Petition to support 35mm movie projection

[Prof_Pixel]

That's a red herring. Totally unrelated to the subject here

... just wondered if it was simply some sort of anti-digital knee-jerk reaction.

 

[PhotoJim]

If I want to see a feature film, there's no point going to a theater that projects it using current, inferior digital technology. I can watch it at home on my 1080p lcd television with much better image quality.

And plasma would be better still. No joke.

 

[Bill Burk]

That's a red herring. Totally unrelated to the subject here.

Possibly a red herring, or maybe food for thought. The emergency technician had better not email a lossy jpg to a radiologist for consultation. I can just see it now: "what is that funny four-leaf clover-shaped thing inside his lung. oh yea jpg compression artifact". It's an absurd statement. I know the lossless medical image standards (DCOM) will ensure that won't happen.

Sal, I get what you're saying. My logic for sticking with film draws from a similar sentiment, the 'alternative to film isn't good enough for me'. Lately, I've been feeling that 'although there is an alternative that is pretty good, film always worked, has always been great and has never been better'. I feel we're at an apex and am very pleased to be making the best of film, at a time when its replacement is certainly more convenient but I may argue it is not better.

p.s. I work for Kodak but the opinions and positions I take are my own and not necessarily those of EKC.

 

[Sal Santamaura]

... just wondered if it was simply some sort of anti-digital knee-jerk reaction.

No knee-jerk reaction. In an emergency situation, I couldn't care less what x-ray technology might be employed to diagnose a problem. I've no idea how digital x-ray performance compares to film. It's just not relevant to motion picture projection.

I'm a recently retired electrical engineer; digital technology doesn't scare me or put me off in any way. This thread is centered on the subject of inferior theater feature projection systems coming into widespread use. Well before the technology is sufficiently mature at a price affordable to theater owners. That is all.

I'm not one who still buys vinyl records. I find CDs vastly superior to what were typical pressings and playback systems average listeners could afford before the mid 1980s. I'd have preferred SACDs to CDs, but can live without them. At a certain point one must listen to music. The same thing applies to theater projection. If/when digital projection (affordable to theater owners) can match the sharpness and dynamic range of 35mm prints properly projected, I'd happily go along. However, what's happening now is akin to iPods and MP3s. Inferior reproduction to a point where someone discerning can't listen to music / enjoy the feature.

 

[Ross Chambers]

This horse looks close to half dead, no matter how you flog it. I speak as one who has passed many thousands of feet of 35mm and 16mm film through my hands, synchronisers, Moviolas and Steenbecks. My heart is not joyful at all but my head accepts this fate. It's interesting that (and I've not seen it yet) there have been criticisms of the super faithful reproduction of the double frame rate cinematography of "The Hobbit" Quite often I was asked as an editor to supply a frame for stills use; the all too often problem was that film shot at 24 fps was blurry and smeared as single frames if there was particular motion. That's what you have been looking at for all these years--and as a motion picture it worked like a charm.

See: http://nofilmschool.com/2012/10/fuj...-kodak-on-life-support-is-celluloid-done-for/

 

[StoneNYC]

Stone,
try Woody's Midnight in Paris or To Rome with Love as 35mm and as D-cinema if available around You.

Georg

How would that ever happen, I live on Fairfield County, CT near NYC ... I would have to travel to the Midwest to find a theater playing old movies like that in some quaint town. Nothing like that around here.


~Stone

The Noteworthy Ones - Mamiya: 7 II, RZ67 Pro II / Canon: 1V, AE-1 / Kodak: No 1 Pocket Autographic, No 1A Pocket Autographic

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[MattKing]

How would that ever happen, I live on Fairfield County, CT near NYC ... I would have to travel to the Midwest to find a theater playing old movies like that in some quaint town. Nothing like that around here.


~Stone

The Noteworthy Ones - Mamiya: 7 II, RZ67 Pro II / Canon: 1V, AE-1 / Kodak: No 1 Pocket Autographic, No 1A Pocket Autographic

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Stone:

The New York crowd here can correct me, but I would be surprised if there are no theatres left in the area who are not capable of showing older/foreign/limited distribution films.

 

[StoneNYC]

I recently saw Lincoln in the theater at a local smaller venue that just barely transitioned to digital. I was probably one of the few people who paid attention but the picture quality was noticeably diminished. For those who have seen this film, there are multiple scenes in dimly lit rooms and under the digital projection the dark areas fall to black very drastically. It was almost like watching a laptop screen from an off angle.

It bummed me out.

Between this, the large crowds, the bad food, and the 40 minutes worth of trailers I must endure for movies I have no interest in I have very little reason to go to the theater anymore. Heck, I only have to wait a month or two now before the film is available through netflix or my local library. I used to love the theater experience but it feels like movie theaters are going out of their way at this point to make the whole thing miserable.

And don't even get me started on 3-D. I have only seen two films in 3-D and in both cases the picture was so dim I had to strain to see what I was looking at. Add to this the fact that 3-D makes me feel ill after about 20 minutes and you won't see me shelling out extra for a 3-D movie anytime in the near future.

Film studios have been complaining for a couple years now that box office revenues are falling. As far as I'm concerned they are only hurting themselves in the long run in their attempts to shave costs and increase revenue with "features" nobody really wants.

As my last comment all I have are megaplexes around here, so all the theaters are state of the art, massive, and in no way dim, even with 3D sometimes it's almost too bright for me...

You did say they barely made the transition so they probably have lower quality projectors, I'll ask my theater next time to see what Lincoln was projected from.

Also, I just arrive 10 minutes past the show start time. When the crowds are big there are more previews but it takes longer to get in, during slow times there are lesser previews but its faster to get in, just to avoid all the adds...


~Stone

The Noteworthy Ones - Mamiya: 7 II, RZ67 Pro II / Canon: 1V, AE-1 / Kodak: No 1 Pocket Autographic, No 1A Pocket Autographic

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[StoneNYC]

That's a red herring. Totally unrelated to the subject here.

If I want to see a feature film, there's no point going to a theater that projects it using current, inferior digital technology. I can watch it at home on my 1080p lcd television with much better image quality. Had the theaters waited another, who knows, 3-5 years, so large screen projection technology might catch up, then perhaps my attitude would be different. They didn't and it isn't.

I disagree with that one entirely, the digital projection is certainly better than the 1080p, it's 4k which is twice 1080 and LCD's have a terrible trailing effect, it's much worse than digital projection...


~Stone

The Noteworthy Ones - Mamiya: 7 II, RZ67 Pro II / Canon: 1V, AE-1 / Kodak: No 1 Pocket Autographic, No 1A Pocket Autographic

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[StoneNYC]

Possibly a red herring, or maybe food for thought. The emergency technician had better not email a lossy jpg to a radiologist for consultation. I can just see it now: "what is that funny four-leaf clover-shaped thing inside his lung. oh yea jpg compression artifact". It's an absurd statement. I know the lossless medical image standards (DCOM) will ensure that won't happen.

Sal, I get what you're saying. My logic for sticking with film draws from a similar sentiment, the 'alternative to film isn't good enough for me'. Lately, I've been feeling that 'although there is an alternative that is pretty good, film always worked, has always been great and has never been better'. I feel we're at an apex and am very pleased to be making the best of film, at a time when its replacement is certainly more convenient but I may argue it is not better.

p.s. I work for Kodak but the opinions and positions I take are my own and not necessarily those of EKC.

My GF (The Doctor at Yale with a double MD hehe) says the digital x-rays are 10 times better than the old ones, for many reasons, one is image quality and ability to easily zoom into an area to more clearly see, second is speed, not waiting for development nor some intern to bring it up from radiology or another department if the patient has multiple things going on... She just pulls it up on any computer anywhere in the hospital. Heck I think she can pull it up at home...




~Stone

The Noteworthy Ones - Mamiya: 7 II, RZ67 Pro II / Canon: 1V, AE-1 / Kodak: No 1 Pocket Autographic, No 1A Pocket Autographic

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[lxdude]

How would that ever happen, I live on Fairfield County, CT near NYC ... I would have to travel to the Midwest to find a theater playing old movies like that in some quaint town. Nothing like that around here.

No art cinema in NYC? We've got them out here.In LA there's more than one, SF I know of one offhand, same with Santa Cruz. Those are just in places I know well.
You're more likely to find a theater like that in NYC because there's enough population to draw on. Hard to believe there would not be any.

 

[StoneNYC]

Stone:

The New York crowd here can correct me, but I would be surprised if there are no theatres left in the area who are not capable of showing older/foreign/limited distribution films.

Maybe but I'm not spending $30 train ticket or $60 gas and tolls to pay $16 to see an old movie in a NY cinema... Lol


~Stone

The Noteworthy Ones - Mamiya: 7 II, RZ67 Pro II / Canon: 1V, AE-1 / Kodak: No 1 Pocket Autographic, No 1A Pocket Autographic

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[MattKing]

I disagree with that one entirely, the digital projection is certainly better than the 1080p, it's 4k which is twice 1080 and LCD's have a terrible trailing effect, it's much worse than digital projection...


~Stone

The Noteworthy Ones - Mamiya: 7 II, RZ67 Pro II / Canon: 1V, AE-1 / Kodak: No 1 Pocket Autographic, No 1A Pocket Autographic

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Sorry Stone:

A 4K projection is only effectively twice 1080 if you are viewing at the same distance. I tend to view my 1080 TV at living room distances, rather than movie theatre distances.

It is a fools errand trying to express the resolution of film in terms of megapixels, but if you do, the 35mm cinema projection prints are probably about 12 - 16K per frame.

 

[lxdude]

Maybe but I'm not spending $30 train ticket or $60 gas and tolls to pay $16 to see an old movie in a NY cinema... Lol

I thought you work in NYC, so I figured you probably spend some time there after work on occasion.

 

[lxdude]

My GF (The Doctor at Yale with a double MD hehe) says the digital x-rays are 10 times better than the old ones, for many reasons, one is image quality and ability to easily zoom into an area to more clearly see, second is speed, not waiting for development nor some intern to bring it up from radiology or another department if the patient has multiple things going on... She just pulls it up on any computer anywhere in the hospital. Heck I think she can pull it up at home...

I have seen digital x-rays, and their definition well exceeds film x-rays I have seen. I think at least part of it is the ability to sharpen the hell out of them, which would look awful on a photograph. Or maybe it's just enhancing contrast that does it.

 

[StoneNYC]

I thought you work in NYC, so I figured you probably spend some time there after work on occasion.

Ahh well, after a 14 hour day, IF I started at or before 4am then sure, I might have time but the last thing I want to do is stick around when I'll only have 4 hours sleep as it is between the 10 hour turn around time, minus 2 hours each way, minus shower/shave on one end and wind down time on the other, it's not usually feasible to stick around after work. The movie industry is a tough business to be in and have a life... I'm on set too many hours to do anything afterward. Perhaps if I get lucky, but every time I get a really short day, I'm out at say 3pm? All I can think is... Man if I don't leave right now I'll hit all the rush hour traffic!! So, it's hard, good thought though, you really didn't know the situation so it's nota bad idea, just hard for me.


~Stone

The Noteworthy Ones - Mamiya: 7 II, RZ67 Pro II / Canon: 1V, AE-1 / Kodak: No 1 Pocket Autographic, No 1A Pocket Autographic

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[Sal Santamaura]

...LCD's have a terrible trailing effect, it's much worse than digital projection...

Rise and decay time artifacts associated with LCD "glass" vary widely from one product to another. I referred to "my" TV, which was selected with that parameter (among others) in mind. There is no "trailing effect" visible at all. I'm very attuned to these things, having spent a career dealing with commercial aircraft cockpit displays and flight simulator visual systems.

 

[falotico]

I went out to see the HFR (High Frame Rate) presentation of the "Hobbit" in 3D and Imax. The movie is projected at 48 frames per second, which can be done with the new digital cameras/projectors. This was positively the worst motion picture image I have ever seen for a newly released major motion picture. It looked like a videotape of a television studio production. EVERY INTERIOR SET LOOKED ARTIFICIALLY LIT! You could see the make-up on all the actors and all the colors were unsatisfying; thin. This will kill off HFR for the time being.

By contrast, the best motion picture color image I have seen in the last few years was a showing of a nitrate Technicolor dye-transfer 35mm print of a 1944 US Army film about the WACs (Women's Army Corps) made to encourage enlistment in WWII. This showed thousands of people and all the faces looked beautiful. Only dye-transfer Technicolor could make actors look younger and thinner. Most cinemas are not licensed to show nitrate and the surviving prints are rare, so few people on Earth can really say they know what these DT prints look like. I believe they are the finest moving color image process.

I know that there are a lot of EK loyalists out there, but Kodak has never produced a color image as good. But remember, Technicolor used EK black and white film stock for image acquisition; used EK manufactured matrices for the dye-transfer process; and imbibed the dyes onto EK release print stock. So Technicolor was actually an offshoot of EK products.

Digital motion pictures are like electric guitars compared to classical violins.

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

Plenty of art houses in NYC that have film projectors, since many films aren't available in digital formats--Anthology Film Archives, IFC Film Center, Walter Reade Theater (Film Society of Lincoln Center), Museum of the Moving Image, Museum of Modern Art, and small houses like The Quad Cinema and Film Forum, university film departments like Columbia, and I'm sure that many of the commercial theaters still have the capability to project film. I think the only place to see The Dark Knight Rises in 70mm IMAX in the city was a commercial theater near Lincoln Center.

 

[StoneNYC]

I went out to see the HFR (High Frame Rate) presentation of the "Hobbit" in 3D and Imax. The movie is projected at 48 frames per second, which can be done with the new digital cameras/projectors. This was positively the worst motion picture image I have ever seen for a newly released major motion picture. It looked like a videotape of a television studio production. EVERY INTERIOR SET LOOKED ARTIFICIALLY LIT! You could see the make-up on all the actors and all the colors were unsatisfying; thin. This will kill off HFR for the time being.

By contrast, the best motion picture color image I have seen in the last few years was a showing of a nitrate Technicolor dye-transfer 35mm print of a 1944 US Army film about the WACs (Women's Army Corps) made to encourage enlistment in WWII. This showed thousands of people and all the faces looked beautiful. Only dye-transfer Technicolor could make actors look younger and thinner. Most cinemas are not licensed to show nitrate and the surviving prints are rare, so few people on Earth can really say they know what these DT prints look like. I believe they are the finest moving color image process.

I know that there are a lot of EK loyalists out there, but Kodak has never produced a color image as good. But remember, Technicolor used EK black and white film stock for image acquisition; used EK manufactured matrices for the dye-transfer process; and imbibed the dyes onto EK release print stock. So Technicolor was actually an offshoot of EK products.

Digital motion pictures are like electric guitars compared to classical violins.

Man you make my mouth water the way you describe the nitrite... Mmm haha


~Stone

Mamiya: 7 II, RZ67 Pro II / Canon: 1V, AE-1, 5DmkII / Kodak: No 1 Pocket Autographic, No 1A Pocket Autographic | Sent w/ iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Prof_Pixel]

Man you make my mouth water the way you describe the nitrite... Mmm haha
~Stone

Please note that as described by falotico, the film base was nitrate ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_base )


But of course, nitrite is used in processed meats - that's probably why your mouth is watering.

 

[StoneNYC]

Please note that as described by falotico, the film base was nitrate ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_base )


But of course, nitrite is used in processed meats - that's probably why your mouth is watering.

It is? Man I hope my mouth doesn't spontaneously combust... I eat that more than I shoot film...


~Stone

Mamiya: 7 II, RZ67 Pro II / Canon: 1V, AE-1, 5DmkII / Kodak: No 1 Pocket Autographic, No 1A Pocket Autographic | Sent w/ iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Ross Chambers]

Falotico said:
<<By contrast, the best motion picture color image I have seen in the last few years was a showing of a nitrate Technicolor dye-transfer 35mm print of a 1944 US Army film about the WACs>>

I don't believe that, if I understand you correctly, the nitrate base is better than the acetate "safety" one, and many release prints are made on the super tough polyester base.

Technicolor Dye Transfer I have not knowingly seen, it may well have been an early example of a superior technology replaced by a cheaper, lower quality one.

i have read somewhere that digital projectors require reprogramming by a not so cheap tech when a programme change from 2D to 3D occurs and that some cinemas don't stump up the money and the light levels are a casualty. My information here is a bit urban myth-ish, maybe someone knows more.

 

[georg16nik]

.. I think the only place to see The Dark Knight Rises in 70mm IMAX in the city was a commercial theater near Lincoln Center.

A good read.

“Out of the 100 or so Imax prints that were made, a limited number were show prints struck from original Imax camera negative,” says David Hall. Those prints are showing in Imax venues in select cities, including Los Angeles, New York and London. “Chris very much likes to see an original camera negative printed to film,” he notes. “There’s nothing quite like it. Digital technology has certainly come a long way, but a print from a DI never looks quite the same.”

“Anybody who sees an original-negative print of a film shot in Imax is looking at the best image quality available to filmmakers today,” Nolan observes. “As long as any new technology is required to measure up to that, I think film has to remain the future.”

Pfister concurs, adding, “An artist has to be open to new technology, but my argument is, ‘Don’t make this equipment obsolete for the wrong reasons, because this format really is superior to anything else out there.’”

Dead Link Removed

 

[StoneNYC]

A good read.

Dead Link Removed

Cool, then again... Beta Max was also a far superior technology than VHS yet who was the winner? It's often about cost (and porn apparently) that drives the market.


~Stone

Mamiya: 7 II, RZ67 Pro II / Canon: 1V, AE-1, 5DmkII / Kodak: No 1 Pocket Autographic, No 1A Pocket Autographic | Sent w/ iPhone using Tapatalk