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Author Topic: How much time left for film? John Rizzo Film Handler Posts: 37 From: Demarest, NJ, USA Registered: May 2002 posted 04-21-2008 08:24 PM                     Hello Gentleman I haven't been on this forum for a while but after reading all this digital cinema stuff it sure seems that film is on it way out very quickly, all these chains converting etc, can some one tell me how much longer 35mm film will still be being used in theaters?  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 04-21-2008 10:43 PM                     I don't think anyone knows for sure. For theaters in the United States, my guess is 35mm film prints may continue to be produced for at least the next 5 years or so. But after that new prints may be rare. This all depends on how fast the largest theater chains (Regal, AMC, etc.) convert to digital projection. It took Carmike over 2 years to get over 2000 screens converted. The process may take longer than that for the combined total of those larger chains unless more installers and technicians are hired. How many first run screens are currently operating in the United States? 30,000? 40,000? I'm pretty sure d-cinema is currently standing at around 15% of that total number of screens. Film projection will continue to be used in other countries for at least a few years longer. I believe the original photography for most movies will continue to be film-based over the next decade. Some filmmakers, such as Steven Spielberg have insisted they will keep shooting on film as long as film stock and film cameras are available. Video camera technology is improving, but needs to overcome certain limitations in order to be on par with both the look and resolution of high quality 35mm film photography.  |  IP: Logged Darryl Spicer Film God Posts: 3250 From: Lexington, KY, USA Registered: Dec 2000 posted 04-22-2008 02:11 PM                    I think they have to provide film till no one needs it anymore. It will just cost a pretty penny to get it. Probably to the point that you might as well be digital to off set the cost. So putting a date on that is not really possible. It should be how long will film be available in the area you live in. If everyone is digital in the area you live in then film is gone from theatres unless you still have a 35mm set up playing classics. That is until they take the best elements of the classics and put them on hard drives if that happens that is.  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 04-27-2008 07:43 AM                        At last year's AMIA conference, Kodak hosted a 'Kodak's Continued Support for Archival Film Media' panel. They assured us that the company had no plans to cease manufacturing any product line for which (what they argue is) an equivalent alternative doesn't exist. But during the Q & A session a few ominous points did emerge: 1. Many of the lower volume product lines (e.g. panchromatic b/w intermediate stock for printing seps, most colour negative stocks on 16mm and/or on a polyester base) are now special order only, with a production run happening only when enough orders have been accumulated to make one viable. In other words, unless you order at least a million feet, be prepared for a wait of several months. 2. Kodak are business planning on the assumption that 60% of cinemas worldwide will have gone digital by 2011, and that 80% of their turnover will come from digital imaging and related products and services by the end of that year. Regardless of the timescale, one thing is for clear, and that is that archivists are going to experience big problems, both in preservation and access. No way currently exists of archiving digital data long-term at the same cost/longevity ratio even with nitrate film. To a certain extent Moore's Law will inflate the problem away for the end result of digital preservation work carried out on 'born analogue' material, but for born digital, the data will expand to fill the space available. As intermediate and other specialist stocks used in preservation work either become unavailable or shoot up in price, more of that work is going to be carried out digitally. Where access is concerned, encoding the current viewing collections of the big archives for d-cinema (the BFI has 35mm viewing prints of around 100,000 hours of material, for example) is going to be a huge and expensive undertaking, and can probably only be carried out reactively. Meanwhile, as traditional film projection skills decline and the maintenance of 35mm installations starts to slip as the digital rollout gathers pace, the risk of damage to existing viewing copies will increase. My line of work is going to face some serious challenges in the next few years; that's for sure.  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 04-27-2008 01:13 PM                     I think the Blu-ray format will create a growing push for older movies to be treated similar to that of new movies: scanned, processed via digital intermediate and stored as 2K or possibly 4K files. The Blu-ray format is very revealing of flaws in older HD telecine methods for drafting content into HDTV formats. Some catalog titles have been released on Blu-ray using HD telecine derived transfers and the end result just isn't very impressive. When an old movie, such as The Searchers or 2001: A Space Odyssey is transferred to HD using the most modern techniques, with scanning and digital intermediate being central to that, the results end up looking better. Unfortunately this means a lot of previous "digital transfers" of movies will have to be trashed and redone. From what I've read, it appears Sony is spending some money for a completely new digital transfer of Lawrence of Arabia for its release onto Blu-ray in late 2008 or sometime in 2009. This situation raises all sorts of questions. Which classic movies will be restored and processed via digital intermediate? What quality level will be used in the process? 2K? 4K? Or even something better (particularly for 70mm & VistaVision movies)? Will the cost of this process rise or fall? Will newer technology make the process easier? I think a certain window of opportunity is also developing. Many older, classic films will have their best shot at being restored and digitally processed within the next few years. Computer processing power and data storage capability continues to grow. Tools for manipulating digital imagery files are continuing to improve. But that has to be balanced against eventual declines in film stock availability and rising prices of film. I'm certain that computer processing power and data storage capacity will be staggering by today's standards in 2015. But by that year it may be more and more difficult to take an old movie, do a film-based restoration and create a new film-based archival print. Hopefully the growing enthusiasm over Blu-ray and high definition viewing in general will help get as many classic films properly restored very soon. quote: Leo Enticknap No way currently exists of archiving digital data long-term at the same cost/longevity ratio even with nitrate film. People and businesses in all circles already shuttle lots of archival data from old modes of storage to new types of storage. Movie studios will just have to get into a habit of periodically creating new mirrored backups of files already stored on other discs. As hard discs and other methods of data storage continue to scale to larger capacities, and as computer speed continues to improve, it will become increasingly easy to dub copies of uncompressed 2K, 4K or greater sized digital movie files.  |  IP: Logged Gordon McLeod Film God Posts: 9532 From: Toronto Ontario Canada Registered: Jun 99 posted 05-02-2008 09:41 AM                     Bobby said"Movie studios will just have to get into a habit of periodically creating new mirrored backups of files already stored on other discs." Yah that is why large quantities of nitrate negs were permitted to decay with no backup made It just gets put on a shelf and forgotten  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 05-06-2008 11:40 PM                     quote: Darryl Spicer I think they have to provide film till no one needs it anymore. It will just cost a pretty penny to get it. Probably to the point that you might as well be digital to off set the cost. What will actually happen is that film prints ordered in smaller quantities will cost distribution alot more per print. Then distribution may think twice before they put that $4,000.00+ 35mm print at a marginal site. Those sites will then be beter off gong to digital. quote: Bobby Henderson I think the Blu-ray format will create a growing push for older movies to be treated similar to that of new movies: scanned, processed via digital intermediate and stored as 2K or possibly 4K files. No doubt that will happen and in fact it already has happened to a few films... Its the storing and being able to play back those 2K and 4K files in 50 or 75 years thats the big deal. Take a close look at the amount of data that NASA has lost over the years from digital tapes deterioating and not being properly stored. Also a digital storage medium that is universally acceptable needs to be adopted... and really I think its time to leave SMPTE in the dumpster on this... it'll take them forever and many more films will be lost while waiting on them. The main thing here is that equipment extant in 50 or 75 years has to be able to read or play back these archival files or the entire archival process will need to start all over again. Mark  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 05-07-2008 12:44 AM                     One of the keys to ensuring data remains compatible is by keeping certain companies (such as Microsoft) from trying to "own" the format completely. If one single company has dominant control over a certain data storage format they will be more free to fart around with it and cause compatibility problems with older versions. Ongoing legal efforts are begin made to establish Motion JPEG 2000 as an open source standard, but my understanding is certain legal hurdles tied to the previous JPEG format still exist. JPEG 2000 supports data lossless image storage along with many varying levels of lossy data compression. Obviously it's critical to make sure whatever media is used to store the data has good integrity and is stored to very high standards rather than just dumped on some shelf in a hot warehouse somewhere. I think studios will have to keep multiple, revolving copies of their most important titles. After a certain number of years, make a safety dub of the data. Additionally, they'll have to utilize higher quality modes of long term storage more often. There's former salt mines in Kansas and Missouri that are being used to store all sorts of very fragile things, from original negatives of classic movies to rare stamps. Valuable digital archive data can be stored in those places too. Temperature and humidity levels are more steady in those places than almost anywhere else. Even in the safest climates, no method of digital data storage is completely perfect. The trick is figuring out when it is necessary to make a new dub of the data.  |  IP: Logged Joe Redifer You need a beating today Posts: 12859 From: Denver, Colorado Registered: May 99 posted 05-07-2008 01:14 AM                        Someone told me today that all theaters would feature digital projection in about 16 months. I decided that he was being perhaps a tad optimistic (or pessimistic, depending on your point of view).  |  IP: Logged Mike Schulz Expert Film Handler Posts: 122 From: Los Angeles, CA Registered: May 2007 posted 05-07-2008 02:36 AM                     If the digital installation at my cinema is a sign of the future, then film will be around longer than you think. I find myself running film backup almost all of the time now which kinda defeats the purpose of going digital in the first place.  |  IP: Logged Dustin Mitchell Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1865 From: Mondovi, WI, USA Registered: Mar 2000 posted 05-07-2008 03:11 AM                     Gotta wonder which digital package you are using-we haven't had a lost digital show in months.  |  IP: Logged Mike Schulz Expert Film Handler Posts: 122 From: Los Angeles, CA Registered: May 2007 posted 05-07-2008 03:29 AM                     I would give you all of the details but I don't know how much I can say before I could get myself into trouble. I will just leave it at what I've already said. We've had nothing but trouble with our entire setup so far and it is all brand new, they installed everything just a couple of months ago.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 05-07-2008 07:30 AM                     We have digital customers that have never lost shows... ever... No matter who's equipment you have installed there it can and will run much more reliably than ANY film based gear can. Bobby, I gree that it needs to be some open source thing... the problem thogh is more storage and equipment related in the long haul... Will some computer needed to decode/playback these files still exist and even operate in 75 years time? And yes... those such as Microsoft and SMPTE should stay out. Studios already are used to keeping multiple archival copies on film at different places around the globe just in case of some catastrophe occuring. Mark  |  IP: Logged Mike Schulz Expert Film Handler Posts: 122 From: Los Angeles, CA Registered: May 2007 posted 05-07-2008 08:14 AM                     quote: Mark Gulbrandsen No matter who's equipment you have installed there it can and will run much more reliably than ANY film based gear can. Are you kidding me? I can't remember the last time one of our film projectors stopped in the middle of a show for no reason or froze or had audio go out of sync with the picture all of which have happened with our digitals in the past week. I am happy that your installations have gone smoothly and have had equipment perform flawlessly, but don't say that any digital setup will perform better than film, that is just not true at all. Don't believe me? Come visit my cinema for a week, or even a day for that matter and you are guaranteed to see something go wrong with one of our projectors  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 05-07-2008 10:38 AM                     It sounds to me like someone didn't set up the d-cinema system in your theater correctly. On the data storage topic, the ever changing kinds of media used to store data (not to mention the methods of cable connection) is a huge problem -perhaps an even bigger problem than data eventually going bad on a disc or tape. Even if the data on an old tape cartridge is still good, it may still be a complete loss if there are no compatible tape drives to read that kind of cartridge. This is the main reason why I have had to re-dub a lot of my art files over the years. Look at all the different kinds of data storage media that have come and gone over the last 20 years.  |  IP: Logged

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