super8 vs. digital filmmaking

[Matt Pacini]

<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 S8 Booster:
"...S8 reversal film editing has more limitations (no post lap dissolve stuff, transitions, colour correction, super imposing ..."</font></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></BLOCKQUOTE>


I don't know what you're talking about here, it doesn't make any difference what you're shooting on, you can do all this stuff, and I did on my film (shot entirely on reversal)
Some of it I did in-camera (dissolves) and some of it in post.
Shooting neg makes no difference in these capabilities.

And Roger, I've seen quite a bit of video footage that was "filmlooked" in software, and yes, it makes it look like film, but to my eyes, it's a sort of "one size fits all" generic film look.
Kind of one global effect to make it all look more film like, as opposed to the subtle things film does when imaging, depending on what the light is doing when it hits the film plane.
To put it simply, film is capable of hundreds of different unique "film looks", while the software "filmlook" just performs one kind of look to the footage.
It's a magicians trick, not an artistic tool like shooting actual film is.
Yes, you can have people **** around with your video footage using software to tweak it, but in the professional world, this is not a free service, so that has to be factored in when talking about what costs how much in film vs. video arguments.

Listen, I've been hearing for five years that film will be replaced by digital video any day now.
Look me up in five or ten more years, and I guarantee you, people are still going to be arguing this, and most movies will still be shot on film.
It just plain looks better.
You can argue specs and what costs more/less all day long, but film still has a certain look, that people respond to emotionally, and it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with resolution either.

Matt Pacini

[MovieStuff]

<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">&lt;font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"&gt;Originally posted by Matt Pacini:

And Roger, I've seen quite a bit of video footage that was "filmlooked" in software, and yes, it makes it look like film
&lt;/font&gt;</font></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></BLOCKQUOTE>

In the context of super 8 vs digital, that's all an audience cares about. What you and I think of it means nothing, actually.

<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">&lt;font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"&gt;Originally posted by Matt Pacini:

, but to my eyes, it's a sort of "one size fits all" generic film look.
To put it simply, film is capable of hundreds of different unique "film looks", while the software "filmlook" just performs one kind of look to the footage.
&lt;/font&gt;</font></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></BLOCKQUOTE>

But isn't that same with super 8? I have seen you post over and over how the ONLY film worth shooting on in super 8 is K40. Henry Ford once said that you can have your model T painted any color you want as long as it's black. Likewise, according to you, super 8 has only ONE generic, "one size fits all" kind of look that is worth using: Kodachrome 40.

In that regard, I see no difference between that and a single "film look" for video, especially considering that commercial audiences apparently approve of film look on video and don't approve of super 8 as a mainstream solution to commercial film making!

<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">&lt;font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"&gt;Originally posted by Matt Pacini:

It's a magicians trick, not an artistic tool like shooting actual film is.
Yes, you can have people **** around with your video footage using software to tweak it, but in the professional world, this is not a free service, so that has to be factored in when talking about what costs how much in film vs. video arguments.
&lt;/font&gt;</font></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></BLOCKQUOTE>

Film look is, relatively speaking, free compared to the ever increasing cost of any film stock, be it your beloved Kodachrome or something else. There are very inexpensive film look plug-ins that work well enough to satisfy the asthetic needs of the audience, regardless of what YOU or I think of them.

<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">&lt;font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"&gt;Originally posted by Matt Pacini:

Listen, I've been hearing for five years that film will be replaced by digital video any day now.
&lt;/font&gt;</font></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></BLOCKQUOTE>

Well, I don't think anyone has predicted "any day now" as if you would wake up one day and suddenly everything is digital and film is dead. But the same argument was made about CDs when they first came out. Make no mistake, analog recording is still around but CD's rule the commercial roost, in terms of satisfying the needs of the buying audience. Likewise, I don't think that digital will replace film "any day now" but the signs of change are definately in our face, as evidenced by the new 24p miniDV cam that is supposed to be released this year at NAB. Like all technology, popularity and common usage will drive down the cost. Just look at DVD authoring; about 4 years ago I looked into it as a possible business venture and found that I needed over $25,000 worth of hardware to get into it. Now you can it for a fraction of that price and stand-alone real time DVD burners can be had for less than $1,700.

Make no mistake, I am on the side of super 8 and film altogether. Otherwise I would have never built the DV8, which was a pretty hefty investment for someone that sees a digital future coming down the road. I just believe that we have to move away from the technical aspects of the debate and look at pure asthetics since the technical issues change too rapidly and really don't matter when it comes down to the question of how an audience responds to the asthetics of the picture.

Roger

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ April 05, 2002 04:43 PM: Message edited by: MovieStuff ]</font>

[kbrady]

"video is what the eye sees; film is what the mind sees." I dunno who said it first, but it says it all.

KBrady

[TA152]

Matt Pacini wrote

[b]quote:
Originally posted by S8 Booster:
"...S8 reversal film editing has more limitations (no post lap dissolve stuff, transitions, colour correction, super imposing ..."[B]


I don't know what you're talking about here, it doesn't make any difference what you're shooting on, you can do all this stuff, and I did on my film (shot entirely on reversal)
Some of it I did in-camera (dissolves) and some of it in post.
Shooting neg makes no difference in these capabilities.


Matt, what I meant was if you work on the reversal film all the way for S8 projecting there are quite some limitations on S8 vs DV editing (effects - post production / transitions, superimposing, more, more, more etc) . If you transfer the reversal to DV there is no limit for editing reversal S8DV either of course.

[TA152]

Moving away from S8 a bit here is what the pople in the "business" thinks about DV vs film:

http://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/st...shtml#kaminski

http://www.kodak.com/country/US/en/m...s/wallis.shtml

http://www.kodak.com/country/US/en/m...ry/fact3.shtml

Personally I have seen my S8 gear survive 4 generations/20+ years or so of video systems without any of them beeing able to fully catch up with the S8.

Some people have bought themselves through all the "V" generations. Imagine what you can do with S8 with an equal amount of their wasted money?

If film "quality" is the target for new DV generations to come I belive it will take another 2 or 3 before we see that, if ever.

New generations of people might not care whether its digital or not, true film look or not.

According to Kodak the best scanners can now get 12 million pixels resolution from one 35mm motion frame on their best films. The limit of 12 million pixels are not due to the film resolution but the scanner. The film has more to go.

Imagine if somebody came up with a "true" S8 scanner that could transfer it all?

The S8 might stand frim as long as there are a decent number of cams in operating condotion.

Anybody checked out the last 3 years salesfigures of S8 film from Kodak & PRO8 recently?

[hightreason]

S8 booster, those links were interesting to read, but they were also put out by Kodak. I wouldn't say that Kodak is really a neutral party in the film vs video debate. It would be interesting to see a truly objective comparison, but everything I've read seems to be biased one way or the other.
Obviously, I'm a big fan of film (else I wouldn't be hanging around this forum) but video is advancing at an incredible rate (even though film is making its own advances as one of the articles is careful to state.) Personally, I think that video will probably make some unforeseen advance that obsoletes film. It will be something discovered by someone no one's ever heard of and it will be something very different from anything anybody's ever thought of. That's how major advances usually work. It probably will not be based on ccd's like current video is. Until that day, film still looks better even when converted to video.
As far as the "any day now" idea... well, a lot of people hold it. A lot of people at my film school shoot solely on digital video because they expect to wake up one day and find that no one's using film anymore. This sounds ludicrous to the rest of us, but these are our future filmmakers... err... videomakers. It just doesn't have that same ring does it...

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ April 06, 2002 04:02 PM: Message edited by: hightreason ]</font>

[TA152]

hightreason, I agree fully on that its Kodak "material" and are favouring their solutions. However there are some independant views around as well pointing in the same direction.

I believe too that its just a matter of time until DIGI goes FILM but it might take longer than the optimists think.

Just a few more links:

http://www.designinmotion.com/articl...119815,00.html
http://www.web-star.com/hdtvnewsonli...goHope.HD.html

http://www.digitaltelevision.com/tvtoday/sony/hdcam.htm

For amateur/semi it might be a matter of what format one preffers to work with.

For home movies S8 will offer high quality images for projecting at a price that is very low compared to what miniDV offers if you have the S8 gear already.

Even if the K40 is properly transferred to Video it will be possible to shot a lot of film until the price difference is levelled and the DV prices will drop and the DV quality increase in the meantime.

Personally I have become so frustrated to see that the video formats developed over the past 25? years, despite their promises given at each launch of a new generation, never lived up to it and I think it is the same for the Mini DV.

Although this is not directly comparable I put my hands on a BETA a long time a got that had an interchangabale VCR back that could interchange at least Hi8 & BETA VCRs for various compability. I had the opportunity to compare a "high-end" Hi8 amateur camera to the BETA Hi8.

The difference in imgae quality was more than astonishing, simply unbeliveable.

The amateur cam was SO NOISY in the images while as the BETA Hi8 was visually noise free. Both cams/takes were shot on the same Sony Hi8 Metal-E: E5-30HMEX Professional Video Cassette tape and the amateur cam was calibrated to the actual tape (which made no visual difference anyway).

This told me that whatever good the AMA/semi cams are there is a HUGE difference between the CAM quality of PRO and AMA cams despite beeing technically identical in terms of using the same system DV/MiniDV. Well, promoted as such.

You get what you pay for obviously.

I still rate the old BETA takes on the Hi8 far better than the MiniDV takes I have seen. Colours seem much better on BETA and the images is visually just as noise free as MiniDV on a standard monitor.

[mattias]

&gt; what I meant was if you work on the reversal film all the way for S8 projecting there are quite some limitations on S8

well, there's always optical printing. you can even a/b roll your entire film and send it to your lab for getting a print without visible splices, and with fades, dissolves, supers and whatnot. i mean, this is how 16 and 35 mm films are made at the last stage, even if they're edited on video, so it's really not as far fetched as it sounds.

well, actually, i spent around 30 hours on a 16 mm steenbeck last week, so i guess i'm a little biased towards the old school stuff. :-)

/matt

[MovieStuff]

<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">&lt;font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"&gt;Originally posted by mattias:

well, there's always optical printing. you can even a/b roll your entire film and send it to your lab for getting a print without visible splices, and with fades, dissolves, supers and whatnot. i mean, this is how 16 and 35 mm films are made at the last stage, even if they're edited on video, &lt;/font&gt;</font></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></BLOCKQUOTE>

Small technical clarification. In 16mm, A/B rolls are used to separate each cut in an alternate pattern. This allows for three things:

1) Invisible splices, since the cement splice overlaps into the black leader area and not the picture area

2) Changes in color and density during printing, which are made during the segments of black leader that separates every other cut

3) Fades, dissolves and burn in titles and effects, since the footage can be super imposed wiht a simple double exposure during printing


On 35mm, however, the negative is not A/B rolled at all. It is actually cut end to end, just like super 8! They depend on the masking top and bottom to hide any splices, which works since the frame is so big. Opticals are done only on the transitions and titles and are then cut into the master negative. From that, an interpositive is made with color and density timings built in. From that multiple printing negatives are made to mass produce the release prints.

But you are correct that a lot of things can be done with traditional A/B roll editing. In fact, it is one of the best things that 16mm has going for it, assuming you can even find a lab anymore that will do A/B roll printing! The other thing is that, if you transfer your original 16 negative to video, it is often hard or impossible to differentiate it from 35mm. Once you make a print from 16mm, however, it always looks like 16mm. The print stock is the weak link in the 16mm chain due to its higher contrast and higher grain.

That is also why super 8 Kodakchrome will, at best, always look like a 16mm print transferred to video and never like 16mm negative transferred to video. The higher grain and contrast match the projection characteristics found in print stock and not negative stock. I'm not saying this is bad; only different.

Roger

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ April 07, 2002 07:16 AM: Message edited by: MovieStuff ]</font>

[MovieStuff]

<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">&lt;font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"&gt;Originally posted by Matt Pacini:


Yes, but there's a huge difference when " the buying audience" is paying $16.00 or so for a CD, and when " the buying audience" (the theater owners) paying $100,000 per screen for a new format that absolutely nobody in the know is claiming is a better product.
&lt;/font&gt;</font></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></BLOCKQUOTE>

Matt, I don't know where you are getting your information but here are three facts:

1) Based on what I've read, EVERY test audience that has seen the new digital projection thought it looked as good or better than standard 35mm projection.

2) ALL the theater chains polled (there are no individual owners anymore, except for art houses) agreed and welcomed the idea since it meant that they could then use the theaters for events not related to movies, such as concerts and sporting events like boxing. This is very important as it releases the theaters from the stranglehold that distributors has had on them for years. The theater owners will finally have an alternative and can say "no".

3) The DISTRIBUTORS are the ones that are bank rolling the change to digital projection, not the theater owners. It's a pure "hands off" trade with no strings attached for the theater owners. Why? Because the cost of changing over the theaters is a one time burden for the distributors that will, ultimately, save them millions and millions later on down the line eliminating release prints and the other continuing overhead that is associated with physical distribution.

A 35mm release print is expensive as heck and has a life expectancy of about two months, on average, and then it has to be replaced. Plus, 35mm prints are VERY heavy to ship and have to be handled by special couriers to avoid theft and piracy issues. In all, the distributors are so hot about digital distribution and projection that they are willing to take it on the chin which is why this is such a windfall for theater owners.

<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">&lt;font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"&gt;Originally posted by Matt Pacini:

What I mean is, if you ask the average movie buying public, if he cares whether a movie is shot on a $200 VHS camcorder, or a Panavision Platinum 35mm camera, he/she is going to say they don't care, as long as the movie is good.
But you and I know d.a.m.n. well that they are going to know the difference, EMOTIONALLY, between those two products, whether they INTELLECTUALLY know or care what it was shot on.
So the "they don't care" argument assumes they are intelligent and knowledgable about the process, which they are not.
&lt;/font&gt;</font></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></BLOCKQUOTE>

You just contradicted yourself, Matt. Previously you had also written:

<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">&lt;font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"&gt;Originally posted by Matt Pacini:

because the consumer doesn't care one way or the other (which I agree with in theory-IF they can't tell a difference in quality emotionally)&lt;/font&gt;</font></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></BLOCKQUOTE>

IF the video looks like film and is accepted and fills the audience's needs to "see film" then it doesn't matter how it was originated. You really can't argue with that and the audience doesn't have to be intelligent nor knowledgable about anything.

The context of this discussion is about either shooting digital or shooting super 8. The above discussion about what happens in theaters is tangent to this discussion but I addressed it because you had made some statements that were not quite accurate.

All I'm saying is that, if it looks like film, it looks like film. That capability is here NOW, not some time in the distant future. It is a present day, common, off the shelf technology that anyone can afford that is making movies on video. How well it is implemented (and, therefore, how believable) is as dependent on the skill of the user as any other discipline involved in the story telling process including lighting, script writing, directing, looping, sound recording, mixing, etc.

Any neophyte can pick up a super 8 camera and achieve instant "film look" but that doesn't mean it is going to be a real "movie". Likewise the ease in which people can shoot miniDV means nothing either. If a simplistic "point and shoot" mentality is used for either format, the end result isn't going to be saved by looking like film, regardless of how the "film look" was achieved. A dumb blonde is still a dumb blonde. It matters not if she's a natural blonde or if it came from a bottle.

Roger

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ April 07, 2002 07:58 AM: Message edited by: MovieStuff ]</font>