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This topic comprises 5 pages: 1 2 3 4 5
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Topic: Blu-Ray vs DCI
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Frank Angel
Film God
Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 04-22-2007 05:00 PM
quote: Stephen Furley
What if no screenable print exists, or is available.
Simple; then you just bite the bullet and not show it. There are very few situations where a rep house MUST run a given title. You adjust your programming according to print availability. quote: Stephen Furley
If the choice is between seeing it on video, or not seeing it at all, which would you rather do? I would say screen it on video, at least those who want to see it can.
That's like saying, if a museum can't get their hands on a particular Monet painting, then it would be better to display a lithograph copy than nothing at all....sometimes nothing at all is better and more aesthetically correct.
Many times when we are confronted with this same dilemma, we choose not to run the print rather than present a demonstrably inferior video copy.
And the fact that there are people who want to see this title and that there is a video copy of it available, then they can see it at home on a display that is suitable to the video source, not on a big theatre screen which is not. Rep houses do themselves no favor by making no distinction between video and film.
Just because there is a way to blow up a low rez video to a big screen doesn't mean that does justice to the film or the filmmaker or the audience for that matter. And point of fact, art houses typically don't have those $120.000 projectors that would show a consumer DVD at the highest available resolution it is capable of supplying. They are more likely to be using one of those consumer vidprojector toys....which makes that analogy of the Monet painting a lot less a like a lithograph copy and more like a xerox copy. ![[puke]](graemlins/puke.gif)
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Stephen Furley
Film God
Posts: 3059
From: Coulsdon, Croydon, England
Registered: May 2002
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posted 04-22-2007 07:14 PM
I think it depends upon the circumstances. Suppose you were running a season of films by a certain director, and there was something in an early work that had been very influential on what came later. You couldn't really tell the story without screening that work. Maybe the best that is available is a composite video transfer made in the '70s; maybe the negative has since been lost or destroyed, and no prints are known to exist. Under those sort of circumstances, screening the best that is available may be better than not screening it at all.
What about material that never existed in a form intended for theatrical exhibition, screenings of work by film/media students shot on 16mm or video, for example.
Several years ago 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail' was screened at the NFT, with a couple of the original cast present. Just previous to this a new DVD release had been made, which included various 'extras', including a short 'Lego' animated re-enactment of one sequence from the film. The makers of this were in the audience. This animation had been seen on the Internet, and widely acclaimed; screening it as part of the event at the NFT was highly appropriate, but it had been made on DV, and only released as the Internet download, and on the DVD; it simply didn't exist on film, or any broadcast video format. It wasn't ideal, but in my view showing the DVD version at the NFT was the right thing to do.
I don't recommend showing video, or 16mm film, on very large screens, but on smaller ones they can look quite reasonable; I've seen a lot of video material at the NFT in the past. No, it's not as good as 35mm, and 35mm isn't as good as 70mm, and 70mm isn't as good as real life, but I'm glad to have seen many things in this way that I otherwise couldn't have seen.
I ran a few clips from various DVDs at the Clocktower during a gap between films yesterday to see how they looked, mainly to try out the new component feed from the DVD player, but I also tried one black and white recording, because I wanted to see how black and white looked on the digital equipment, and I don't have any black and white digital cinema material available. That film was the special edition release of 'The Great Dictator', which is probably the best looking, on an ordinary television' black and white disc that I've got and it really did look surprisingly good on the (small) cinema screen. No, it wasn't as good as a good 35mm print, but if one wasn't available, I think it could be an alternative. I'd always advertise a video screening as such. There's a good 'making of' documentary on the second disc; if it were easier to get rights to show this sort of thing in public then showing this, on video, at a cinema, before a screening of the film itself, on 35mm, would seem quite appropriate.
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Brian Guckian
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 594
From: Dublin, Ireland
Registered: Apr 2003
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posted 04-22-2007 08:10 PM
quote: Bobby Henderson
Differences in resolution between 1080p video on HD-DVD or Blu-Ray and the 2K imagery in DCI digital cinema are slight. For a long time I have thought this will be a big potential marketing problem for commercial movie theaters as either of those disc-based HD formats gain more popularity
What if it's not just a marketing problem? Could DVD formats close to 2K resolution (albeit not close in colour gamut, etc.) actually be used to subvert the relationship between the exhibitor and distributor? I know a couple of cases where already in the last few years standard DVDs of rep titles - purchased in shops - have been screened in lieu of prints to avoid paying the hire costs of the latter. Whether the distributors in question knew about this I don't know.
Can the distributors control the screening of Blu-Ray and HD-DVDs? What if the day-and-date or almost day-and-date film / DVD release pattern ever comes about? What's to stop someone just buying the DVD and screening that? Or other abuses for that matter? To solve this, would you be forced to "unlock" the content with a key as per D-Cinema?
quote: Stephen Furley
This animation had been seen on the Internet, and widely acclaimed; screening it as part of the event at the NFT was highly appropriate, but it had been made on DV, and only released as the Internet download, and on the DVD; it simply didn't exist on film, or any broadcast video format. It wasn't ideal, but in my view showing the DVD version at the NFT was the right thing to do.
I think Frank was talking about something different, i.e. using video to substitute for a print. Obviously if the material was shot on video then it should be shown on video.
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Scott Jentsch
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1061
From: New Berlin, WI, USA
Registered: Apr 2003
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posted 04-23-2007 01:57 PM
quote: Carl Martin
what a ridiculous statement! a beaten-up print isn't great, but if i come to see a film i expect to see a film. if we're talking about "classics" or 80's movies then we're (mostly) talking about works that were shot, completed, and presented on film. showing a video instead is just disingenuous, a violation of the work's aesthetics.
I disagree with this statement, and I think that it forgets the end result that I would think all of us here aspire to, which is to entertain the audience with the highest quality presentation possible.
In my humble opinion, tying oneself to a particular format (in this case, film) is a constraint which can make one lose sight of that end result. If one format delivers a better end result than another format, who cares what that format is?
Film is a copy of a negative. HD video (whether DCI, Blu-ray, or HD DVD) is a copy of the negative (if the originating format was film, of course). In many cases, the film we get in a theater is going to be a multi-generational copy. This isn't an original Monet oil-on-canvas vs. lithograph we're talking about here, it's a lithograph vs. giclee print. Both copies of the original.
If the available film is damaged with scratches and/or discoloration, but you have a pristine copy on HD video, you're going to show the film or nothing at all? I don't agree with that position at all.
quote: Carl Martin
i hope if you do that you at least advertise it as such so people know they may as well stay home and watch it on tv.
That's basically saying that a movie theater has nothing to offer its customers except for exclusive access to the content. There is no value to the "group experience" or the ambience and presentation that the theater or, in the case of a film festival, event can add to that content?
This heads into the same territory as my feelings about theaters that are afraid of day-and-date releases, but I won't derail this thread in that direction.
The viewing audience deserves the best possible quality that a theater can deliver. Who cares if that's from film, digital cinema, Blu-ray/HD DVD, or VHS?
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![[dlp]](graemlins/dlp.gif)
projector.
![[Frown]](frown.gif)
Made the decision easier, though.
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