWWWW!!!!!" *End sarcasm and cynicism*

Even stupid Cracked Magazine managed to tick me off by implying Kodak never tried to go digital:

http://www.cracked.com/article_19667_6-horrifying-implications-harry-potter-universe.html

Reason #5. Technology Is Frozen Forever

The world isn't kind to people who don't keep up with the times. Film and camera maker Kodak just went bankrupt because they couldn't adapt to a world of digital cameras.

Of course, I felt like posting a rebuttal talking about mismanagement, but I knew that most people wouldn't care. It seems like no one cares about preserving their memories on a far more stable medium. That's why I take my most important pictures on film.

Which is why I'll load my Mamiya DTL 500 tomorrow and go shooting. As long as smaller companies keep producing film, I'll be happy.

 

[tim elder]

As someone who works in the film business, I have been growing more and more discouraged by the growing absence of film cameras on film sets, and it was nice to read this article. I liked how the article was a persuasive argument for the qualities of film, particularly the archival qualities of film, instead of taking the more typical stance of siding with new technology.

-Tim

 

[Sirius Glass]

Thank you for posting the article for us.

Steve

 

[BrianShaw]

Actors will also be kicked to the curb soon.

In large part that has already happened years ago when "reality TV" began to plague us.

At least the animated movies still use human actors to mimic the voices!

 

[Sirius Glass]

Actors will also be kicked to the curb soon.

In large part that has already happened years ago when "reality TV" began to plague us.

At least the animated movies still use human actors to mimic the voices!

Along with reality, plots, acting ability, ...

 

[wiltw]

Yuck, digital movies. You can't even project digital still images with the same resolution as the captured image in the camera, at best you have a poor 1920x1080 projection vs. capture at 5184x3456 (Canon 7D) or 5616x3744 (1DsIII), for example.

Initial Digital Cinema installations were 2K installations, with a resolution of 2048 pixels by 1080 pixels (HDTV's are 1920x1080 or 1280x720).
Sony was the first to introduce 4K systems, which display 4096 pixels by 2160 pixels, and other manufacturers have followed. 4096 pixels across a 75' wide screen?! 54 pixels per foot, 4.5 pixels per inch. Sit close and you see the pixels clearly.

Gimme film projection!!!

Not just Tarantino as a film supporter, Spielberg, too! http://gigaom.com/video/spielberg-sees-the-digital-light-kinda/
"SPIELBERG: Eventually I’ll have to shoot [and edit] movies digitally, when the"re is no more film — and I’m willing to accept that. But I will be the last person to shoot and cut on film, y’know?

 

[Plate Voltage]

I went to see Contraband with friends a couple of months ago and we saw it at one of the big multiplexes nearby. Unfortunately, it was being digitally projected and the raster scan lines were visible even seated there quarters of the way back from the screen in the theatre and were glaringly visible whenever the ship was shown diagonally on the screen. This isn't an issue with film because the grains aren't deposited in exactly the same place each frame so you don't get a fixed pattern forming in the image the way the scan lines do or the jagged edges in diagonal or curved lines.

Both of us were really pissed off because after paying some pretty steep admission prices, the theatre ran a ton of ads before the show began including ditching previews entirely to squeeze more ads in, followed by the movie with the low quality digital image. We might as well have saved a lot of money and watched TV at home since that's pretty much what was being shown on the big screen. Since then I haven't bothered seeing movies in theaters except for an independent place nearby, and that theatre's going to suffer if release prints dry up. The last time I was there, the owner told me he's not sure how long he's going to be able to stay in business.

 

[Mike Wilde]

I do recall a technical Oscar I think just this year for the development a film recorder. One thing that studios are learning is the cost of archiving a digital film in digital media is a real costly affair.

 

[Prof_Pixel]

ACMEworks Digital Film, Inc from Calgary, AB Canada has been archiving digital video content to film for years. http://www.acmeworksdf.com/

 

[Plate Voltage]

I read the PDF file of the Academy's archiving report that was posted earlier, and my experience at work to date with digital archiving pretty well agrees with what the Academy's were. That concerns me.

 

[Mainecoonmaniac]

It's purely a business decision. It's great for Hollywood, but bad for theaters. Just think, no need to make prints of movies. Also, this reduces piracy because this prevents prints from being digitized on the sly. With digital films, it's sent via satellite. All this requires expensive infrastructure paid for by theater owners. I'm sure there will be expensive software and hardware upgrades too. I can watch movies digitally at home, why pay $15 to go to a theater?

 

[Diapositivo]

I am not sure the digital revolution will make piracy harder. If music history is a lesson, it will make it easier.
When the original is analogue any analogue copy will introduce a degradation in quality. Once you have a digital copy (either of an analogue original, or of a digital original) each copy is identical to the original, a pirate paradise.

With videotape I could record an Opera broadcast on TV and see it, but the video and audio quality were not the same as the original TV show.
Now I can record an Opera broadcast on digital TV on a digital medium and see it at exactly the same quality as before. I can also make as many copies as I want without degradation. It really is a very near DVD convenience at no cost. I expect this new technology will deeply affect DVD sales in the long run.

It's probably a child play to record "on the fly" the cinema theatre satellite transmission. Even if it is encrypted somehow during transmission it must be decrypted before projecting the image on the screen. That image sent to the projector is a digital unencrypted film and can be recorded presumably without many difficulties.

In my opinion, the transition to digital will certainly make the preservation of "secrecy" about a new release easier but, in the long run, will heavily damage the "long tail" of cinema revenues (especially DVDs, and possibly even TV broadcasts).

Movies producers might go back to film so that they can postpone the piracy risk to the DVD release phase.

 

[Mainecoonmaniac]

So true about piracy. Correct me if I'm wrong, but all encryption for DVD has already been cracked. I think if it's sent through the air, this might make it easier to pirate. I think it's unfair making the theaters shoulder all the cost of the digital conversion. Maybe movie houses should take a stand and not convert and see what happens? The old movie projectors are still good after decades of use. I don't know how long the digital projection systems will last. There's always planned obsolescence where theaters are forced to upgrade to stay in business.

 

[Marc B.]

Another bummer...production and manufacture ended last year for new, film-based movie cameras.

http://magazine.creativecow.net/article/film-fading-to-black