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Topic: When was the last day 35 MM was run in your building?
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Edward Havens
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 614
From: Los Angeles, CA
Registered: Mar 2008
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posted 12-06-2011 06:26 PM
quote: Ramon Lamarca Marques
There are many people like myself who only like to see those films on film.
Which begs the question... how many of these older titles have you actually seen in digital? Because I was at the Academy's screening that premiered the 4K DCP of The Wizard of Oz two years ago, and I can tell you that a thousand people, whose jobs are directly linked to the production of motion pictures, and fans of classic cinema, had their damn jaws on the floor over the exquisite beauty and composition of the transfer. After the screening, I listened to conversations from Oscar-winning cinematographers who could not believe digital could so accurately capture the gloriousness of the film's Technicolor sequences. Now, none of us knew ahead of time this was going to be a digital print. In fact, this would be one the first times the Academy would project digital in the Samuel Goldwyn Theatre, and they had to bring in a Sony 4K projector just for this event (the theatre now has two Barco DP-3000s in the booth next to their 35/70 and 16mm equipment). Some people did boo at the announcement, and I myself was skeptical about the transfer... until I saw it with my own eyes. Even though I had worked with digital projectors for about three years at that point, that showing was the day I realized how much digital was no longer the future but the present, and it was high time to get on board 100%.
I have found over the past few years, from all the people I have dealt with in Los Angeles and now in the Bay Area, and on these boards, that those who are most opposed to digital cinema are the ones who have the most to lose by its becoming a reality. Which is totally understandable. But most of what I've read on these boards the past few years does not remotely compare to the personal experiences I have had with digital at the various locations I've been at for the past five years, using a myriad of servers and projectors and supporting equipment.
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 12-07-2011 05:04 AM
quote: Ian Parfrey
I'm thinking that 35mm's future will lie in legacy screenings of archival prints and those of Government film libraries &tc.
Archives around the world have made and continue to make a long-term commitment to film as a preservation medium for material that was originated on the format; largely because the science of film preservation is now reasonably well understood. Chemical analysis and accelerated aging tests have established pretty convincingly that in a cool and dry atmosphere, both cellulose ester (i.e. nitrate and all flavours of acetate) base decomposition and substantive coupler colour dye fading can be inhibited almost to the point of arrest. Until such time as a means is invented of storing digital data as reliably as that and for a comparable cost to that of atmospherically controlled film storage, film as a preservation mainstay is not going to change. Predictions that Moore's Law would inflate this problem out of existence have completely failed to materialise thus far. If anything the issue has got bigger, because higher resolution (and colour depth) scanners mean bigger files to archive.
As an access medium, however, I'm sorry to say it, but I'm less convinced that film has a significant long-term future. When the stuff stops being manufactured on a significant scale, a current assumption that archives make about their viewing prints (as distinct from preservation master elements) is that if they get damaged, they can always be replaced, albeit with a big bill involved. When we get to the stage at which they can't, archivists are going to start regarding their existing prints as master material as well. You can see why - the timing decisions, information outside the frame itself, etc. etc. are all primary evidence about how that film would have looked and sounded, especially if the print is an original release print that the archive has preserved, as distinct from one they have made themselves from preservation elements.
There are going to be cinematheques, rep houses and theatres attached to archives that will try to maintain their film projection capability for at least the next few years, not least because of the large volume of material that hasn't been scanned as yet. Doing so is neither simple or cheap: a 4K film scanner such as a Goldeneye or a Northlight costs six figures, and even the fastest scanners on the market take several hours to get through a 20-minute reel. That will probably come down, of course, but not overnight.
So if you're starting with a preserved title on film that has not yet been digitised, creating a DCP is at least a four-figure investment and possibly five. Of course once you've done that you can make extra copies virtually for nothing, and that's why it's the better known archive titles that are currently available in good quality digital. Putting the money into scanning, say, Casablanca, is more or less guaranteed to earn it back through DCP rentals, BD sales and broadcast/online sales, but not (to take a lesser known film from the same studio and time period) Mission to Moscow.
So, at least for the next 5-10 years, I would expect to see Mission to Moscow-type titles continuing to be shown on 35mm from the existing stock of archival prints, especially those held by non-profits. But within 20 years, I fear that the number of venues screening any film on a regular basis worldwide will be in the dozens at most.
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Ramon Lamarca Marques
Expert Film Handler
Posts: 186
From: Edgware, England, UK
Registered: Feb 2006
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posted 12-07-2011 02:48 PM
quote: Edward Havens
Which begs the question... how many of these older titles have you actually seen in digital?
I think the only 4K DCP of a classic title screened in the UK using a 4K projector (as far as I know) is Taxi Driver, which I have not seen. I saw the 4K DCP of the Bridge on the river Kwai but it was screened using a 2K DLP projector. The images were mostly very good, although I did not like how the night/dawn/sunset scenes looked, the blacks to my eyes were not deep enough.
I am just a member of the audience so I have nothing to lose with the disappearance of film from a financial point of view. It is obvious that there is a very important emotional element in me seeking those film screenings of classic titles. I have had very good experiences watching film and I like recreating that experience, this is why I am prepared to pay my money for film screenings like the example I gave of Cobra Woman's nitrate print. Right or wrong, I will not pay to see classics on 2K and this is my decision as a consumer. As to seeing them in 4K, I do not know, I have to see it first but DLP dark levels disappoint me, although I find Sony’s technology much better in that respect and I am sure someone in this forum will have comparative figures. I will hopefully see some 4K next year and then I will make my mind up. With its imperfections, I find the whole film experience extremely endearing for classic films. I grew up with it. From an experience point of view my brain seems to link seeing those classic films on a big screen as having to be projected on film and when they aren’t I am aware of it and this detracts from the experience a bit. I know that this is a completely subjective impression/experience, which seems to be shared by other people and I am sure there are others who do not share it.
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 12-09-2011 01:57 AM
quote: Jock Blakley
DOCTOR STRANGELOVE is also available in DCI 4K. We did a very good week with it, although I was disappointed by the noisiness of the picture.
A lot of it was shot on fast stock to enable more creative lighting use, and therefore the film is naturally quite grainy. When Sony did the digital transfer/restoration, the decision was made not to smooth out the grain digitally after scanning, in order to preserve the aesthetic of the original. There is a detailed discussion of the restoration in this book.
quote: Jock Blakley
The pattern we're seeing from studios and distributors is that rather than using D-Cinema to expand their catalogues by digitally releasing titles that would otherwise be unavailable, they're using D-Cinema to simply replace prints of already-available titles.
Technical issues aren't the only ones you have to think about when re-releasing an older title. Rights clearance is a huge one, especially for post-Paramount Decree Hollywood titles, in which the original contracts will be a spider's web of licences and agreements between actors, directors, the other creatives and technicians involved, independent studios, banks who put up loans for the initial production, distributors, broadcasters etc. The chances are that if the lawyers have already done the unpicking needed to enable a title to be re-released in 35mm, then there is little or no legal barrier to a DCP. But if they haven't...
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 12-10-2011 04:54 AM
quote: Jock Blakley
I can take grain, but there's a difference between grain and noise, or at least there is to my eyes. Plus I was comparing to an original trailer and parts of an original print. Of course given what happened to that title's negatives than the current job might be best that can be done - and noisy detail is better than a china-doll-smooth detail-free image.
Interesting - when I saw that DCP the artefacts struck me as being simply a rendering of the original film grain. Maybe differences in the servers and/or projectors we saw it on made a difference. Another factor I'd speculate might be in play is that a 4K scanner simply 'reads' the grain structure of the film element far more accurately than even contact printing. In this case what we're seeing is a direct scan of the camera negative with minimal processing in the digital domain afterwards, apart from the compression involved in encoding the DCP; whereas any 35mm release print is going to be at least three generations away from it (original > FGIP > IN > print), with one of those printing generations having been done optically to incorporate effects. I noticed that the grainy aesthetic was different from any print of Strangelove I'd seen before, but put it down to the fact that before DCPs came along, it was simply not possible to see such an accurate rendition of what was captured on the camera negative.
quote: Jock Blakley
WRT rights: That's a valid point, although my statement leant more towards the ignoring of titles that are already cleared theatrically but completely out of print.
Marketing costs proving to be a disincentive? With the exception of iconic titles that are always going to pull an audience (I'm talking Citizen Kane or It's a Wonderful Life territory), virtually all the theatrical archive rereleases here are distributed either by non-profits, e.g. the British Film Institute, or small businesses that are run for love rather than money (Artificial Eye). Even if it's low key and just to the arthouse circuit, there are costs involved in distributing any film: posters, trailers, the censor certificate, hiring a PR agency to take journalists and the producers of radio and TV film review shows out to lunch and persuade them to cover your film, etc. etc. Sadly, I'm guessing that many of the titles that are considered viable for a niche market, high value DVD or BD release (i.e. to the small minority of fans who are willing to pay Criterion ballpark prices), just don't have enough of a theatrical market for their distributors to be willing to take the risk.
Incidentally, on the subject of Australia, I saw the Australian National Film and Sound Archive's BD of Wake in Fright last night. Beautiful restoration, but, erm, kangaroo burgers anyone?! ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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) I can take grain, but there's a difference between grain and noise, or at least there is to my eyes. Plus I was comparing to an original trailer and parts of an original print. Of course given what happened to that title's negatives than the current job might be best that can be done - and noisy detail is better than a china-doll-smooth detail-free image.
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