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This topic comprises 4 pages: 1 2 3 4
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Author
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Topic: Maintaining film projection ability long-term
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 03-04-2014 12:12 PM
I'm spinning this issue off from the "Who is still running film in 2014 out of choice?" thread, because I suspect it has the potential to drag it off topic.
In relation to comments by Steve, Brad and Jim on that thread, I would speculate that any venue that wishes to maintain film projection long-term faces five essential challenges.
1. Institutional "buy-in" - the willingness of the ownership/leadership/policymaking authority within the exhibiting organization to continue investing in film projection capability long-term.
2. Availability of prints.
3. Maintenance of equipment.
4. The projection and maintenance skills base.
5. Regulation going forward (e.g. in relation to nitrate).
With the exception of 2, these are basically the exact same problems that the operators of other heritage technology have had to address, and in particular, I would guess, classic transport vehicles. Unfortunately, 2 is a unique one to our business, and once film stops being made, it is the major reason why I am more pessimistic than many for the chances of film projection still being done on any significant scale, apart from in theatres that are directly owned and controlled by archives that themselves hold major print collections.
Other technology heritage museums have proven that all these problems except 2 can be overcome if enough money is thrown at them. In recent years, non-profits have restored an Avro Vulcan and a Lockheed Super Constellation from rusting wrecks to airworthy, and in Britain the Computer Conservation Society have brought transistor-driven mainframes from the '60s back to life. The National Railway Museum in York only abandoned attempts to restore an iconic 1930s steam locomotive because the financial management of the project left a lot to be desired, and the money ran out. There was no insurmountable technological barrier.
At the moment we don't know how big the problems will be once projection technology is totally obsolete. It isn't as yet: spares for many projectors, their peripherals and audio gear are still readily available, and service companies still have techs who know what to do with them. On that score, the real fun will start in 10-20 years time, when the only parts left will be cannibalized ones and even retired techs who started their careers in the '80s will be hard to find.
But once film is no longer made, I can't see any way to prevent the number of projectable prints out there declining steadily and unstoppably. The only way to inhibit that decline will be storage of the prints in atmospherically controlled vaults (in the case of acetate: polyester is supposed not to need it, though questions over the integrity of the binder layer in long-term storage at room temperature and humidity remain), combined with a rigid policy of only allowing their use on well-maintained equipment and by properly trained and assessed personnel. The engineers and pilots who work on restored aircraft have to pass type rating exams and their work is closely monitored. As the supply of prints diminishes and we reach the point at which archives hold the only decent ones left, I wouldn't be surprised if they introduce similar regulation over the people who handle them.
The related issue I'd speculate is currently live is that the "film forever" crowd are essentially in denial about how long film stock - and especially color film stock - will continue to be made. Only last week a friend who works at the National Archives told me that Kodak have just announced the discontinuation of several more lines, including all 16mm intermediate stocks and one of their two lines of print stock, and announced yet another price hike on some others. OK, the recession in southern Europe is extending the "long tail" of theater conversions (I recently heard it said that Greece, Italy and Spain are probably the only remaining countries in the developed world where conversion to DCP has not reached 50%), but the complete end of mainstream release printing can't be far away now. OrWo, Tasma and perhaps one or two others I've missed may carry on with b/w and may pick up some of the archival market that Kodak will likely walk away from, but I have not heard one person who has ever spent a day of his or her life doing paid work in the film stock manufacture business try to claim, seriously, that the manufacture of color film, and all the chemistry and infrastructure needed to process it, could survive as a boutique, niche-market operation. It would be like building a Concorde in a garage. The math simply doesn't add up.
Am I being overly pessimistic?
In the short term, however, establishing a program of repertory/cinemtheque projectionist and maintenance training has to be the no. 1 priority for the "museum cinema" sector, while the expertise is still readily available to pass on.
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 03-04-2014 05:14 PM
quote: Scott Norwood
Do you have a source for the information on Kodak's discontinuation of 16mm intermediate films?
Not that I'd feel comfortable naming on a public web page. This was told to me in an informal conversation: I wasn't told that this was off the record or that I couldn't quote it, but I don't think he expected to be named, either. I'll give you some more context in a private email.
quote: Justin Hamaker
how long is it WORTH preserving as anything other than a hobby or museum exhibit? Within a very short period of time, resolution standards will render moot the argument about digital not being as good as film. And if film is being used for archive purposes, why would there be need to risk an archived print for any reason other than scanning to make a digital copy.
Those who advocate keeping film projection alive use two arguments, one of basically emotional and the other which has some objective substance.
The emotional argument is that if we lose the technology with which a movie was originally created, post-produced and shown, we lose the ability to give audiences the ability to see it in the way that audiences saw it when it was initially made. The "experience" of seeing it, in a subjective sense, is different, and if we lose the ability to recreate that, we lose the ability to understand the movie's provenance.
The more objective one is that the now obsolete technology gave the people who made and showed movies with it opportunities and limitations that are fundamentally different from those which digital technology gives us now, and that by giving audiences - even very few, and only in a small number of venues - the chance actually to work with them, we understand the movie better. For example, today's teenagers who can take 1080p footage on their cellphones have a hard time understanding that in the 1970s, you couldn't use most film stocks indoors without lots of artificial light, because they were too slow. If they got the opportunity to shoot some real film and have to deal with these issues themselves, they would understand why some 1970s movies look they way they do more effectively.
But I agree: the "should we try to do this at all?" question is a totally valid one, and we shouldn't just assume that the answer is a foregone conclusion.
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Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!
Posts: 12814
From: Annapolis, MD
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 03-04-2014 05:28 PM
I'll admit, I'm a bit more pessimistic when it comes to being able to support film equipment. While there is currently a bottomless pit supply of USED and worn gear out there...the supply of new parts for wearables has started to dry up FAST. I think the former caused the latter. That is, while people were keeping their film machines going until they could replace, they used the used equipment as parts supplies (makes perfect sense to me) so manufacturers of spare parts (e.g. Wolk or even Strong...in the States) would see their parts sales go to zero and need to close up shop.
The next thing that is likely to happen is all of the junkers out there will finally meet their end and even if they don't it will be increasingly difficult to mate up some piece of gear with an operating theatre that needs it.
In case the word has not gotten out yet, Kinoton is to discontinue their film projection equipment as soon as April 2014 (yes that is just a month left). All USA manufactured equipment is already done and even parts for them, including wearables are becoming no longer available.
While it is true that 3D printing will be able to replicate some parts, it won't do all nor will the materials necessarily have the right characteristics desired. Most of the projection equipment parts can be replicated with suitable CNC machining and gear hobbing. The question is the cost of doing it on 1-offs or small runs.
Then there are the things required to properly set up projection equipment...you know...test film. It has been hard enough to get "good" test film for the last 20+ years...film that you can bank on its alignment qualities...who will produce measured film to test/set up or keep in calibration in the future? How stable will existing supplies be in the typical storage condition they are in now?
As for archiving on Digital...there is the geometric problem of migration. The entire history of motion pictures will need to migrate to each new digital medium until that really stabilizes (if it ever does). It isn't a matter of the cost of having two or three HDD to hold current stuff...it is the cost of CONSTANT migration to ensure that you never lose what you have and the problem keeps growing.
With film, and current knowledge, one can keep it stored for about 1000 years. That is an awfully long time without having to migrate. Sure, I would keep multiple copies anyway and in different geographical locations...but still.
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 03-05-2014 11:42 AM
Apologies in advance for the long post. In reponse to Terry:
Film is an information storage medium and an industrial technology that has come and will go, just like many others, from papyrus and illuminated manuscripts to the floppy disc.
Once it's gone (which in terms of a mainstream access format is almost now, but as an archival preservation medium possibly won't be for centuries), I feel that it's important that future audiences have the opportunity to learn what production, post-production and exhbition on film involved, and the capabilities and limitations of the technology. But during the 15 years or so I worked in projection booths, I was banging my head against those limitations all the time (mainly bad prints that had been misused earlier in their lives), and the fact that film is being replaced by something that, subjectively at least, removes a lot of them is something I welcome.
So basically my response to you is the same as my response to Justin. I feel it's very important that, for as long as possible, there are at least a small number of places where expertise and resources can be concentrated, and in which film projection can take place regularly for as long as possible into the future. That is because a huge amount of the 20th century primary historical record was created using it, and once it's a legacy technology, being able to experience it actually working will make it a whole lot easier to understand how those records were created and received, what they tell us and what they don't.
What it will not do - and this is where my frustration with the "film forever" tendency, the AMIA Film Advocacy Group, etc. etc., comes in - is unlock some sort of magic, without which the world is a fundamentally worse place. Film projection is an industrial process, not a religious rite! For example, is anyone seriously arguing that in order to understand the significance and impact of the Declaration of Independence, you have to go to Washington DC, queue up for hours and eyeball the original manuscript, and that if you read the text on NARA's website there's something fundamental you're not getting? The fact that the original is preserved and displayed the way it is tells us something about the impact of its contents, not the other way round.
What will help you understand its contents is the knowledge that in those days, handwriting a document of that length and complexity was something that could only be done by someone who was very highly educated, and needed expensive materials and a lot of time. For that knowledge to be kept alive, it helps that there are a few people out there who are still creating written manuscripts using c18 materials.
Likewise, is seeing a DCP of Citizen Kane going to prevent you from understanding why the movie is important, whereas with the projection of a nitrate print on a carbon-lit 1941 Motiograph, you're suddenly going to get it? The "film forever" tendency claim loudly and often that there is something unique, special and valuable about the experience of watching that medium specifically projected on a screen, but I have never once heard any of them make any serious attempt to articulate why, in an objective sense. That's beacuse, unlike the argument that keeping a legacy technology alive helps us to understand its historical significance, the "something special" argument is essentially an emotional, faith-based one.
The other thing that strikes me about all this is that as a general rule, the most vocal film advocates are people whose experience of film projection has been almost exclusively in prestige, well-funded venues in major city centers, with projectionists and techs who know what they're doing, top end equipment and access to archive and first-run rep prints. As someone who has both worked at and been a paying customer of venues that had to show worn-out and badly damaged prints, did not have the money to buy the lenses and plates needed to show a film in the correct ratio, etc. etc., the DCP is one helluvan improvement for me.
The reason I started this thread is that I'm interested in cutting through the emotional BS and getting a sense of how far into the future it will be possible to project films to a theatrical audience, where, in what ways and at what cost, based on the actual evidence we have, not "this is special and we must save it, whatever it takes". I'm interested in how much of what it takes we have now and will realistically continue to have, and for how long, and believe that the regulars on F-T are better qualified to discuss this than the semi-informed and emotionally motivated people who tend to dominate the discussions on the more academic and archive-focused lists and forums.
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Terry Lynn-Stevens
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1081
From: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Registered: Dec 2012
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posted 03-05-2014 12:16 PM
Nice response Leo, very interesting!
quote: Leo Enticknap
I'm interested in cutting through the emotional BS and getting a sense of how far into the future it will be possible to project films to a theatrical audience, where, in what ways and at what cost, based on the actual evidence we have, not "this is special and we must save it, whatever it takes"
I think on a small niche scale, projecting film to a theatrical audience will not be hard going forward, when Dark Knight Rises was released, there were a small number of IMAX digital screens that still had their IMAX film projection equipment that was used for the The Dark Knight Rises, once the movie played its 4 week run, the film projectors were moved to the back of the booth and out came the digital projectors once again. I did not hear of any issues, and IMAX was on the ball and did the hiring of projectionists for The Dark Knight Rises at these select locations.
When The Master was released, the Varsity in Toronto was a select venue to play the movie in 70mm, the Varsity had been a digital theater for a least a few years and you would have to go back to the early 80s to find the last 70mm to play at the Varsity. Again, there were no issues with the film projection and the print eventually made its way to another 70mm house in Toronto to play sub run. What it is interesting about the The Master at the Varsity is that Cineplex is notorious for being cheap, and the simple fact they installed 70mm for the movie is a miracle IMO. From what I understand, there was a projectionist in the booth for the entire run.
Going forward, I think there will be very limited area for 35mm presentations, the studios will allow a select 35mm/70mm roll-out if they think they can make money doing it. There will be companies that will still have the equipment to take care of the installs on a lease by lease basis.
If you go back 10-15 years, I doubt anyone would of predicted that we would see another 70mm select release like we did The Master in 2012. I fully predict that we will see a 250-500 print release of Interstellar in 35mm in select theaters this November.
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Scott Norwood
Film God
Posts: 8146
From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas)
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 03-05-2014 12:38 PM
Leo: thanks for your PM.
Some quick math: last I heard, there were about 100k cinema screens worldwide (which I assume refers to commercial cinemas). If film goes away on a commercial level, but 1% of this equipment survives, we have +/- 1000 screens' worth of projection equipment to supply venues that desire to exhibit film.
Presumably, most of the surviving equipment will not be in daily "grind house" use, so the expected lifespan will be somewhat longer than the 20-50 years that would typically be expected. New polyester-base prints do not shrink and should be at least dimensionally stable for many decades or centuries. So, I think that it is fair to say that someone, somewhere will be able to exhibit film in 100 years' time, even if all equipment and film production were to cease tomorrow. Will anyone be showing film in 1000 years? Probably not.
Agreed with comments made in other threads that there is some value to having film exhibitors standardize on a small set of makes and models of projection equipment in order to make small-scale parts manufacturing viable. Not sure how that would happen, though.
Also, conventional B&W emulsion should be able to be manufactured on a small scale (even in someone's basement), although quality-control would likely be poor until/unless volume increases. Precise slitting and perforating are probably more difficult than making and coating the emulsion.
Regarding the perceived "magic" of film presentation:
Is there still some question about the difference (if any) in how projected film is perceived versus how projected video is perceived? I believe that there is/was some notion that the flicker from projected film had some influence on brain activity. Also, there is the difference between light going through something (film, SXRD) and light bouncing off of something (DLP). Was any of this ever properly researched? (I don't know.)
Additionally, there is the issue of how accurately a DCP (or "restored" print or 16mm reduction print, etc., etc.) represents the way a given film looked and sounded when it was first released. I have not seen very many repertory DCPs, but we need to be wary of things like remixed soundtracks, "cleaned up" original material, de-graining, and the like. An original print of an original release of a film avoids these issues (though potentially introduces others, such as physical damage, missing footage, etc.). There are also limitations to the DCP format itself, such as no support for frame rates lower than 24. And nothing that I have seen projected from DCP really resembles a dye-transfer print or 70mm print or anything of that sort. Most of these issues will be fixed at some point in the future (I hope), but we aren't there yet.
In any case, I agree that we need to identify some of the "magic" qualities of film so that they can be replicated (or at least understood).
Apologies for the long post, but I sort of agree with both sides here. There is something special about film exhibition that is worth retaining past the point when all films have been scanned and are available in other formats, just as people restore and maintain steam trains, piston aircraft, and the like. It may not last forever, but I see no reason to give it up prematurely.
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