Clicky here.

It's pretty awesome. Upon reading the article I learned that digital projection can match even the best film presentation, and that film can only be run once without causing wear to the print. It's a good thing I don't have a high opinion of Stevie Soderburg, cause he's the one who says that film only looks good the first time you see it and consistently gets worse each showing thereafter (or something to that effect). Apparently he's never seen a good projectionist nor has he ever heard of Filmguard. It's kind of funny... my prints always look BETTER after months and months of running them, and I would be willing to bet my life and the lives of everyone I have ever known on that fact. Why do magazines like Time only interview idiots when writing articles like these?

That is pathetic. I have a hard time believing that this guy's studio projectionist is that bad. I can understand some of the penny pinching theaters that are around today only being able to run a film one time before it is scratched or dirty, but a studio projectionist? My longest print run was 1500 runs and that thing left flawless! One run...geez!

Then again this comment is coming from the guy who is shooting his next movie on a consumer NTSC miniDV camera known as the XL1. Now the XL1 is indeed a fine camera, but NOT for theatrical use! Oh no wait, technically that camera is a "digital" camera. Ah, I see my mistake now. That means it will be perfect! What a load of .

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Too bad -- digital needs to stand on its own compared to good quality film showings which, I think, the majority of you guys (and gals) do. It can't yet compare in price, in quantity of locations, in software availability, so it tries to compare where it can. Right now, that's long term quality.

Digital has great potential. Image quality CAN be excellent, it CAN maintain a high level of quality over many showings, etc., etc.

It's not there yet, and until its proponents are willing to compare to GOOD film presentations (that good old idea of "film done right"), it's not going to get there in the eyes of the majority.

One man's opinion...

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quote:

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So, how many of us have written to Time mag to refute the anti-film claims made in that article? Time to speak up, film fans!

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JYOTI THOTTAM

Reports of the Death of Film are a bit premature. With 30,000 screens in the US and 400,000 screens world wide running film the fact there are 30 digital projectors running now isn't a significant factor.

Truth is Film looks better on screen. It has a higher resolution that current digital systems. You get more light on the screen with a smaller xenon lamp that with digital. The current digital systems use a 7,000 watt xenon while most theatres use 2,000 to 4,000 watt lamps. The lamps in the digital systems will burn out at the same rate or faster than the ones in the film systems. The fact that digital resolution is so poor that the manufacturers don't recommend putting the digital system in a theatre where the screen is larger than 30 feet wide. That's about the size of a typical medium size screen.

Don't get me wrong, I am not a film Ludite, I am fascinated by the digital projectors. I find their technology fascinating and the images are the best video images I have ever seen. I will even go seek out Star Wars to see the digital image vs. the film image. Note Star Wars was originated digitally so the film version shouldn't look significantly better.

I am a theatre owner. We opened an art cinema with 5 screens for about $300,000 and that included all the equipment and a nice remodel. For the same $300,000 I could have equipped one screen with a digital projection system and been able to play just a handful of digital releases. The exhibition industry is notoriously budget conscious. We will not spend money until the system is proven and demonstratably better than film.

It is the films distributors that are pushing for the change as it will save them money. It will neither save us any money or increase our revenue.

Please note that a well operated theatre can play the same film print with no decline in quality for months on end without scratches or any of the other faults Steven Soderberg talks about. It's called Film done Right by Kodak and they should know, they sold 13 billion linier feet of Motion Picture Film Stock worldwide last year.

Digital systems are prone to their own set of problems. The lamp gets old. The file gets corrupted, there are digital artifacts (little squares) on the screen.

There is a reason that film has been around for 100 years, it works and it works well. We have backwards compatibility. We can play a film print from 1938 just fine. And if we could send a new print of Star Wars back to that projectionist in 1938, he could play it just as well.

Yes, I believe that Digital Cinema will come but not as fast as people may think. Give it 20 years. And no, Film will never die. It may become a museum piece but it will be around as long as I live, of that I am sure. It just looks better.

Ian Price
Rialto Cinemas Lakeside
Santa Rosa CA, 95405
http://www.rialtocinemas.com

For information on Film Done Right go to http://www.film-tech.com

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Make sure to put ATTN: JYOTI THOTTAM in the subject header to make sure it gets to the misinformed author of this fluff.

When you do, please post your letter.

Here is what I sent:
Jyoti,

I am surprised a writer for TIME magazine is composing such misinformed articles as your "The Death of Film". I am assuming you *think* everything you posted in that article is 100% accurate. You could not be more wrong. In fact, with few exceptions, most everything in there is incorrect.

FILM can be run hundreds and hundreds of time without the slightest sign of wear, provided proper online film cleaning and handling is involved. Now granted a great many theaters these days DO use popcorn jockeys to operate their projectors and their presentation suffers greatly. In those instances, yes I would prefer to screen a movie on video (excuse me, I meant "digital"). However, there are many professional projectionists out there in the world who when armed with a film print can blow away anything that TI, Barco, JVC or Kodak Digital Cinema can throw on screen "digitally"...and they can do it a thousand times in a row with that same film print!

Rather than rant on and on in an email to you about why your article is doing the readers of TIME magazine such a disservice, I will point you to a website that I run. Please visit www.film-tech.com and look in the "Film Handler's Forum" for a current discussion of your article. While you are there, feel free to browse around the site. It shouldn't take you too long to realize that there are a lot of caring professionals in the film industry. It is sad that Steve Soderburg failed to hire a professional film operator. More sad than that is the fact that you bought into all of the lies regarding digital projection and proceeded to print them, which of course has now spread false information about film around the world faster than a computer virus. My opinion of TIME magazine has been substantially lowered.

Brad Miller

"I just read your article about digital cinema. I am wondering if Time makes a habit of only interviewing misinformed people when it gets its stories. As you no doubt already know, your article was fairly one sided and the actual facts were misrepresented. Yes, digital cinema will eventually be mainstream. But did you talk to any real projectionists about this, or just Soderberg? A projectionist who cares about quality will tell you that he/she can run a film print over a thousand times without any wear. Yes, it is possible. Have you heard of Filmguard? Probably not. I would very much like to see an article that evenly represents BOTH sides here. As it stands now it seems like amateur reporting. It's almost as if Soderberg called Time, told his story and you just printed it. How far from the truth can my statement be? Probably not very.

Joe Redifer
Film-Tech
www.film-tech.com "

I've been listening to this lopsided argument for years now and the bias in these reports is transparent. First time I heard this "film is dead" concept was in a "report" on CBS News Radio here in New York where the announcer confidently stated as fact, that in five to ten years at the most, all movies will be shown without film. No explanation was given for such a statement or why. For news organizations such as Time Mag and CBS radio to regurgitate marketing hype such as this and present it as fact is just slipshod, mediocre reporting and they should be called on it. And I intend to do just that.

Notice that in these reports, there is never any mention of the economic model of DLP, never any mention of the notorious obsolescence that plagues computer-based systems, never any mention of the fact that getting the film from the studio to the theatre costs money, whether it is a guy driving a truck or guy delivering hard drives or a satellite uplink -- none of it is free. A media cleaning unit and a bottle of FilmGuard will keep a 35mm motion picture print pristine indefinitely, even if booth personnel aren't quite up to the snuff of trained projectionists. But even before FilmGuard, for decades, prints played in first run booths manned by trained, knowledgeable projectionists and after a year or more, they looked as good as when the film first opened (there is that legend about THE SOUND OF MUSIC playing the Rivoli in NYC for more than a year with a backup print sitting in the booth in the event that wear and tear would eventually require swapping the main print with the backup -- the backup was never was opened). So even this idea that film must degrade after the first showing is nothing but gibberish, yet it presented as fact, by people who should know better. And as Pat pointed out, at this juncture, longevity is the ONLY thing that DLP has over film, and even that is questionable.

(Edit) My mistake - the email Brad provided IS for the editor of Time.