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Author
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Topic: Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood 70mm/35mm release?
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Marcel Birgelen
Film God
Posts: 3357
From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands
Registered: Feb 2012
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posted 09-03-2019 03:57 AM
It's been a while, but I remember that the shaking wasn't just in the title-card, but also in the opening scene itself. Since it seemed to be much worse than I remembered from the 4K DCP screening, I blamed the venue at first.
I've seen the 35mm version of OUaTiH in that same theater now, and I've also seen some shaking in the image, but now there was subtitling added to that particular scene. The subtitling remained rock-steady, so whatever it was, it was in the film, before they added the subtitling. From the looks of it, it was laser-etched, probably directly into this particular print. (I doubt there is more than one in circulation with Dutch subtitles.)
I've also seen OUaTiH in Dolby Cinema and although the screen wasn't masked for scope (really Dolby?), I liked the look of that presentation more than the nostalgia laden 35mm show. For whatever it is worth, film never looked better, projected digitally...
Deep blacks, the lack of flicker from a shutter and both bright and saturated colors. Uncompressed digital audio. What do we want more?
Maybe we're really a bit too nostalgic here. Film could look absolutely fabulous when done right and still outperforms digital in some aspects, but let's be honest, most screenings that people got to see were mass-produced strips of polyester that were produced as cheaply as possible, only to end up in the shredder a few weeks later. Films were often threaded by the same guy who handled the popcorn and looked like they had been dragged through the mud after barely a week of usage. If you were lucky, the lamp in the machine was somewhat fresh and halfway steady and the digital sound and most of the sound channels actually worked. Yes, I'm exaggerating somewhat... well, mostly, but things weren't always so rosy in the past.
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Jean-Pierre Gutzeit
Film Handler
Posts: 43
From: Berlin, Berlin, Germany
Registered: Nov 2012
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posted 09-03-2019 06:56 AM
The "nervous opening title" i THE HATEFUL8 is certainly an ironic replica: actually a good idea. It was discussed whether the funds he used could credibly represent the "erroneous look" of some failed Techniscope productions, especially the late days in the Technicolor labs(Italy for example).
Ten years ago, his 35mm Eastman original negative of INGLORIOUS BASTERDS was processed in this city (at a Calda Negative developer), especially as he also shot in neighboring Potsdam-Babelsberg and was definitely looking for contacts with the lab staff. Camera work and exposure of the negative, I was completely fine, the film prints also.
Also, his ambitious and original featurette leaves "What Is 'The Hateful 8' Roadshow?" (I am unsure to post a link here) to close to enthusiasm for attractive large-format or roadshows. I did not expect an identical renaissance, but modestly only good qualities based on the available possibilities. A filmmaker alone does not create a renaissance. A large number of filmmakers would have to join in, already in order to get a handle on the conditions of the film developments (which were predictable ten years ago). There is, fortunately, even a consensus here.
Maybe he wanted to exceed the results of common 4K standards with the choice of the 65mm format? That should give the OCN also partially. What came afterwards, has already been discussed sufficiently, because I was not granted such a deluxe sighting, and the Blu-ray Disc for the home cinema nerds disappointed a lot, too.
It is fair to work towards what can be improved with existing funds. Far more direct and precise than me @Steve Guttag has written comments on this. The deciding factor in his contributions is that the noticed, confused scene balances (which, consciously or unconsciously, are perceived by the general public as irritating) are all correctable! (Please no further comments on the excessive costs of the check prints. You are right). The Color Timing has not disappeared, not even the work of the Focus Puller. The production companies could work towards that.
But I am very surprised that such observations are not shared, supported or supplemented accordingly. Could it be that an anticipatory gratitude led to a relativization of perception? This also explains the emotionally divergent attitudes, which are characterized on all sides by fear, the existence of the photochemical film could be endangered by inappropriate ratings and criticism. But what would be, who sooner the opposite must be assumed: if permanent dubious print become the rule. Is it easier for the home cinema industry to attack the cinema industry with their post-corrected products? Film prints have a lasting function and as the original format are the most important commodity of the festival. The best possible film prints should prevent film festival guests from enjoying themselves on Youtube or on consumer discs. Not a small number of former film lab colleagues, film friends and former 35mm collectors have turned away from the public film screening. Therefore, it is urgent to make strong in defense of just the 70mm film with its special claim and considerable potential and to seek contact with those responsible.
As a lack of optimismus was denounced:
Very commendable is the ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLWOOD in 35mm the excellent picture steadiness and the very clean image. Here, the satisfaction with the current labs work compared to the last years of the now closed labs (mass printing for multiplexes) was mentioned more often, as @ Scott Norwood cited. I assume OUATIH it's a wetgate print?
From a distance, I could never translate the term "showprint" into our countrie's language, because it seems is also country-specific. At premieres, for example, we did not do any dry contact copying via the panel printer at 960 feet, but copied it in the wetgate process with 240 feet and light values changed to the household needs. Nevertheless, of course, with American blockbusters from I.N. (Dupnegativ in our language). This is probably comparable to the American showprints.
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Emiel De Jong
Film Handler
Posts: 48
From: Geldrop The Netherlands
Registered: Mar 2007
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posted 09-03-2019 07:25 AM
quote: Marcel Birgelen
I've also seen OUaTiH in Dolby Cinema and although the screen wasn't masked for scope (really Dolby?), I liked the look of that presentation more than the nostalgia laden 35mm show. For whatever it is worth, film never looked better, projected digitally...
I saw OUaTiH in Dolby Cinema too (in Eindhoven...) and I agree it was good. There were no flaws picturewise that distracted me and I never had the feeling that I "missed" something. That's a first for me since digital took over, but I admit that doesn't say much since I almost never visited a commercial cinema anymore in the last 7 years.
I didn't check out the 35mm playing in Amsterdam (Eye Dutch Filmmuseum) but I saw their advertisement for it and that is I think a perfect example of where it goes wrong (knowing this 35mm is from 4k DI) when discussing in mainstream media the merits of both photochemical and digital; some quotes: (translation by myself....)
-Watching the newest Tarantino on 35mm is no false nostalgia. The main reason: this is the format Tarantino meant the movie to be seen in.
-A fresh 35mm print equals 6K in the digital world, while most movies are shown digitally in 2K.
-That, and the rich analog colors (colors are more lively, the black is darker), plus the beauty of the gritty filmgrain, make a unique cinematographic experience. Film like film is meant to be.
-Why Tarantino likes analog projection? It's best to let himself explain: "When you shoot film you are not recording movement, but a sequence of still images. When you move 24 of those in front of a lightsource that creates the illusion of movement. So when you watch an analog film you are looking at an illusion. And for me that illusion is connected to the magic of movies."
(For the record: I never implied that Quentin himself really said that in this context...) Link to the advertisement, Dutch only:
https://www.eyefilm.nl/over-eye/nieuws/waarom-je-once-upon-a-time…-in-hollywood-op-35mm-moet-zien
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Jean-Pierre Gutzeit
Film Handler
Posts: 43
From: Berlin, Berlin, Germany
Registered: Nov 2012
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posted 09-03-2019 09:15 AM
Maybe we're really a bit too nostalgic here. Film could look absolutely fabulous when done right and still outperforms digital in some aspects,
So I admire cinematic and analog high performances in the past and present.
That was certainly the reason for Messrs Nolam, Abrams, Tarantino, Anderson and others to keep this valuable technology alive.
The shredding of individual films in cinemas can easily be avoided and is not an final argument against analog projection, especially since the majority of DLP theaters operating worldwide with often low contrast and silver screens created new widespread flaws.
The Estar-Stock helped the mechanical life extension, but had other disadvantages.
Unfortunately, until a few years ago, a large proportion of the 35mm films scanned and post-produced via Digital Intermediate since 1999 have revealed clear distortions and "crossings" in colour balance. I will not name individual companies and equipment.
Examples: orange fleshtones and blueish grey tones. It was absolutely impossible to either correct the grey halfway neutrally or to counter-correct the fleshtones without accepting discolorations of the grey areas.
The whole dilemma continued in the DCPs or Blu-ray Discs versions.
This could also have been a reason why not only the above-mentioned filmmakers who were still active on the market suddenly fell out of the clouds with their 35mm or 70mm dailies, how good intact film material looks if it is not digitized.
So far, in my opinion, it has not been possible in everything to maintain the claim of analogue film to analogue theatrical copies in recent years. Even the demands to no longer printing off the original negative and to increasingly accept "filmouts" represent a contradiction to previous promises and statements of the above filmmakers.
Up to now I have had little interest in filmouts and urgently support the direct printing of intact negatives for the already few venues.
The film historical monuments LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, MY FAIR LADY, SPARTACUS and VERTIGO have also been massively upgraded, albeit for the friends of the digital world. Others more known than me are the retouching of layer splinters in the original negative ("LoA") or a fading correction ("Spartacus"). It had to be restored for all to see and not just printed again.
James C. Katz and Robert Harris (since NAPOLČON) were the first to achieve the international commercial breakthrough for a broad public in film restoration, and they also achieved success in the film theatre scene again with re-run copies. And on the broad exploitation level it is certainly only practicable to use internegative pinting. Unfortunately, the state archives have been less successful in doing this due to a lack of public relations work.
Independently, I would like to be able to make uncensored and unpunished comparisons on the basis of these and other film prints that we have to fall back on at today's film festivals now and later. For the future of the 70mm film it would be interesting to be able to reference some features in top condition, from a purely technical point of view and to prove that a new printing or restoration was always preceded by an original. The available and suitable material exists depressingly little, today's festivals have to be organized with very extremely different examples, whereas 70mm festivals from the mid-1970s could still offer very similar looking films and film prints - the original roadshow prints.
This would be the chance for the festivals to devote themselves to the lectures and documentations of the changes in production practice, to make film comparisons popular without devaluing the uniqueness of their own elaborate equipment and also the value of expensive film prints (and misprints). One could juxtapose a newly copied version with an old film reel at the end of the performance. Comparisons and exclusive performance variants that are only possible in dedicated film theatres. Such knowledge transfer can easily outweigh the "disadvantages" of aged materials or insufficient DCPs and motivate new and repeated film restorations, also in the form of fundraising.
This is all the more important as a cultural break has taken place since the times of the DVD and at the same time the documentary section has moved to the category of bonus materials. Personally, I would regret it if cinema marketing were to transfer film screenings to the realm of the untouchable myth. Sometimes the whirl in the format announcements is astonishing. Until the mid-1960s, apart from a few logos for "CinemaScope", we rarely find such imposed format advertising as we do today, and that at a time when negatives were still completely intact and venues even more numerous with curved panorama screens.
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Marcel Birgelen
Film God
Posts: 3357
From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands
Registered: Feb 2012
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posted 09-03-2019 07:57 PM
quote: Emiel De Jong
"When you shoot film you are not recording movement, but a sequence of still images. When you move 24 of those in front of a lightsource that creates the illusion of movement. So when you watch an analog film you are looking at an illusion. And for me that illusion is connected to the magic of movies."
I do get Tarantino's nostalgia, but ironically, there's nothing essentially different from what he describes as the magic of movies between the analog and the digital process. If you shoot your movie at 24 frames per second digitally, it's still just 24 frames per second played in front of you. Many digital movie cameras are even constructed to mimic the look of film, using full 35mm sensors and mechanical shutters...
quote: Jean-Pierre Gutzeit
So I admire cinematic and analog high performances in the past and present.
That was certainly the reason for Messrs Nolam, Abrams, Tarantino, Anderson and others to keep this valuable technology alive.
I admire many of our technical achievements, in the past and the present, we should honor them, preserve them and give them a place. But there has to be room for progress too...
Film had a good, long run, the fact that it lasted more than 100 years as our primary imaging medium, both for still and moving pictures is probably the biggest proof of the quality, versatility and also relative durability of the medium.
But right now, we're at a point where digital technology starts to outperform analog film in almost any aspect. It already outperforms film on light sensitivity, color spectrum and speed. It will be just a matter of time before it outperforms even 65mm film on pure 2D resolution too. As a matter of fact, many sensors already do, but getting that resolution onto a recording medium is primarily a bandwidth problem, which will probably solve itself in the upcoming years.
My primary grief with digital cinema is that the transition from analog and digital wasn't motivated by technological progress, but rather as a cost-saving measure for the studios. That way, DCI never became what it could've been, if we just waited a few years longer.
I'm not proclaiming there is no room for film, but we need to accept that film is now a niche thing. That doesn't need to be that bad either, just like vinyl never really went away, there are still people that like the nostalgia of film, together with all its shortcomings. The good thing about niches is that they're usually filled with passionate people, people that care about the quality of the product. So in the end, the relegation of 35mm and 70mm film to a niche product might be very well a positive development for the quality of the medium itself.
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David Kornfeld
Film Handler
Posts: 24
From: Cambridge, MA/USA, USA
Registered: Apr 2017
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posted 09-04-2019 12:31 PM
quote: Dhr Birgelen
But right now, we're at a point where digital technology starts to outperform analog film in almost any aspect. It already outperforms film on light sensitivity, color spectrum and speed. It will be just a matter of time before it outperforms even 65mm film on pure 2D resolution too.
Light sensitivity & speed (which are much the same thing), sure, but you pay a heavy price for them in artifacting & digital noise. Colour spectrum? No; not nearly; not yet. Outperforming 65? In your dreams, but for argument's sake, lets say that happens. You can capture at any resolution you want, and then? Out into the world at 2 or 4K, because thats what the vast majority of projectors out there can handle. And thats not going to change any time soon: those machines are expensive. And theatre owners are notoriously parsimonious.
And now lets move to an aspect where digital is likely never going to outperform film: permanence. Give me an Edison film shot in 1895, and as long as it's in reasonable shape, I can run it through my projectors tomorrow. Give me a raw digital file shot five years ago & the chances are high that the codec is now unreadable. Go back ten years & the problem increases. And should there be any corruption? Kiss the entire file bye-bye.
The studios, which had to be pounded into submission to finally getting around to maintaining their back catalogue (and that took decades), are now facing a far more onerous problem. For film, preserve the OCN & strike a preservation copy (IP, 3-strip seps, things like that). One & done. In digital, it never ends. Each file has to be preserved & migrated to a new codec every five years, & then checked, & then migrated again. A mistake? A problem? A mis-read? Bye-bye! And all those thousands upon thousands of independently made productions? Kiss those ALL good-bye.
I am making it a point to live long enough to watch what I am certain will be the inevitable end game here. Know how much we lost from the silent era? LoC estimates 70% of features, 90% of cartoons, shorts, newsreels, &c. Thats going to be chump change next to what we're going to lose in this magic era of ever-changing digital formats. It's going to be a Holocaust, & I use that word deliberately.
And the sound youll hear echoing in your ears will be my very, very, very loud laughter.
Those Edison shorts will still play fine, though. Remember that, because they were shot 125 years ago.
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Marcel Birgelen
Film God
Posts: 3357
From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands
Registered: Feb 2012
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posted 09-04-2019 03:26 PM
quote: David Kornfeld
Light sensitivity & speed (which are much the same thing), sure, but you pay a heavy price for them in artifacting & digital noise. Colour spectrum? No; not nearly; not yet. Outperforming 65? In your dreams, but for argument's sake, lets say that happens. You can capture at any resolution you want, and then? Out into the world at 2 or 4K, because thats what the vast majority of projectors out there can handle. And thats not going to change any time soon: those machines are expensive. And theatre owners are notoriously parsimonious.
Both CMOS and CCD image sensors get better every year, unlike film, which doesn't nearly see as much development. It's therefore only natural that digital will outperform film eventually, on practical all aspects.
Film has about 13 stops of dynamic range, depending on the type of film obviously, but that's according to Kodak's own research. Arri Alexa is doing 14+ and next generation cameras will go higher. There are specialty sensors, like 3CCD setups that can go far higher right now, but the costs are still prohibitive. But the CMOS world is on it, the whole "HDR" stuff is a thing and the next generation sensors will not only increase pixel density, but also color resolution, light sensitivity, electronic shutter speeds, etc.
So, the same is true about light sensitivity. I see an enormous progress between now and just 10 years ago. Where 10 years ago everything shot at low light got you into terrible DNR situations, the world is looking different now. The best sensors out there now easily outperform film on this.
Regarding sensor resolutions... we're at a point that a tiny sensor in a smartphone fits 48 megapixels and the next generation will fit like 64 and a 108 megapixel model has announced. Ever wonder how many megapixels you could potentially put onto a 65mm CMOS or CCD sensor? The reasons why not to do it, is because we simply can't handle the bandwidth... yet.
But things are evolving fast. Wile I can have a full 4K setup for a reasonable price at home, I can already buy 8K TVs.
Last year at the IBC (International Broadcasters Convention), everything revolved around 8K already. It wasn't in the future, it was right there. While the infrastructure around us may not be ready for 8K yet, it will evolve and maybe faster than you think. In a few years, pro-gear will maybe even scale up to 16K. You simply can't deny it it's just happening, I've seen the first experimental 16K gear already on display and yes, even some 32K experiments...
So, whatever argument you put forward, it's either already taken over or will probably be taken over in the near future. Welcome to progress. Sometimes it's hard, I like a sense of nostalgia, but progress is generally better than standing still. Like I said before, we should honor our history, we should honor film, but film will never ever become main stream again, even DJs eventually ditched their vinyl and went all digital... (yeah, there are the rare exceptions that still lug around cases full of that stuff.)
I do give you one point though. I'm worried about archival in a digital world too. The world is moving so fast, that yesterday's format can easily be forgotten. If somebody hands you a 5.25" floppy, do you still have the means to read it? What about some oddball format like a ZIP drive. The same goes for file formats, especially difficult stuff with highly advanced compression on it. Encryption also doesn't make it easier (yes, an understatement, I know).
Archival of our digital creations is a challenge, especially since it's clear we can't trust Hollywood on this. But, hose are challenges, not unsolvable problems... at least not technically. Politically, it's another story all-together.
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Tyler Purcell
Expert Film Handler
Posts: 180
From: Van Nuys, CA
Registered: Dec 2015
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posted 09-12-2019 05:55 PM
quote: Marcel Birgelen
Both CMOS and CCD image sensors get better every year, unlike film, which doesn't nearly see as much development. It's therefore only natural that digital will outperform film eventually, on practical all aspects.
First off, CCD is a dead technology for cinema. Nobody uses it anymore for anything but scientific equipment and a few low-end cameras. It also can't be used in a 3 chip array and continue to use our standard cinema lenses. There are issues with how big you can make the imagers AND how far away the imagers are from the film plane, thanks to the prism.
Second, CMOS technology hasn't changed much. CMOS inherently is a horrible technology because to create a color image, it requires assignment of RGB pixels. Thus, your 4k image, only has half the Blue and Red information as green information. Yes, shooting at 6k and down-resing to 4k, does remove it, but that doesn't make the tech any good. CMOS is also a very hot technology, requiring substantial cooling which means there is a much larger potential for overheating and pixel failure. Mostly ALL CMOS cameras have dead pixels and software to map them out. Eventually as the imagers get hot and cold, the pixel mapping software will stop working and there will be visible dead pixels.
CCD and CMOS are also single ISO technologies. The optimal dynamic range is stuck at a single ISO. Thus, to change sensitivity, you need to either increase or decrease the signal after the imager preamp, which causes noise OR have multiple preamp sections like double ISO cameras. Currently there are only a few cameras on the market with double ISO and that tech hasn't taken off yet. When that tech hits the Alexa's and Red's of the world, we can start having a conversation about the future. However, it's not going to anytime soon.
quote: Marcel Birgelen
Film has about 13 stops of dynamic range, depending on the type of film obviously, but that's according to Kodak's own research.
I've done my own research, as all I do is shoot and scan film for a living. Film's "latitude" is limited by the scanning technology. Until recently, we've only been able to use CCD or standard CMOS imagers to scan. However, HDR scanners are around these days and the amount of latitude on film is staggering. For instance, on a recent shoot, we had had a bit of film left over after shooting a scene and shot a person dancing in nearly pitch black. The HDR scanner was able to bring up the blacks and we were shocked how much data was in the image, far more than any digital camera I've shot with and for the record, I've used them all. Plus, you don't get ANY color bleeding, aliasing or contrast rings with film. You just get a perfect image every time you shoot.
Where it's true, with a photochemical finish, film will have much less latitude, especially in the blacks. With a completely digital HDR finish, the amount of dynamic range film can produce, especially in the highlights, is superior. Plus, when film "clips" it does so very softly, it retains much more detail. So from a cinematographers perspective, you don't need to worry about clipping ever.
Did I mention that film has multiple ISOs unlike digital? We can run 50D, 200/250 and 500. We also push 500 to 1000 on a regular basis and it comes out perfect, looks perfect with the HDR scan.
quote: Marcel Birgelen
Arri Alexa is doing 14+ and next generation cameras will go higher.
None of the digital camera manufacturers release actual dynamic range information. Red says their new imager can do 17+ stops? Bullshit. I've done tests with Alexa, Red and Film, there is no comparison. Film blows the doors off the digital cameras in terms of dynamic range, especially with an HDR scan.
quote: Marcel Birgelen
So, the same is true about light sensitivity. I see an enormous progress between now and just 10 years ago. Where 10 years ago everything shot at low light got you into terrible DNR situations, the world is looking different now. The best sensors out there now easily outperform film on this.
This is true, the imagers have become less complex, with less layers, allowing more light to enter in AND the preamp's are more sensitive. However, each pixel still works like a potentiometer. You can only give it so much light before it distorts the image OR clips. So from my perspective, the breakthrough isn't the imagers themselves, the breakthrough is better software to remove noise. That's part of what makes the hypersensitive Sony A7SII so revolutionary. The noise reduction can clean the image up to the point where it's usable at 120,000 ISO. Of course take the camera outside on a sunny day and it's worthless, looks like total shit. Again, there is no magic, it's impossible to make an imager tech that will do both.
quote: Marcel Birgelen
Regarding sensor resolutions... we're at a point that a tiny sensor in a smartphone fits 48 megapixels and the next generation will fit like 64 and a 108 megapixel model has announced. Ever wonder how many megapixels you could potentially put onto a 65mm CMOS or CCD sensor? The reasons why not to do it, is because we simply can't handle the bandwidth... yet.
Resolution doesn't mean much for the film buffs. The #1 film format today is 16mm, so I don't think resolution means much. Yes it's amazing we have a smart phone with a 48 megapixel camera. I doubt it captures a 8k image tho, most likely the file on camera is 4k.
quote: Marcel Birgelen
But things are evolving fast. Wile I can have a full 4K setup for a reasonable price at home, I can already buy 8K TVs.
4k was announced at the same time HD TV moved into the US. The first real digital cinema camera made was 4k. Very few people outside of media cities even know what a 4k TV is, let alone care. They're still pissed they had to get rid of their CRT in place of a flat screen. I don't even think 4k will become a broadcast standard, as it would require massive upgrades and there is no impetus like the move from SD to HD. Also, the broadcast standard in the US would need to be updated to .h265 in order to make it a reality and that's a huge infrastructure challenge. Sure, Satellite and Cable have some .h265 content, not everything is and none of it is over the air. Heck, most movies are still finished in 2k and nearly all 3D presentations are 2k as well. So in reality, today we try to shoot in 4k, but very little of that is being seen by the consumer. I just did my first 4k feature film delivery and the next one is 2k.
quote: Marcel Birgelen
Last year at the IBC (International Broadcasters Convention), everything revolved around 8K already.
I'm sick and tired of the resolution game. The IBC convention is run by the Japanese. It's a place for them to show off how good they are at making cool toys. I saw a demo of "12k" years ago and it was garbage, looked like a TV soap opera.
As a filmmaker, we care about image quality, rather than image resolution. Here in Hollywood California, the home of the film industry world-wide, rental houses are tired of having to buy new cameras. Until someone requests a certain camera, they are keeping what they have, which is generally Alexa Mini's, Sony Venice and Red Dragon/Gemini's, all sub 5k cameras. Yes, the Red Helium is making some waves, but only with filmmakers obsessed with resolution. It's mostly used for VFX plates, music videos and commercials. The Canon C700? Complete failure of a camera. The Panasonic EVA1? Total joke, everyone stays away. Heck, even the Chinese high-resolution cameras, I haven't seen a single one on sale or for rent in LA.
Trade shows can be a glimpse at the next year or the next 10, it all depends on what people are willing to pay. There is a HUGE cost difference to store 8k vs 4k. There is a huge cost difference to use a full frame imager camera as well. People are very much use to the 4k workflow and to change it, is going to take a lot more than some new toys at a convention.
quote: Marcel Birgelen
I do give you one point though. I'm worried about archival in a digital world too.
Yea, there are no solutions to this problem. In 20 years, people will look back on today and be in horror so much was lost. In fact, there was a recent study saying that during the beginning of the digital camera age, more content has been lost than when photography first started. It's better today for sure, but the studios just stopped making separation negatives of their movies. So now there is NO film backup for digital movies. I'm grabbing my popcorn because I'm going to laugh at those idiots when the only copy they have of a given movie is a 2k DCP file. Plus, digital has a fixed resolution, film doesn't. As scanning technology gets better, we should be able to extrapolate more information from film then we can today.
One final note on the way out. My concern is the death of projection more than anything else. I will be bold and state for the record, in the next 10 years the vast majority of "projection" will have vanished. OLED displays are already being installed in theaters here in So Cal, replacing theater projectors. They deliver a much better image than any digital theater projection system can, better blacks, much brighter image with less maintenance. My fear is with those installed, the job of a projectionist will completely die. No need to have an expert to do anything and over time, the knowledge will be lost. Film projection will stick around like it has, but not in the bigger mainstream theaters, which we were so lucky to have recently. It will be relegated to places where people want to view history and that's the sad part.
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 09-13-2019 12:15 AM
quote: Tyler Purcell
Yea, there are no solutions to this problem. In 20 years, people will look back on today and be in horror so much was lost. In fact, there was a recent study saying that during the beginning of the digital camera age, more content has been lost than when photography first started.
I don't work in the film industry, but I have been making a living doing computer graphics work for nearly 30 years. From what I have observed personally since the end of the 1980's, there is no question at all about it: for the most part digital data is absolute fucking garbage as an archival medium. I can go on and on about all sorts of dead file formats, dead software programs, dead storage media formats and more. Digital only fucking sucks for storing anything of value for the long term.
Even to this day it's shocking how many people have totally unrealistic, naive views about the stability of digital files. I remember trying to contain my laughter at a local college function when someone on stage in the school's amphitheater got onto this thing about the greatness of digital technology. This person was going to put a bunch of stuff on a CD-R and stick it into a time capsule for someone to dig up 100 years later. Yeah. Good luck with that. And that's really at the root of why keeping all kinds of digital files "alive" and still useful is such a complicated, needlessly annoying problem. Most people are blissfully unaware of what has already been happening for decades. So there is little in the way of market demand to make files from specific software programs forward compatible with new versions. There's not enough demand to make various storage mediums stable and available for the long term. Hell, I even worry about something as simple as a CD player not being available in the future.
I've used this example before when describing this topic, but it's a good example. Let's say someone at Universal or Amblin wanted to "remaster" Jurassic Park in native 4K to show in a Dolby Cinema theater or even higher resolution for use on 70mm film or some of those 8K TV sets. Unless the folks over at Industrial Light and Magic were really creative at both archiving and exporting data they would pretty much have to start from scratch with all those visual effects sequences. The movie was released in June of 1993, just 26 years ago. Nearly all the digital software and hardware used to create the movie is DEAD. Alias Power Animator and Softimage are both dead applications, as is the IRIX OS on which they ran. Silicon Graphics finally went defunct in 2009, but was comatose by 1999. Even if someone had a vintage SGI workstation that was still operational could they successfully recover data off tape cartridges dating back to the early 1990s?
Something as simple as an optical disc would seem to be pretty bullet proof as a storage medium, right? I learned to back up important files in multiple places, thanks to varying CD-R and CD-RW standards that made discs read on one computer but not another. Now most computers don't even come with an optical disc drive included, much less something that can write to an optical disc. Flash-based storage (such as all those USB memory sticks) sucks ass. These days data archival is a dance of moving huge amounts of data from one large capacity hard drive to a newer one with even greater capacity.
quote: Tyler Purcell
Trade shows can be a glimpse at the next year or the next 10, it all depends on what people are willing to pay. There is a HUGE cost difference to store 8k vs 4k. There is a huge cost difference to use a full frame imager camera as well. People are very much use to the 4k workflow and to change it, is going to take a lot more than some new toys at a convention.
Modern computer graphics technology is massively more powerful and faster than it was 10 or 20 years ago. Back in the Jurassic Park and Terminator 2 era super computers were just then breaking the 1 teraflop per second barrier. That was a room full of mainframe "sectional" machines doing that back then. Today a single high end graphics board for a workstation PC can crank out nearly 30 teraflops per second. A single workstation box could hold four of those cards along with a 4-way Xeon CPU motherboard. Multiply that by however many boxes go into a typical render farm. It's staggering computer horsepower, but it's not being used to make movies look better.
Unfortunately virtually all the speed and power gains have been directed at rendering 2K/HDTV resolution imagery even faster. The UHD Blu-ray format and 4K UHDTV sets in general are a waste of money considering how rare native 4K content continues to be for those kinds of displays. The push for 8K from TV set manufacturers is really pretty hilarious looking at it from a content provider point of view.
As for the comparisons between digital and film, by the time the movie is reaching the d-cinema projector and screen so much of the original data has been thrown away. There is nothing "lossless" about JPEG2000-based DCPs. And the studios definitely play fast and loose with how they create those DCP files. Film is organic in its latitude of color and contrast. Digital can be harsh, with a lot of blocky stair steps between levels of color and value. When reducing file sizes and speeding render times becomes more important than image quality all sorts of compromises creep into the picture. JPEG introduces a wide variety of quality cutting compromises.
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