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Reading all the posts from you gentlemen here with first hand knowledge to the film business it seem likely that 35mm format films will go digital within a decade or so?
From this I get a funny idea that maybe the only film format that will survive is just, Super8?
Well, that is as long as filmstock and labs are
available and the stock price etc. is within reasonable limit and a high number of S8 cams are still in some sort of operationable condition and in use.
Put that many &s into any search engine and see how many hits you get.
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I keep thinking of what Matt's distributor said when Matt told them it was shot on S8.
"At least it's not on DV"
I wish some of my buddies could hear that before trying to make a feature with an XL-1.
Although this debate tends to end up in the realm of general video vs. film, I think the guy that started this thread is probably thinking S8 vs. Mini-DV.
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Hi, first, thank you very much for your comments although I must confess that I don?t understand ( maybe not yet) everything posted to my question ?
cause some things are just too technical for me and I can?t use them in my speech. But thank?s anyway...
And 8th man, yes, I didn?t mean video, I meant digital capturing with all that pixel-stuff.
S8 Booster said that "New generations of people might not care whether its digital or not, true film look or not." I think that interesting and I also think that the most of you see that trend. Maybe it?s more the process of filmmaking than the comparison of technical aspects since I got the impression from your answers that at a certain point in the future there won?t be a big difference in "seeing" a picture in the theatre whether it?s shot on film or captured with something else. So, what I mean: I?m quite sure that there will be always super8 shooters around (if Kodak...) wheter digital will become more profitable or not. Let?s just compare the process of setting up a scene with film-equipment to the digital thing for a moment...
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Personally I don't see what the position of super 8 is in the film/video debate, especially when talking about Kodachrome. I've made a few films on super 8 and showed it to quite a lot of people and what they liked most about it was that it was super 8, and not because it was film per s?. Super 8 has an idiosyncratic look I think (and many others do), and that what's makes it so special and great (besides that it is fun working with it).
I would like to compare two shorts of Mattias here (Mattias I hope you don't mind). One was a videoclip in recorded in a parking (I saw it a second time and on second opinion I thought it was very good; showed a lot of insight and talent in composition and editing etc. keep on filming!) and a short film about his sisters graduation from highschool. The first was recorded on dv and the second on super 8. Although his first film was (I think) a more serious attempt to get a professionally edited and filmed videoclip, I was personally more enthusiast about his second short, because it was recorded in super 8; spontanuous and with the rich colour palette of Kodachrome (and well lit and had good compositions and nicely edited as well) and was recorded in a more spontanuous way. It was so different from all those mainstream films and clips you see on televison and can get you bored easily, even if recorded well and according to high standards. It made me happy. So, what I like about super 8 is it being so different from all other formats (video and film). In my own films I made also serious attempts to record things a more professional way and I've found my self quite succesfull in doing that (carefully setting up the light, measuring the different light zones with my meter, carefully composing the image, making "breaks" in the composition by dragging around with furniture, bottles candles etc..) I was very content about the result (because I thought I had improved my craft, and I did) but found that most people didn't find those parts most interesting, just because they were done in a more professional way. So the point I want to make here is that Super 8 has no place in a film/digital discussion, because it's power lies in it's "deficiencies"from mainnstream filmmaking. It was never a mainstream format and never will be, and that's exactly what's makes it so great and so appealing to many people who are (easily) bored with mainstream filmtechnique (i don't mean to say here that it is superior to that technique, just that it has it's own powerfull and great identity).
Personally I'm also tempted to think that it's existence is not threatened by the fact that video is ever more able to copy the film look, but it will be threatened if video is able to copy the super 8 look. That's when I will (really) get scared. When watching televison I often have doubts if the film I'm watching is recorded on film or video, but often these doubts concern a specific film look, which is a mainstream (hollywood/glamourous) film look. I would like to show you these frames for to show you what I mean:
http://www.pixelmonger.com/hotgear.html
If you put a frame of a well scanned and well lit super 8 frame next to it, don't you think it would stand out to much, to be a valid reference for comparison?? Super 8 can't be compared to these frames and again, there in lies it's quality. Personally I like film when it looks like film most (I know this is a subjective statement but I know many people feel the same way). I like it most when it looks (a bit) grainy or when it has a special (say pastel) colour palette that can't be mistaken for video. What I mean to say is that if you make a spectrum from videolook to filmlook, you will find on on side a look that is definitely video and on the other side a look which is definitely film. And somewhere in the middle there is a zone were one feels uncertain about if it's film or video. I happen to like the side where film is film most. I wish I could be more specific on this point, but is has much to do with the depth or brightness of colours. I don't really have the right words for describing this. Maybe I should add some examples. First I would like to mention the film "the man who wasn't there" of the Coen brothers. I haven't seen it myself yet, but I saw some shots of it on television, and man did it impress me! It was recorded in an old fashioned style black and white, which I find very poetic. This film won the award for best photography in the British Academy Awards !!! (or whatever they call it). For being complete: the french film "Amelie" had also an nomination in this category. The film was partly recorded with a single ccd video camera, transferred to film with saturated colours, with no attempts to deinterlace the frames (actually I do think they deinterlaced it, but only with deleting the even or uneven lines and blurring them by boosting the saturation of the colours). And yes, it looked very good to me as well !!
This undermines and confirms my point that the existence of super 8 and other (non mainstream) film formats and emulsions. It confirms it because I think there is a need in the audience for special (ultimate film) looks. And it undermines because video can be competitive on this point as well (Amelie). Probably it will end up with film becoming (in the future) one way of expression next to more sophisticated video, with super 8 being one of those formats (I'm talking here mainly about film screened on television, although some points apply to film screened on fil as well). The end of super 8 and other formats/emulsions will be near, I think, when video will be more and more able to copy these special film looks. As long as it can't, super 8 will survive.
I'm running out of thoughts and time. Wonder if my contribution to this discussion makes sense. The film/video world is a crazy world. It forces to reposition ourselves time after time. For low budget film makers this repositioning can be even more difficult, since their budgets often don't have the kind of flexibility for to adaptate to new developments.
Two last things.
The link above is of the filmmaker Scott Billups, who wrote the book "digital film making", in which he wrote an unconventional view about digital filmmaking. I had two reasons to buy this book. One is that it had good critics of filmmakers like David Lynch and Oliver Stone. Secondly I decided to buy it because the writer advises in the book to use a light meter when filming with video. Especially this last advice (which I read in a critic) convinced me that it would be worth reading this book. And after all you can't go around these new developments, you have to keep informed. Maybe we can discuss it in this forum later (??)
Secondly. I don't know what will happen to super 8 in the coming years (nobody can be sure). Whatever happens, I hope this group will stay. What makes this group special is, not only that it is about super 8, but also because the contributers main interest here is film and aesthetics, or more general: (low budget) technique and aesthetics. I learned many, many things here, I would have never learned in one of those video desktop groups one finds on the internet. So what ever happens, I hope we will stick together, maybe even with our progressive scan 24 fps minidv cameras and our lightmeters (!!), exploring creatively how we could get the highest and most special aesthetic quality out of our low budget technique, redefining our place that way in the film world.
my two cents
Paul
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<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, 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, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by pauls opinion:
Personally I'm also tempted to think that it's existence is not threatened by the fact that video is ever more able to copy the film look, but it will be threatened if video is able to copy the super 8 look. That's when I will (really) get scared.
</font></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></BLOCKQUOTE>
Many good points, Pauls Opinion. I also like Super 8's so-called deficiencies.....to me it's that "then-ness" quality....almost surreal....the intense colors, like old technicolor movies of yesteryear. One of the tests I would like to do, is, to re-work digital-video so it will look like Super 8. Roger already mentioned one post trick to get a film look from video, but perhaps the Super 8 look would require more re-working in post. I am guessing that this must have already been done in very stylized/cutting-edge commercials targeted to teens.....shot using MTV-type signature with all kinds of post effects.
I am not a Super 8 traitor, but looking to "combine" the different mediums for my own animation experiments. I do puppet animation (stop motion)....thinking of shooting the puppets & foreground miniature sets via bluescreen on Super 8, but then composite it with scenery/backgrounds shot on digital-video. I think there is also software where you can simulate film look (haven't investigated yet), but as mention before, the Super 8 look may require more work in post.
Lionel
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hey paul. thanks for your comments. i agree with you completely, both when it comes to your analysis of my clips, and when it comes to your thoughts on the super-8/film/video debate in general.
/matt
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Well, stopmoworks, I am currently making a film that was shot on super 8 and has some green screen stuff in it. My actors were shot against a green screen and will be composited into a computer generated 3-d environment for one scene. My challenge is to get the computer generated space to look like super 8 so it matches. I'll let everyone know how it works out. As soon as I get my footage back, I'm going to put up a web site. I'll put a post in this forum when I get that up.
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fyi: the infamous blood sample scene in tpm was actually shot on 60i hd, not 24p.
/matt
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<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, 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, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by hightreason:
My challenge is to get the computer generated space to look like super 8 so it matches. I'll let everyone know how it works out. As soon as I get my footage back, I'm going to put up a web site. I'll put a post in this forum when I get that up.</font></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></BLOCKQUOTE>
Yes, keep us posted about it! You are definitely ahead of me and I would be curious to see the results. [img]biggrin.gif[/img]
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<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, 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, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by mattias:
fyi: the infamous blood sample scene in tpm was actually shot on 60i hd, not 24p.</font></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></BLOCKQUOTE>
You, know, that is a real mystery to me. I have read two different articles by people that worked on Star Wars: TPM and one said it was a protype 24p rig and the other just said it was "HD video", but did not say it was 60 field video; they just used the term "HD". Are you sure your information specified that it was 60 field HD or was that your assumption if they used the term "high definition video"? I can usually spot 60 field video transferred to film so I assumed they were actually using the 24p prototype unit.
Hmmmmm....
No matter, it looked great and, if it was 60 field HD, then that only underscores my whole point. If 60 field HD can be made to look like film then, based on the recent project I was involved in that used an actual Sony 24p unit, I have to imagine that actualy 24 frame progressive scan footage will look just terrific. I recently saw previews for the new "Spy Kids" movie that is being shot 24p and it looked just like film to me!
Roger
