Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: keeping 35mm and running digital

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Posted by Liz Coffey (Member # 4353) on 05-07-2013, 08:50 AM:

Hello out there,
I'm part of a group interested in keeping film alive alongside digital.

Although most theatres have already made the switch, we know there are a lot of smaller cinemas working on it now.

If you work for or own a theatre that hasn't yet made the switch and are interested in keeping film going, please get in touch with us.

Here's our main website, where you will find links to a survey, facebook, etc.

http://www.filmadvocacy.org/

Please take our survey!
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/56DD278

Film will continue to be available for some time, whether through independent or archival releases, or via all those old prints that won't cease to exist, and we can help keep film alive by showing it.

(I'm not interested in turning this discussion into a film vs digital debate, by the way.)
thanks!

~Liz

Posted by Mitchell Dvoskin (Member # 751) on 05-07-2013, 11:59 AM:

Liz, does this mean that the HFA will now loan prints to outside venues such as The Landmark Loews Jersey?

Posted by Robert E. Allen (Member # 1351) on 05-07-2013, 06:15 PM:

Careful Liz, there are techno-geeks on this site that will tell you you're nuts and film will be gone by the end of the year. BTW, I agree with you and support your cause but I no longer have a theatre.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 05-07-2013, 07:11 PM:

If a theater has an audience for older movies AND can get those movies on 35mm then yes, there will be a place for film. If you have an audience that wants the new stuff, then you will be in big trouble.

Here in our little first-run house we haven't run any film at all since moving to digital. I insisted on keeping the 35mm gear in place "just in case," but it's basically just gathered dust since 2010.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 05-07-2013, 09:48 PM:

Robert, the reason why film will be gone is because the last batches of print stock have already been made. When it runs out, that it! Supposedly this is expected to happen by the end of the year.

The existing archive prints are about to become extinct from rentals, meaning the prints they have are most probably the very last 35mm copies of those movies EVER TO BE MADE. Once you realize the severity of that thought, the concept of renting them out to anything but VERY large and particularly special shows becomes a firm "no way". Everyone on this board understands "it only takes one pass to destroy a print forever". It's just too much to gamble with the last 35mm copy of a movie.

That's why there is no sense in installing 35mm at this point.

Posted by Dan Kessler (Member # 6607) on 05-07-2013, 11:20 PM:

Brad, are you saying that Kodak is not going to manufacture anymore
print stock after this year? I've neither heard nor seen such
an announcement anywhere. They are most assuredly continuing the
production of camera stock. Can't imagine they would do that and not also produce print stock, even if its use by film distributors is no longer what it was. Are you sure about your information?

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 05-08-2013, 01:11 AM:

It is no longer economical to make bulk production runs of 35mm release print stock. Just think about it and do the math for yourself. Yes it will be available at a VERY premium price for a short while, but as far as the Hollywood releases go...when this batch is used up toward the end of this year, that's it. In NO WAY will Hollywood pay a premium for release print stock after this batch is used up just so the few lingering (and admittedly lowest grossing) locations can continue to run film. This has been a game of digital or die for some time now, and the finish line is in sight.

I do have a general question here regarding the "35mm will never die" camp. Did everyone fail math? We are past the point of theaters taking a stand. We are past the point of passion about film. It is at this point nothing more than raw, basic math.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 05-08-2013, 01:54 AM:

quote: Brad Miller
I do have a general question here regarding the "35mm will never die" camp. Did everyone fail math? We are past the point of theaters taking a stand. We are past the point of passion about film. It is at this point nothing more than raw, basic math.

I couldn't agree more, and am finding myself getting increasingly frustrated with my colleagues in the archive world who are in serious denial over this. The infrastructure, machinery, consumables and expertise needed to manufacture tripack colour film emulsion is just such a complicated and expensive package that it is quite simply never going to be viable for it to be supported by a customer base that consists purely of archivists, artists and enthusiasts. When asked by curators from a London art gallery in October 2011 about this, the sales director of OrWo replied:

quote: Tate Gallery report
If you are able to produce an order for an amount over the size of two football fields (120 m long and 90 m wide) and have 2 Million Euros to spare for testing and are able to give us 2 years’ notice, we could look into this further

It may be possible to continue b/w production on a cottage industry basis in the long-term - after all, OrWo are managing to stay in business by doing so at present, and I believe that Tasma still makes one line of print stock too. But I can't see there being any 'vinyl revival' for colour film stock: it just costs far more to make and process than the remaining customer base will be able to pay.

The format fetishism by some archivists also defies rational argument in many ways. Example: when I was in California over Easter, Paul Rayton very kindly ran a reel of The Wages of Fear for me, which happened to be in the Egyptian's booth at the time. It was struck on colour stock, from a 2K DI, and with a cyan soundtrack. Now, one of the arguments sometimes used by archivists to support doing everything possible to continue the production and use of motion picture film is that it is the 'original' medium, and that watching content originated on film through another medium is fundamentally inauthentic.

Yet how was the experience of viewing that print in any way authentic? It was a b/w film printed on colour stock, and so had a slight purple tinge. It was derived from a digital file, which itself was derived from another film element, and so had gone through two changes of medium since the one that was created in the camera. If we'd been seeing a DCP, it would only have gone through one. I have actually seen a 1953, original (as in, created for the movie's initial release) 35mm print of that film, and my subjective impression is that the Criterion Bluray looks much closer to it in terms of contrast, mid-tone detail, definition, overall photographic 'look' and audio 'feel' than this print did. Yet some archivists and many film buffs will insist on what they regard as the authenticity of film. If asked what this consists of, a depressingly high number will cite things that are actually defects in the production or presentation of film prints (scratches, flicker, fluctuating contrast during a shot, that sort of stuff), ones which no visitor to a first run, top quality house would ever have seen anyway.

How many people would try to argue that listening to an MP3 download reissue of a recording of a Beethoven symphony is inauthentic, because they're not having to change the shellac records every four minutes?

It is important for archives to preserve film elements that embody evidence the original production process, both because they are easier and cheaper to preserve than data, and so that there is something to compare new, digital access copies against objectively. But in my view their priority should be to create circulating collections of decent quality, properly scanned and mastered DCPs of their more popular holdings and restorations, not trying to prevent something from happening that has pretty much already happened.

quote: Brad Miller
the last batches of print stock have already been made. When it runs out, that it! Supposedly this is expected to happen by the end of the year.

Do you have any hard information on this, or is it just an educated guess? Kodak claim to be offering a full line of print stock at the moment, but admittedly they're not telling us what lines are now down to special order only (2302 is, from what I've heard).

Posted by Shawn M. Martin (Member # 6762) on 05-08-2013, 02:43 AM:

Isn't it just Fuji that's expected to run out, since they shut down almost all of their motion picture stuff late last year?

I know a couple of distributors that printed on Fuji - Lionsgate and FilmDistrict - seem to have switched to Kodak in recent months.

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 05-08-2013, 06:11 AM:

I thought that Kodak had a contract with some of the major distributors to cover release print stock through 2015. At least, there was a news item about this within the last year or so. If that is the case, the price (for them, at least) should be fixed for that time period.

I am not saying that mainstream color release prints will continue to be made during that time, just that the price for the print stock should be fixed.

Edit: this is true; see article here

Agreed with the prevailing wisdom that color print stock will be uneconomical to manufacture in small quantities.

Posted by Liz Coffey (Member # 4353) on 05-08-2013, 08:31 AM:

Hi there, [Smile]

As some of you may know, film has been produced for over one hundred years! I think it's not unreasonable to think some theatre owners will have the opportunity to show film in the future.

What we are advocating, in part, is that if you have the opportunity, that you keep your equipment in place, working, and run film when you can.

I posted this here because this forum is for theatre owners and staff, right? You are the people making this decision. [beer]

Keep the faith, people, and please take our survey. [thumbsup]

~Liz

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 05-08-2013, 09:00 AM:

Scott's link (and the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle page linked from it) don't mention print stock specifically: they simply talk about the 'supply of motion picture film to Hollywood'. I'm guessing this means mainly camera negative stock, plus smaller quantities of IN stock for DI burnouts.

I've lost track of what the majors are saying about the complete discontinuation of distribution on film: the last I knew, two of them (Warners and Disney, IIRC) had announced that this would happen as of the end of this year. The place to watch will be the labs that serve the archives and art/rep distributors (e.g. Cineric, Film Technology Co. and Cinema Arts in the US, PresTech in Britain). When their prices start to go through the ceiling and/or services are withdrawn, that's going to be the writing on the wall.

The only rate card I can find online for colour release printing is Colorlab's. For a straightforward, one-light 35mm release print (presumably contact printed from a timed interneg and track neg), their price is $0.92 a foot. I'm guessing that the other comparable labs all charge similar prices. So taking this as an example, after incidentals, set-up charges, shipping, tax etc., you're looking at $10k-ish for a single print of a two-hour feature. As Brad points out, all it takes is one booth accident and that investment is written off.

Already, you can have a 2K DCDM/DCP created from a timed interneg for about half that figure, which can then be copied without limit and for virtually nothing (e.g. $100 for another portable hard drive). While film printing is still just about possible, archives and smaller distributors have to decide which is the better way of spending the money they have available.

Posted by Jock Blakley (Member # 6552) on 05-08-2013, 09:01 AM:

Unfortunately Kodak's manner is usually to stop making something and then announce it's discontinuation. When they officially discontinued Technical Pan Film 2415/4415/6415 in 2004 they freely admitted they hadn't actually made any since around 2001, and that in the intervening time they'd also discontinued the ESTAR-AH base on which it was coated. However, Kodak's massive production scales at the moment (minimum of 7000 ft x 70 inches in most cases, AFAIK) suggest to me that an end-of-this-year timeframe is not completely likely.

As to continued presentation of film: we installed 4K alongside our existing 35/70 installation in July 2011, but as a repertory cinema we didn't go into it with any expectation of continuing to receive new releases on film (off the top of my head, the last new prints we received were in mid-2012, possibly THE ARTIST).

I have to take a bit of a opposite tilt on the presentation of existing prints though. Of course prints are going to become increasingly rare in circulation, and that's a function just as much of the people controlling the purse-strings before you even consider the availability of stock.

On the other hand though - why have a print if not to present it? We cherish deeply our 35mm and 70mm holdings for that exact purpose.

Yes, one pass can ruin a print that's very shortly going to become irreplaceable. So can one pass ruin a print that's already irreplaceable - as could happen when we show BARAKA or BEN-HUR or THE RIGHT STUFF in 70mm mag or APOCALYPSE NOW REDUX or even FRANKENSTEIN MUST BE DESTROYED in Technicolor IB.

We show a print of CITIZEN KANE from the '70s that I'm told is one of the last to have been struck from that film's original elements. Should we hide it away until it vinegars into nothingness against the chance of malfunction destroying it?

In fact, with distributors in Australia being the way they are, damage during presentation is probably one of the least common ways for a print to be removed from circulation. We used to hold hundreds of prints that have since been junked not because they were unsuitable for presentation but because the distributor that purchased their rights in October 2011 didn't wish the hassle of them existing. A short selection of titles included:
GOLDFINGER (original IB)
THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY (restoration)
A BRIDGE TOO FAR
ANNIE HALL
THUNDERBIRDS ARE GO ('90s reprint)
RAGING BULL ('90s reprint, genuine B&W, four prints)
THE GREAT ESCAPE (2001 reprint)
THE APARTMENT (2002 reprint)
and on and on and on.

With that in mind I look at what we are able to show on film and rejoice! 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY in 70mm from 1996. PUBLIC ENEMY, 1996 print from 1976 elements. THE MISSION, original 70mm print. EL TOPO, new 35mm print. DIRTY HARRY, recent 35mm print. PARIS, TEXAS, breathtaking 1997 print. Branagh's HAMLET, original 70mm print. PINK FLOYD: THE WALL, original 70mm print.

Certainly, compared to making reliable consistent monopack colour negative film, making vinyl records is child's play. The comparison completely ignores reality.

But prints exist to be seen.

Other than that, our 35mm installation gets the majority of its work nowadays showing original 35mm trailers to digital re-releases.

Posted by Louis Bornwasser (Member # 3063) on 05-08-2013, 09:48 AM:

Most discussion focuses on "what kodak will do." As a practical matter, I advised National Amusements to keep a few projectors in place just in case (four per site).

This was fine information 5 years ago.

Since that time, turnover in the cinemas has resulted in almost no one left who has ANY experience in projection. They don't even know to oil first! Dismissed employees are not usually willing to come back to help, depending upon their treatment when forced out. Service people have not touched the equipment in years, and indeed suppliers are shut down or have dumped their film projector inventory.

"The End Of Film" will come because of many factors; I don't think film itself will be the only one.

One positive note: video may not be the wonderful high quality thing it is made out to be, but in many cases, it delivers an acceptable presentation that is superior to film as it is delivered. Only a few film houses delivered "FILM-DONE-RIGHT" in the last 20 years; the professionals had died out/fired. Louis

Posted by Aaron Garman (Member # 1653) on 05-08-2013, 10:01 AM:

quote: Jock Blakley
But prints exist to be seen.

This is why we really have a need for a true film museum that shows what prints are left. Digital is nice, but for a film shot and edited on film, there really is no comparison. Seeing an oil painting digitally printed at the highest quality is nice, but there is nothing like seeing it on canvas. To me, it's the same thing with motion pictures.

AJG

Posted by Michael Marini (Member # 3490) on 05-08-2013, 11:47 AM:

There is a film museum and it's called AFI SILVER THEATRE.
95% of what we do is on film.

Silver I

The jewel of downtown Silver Spring, the 400-seat art deco historic theater boasts THX certification, 16mm, 35mm & 70mm projection, digital projection and unrivaled comfort.
Virtual Tour
Floor Plan
Seating & Technical Capabilities

Silver II

The ultimate in stadium seating, this 200-seat screening room with 16mm & 35mm film projection, multi-format digital projection and splendid screen will delight movie-lovers. Unique features include a 40-foot stage perfect for presentations or performance, and an adjacent lobby for private receptions.
Virtual Tour
Floor Plan
Seating & Technical Capabilities

Silver III

Screen a film like a Hollywood insider in your very own 75-seat stadium seating theater, with 16mm, 35mm and multi-format digital projection and a 30-foot screen. Perfect for company board meetings with on-screen computer presentations.
Virtual Tour
Floor Plan
Seating & Technical Capabilities

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 05-08-2013, 12:35 PM:

quote: Jock Blakely
On the other hand though - why have a print if not to present it?

From an archival perspective, to preserve evidence of how a film looked and sounded at a given point in its release history.

If grading information (e.g. printer strips, DoP's notes etc.) does not survive, then effectively that process has to be gone through again when an archive is carrying out preservation/restoration copying, or making new access copies (film or digital). If you don't have any release prints, or if the ones you do have are substantially damaged (e.g. emulsion faded by heat damage), then you have no objective way of knowing what a film looked and sounded like when it was first shown to audiences. Basically, you're down to guesswork.

If you do have those prints, however, and know enough about their provenance to establish their authenticity, then it gives you an evidence base from which to create new access copies. But if you're projecting them, you're putting that evidence at risk.

quote: Louis Bornwasser
"The End Of Film" will come because of many factors; I don't think film itself will be the only one.

Agreed totally that expertise is another risk factor, though I'd speculate that this will become a serious problem later than the end of (colour, at any rate) film manufacture. Film projection was still a mainstream technology until 5-7 years ago, when the first big scale conversion started to take place. There are still lots of people around in their 30s and 40s with relatively advanced film projection and maintenance skills, and some of them will be drawn towards museum-type operations.

It has also been possible to maintain other legacy technologies in museum-type use, many decades after commercial support and spares have disappeared. It's still just about possible to keep a Spitfire airworthy, and there are heritage railways that preserve old steam engines in operational condition, for example. Hopefully there will be a small number of museums and cinematheques worldwide that will be able to do likewise with film, as least for as long as existing prints kept in temperature and humidity-controlled storage remain in good enough physical condition to show. But I still believe that it makes no economic sense for archives and re-release distributors to devote substantial resources to creating new film prints at this stage in the game, when digital surrogates are now capable of communicating as much image and audio information as prints can, at a lower cost and with a better chance of higher (objective) quality presentation in all but a handful of theatres.

quote: Aaron Garman
Seeing an oil painting digitally printed at the highest quality is nice, but there is nothing like seeing it on canvas.

If you go to The Louvre now, you'll see the Mona Lisa lit by LEDs (not to mention behind an anti-terrorist/anti-loony plastic shield!). When it was first painted, you'd have seen it under candlelight. Would you say that its current display conditions are unethical and that you're not getting the real deal?

Posted by Dan Kessler (Member # 6607) on 05-08-2013, 01:53 PM:

Leo, out of curiosity I checked that Colorlab rate sheet.
It's .92/ft. for a release print struck from a single strand original neg. It's .68/ft. if struck from an intermediate.

Posted by Manny Knowles (Member # 1171) on 05-08-2013, 02:31 PM:

I love Leo.

Posted by Mike Frese (Member # 4361) on 05-08-2013, 02:44 PM:

quote: Liz Coffey
Hi there,
As some of you may know, film has been produced for over one hundred years! I think it's not unreasonable to think some theatre owners will have the opportunity to show film in the future.

What we are advocating, in part, is that if you have the opportunity, that you keep your equipment in place, working, and run film when you can.

I posted this here because this forum is for theatre owners and staff, right? You are the people making this decision.

Keep the faith, people, and please take our survey.
~Liz

Liz, they might only be 200-400 theaters that really should take your advice to keep film equipment. Non-profit college ran theaters for example. For the 4253 theaters wanting to play the new mainstream movies like Iron Man 3, they need to be digital soon if they are not already there.

There are plenty of stories of being digital without VPFs will get you a movie much earlier in it's run than you ever did with film.

Plus the main studios prefer digital.

I hope anyone who is thinking about starting a movie theater ignores the film will be around for a long time crowd. I hope anyone who operates a theater with film equipment still does not re-negotiate a long term lease anytime soon without a means to pay for digital. Relying on Kickstarter is not that means!

So what is the benefit to try to hold onto film?

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 05-08-2013, 03:11 PM:

quote: Dan Kessler
Leo, out of curiosity I checked that Colorlab rate sheet. It's .92/ft. for a release print struck from a single strand original neg. It's .68/ft. if struck from an intermediate.

Oops; sorry; more haste, less speed, Leo. So depending on tax, bits and pieces, that's between $7-9k for a two-hour (10,800ft) release print, assuming you already have a timed IN and final mix track neg ready to go. You can probably add another $2-3k to that if laser subtitles are needed for a foreign film.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 05-08-2013, 03:16 PM:

What about the internaional market? How fast is the conversion to "digital" happening in Europe, Asia, South America, etc.? I thought I read something somewhere about India still having a huge number of film-based theaters. Wouldn't demand in some of these regions justify keeping print stock production lines running?

It's obvious, however, that the end is near for film-based projection in traditional first run and 2nd run/bargain theaters.

IMHO, the real end of film will happen when no more movies are shot on film. What's the timeline on how long companies like Kodak will still make camera negatives for motion picture cameras, high end still cameras, etc.? I just hope whenever the last movie to be shot on film wraps production more major improvements will have taken place in video camera technology.

Lots of movies are being shot on video. Unfortunately it shows in many cases. The best video cameras designed for motion picture production are getting to where they approximate the image detail of 4-perf 35mm. They have a long way to go to match VistaVision or 5-perf 70mm quality. And I'm only talking about resolution. Color depth is just as challenging. I think one needs 16-bits per color channel from the camera, through post and all the way to the movie projection screen in order to mimic the film look better. Computer hardware and storage technology needs to make some leaps to make that more feasible.

I might not care about movies no longer being shot on film if video cameras had specs like 8K, 10K or 12K resolution, 32-bit per channel high dynamic range capture with non destructive tone mapping that can be re-adjusted in post production. Eventually video cameras will be able to do that kind of thing easily. I think we're perhaps a decade away from that. I just hope commercial movie theaters survive the hair-brained schemes of global media company executives long enough for us to see those changes happen. Because if all we have are movies made for TV we can say goodbye to any efforts improving video cameras and digital movies up to the quality standards we saw with 70mm.

quote: Leo Enticknap
The format fetishism by some archivists also defies rational argument in many ways. Example: when I was in California over Easter, Paul Rayton very kindly ran a reel of The Wages of Fear for me, which happened to be in the Egyptian's booth at the time. It was struck on colour stock, from a 2K DI, and with a cyan soundtrack. Now, one of the arguments sometimes used by archivists to support doing everything possible to continue the production and use of motion picture film is that it is the 'original' medium, and that watching content originated on film through another medium is fundamentally inauthentic.

Ever since the use of Digital Intermediate in post production became popular movies output in that method have effectively ruined any advantages of 35mm film projection. That digital data pipe line is an image quality bottleneck of sorts. Burning a DI out to a 35mm film print does not restore any detail or color fidelity lost in scanning a camera negative, interpositive, etc. into the digital realm. The DI sourced 35mm print is only going to be a step in generation loss below the DI itself.

For me, if a movie's final product in post production is a completed digital intermediate I'll only watch it in d-cinema. There's nothing gained with watching it in 35mm.

If a movie is post produced using an old school film-in film-out analog photochemical process then there might be some advantages of watching it projected on film. This is particularly true if the movie was shot and projected in anamorphic 'scope with no optical enlargement/distorsion steps inbetween (like Super35).

quote: Jock Blakley
We show a print of CITIZEN KANE from the '70s that I'm told is one of the last to have been struck from that film's original elements. Should we hide it away until it vinegars into nothingness against the chance of malfunction destroying it?

If an existing release print has no other value than being shown in a movie theater then I would agree in principal that it should be shown.

Unfortunately release prints of many movies are declining in number. At least a few need to be preserved as a reference for how the movie was supposed to look (in terms of color timing) when presented.

Lots of movies have had their original camera negatives, interpositives and internegatives scanned and telecined numerous times for different releases onto VHS/Beta, SDTV/Cable, Laserdisc, DVD, D-VHS, HD Cable, HD-DVD, Blu-ray and DCP. With TV manufacturers now rolling out 4K resolution TV sets we can expect a lot of existing 2K video masters to be re-done in 4K resolution. It's not going to end there. If the demand grows for it I think we'll see 8K resolution TV sets mass produced. But commercial movie theaters will be driving those trends. If it weren't for 4K projection already being installed in thousands of commercial theaters we never would have seen any 4K TV sets. 1080p HD would have been good enough permanently.

In light of that, it is extremely critical for movie companies to carefully archive any camera negatives, interpositives, internegatives and at least a few release prints so they'll be prepared for the next generation push in cinema projection technology and home theater display technology.

Funny thing: those movies shot on video in 1080p/HD or 2K are stuck in their native resolutions. There's no point in up-converting them to 4K. That's just like trying to make a SD DVD pretend it's HD.

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 05-08-2013, 03:22 PM:

At the Bradford Widescreen Weekend this year somebody, I can't remember if it was Bill or Duncan, announced that it future it will be the policy to not normally show seriously faded prints, 'MagentaVision' as they called it, other than at 'Cineramacana' on Sunday morning, when all sorts of odd clips and shorts are shown on various formats. I can't remember the exact wording, but it was something to the effect that increased use would be made of digital restorations, projected digitally, in future. This is how most of the Cinerama films are now screened during the festival at Bradford, though the regular monthly screenings of 'This is Cinerama' are still on film, and some new sections for the print were made last year. I think it's quite likely that within a couple of years the majority of screenings at the Widescreen Weekend will be digital.

Having said that, isn't being able to show both film and digital better than being able to show only digital? If there is room for both, is there any advantage to remove the film equipment, even if it is only rarely used? The only one that I can think of would be if there was a very short throw with several film projectors, and by removing one of more of them the digital machine can be placed more centrally.

Posted by Martin McCaffery (Member # 37) on 05-08-2013, 03:23 PM:

quote:
Relying on Kickstarter is not that means!

But as one of those non-profit art houses, I have to say, it worked for us [Wink]

Otherwise, I agree (hate it, but agree), if you are going to be a commercial theatre the only thing you need a 35mm projectors for is decoration.

Posted by Paul Mayer (Member # 355) on 05-08-2013, 03:34 PM:

Slowly getting there, at least color-wise. Panasonic has been mastering new BDs in Japan at 12 bits per color channel, fully compatible with existing 8-bit/color channel BDs and players. They will be rolling out new players to take advantage of the newer MGVC (Master Grade Video Coding) codec later this year. I imagine 12-bit/color channel display panels are not too far behind.

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 05-08-2013, 03:35 PM:

At the Bradford Widescreen Weekend this year somebody, I can't remember if it was Bill or Duncan, announced that it future it will be the policy to not normally show seriously faded prints, 'MagentaVision' as they called it, other than at 'Cineramacana' on Sunday morning, when all sorts of odd clips and shorts are shown on various formats. I can't remember the exact wording, but it was something to the effect that increased use would be made of digital restorations, projected digitally, in future. This is how most of the Cinerama films are now screened during the festival at Bradford, though the regular monthly screenings of 'This is Cinerama' are still on film, and some new sections for the print were made last year. I think it's quite likely that within a couple of years the majority of screenings at the Widescreen Weekend will be digital.

Having said that, isn't being able to show both film and digital better than being able to show only digital? If there is room for both, is there any advantage to remove the film equipment, even if it is only rarely used? The only one that I can think of would be if there was a very short throw with several film projectors, and by removing one of more of them the digital machine can be placed more centrally.

Posted by Robert E. Allen (Member # 1351) on 05-08-2013, 03:36 PM:

I sit here and just have to chuckle as we are about to reach the mark I set a couple of years ago when I said film would be around for awhile. Now I'm thinking film will be around longer than even I thought. Keeping the 35mm equipment is a good idea even if only to run classic and foreign stuff. Even if the younger generation wants to find satisfaction in believing we're going to trash an "old format" that does not make it true. BTW Brad, I didn't have to take math beyond the 8th grade but I do understand the mathematics of the situation so be gentle or I'll stop recommending people to you for digital equipment prices. (lol)

Posted by Ramon Lamarca Marques (Member # 3621) on 05-08-2013, 06:18 PM:

It looks like some people have missed this! [Big Grin]

quote:
(I'm not interested in turning this discussion into a film vs digital debate, by the way.)
thanks!

Congratulations on your initiative. I love watching film and it would be good if it would be kept alive as you are trying to do, not for new releases but for classic films.

You may be able to use the wealth of knowledge there is still out there to create a world chain of film-cinemas that show classic prints from time to time. It will become so rare that it may even be profitable or even trendy!

It would be even better if it could be profitable to keep some sort of production for the re-release of some classic titles.

Aren’t there printers nowadays that can print on film on resolutions of 6k or over? It would be good to have a Technirama film scanned at that resolution and printed on film.

Anyone, please bring back the blacks from IB Technicolor prints, I miss them.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 05-08-2013, 09:06 PM:

quote: Robert E. Allen
I sit here and just have to chuckle as we are about to reach the mark I set a couple of years ago when I said film would be around for awhile. Now I'm thinking film will be around longer than even I thought.

I don't think anybody has ever said that the "end of film" would come before the end of this year.

While it may be true that the end-of-film might come later in some countries than others, nobody should take that to mean prints will be available. First of all, studios can't usually even be bothered to move prints between regions of the U.S. There's no WAY they would pay to ship prints in from overseas to service a bunch of low-grossing indies.

quote: Liz Coffey
I posted this here because this forum is for theatre owners and staff, right? You are the people making this decision.

Actually, no. Most of the posters here are projectionists, technicians, dealers and other people who are interested in the moving image. There are a few owners (like myself) here but we are mostly the "small potatoes" type who have zero influence on the direction of the industry. The major decision makers on this have been the studios and the major chains' suits. The rest of us (the ones in the first-run camp, at least) have had to fall in line or make plans to exit the business.

At the end of the day, the ONLY thing I don't like about digital is the debt we had to get into to convert. I remain hopeful that when the time to upgrade comes, sensible innovators in the industry will have come up with ways to lower equipment prices, and/or upgrade existing equipment at reasonable cost.

Posted by Aaron Garman (Member # 1653) on 05-08-2013, 10:40 PM:

quote: Leo Enticknap

If you go to The Louvre now, you'll see the Mona Lisa lit by LEDs (not to mention behind an anti-terrorist/anti-loony plastic shield!). When it was first painted, you'd have seen it under candlelight. Would you say that its current display conditions are unethical and that you're not getting the real deal?

No. That's not an entirely fair comparison. The original work is still there, just in a different space. It's not being presented on a different medium all together. I've always felt a given director took into account that they would be showing their work on film. It's the work they signed off on. It was what we all experienced. That was the final product.

Digital technology has made revisionist filmmaking common place. Classics are being color timed totally different when transferred to digital, sound mixes are being updated. In the case of something like Star Wars, whole shots are being changed, deleted, and added. These versions are then being shown on DCP, on Blu-ray/DVD, and this is now the movie people are going to see, and a large majority of them. You now have this question: "what is the correct version and way to see a given movie"? Did David Lean ever want people to see Lawrence of Arabia on an iPad? Has a person who's only seen 2001 on a 27" television on DVD actually "seen" 2001?

That's why I think film and digital need to live together, as they are two different mediums. When I want to see Lawrence, I want to see it on 70mm on a 50 foot or larger screen. When I see Hugo, I want to see it in 3D, digitally. To me, seeing a DCP of Lawrence or Hugo in 2D on film is the same as watching it on DVD/Blu-ray: an approximation of what the true intent was. Approximation is relatively ok at home, but in a cinema? No. There should be no compromise.

AJG

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 05-09-2013, 07:15 AM:

quote: Aaron Garman
No. That's not an entirely fair comparison. The original work is still there, just in a different space. It's not being presented on a different medium all together.

Granted, I was coming up with an extreme and provocative example. However, the point it was trying to illustrate is the question of where do you stop when it comes to the importance of the medium?

quote: Aaron Garman
I've always felt a given director took into account that they would be showing their work on film. It's the work they signed off on. It was what we all experienced. That was the final product.

So if, say, the director of Becky Sharp or Gone With the Wind signed off on an IB nitrate print with variable density sound that he saw projected on a silver screen with carbon arcs and the audio played through tube amps and huge horn drivers, is it any less authentic seeing it on a DCP today that has been tweaked to try to reproduce that impression than it is on a polyester, chromogenic film print, projected onto a high-gain white screen with a xenon and the sound re-recorded onto variable area and played through a modern A and B chain?

There appears to be a group of people who believe passionately that film - any type of film - offers a fundamentally authentic viewing experience, even if the actual photochemistry used on that film and the audio technology used alongside it differs completely between that used in the production and that used in projection; whereas a digital copy - any type of digital copy, does not and cannot. I find this puzzling: I've never heard anyone reject, say, a TV show that was originally recorded on 2" quad and since remastered onto DigiBeta as lacking authenticity when the latter is shown.

quote: Aaron Garman
Digital technology has made revisionist filmmaking common place.

Granted, it's made it easier, cheaper and more widespread. But attempts to rewrite film history have happened before. I seem to remember that in the 1997 Star Wars, various 'defects' in the stop-motion effects and one or two lines of dialogue that were deemed racist or sexist (can't remember which) were excised, after which Lucas tried to destroy all the remaining 1977 prints. But I do take your point - anyone can play that sort of game with a decent scanner and Adobe After Effects now, hence the tsunami of classic film re-releases on BD complete with a 'restoration' featurette, usually featuring some teenager at a workstation proudly crowing about the extent to which he's totally changed everything with little thought of the original viewing experience.

quote: Aaron Garman
You now have this question: "what is the correct version and way to see a given movie"? Did David Lean ever want people to see Lawrence of Arabia on an iPad?

That's an easy one, but what would he make of 4K? Given his love of rich, detailed images, I'd hazard a guess that he'd much rather we saw Larry that way than on a beaten up, dropout-ridden 70mm mag print. And if, by investing in a carefully scanned and mastered DCP, using a 70mm print for a reference guide to the timing, the film can reach hundreds of Sunday afternoon theatre audiences across the world, compared to a dozen or so for the print (the last time I was involved in showing a 70mm Larry, the print cost £1,200 to ship alone), what is the better investment?

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 05-09-2013, 07:33 AM:

While I don't totally agree with Leo's opinion above, I do appreciate that he takes an interest in making archival material available for screenings. From the exhibitor's point of view, archives are really good at preserving films and really bad about making them available to be shown. I would argue that if a pristine print of a terrific film is perfectly preserved, that does no good for anyone if it is never made available for screenings. Archives need to do a better job at the "access" part of their mission, and I am glad that someone in that community seems to care about such things.

Some practical issues with DCPs of archival material:

In addition to the relative costs of making a print vs. making a DCP, many film programmers want archival films to be shown on film. A good 35mm reprint of a classic film will likely generate more bookings than a DCP. I have been booking films for a performing-arts center that occasionally shows movies and have flat-out refused to book anything on Blu-Ray (we have a great video projector, but don't have DCP capability). I distrust the format and fear that there is a slippery slope to the point at which movie theatres become giant-screen television sets, and believe that the distinction between home viewing and cinema viewing needs to be maintained; exhibition formats are one way of doing this. Admittedly, DCP is better than Blu-Ray, but not if it is derived from the same (often de-grained, remixed, re-timed) HD master.

Another issue that DCP lacks support for frame rates slower than 24fps, meaning that most silent films would need to be stretch-printed (or the digital equivalent) in order to screen them as DCPs. By contrast, most venues which show silent films on film on a regular basis have variable-speed projection capability.

Finally, what of the current stock of 35mm prints that have no DCP equivalent? Even if one accepts that DCP is a legitimate exhibition format for archival material, 35mm capability will be needed for years to come until (unless?) existing 35mm material is scanned.

There are plenty of miserable 35mm prints that are unfit for exhibition and need to be shredded. There are plenty of miserable operators that need to be fired. Neither of these should invalidate 35mm (or 16mm or 70mm) film as an exhibition format for existing material.

Posted by Ramon Lamarca Marques (Member # 3621) on 05-09-2013, 01:51 PM:

I completely sympathise with Aaron and Scott’s point of view. For classic films I prefer projected film. We should assume it is properly projected film from a good print. I think we all agree with Leo’s point of view of a good DCP being better than a bad 35mm print. However, Leo says that a DCP is cheaper to ship, true, but if you think about the exhibitor’s point of view, it may not be that cheap. Those 70mm prints were unique and attracted people from around the world to specialised cinemas/festivals. The 4K files are extremely ubiquitous, especially now that even the multiplexes are showing classics on DCP and now with the Ultra-Super-High-8K-Definition TVs, I bet you they will use the same masters for everything. And this ubiquity may kill the specialised cinema, therefore you are saving on the shipping and the whole cinema operation since you won’t have a business! As to how removed from the original… I always give the example of the nitrate print I have seen of Spellbound, the best experience I have had of the film, the next one would be a good 35mm print (non-nitrate) then a DCP. I think a DCP is far more removed from the original experience than a proper 35mm print, even if it is not a nitrate print. I just hope that there is a plan to keep film exhibition for classic films, it is a different experience to watching them on DCP, as it is a different experience to watch a film on a plasma, a LED or LCD TV. Let’s get that dye-transfer Technicolor machinery from the 90s out of the cupboard!

Posted by Aaron Garman (Member # 1653) on 05-09-2013, 02:19 PM:

You all kind of summed up what I was about to say: sure, a DCP is going to be better than a destroyed or damaged print. What I was getting at was an ideal situation where you have a good print vs. a good DCP.

My screening of American Beauty was a recent example of a bad DCP. I saw the film a few times in 35mm and it was beautiful. The recent DCP is edge enhanced, digital looking grossness that in no way represents what the film looked like upon release nor what Sam Mendes/Conrad Hall intended. In fact, it looked exactly like the Blu-ray. Yet, it's being shown in the cinema, on the big screen, as part of a series that's goal is to allow people to see their favorites in the place they were always intended.

I'll cite Jurassic Park as an example as well in reference to the sound mix. Re-mixed for what, the sake of being re-mixed? Award winning sound that "needs" to be changed? Why? Even though Gary Rydstrom himself did the re-mix, it's more revisionist thinking.

It's incidents like this that make film prints invaluable for the preservation of an art form that is slowly being destroyed by revisionists and those too lazy to bother checking "what should the film look and sound like?"

Digital is a good thing in that it is pushing studios to have to scan things in order to get released in cinemas again. The problem is that they are either being done on the cheap or by people who have no concept at all of preserving the actual experience and essence of the film.

Not to be completely negative about DCPs, the Godfather, Titanic, and the Sound of Music were DCPs done right. I'd have prefer the mono sound mix for the Godfather but the one included was not horrific.

Leo, I also had a nice chuckle when you referred to Lawrence as Larry. [Smile]

AJG

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 05-09-2013, 03:54 PM:

quote: Leo Enticknap
I find this puzzling: I've never heard anyone reject, say, a TV show that was originally recorded on 2" quad and since remastered onto DigiBeta as lacking authenticity when the latter is shown.

Perhaps no one has complained about "authenticity," but I have seen countless complaints in reviews of videos, DVDs, Blu-ray discs, etc. where TV shows have been mastered to the given playback medium in not such a great manner resulting in sub-par image quality.

Average people think "digital" means "perfect" when it's anything but perfect. Compromises are made at a growing number of steps in audio/video/image acquisition and conversion of it to digital format, post processing of that data and the distribution of the finished product to customers. The person who doesn't know better might think a lossy compressed 192kbs MP3 file of a classic rock song is every bit as good as the original 2" wide analog master tape when the fact is that MP3 file is a piece of digital shit. The portable tune might have been turned to shit by the lossy encode/compression process, various post production tricks that increase loudness and compress dynamics in the "digital remastering" process and in the manner of how the original analog audio was sampled and converted into digital data in the fisrt place. It's a little easier to understand with how analog sourced audio is treated with digital tools. Movies are no different. All that audio/video data can be severely bastardized in the hands of someone who doesn't give a damn about making the finished product more true to its source.

quote: Scott Norwood
Admittedly, DCP is better than Blu-Ray, but not if it is derived from the same (often de-grained, remixed, re-timed) HD master.

DCP is supposed to be better than Blu-ray. But if the person making the encoding decisions chooses to ramp up compression to very severe levels, squeezing a 2 hour DCP that should weigh around 200GB down to only 50GB, the DCP won't be any better -certainly not any better than a well mastered Blu-ray.

At severe compression levels some of the things that are supposed to make a DCP better than Blu-ray, such as every movie frame being a separate JPEG2000 encoded image, may end up putting it at a disadvantage. The AVC and VC1 video formats on Blu-ray make heavy use of inter-frame compression techniques. You can't do that with a JPEG2000 DCP.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 05-10-2013, 02:20 AM:

quote: Ramon Lamorca Marques
Those 70mm prints were unique and attracted people from around the world to specialised cinemas/festivals.

Sure, but how many people and how many festivals?

When I worked on the arthous circuit, we would occasionally project classics on VHS when a print failed to arrive or (more often) it was so bad as to be physically unshowable. It was very, very rare to get a complaint from the audience, who were drawn to see it in the cinema mainly because of the social aspect rather than the presentation technology.

That is not to say that I'm endorsing a race to the bottom - far from it. I'm looking mainly at this problem from an archival perspective. As Scott points out, they have a poor reputation for making their collections accessible, part of which comes from the technical standards they require theatres to meet in order to be trusted with their film prints. The overwhelming majority of theatres out there do not have the expertise or the money to comply, especially when a changeover installation is demanded. I've been involved in attempts to crack this nut over the last 20 years. There has been some progress: the British Film Institute, for example, is a lot more relaxed about this than it was in the '80s and '90s, and UCLA now has 'B' prints of a few of its heavily requested titles, for which a platter is not in itself a rule-out.

But as the cost of making film prints increases and then for colour becomes no longer possible, archivists will instinctively go into preservation priority mode, and we'll be into a vicious circle whereby it becomes more difficult and expensive for theatres to maintain high quality film projection installations, in response to which archivists start to pull up the drawbridge.

While I'd hope that there will be a small number of theatres that do maintain film projection capability decades into the future, and form long-term relationships with archives (and/or develop existing ones) to ensure that regular screenings continue, that's only going to be realistic and possible beyond the next 5-10 years for, I would guess, 10-20 venues in the US and about the same in Europe.

But if archives and re-release distributors concentrate on creating high quality digital versions of their major holdings, then for the first time theatres that had never previously been able to show classics and re-releases at all (because the cost of doing so was too big a barrier) will be able to start. Far from causing theatres to close down, it might even bring people back in who are currently buying Blu-rays and watching at home.

As Bobby notes, digital can be 'done wrong' as well as film. But we've now got to the stage at which, with all other things being equal, it's a lot cheaper to do it right than with film, in most cases.

quote: Ramon Lorca Marques
I always give the example of the nitrate print I have seen of Spellbound, the best experience I have had of the film, the next one would be a good 35mm print (non-nitrate) then a DCP.

And the best recent experience I now bang on about is Criterion's Bluray of The Wages of Fear, shown on a 2K projector. In the scene where Charles Vanel sees the huge boulder blocking the road and realises just how big a problem he has on his hands, there is a rock steady picture, a deep, dark grey sky (with no digital artefacts that I could see), and when you cut to the close-up of his face, you can see every wrinkle and drip of sweat. There was no distraction to break the suspense, and my eyes were glued to the screen as it dawned on him that he was no longer the tough guy and had no idea how to solve the problem. When the camera cut away after that shot, there was an almost audible release of tension from the audience. And that was just a BD! The last time I'd previously seen it (all through) was on the BFI's 35mm print dating from their 1990s re-release. I remember in the same scene, vertical weave (which won't have been a projector fault - this was at the NFT), constant dirt and scratching and flattened contrast from the heat damage of repeated projections broke the suspense totally and I felt the action was slow moving and tedious.