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This topic comprises 4 pages: 1 2 3 4
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Topic: Last can of Taken 2
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Ramon Lamarca Marques
Expert Film Handler
Posts: 186
From: Edgware, England, UK
Registered: Feb 2006
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posted 02-10-2013 07:38 AM
quote: Jonathan Wood
Years ago before I started shooting, I went for an interview for a TK grader at the BBC in London. I went happily through the initial technical selection process and then I came face to face with a panel of BBC dinosaurs who asked me what I thought about pan and scan. This was the 80's - the age of 4:3 TV's and before the vogue of showing letterboxed films, and I genuinely hated seeing anamorphic films pan and scanned , so I said I thought that films shot anamorphically should be transferred in a letter box format. They looked at me as if I were from Mars and quietly asked me if that meant I wouldn't be intending to use the millions of pounds worth of new pan and scan TK equipment they had just installed? How times have changed.
Good for you! I remember when a group of people, including myself, started complaining and putting pressure on TV channels in Spain in the 80s so they would stop the atrocity of pan/scan. They told us that the big American studios would not provide them with letterbox versions. After a lot of complaining and a celebrated manifesto in Barcelona signed by many famous film directors the issue of presenting a film as the director intended was addressed. I remember the first time the Spanish TV apologised for showing a film in pan/scan, The Adventures of Quentin Durward, they said the letterbox version had not arrived in time and promised to show it properly later on, as they did. That change came about because the TV general director was a film director herself, Pilar Miró. Nowadays people are watching academy aspect ratio films deformed so they fit their widescreen TV! It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad World!
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Manny Knowles
"What are these things and WHY are they BLUE???"
Posts: 4247
From: Bloomington, IN, USA
Registered: Feb 2002
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posted 02-10-2013 12:04 PM
It's clear we agree on many things.
Just about the only thing we seem to disagree on is this: I always hated film's inherent shortcomings -- dust, dirt, scratches, splices, and you embrace them.
Other factors that turned me off of film -- not inherent to the medium, but still beyond my control -- Digital Intermediaries (DI) and ultra-high-speed printing. At this point, 2K delivers a better image than we were getting with film for the past two decades or so.
I also hate color fade. Now, I'm NOT accusing anyone (here) of liking this -- but it is an old problem that remains relevant to me, because I screen a lot of repertory titles which were affected by it. And the people who sit through these shows are the ones who supposedly love film. I guess when they profess their love of "film" they're talking about the medium itself, and not the art form. And I guess the love is unconditional -- as long as it's on film, that's all that matters.
For me, the characters and the story are the top priority. Not the medium itself. The more defective the print, the more I am reminded/aware of the medium. The more I'm reminded of the medium, the more I'm distracted from what matters most to me.
"Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least." (said by Goethe?)
And then there's the decline of real projectionists. My observation is that presentation quality improved when cinemas got converted. At least, the ones I've been to -- which is a lot of cinemas in a few different cities and states (Southern California, New York, Indiana and Florida). Note that I didn't say things are perfect, just improved. But noticeably, appreciably improved.
Now, I know this will make me seem like an insensitive prick, but...
A few rhetorical questions:
Of the projectionists who lost their jobs because of the transition to digital, how many of them were real "career" projectionists, working full-time (40 hours) as a projectionist, with no other duties (i.e. box office, concession, usher, manager)?
How many of them were any good to begin with?
How many were far from retirement age (under 60)?
How many of them simply "quit" rather than learn and master the new technology?
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Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!
Posts: 12814
From: Annapolis, MD
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 02-10-2013 01:00 PM
Manny,
One thing in your "discussions" about digital vs. film you don't seem recognize is that what is imported to some people in the image may not be as important to others. The dust and the occasional scratch that grates on you like fingernails on a chalkboard do not affect others in the same way. The stair-step lines, the lack of depth, the lack of resolution of 2K digital, the lack of contrast range grate on others. It isn't so cut and dried as to what is so important to each individual.
While, I'll grant you that in the last 10-years, film prints have been a poor representation of what film can be, going back 20-years, film prints were generally superior, image wise to what 2K digital is. While you could still point out the bad print or that yes color stability between reels is not as good as digital is today...if you look at all criteria of "quality" film is likely to win. Go back 30-years film is going to win in even more categories...except color fade if it was made on Eastman stock. Go back 40-years and film wins in a slam-dunk (except in the color fade...unless it was IB). And in ANY decade, an EK print beats the pants off of digital.
But again, each person has the things they think make something better/worse, as a medium. Personally, I prefer the film look, perhaps from upbringing, perhaps digital's shortcomings are more grating to me than the film's shortcomings. Oddly enough, one of the things I'm really happy digital has done away with is the strobing associated with the shutter itself. As such, I prefer 3-wing shutters for film...if you can get the light!
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Manny Knowles
"What are these things and WHY are they BLUE???"
Posts: 4247
From: Bloomington, IN, USA
Registered: Feb 2002
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posted 02-10-2013 02:20 PM
Steve, I'll readily accept nearly all of that.
But, frankly, I don't care if anyone loves, likes, or isn't offended by the dust, dirt, etc. The point is that those flaws aren't supposed to be there. It's a down-side of film that I'm glad to be rid of. When I run film, I accept those defects as a reality over which I possess a limited degree of power, but I refuse to embrace such flaws. Or, worse, defend them.
If those were the only issues, I might be more resistant to digital. But those aren't the only issues. The problem includes what happened to prints in too many instances. I've seen very bad damage during opening weekend. And I've seen even worse if I waited longer to see the movie. And I saw this with such regularity that I finally decided to just buy a Bluray player.
I think the situation had slipped to the point where, to me, digital seems better. You're right -- it *seems* better than where film was when it died. It seems a lot better.
Could it improve? Sure, why not?
I'm not saying 2K is where it's at. But I suspect the reason we ended up with "only" 2K is most likely that the situation had been allowed to slip to a point where digital didn't really *need* to be any better than that to compete with film, such as it was. If print making and film presentation quality had remained the same since 40 years prior -- or had improved over that time-frame -- we'd need a better digital standard to compete with that.
It's always been my understanding that the digital transition was actually more about money than quality. If it was primarily about quality -- who knows!? -- we might have started out at 8K.
Ben -- yes, my thinking was globally-limited -- but even the best projectionist is compromised when the print is no-good.
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Brent Francis
Film Handler
Posts: 84
From: Toronto Ontario Canada
Registered: Nov 2008
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posted 02-11-2013 02:09 PM
"Of the projectionists who lost their jobs because of the transition to digital, how many of them were real "career" projectionists, working full-time (40 hours) as a projectionist, with no other duties (i.e. box office, concession, usher, manager)?"
Speaking as a professional for 25 years, who worked in a lab with other dedicated professionals who worked 24/7 to give you lot the best quality prints, I can assure you a LOT of people lost a vocation, not a job. Four in my department alone.
Also, spare a thought for us lab people who were caught in the middle between a desire for the best picture possible and the bottom line. As production got less, it cost more to replace prints. (Losing 1 in a 200 print run is OK. In a 5 print run...). Ditto replacing equipment.
People did care. And DO. But ultimately, it's a business.. run like any other business in this 21st century.
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Connor Wilson
Expert Film Handler
Posts: 190
From: Sterling, VA, USA
Registered: Jan 2011
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posted 03-09-2013 11:39 PM
quote: Monte L Fullmer
I saw the HD for "Lincoln" and it was 2k content
Um. The DCP of "Lincoln" was actually in 4K, as you can tell in this thread. The film was shot in 3-perf Super 35, which is nowhere near as detailed as anamorphic 35mm and looked somewhat better than the 4K DCP of the digitally-shot "Skyfall" (even though I watched "Lincoln" on a smaller screen). No aliasing I remember, as this was a clean presentation in Barco 4K and Dolby 7.1 at the Cobb Village 12, auditorium #2.
I think there is a loss of "film printing done right" in the industry with the push of digital and cheaper, low-res digital intermediates which creates the illusion that digital is "better." I still have faith in film, and here's why:
I saw a 35mm print of "The Dark Knight Rises" at the Avalon and it blows 2K D-Cinema out of the water. The fact that a DI wasn't used for the movie possibly beats even 4K. All photochemical editing and the IMAX sequences taken from 8K scans (and of course, not looking as good as they did in a 15/70mm IMAX).
So am I saying 35mm is better? In rare moments and in few aspects, yes. I think anamorphic 35mm film yields slightly better resolution than 5K and films shot in that format can use a photochemical finish for maximum quality, but I think Super 35 films look better on a digital intermediate.
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Justin West
Master Film Handler
Posts: 271
From: Peoria, IL, USA
Registered: Jul 2001
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posted 03-10-2013 11:42 AM
quote: Brent Francis
Also, spare a thought for us lab people who were caught in the middle between a desire for the best picture possible and the bottom line. As production got less, it cost more to replace prints. (Losing 1 in a 200 print run is OK. In a 5 print run...). Ditto replacing equipment.
People did care. And DO. But ultimately, it's a business.. run like any other business in this 21st century.
Brent: I hear you, this changeover is costing a lot of people their "career" jobs. Not only projectionists but the folks who manufacture film, process film, print it, warehouse it, deliver it, run it, and so on. As the demand for film drops, the pressure is on for the companies involved to cut costs and cutting labor is a savings...but quality suffers as a result as the few people who remain must pick up the slack. I don't blame you for the losses in quality control, management and the almighty dollar are forcing your hand. I'm sure the studios and their reduced orders are forcing the labs' and distributors' hands. We are witnessing the death throes of 35mm...and it is not pretty.
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