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Author Topic: Side by Side: The Impact of Digital Cinematography (2012) Mark Ogden Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 943 From: Little Falls, N.J. Registered: Jun 99 posted 08-21-2012 11:00 PM                     Keanu Reeves produced and appears in this documentary that traces the rise of digital cinematography from the invention of the first solid-state imager to the development of the Red Epic and the Arriflex Alexa, and how this has impacted the industry as a whole. **** This is a mostly fair and balanced look at the movement towards all things digital in the movie business, but I’m not sure that was what was intended by the filmmakers. You get the feeling from Reeves’ many leading questions that he intended the picture to be pro-film, but that he couldn’t get any of the many industry professionals he interviewed to go along with it. What he wound up with is a surprisingly pro-digital love-fest from industry players that seem only too happy to embrace the technology. As you may expect, George Lucas, James Cameron, Robert Rodriguez and David Fincher weigh in on the pro-digital side, as well as various editors and colorists, some of whom were old-school film types who “came around”, so to speak. Cameron repeats overwrought film-horror stories (“Prints of Titanic were literally falling apart in the projectors!” he insists), and Martin Scorsese complains about color shifts between film reels, which he seems to think is an issue with bulbs. There is considerable discussion about the fifth and sixth Star Wars movies and whether the digital camera technology at the time was up to the task, and there is a lengthy segment about the photographic philosophy of Slumdog Millionaire, and why it was shot the way it was. The pro-film folks have their say as well; Vilmos Zsigmond, Christopher Nolan and his D.P. Wally Pfister lead the film charge, although unfortunatly the way the film is edited by the time they get their word in all the digital rah-rah makes them look like a bunch of Luddites. Most of the film types wind up admitting that digital has come a long way from a dubious start, and Pfister eventually states that he will someday shoot a movie digitally, but he doesn’t look at all happy about the prospect. The question of the archival permanence of digital is raised, but not resolved. I very much appreciated the film’s closing moments, where the interviewees echo something that I have felt along: that at the end of the day, it makes no difference how the film is made or shown, only that people get to see it. Hear hear!  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 09-02-2012 09:05 PM                     After much anticipation, I finally got to see this documentary. I think Mark's review above is pretty much on the mark. I was a bit disappointed only that the title implied a side-by-side sort of presentation when in fact it really was a look at the PRODUCTION side of the DCinema equation and how it it relates to those that craft a movie. It deals VERY little with the presentation of the movie and mostly restates what most of the "news" presents as the virtues of digital presentations. It does show how most film makers have very little connection to the presentation at the theatre level. In an odd twist, the movie implies that the DP's job is now becoming less important or less valued (for better or for worse and some definitely point out the worse part). In the film work flow...I didn't realize how much the DP is depended up on to know just what will actually be on the negative (details, exposure...everything) since one does not find out for 24-hours in reality, a director really depends on that DP to tell them what will really be there. With digital, ANYONE can tell what is really going to be there...right when it is shot. There is also the cautionary tale of the cheapening of the business. That is, as the cost of making movies goes down, and thus the accessibility of making movies goes up, the quality of the movies made will likely go down as fewer "professionals" (for lack of a better word) will be making the movies. The lines of amateur and professional will get blurred. This has already been seen in other industries. Then again, while Hollywood has kept much of its technical expertise (except the stupid use of Shakycam)...it writing talent seems to have never recovered from the writer's strike of yesteryear. I give it a 2 out of 4 stars.  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 09-02-2012 11:36 PM                     While I'm reading this A Very Harold and Kumar 3D Christmas is playing on HBO (in 2D) and it screams that it was shot on video but has the RGB color muted in the same old typical half-assed attempt at imitating the film look. I'll say it again to the video fans: if video is really so great why not keep the video looking like video? No one better tell me that shooting in 24 frames per second is enough to make some video stuff look like film. I can shoot great looking 1080p/24 material with my Canon EOS 5D Mark II and despite the 24 frames per second rate it still looks like video. All sorts of post processing stuff has to happen to get any electronic camera footage looking like film. Sometimes it looks pretty good and in the case of what I'm seeing on HBO right now they might as well left it looking like the 6 o'clock news or a daytime soap opera. Eventually electronic cameras will outdo what film can do in terms of capturing image detail. Even in the large format space. But it's still video. Not film. If video is really so fucking great why not leave the video looking like fucking video? RGB electronic footage has a wider gamut range than film. Isn't that better? Why mute it?  |  IP: Logged David M. Leugers Film Handler Posts: 43 From: Fairfield, Ohio, united States of America Registered: Jan 2005 posted 10-15-2012 01:09 AM                     Well said, Bobby. I used to have a subscription to American Cinematographer magazine for a few decades going back into the 1970's. I have always been a fan of great cinematography. It is amazing the amount of diffusion that DP's often used to take an edge off the sharpness of the image on film even with the old film stocks. Video proponents only talk about resolution and sharpness. Film had and still has way more to offer. Actors look so much better shot on film. I almost laugh when I see a show on TV that used to be shot on film and now with the video production it is obvious the men actors are wearing lots of makeup! Destroys the suspension of disbelief...  |  IP: Logged Manny Knowles "What are these things and WHY are they BLUE???" Posts: 4247 From: Bloomington, IN, USA Registered: Feb 2002 posted 10-18-2012 10:46 AM                     quote: Bobby Henderson if video is really so great why not keep the video looking like video? Don't be silly. If it is video, then it looks like video. Video isn't limited to just one look. Just what is "video" supposed to look like? Should it look like VHS, Hi-8, DVD or mini-DV? Those are all "video." There's a world of difference between amateur formats and digital cinema. As was true with film, video doesn't have just one "look." And this is true even if we only consider one film stock, or one video format. Did you intentionally choose the word "video" to associate digital cinema with *all* video, including (and maybe especially) home-video? This is no different from the media continually referring to film as "celluloid" in an attempt to make it sound quaint and outdated, and long-overdue for replacement. It's wrong when they do it to film, and it's wrong when you do it to digital cinema.  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 10-18-2012 12:34 PM                     Video does not naturally have the film look. Not even if it is shot at 24 frames per second. In its native electronic RGB color model mode footage from any video camera will still have that afternoon soap opera look. It doesn't matter if it's somebody's home video camera or some expensive Panavision Genesis rig. The original footage is still going to have that soap opera or six o'clock news look to it. It's video. Not film. Video footage must be post processed using various filters or techniques in order to imitate the look of film. There are two problems with this approach. 1. It's pretentious. 2. It degrades the quality of the footage. Color fidelity and contrast are both affected when you take the RGB-based footage and twist it into something that's pretending to be a subtractive YCM-based thing. If video is really so much better than film then the folks pushing video really need to embrace video for what it is, including leaving its native wide gamut color model intact. When a videographer trashes film, but shoots video and tries to make the footage look like film he's, putting it nicely, being very contradictory. Or putting it bluntly, just coming off like he's full of shit.  |  IP: Logged

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