Roberto Rodriguez Champions Digital Filmmaking...

[Mike Buckles]

I took my kids to see "Spy Kids" last year, and rather enjoyed it...was the first spy kids movie done in digital? I remember thinking to myself while watching it in the theater, how fuzzy the print was...could have been just an inferior print, or could have been digital transferred to film...either way, the print wasn't good. That article on the director was really slanted towards digital...was not objective at all...And yes, people are going to line up to see the digital presentation of a movie if the alternative is a fuzzy, dark print of a digital master....what a skew that was....I haven't seen the new movie, but from the previews, it looks like everyone is cashing in on the previous movie's success, and maybe they produced it digitally to increase the amount of money going in their wallets...

[Alex]

I heard the first one was also done digitally, but I don't know for sure. That's it in a nutshell, take a supposedly superior digital origination image, then make crappy film prints, then blame the film prints.

I suppose it's a lose lose proposition for the film side. If they make the prints as good as possible, then it justifies more digital production. If the prints are mediocre, then that's justification for digital projection.

[Alex]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=2 face="verdana, sans-serif">quote:</font><table border="0" width="90%" bgcolor="#333333" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="0"><tr><td width="100%"><table border="0" width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" bgcolor="#FF9900"><tr><td width="100%" bgcolor="#DDDDDD"><font size=2 face="verdana, sans-serif">Originally posted by cameraguy:
If there ever was a true independent filmmaker it was John Cassavetes. Nobody had control over his films but himself. His sacrifice was that he had to act in other movies and TV that he didn't give a **** about in order to make money to finace his films. For that I have to applaud him even though his movies stink.

I don't think that independence should be looked at as one who works alone (1 man crew) but one who is in total artistic control regarless of how many others are working on the film.

To me, you are an independent filmmaker if you are in total control artisticly. As soon as compromises are made to please others involved then its simply not a totally independent vision anymore. When others are fronting the money then they are going to want to have a say, which is fine its their money and they want to make money. Hollywood learned some lessons in the past about handing out blank checks to directors to self-indulge themselves to death.</font></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></BLOCKQUOTE>

Well said. And whatever happened to Great War Eagle?