Comments on: Will digital ever replace film?

By: digital camera

digital camera — Tue, 18 Jul 2006 12:54:39 +0000

always will stay a lot of ppl faithfull to old good cam with good old photo film. not a bunch of preferences and other positives will enlighten them to gave up it. romanticism? conservatism? :)

By: Charles Scalfani

Charles Scalfani — Sat, 22 Apr 2006 16:52:38 +0000

Digital cinema is a disruptive technology. The studios will be distributing movies digitally so skipping the whole film process will save them a bundle. So when film is shot and scanned digitally for archival and distribution purposes, you can expect that every frame will be 4K in size. There are digital video cameras that shoot 4K being developed as I type this and by the time you read this, youâ€™ll be able to get one, albeit at considerable cost.

With HDTV making inroads into the home, people will be used to the grainless imagery of High Def video. Film will begin to look archaic and moviegoers will soon (read 5 to 10 years) embrace digital media as will the studios and theater owners.

By: Derek

Derek — Fri, 22 Jul 2005 17:24:45 +0000

One thing to remember is that despite the costs, digital projectors are proving more enticing since there appears to be the growing trend in 3-D and animation. Now that those films have a vialble outlet, it’s making more economic sense to start making the switch to digital projectors, hence an increase in shooting in digital.

By: Andrew James

Andrew James — Fri, 22 Jul 2005 04:18:33 +0000

I think what you will find is a blending of these two mediums. Now that digital intermediates are coming down in price, allowing for movies like City of God, Amelie, and Oh Brother Where Art Thou and hundreds of others to be shot on film but digitized and printed from a digitized edit (rather than a negative), you will see more movies taking advantage of the best of both worlds: film origination, but with digital flexibility.

For example, Aaton's little 16mm camera called the A-Minima (used in City of God) is being marketed, interestingly enough, as an HD camera -- although clearly it is a film camera. Why? Because its size and workflow is just like HD but it takes advantage of the incredible new strengths in 16mm film stocks and the assumption that filmmakers will shoot cheaply on 16mm but ultimately for HD purposes. And indeed this is exactly what City of God did, and they were nominated for a cinematography Oscar.

Film looks amazing, and digitized film looks even better, cleaner, and with greater color correction control.

Even 16mm film is far beyond digital video and probably will be for a long time. Remember, just as video is getting better... so too is film.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Sat, 04 Jun 2005 02:59:35 +0000

I don’t think that digital projection necessarily means the end of film because I think the best of both worlds is to: shoot on film, do a nice telecine or high-end scan, do all your digital effects and titles (if needed) on your nonlinear system, and then output it to a file format or tape format that will be in turn projected in the theater. This is a much cheaper pipeline both for studios and for independents. The digital versus film question then becomes an aesthetic and economic decision. I think people who prefer the aesthetic of film will still shoot film though.

By: Trevor

Trevor — Fri, 03 Jun 2005 15:58:56 +0000

But Maxivision is a 500% better picture than the currently superior film and in the long run about 50 times less expensive for theater owners than digital systems. Plus they don’t have to scrap the old system so they can show the majority of cinemas being produced as well as those shot on Maxivision. Current projectors last for 20 some odd years but digital projectors are outdated with-in 2 to 5 years. It seems to be the business of “making filmmaking easier” dueling against the business of “showing films for profit”. And the best picture for the least amount of money is probably going to win.

By: Sylvain

Sylvain — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

Thank’s, John! Wait ’til the audience gets HDTV and full bandwidth streaming of top-notch digital productions right in the comfort of their homes… it will indirectly signal the rush to “TRUE” cinema’s wide-screen projection magic. Aaaahh, the amazing quality we’re now capable of; The medium is improving by the day, in fact!

By: McKormick Astley

McKormick Astley — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

What about Maxivision 48. I’ve never seen it but heard that it is better, sharper and clearer than digital and the projectors are far cheaper. Also, the projectors can show regular film as well. What do you know about it?

By: John

John — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

Maxivision is a film system which uses a wider format and runs at 48 frames per second, as opposed to the usual 24 fps. I’ve never seen it demonstrated, but apparently it looks great. “It’s so much better than film or video,” says Roger Ebert, which is perplexing — because it is film.

My hunch — and I’m happy to be proven wrong — is that it will never catch on. In order to run at 48 fps, each Maxivison movie is actually twice as large as normal prints, when the great goal of digital projection was to elimate the cost and burden of film prints. Even if the picture is sharper, there’s not enough incentive for studios or distributors to make the switch.

By: Nate Downes

Nate Downes — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

Untrue, Maxivision is not twice as large as normal prints. The reason why is that it eliminates a lot of the wasted space found in a traditional 35mm frame, much like how Super8 and Super16 work. As 35mm has a narrower aspect ratio than both Super8 and Super16, this new form actually means that 48fps (which is only 1 mode of 2 for Maxivision) is only 50% larger than the traditional 24fps film. If you run Maxivision at 24fps (the other mode) you actually get a 75% smaller film. And you can switch between the modes on the fly, thanks to digital control technology. So use 48fps for action scenes, 24fps for the rest of it. Also, Maxivision has eliminated the optical sound track, a holdover from the 30’s that is no longer necessary thanks to modern digital sound systems, allowing the frame to be wider. End result, you get a 40% larger frame while using 25% less film for the same number of frames.

By: John

John — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

Thanks, Nate, for your thoroughness. I think Maxivision has done a smart job optimizing existing film technology, but I still doubt we will see many theaters switch over. It doesn’t offer the economic incentives digital distribution does.