Good Example Of What The RED Cams Dont Fix

[beamascope]

I guess it all depends on what you're doing. I will say if you show up to a production shoot for a client with a cart of 100D and a GAF camera you'll likely be asked to leave. :lol:

[MovieStuff]

......While video colonised television and the home movie market, it would be decades before it began to colonise the cinema. Why? Was it not convenient enough for cinema?

The challenge for video was still to get an image as "good as film"........

A little back story: In the early days before video tape, kinescopes were used to make black and white film copies off of video monitors. By the early sixties, kinescope production had risen to a fine art. Damned fine looking transfers; as good as it was every going to get. By comparison, the first video tape machines had an awful image and obviously inferior to kinescopes in every way. But the industry adopted videotape as the defacto standard anyway and it was a very, very long time before video tape ever looked as good as the kinescopes they replaced. Similarly, in cinema, modern 35mm anamorphic replaced large formats like 65mm and VistaVision even though anamorphic could not hold a candle, in terms of picture fidelity.

So the lesson learned is that overall quality is really NOT the defining issue in cinema or television. If it were, then we would be seeing better scripts, better acting, better directing, better concepts, etc on the screen. Indeed, the issue regarding the delayed proliferation of digital in both cinema and television has little to with quality and more to do with something we never have to deal with as independent or amateur movie makers on this forum: unions and contracts.

In theatrical production, unions had contractual agreements with studios about the type of labor they would employ and, in the beginning, unions that dealt with theatrical film had no language in their contracts dealing with video or digital. Also studios for both television as well as cinema had long standing contractual agreements with labs and rental houses that dealt exclusively with 35mm. On top of that, there was an existing and rather efficient 35mm infrastructure already in place that had equipment, labs, transfers, post, etc. So making the transition from film to digital/video wasn't really about quality but, rather, about bleeding out the existing contracts, bowing to union pressures about personnel, and about replacing an existing media acquisition/management system that had been in place for almost 100 years. Once all those factors were satisfied, the switch to 24p in both cinema and television picked up at a frightening speed that outpaced ANY sort of quality considerations.

Certainly, I would never want to see "Lawrence of Arabia" shot on a Red but, to be fair, I think that 24p digital is "good enough" for the quality of scripts coming out of Hollywood and television these days. However, your mileage may vary.

Roger

[carllooper]

So making the transition from film to digital/video wasn't really about quality but, rather, about bleeding out the existing contracts, bowing to union pressures about personnel, and about replacing an existing media acquisition/management system that had been in place for almost 100 years. Once all those factors were satisfied, the switch to 24p in both cinema and television picked up at a frightening speed that outpaced ANY sort of quality considerations.

Some good points here. A certain amount of structural inertia can be understood as an obstacle to digital colonisation of the cinema. But it does makes one wonder if cameras such as the Red had not been created, by the time that such structural obstacles had been overcome, whether we'd be therefore watching standard definition videos in the cinema? I can't quite see how that could have happened. What motivated the creation of the Red camera in the first place if quality was not an issue?

From an economic perspective, quality (technical quality) can be understood as having a competitive advantage. This might be considered as something that was more the case in the past than it is today. How did YouTube become what it is if technical quality was an issue. Indeed, from a certain vantage point, one can read a relaxed attitude to technical qualities as quite radical, something bubbling up from grass roots, and infiltrating mainstream attitudes.

What technical quality might mean can be regarded as much a function of periodic changes in the technological landscape as anything else. The proliferation of small cameras in the home movie market attuned audiences to the qualities of the handheld camera( for example). The acceptance and expansion of handheld cinematography in mainsteam commercial contexts becomes possible. Or YouTube. The ability to communicate an image quickly and easily becomes more important than the limitations in bandwidth. YouTube succeeds in terms of something other than what might be considered "technical quality". And yet we see YouTube, as it matures, enabling better quality videos, recovering more traditional concepts of technical quality (such as bandwidth).

On another front altogether is the alternative use of technology. Here is not a question of fitting into industrial forces but exploiting industrial products for alternative ends. The meaning of "technical quality" in these contexts differs much more. In the right hands a great work can be made on a toy camera from the junk shop. Being exceptional such works don't help us formulate any rules. They break the rules. And that's always to be appreciated.

[carllooper]

I guess it all depends on what you're doing. I will say if you show up to a production shoot for a client with a cart of 100D and a GAF camera you'll likely be asked to leave. :lol:

Well it depends on what you've sold through to the client. But I get the joke. However it's beside the point. The issue is not whether small gauge film is the norm, convenient, competitive and so on. The issue is about certain technical qualities of the filmic image. This is something that can be discussed irregardless of what side of the fence you sit. It's not necessarily about which is better: film or video/digital, although it is often framed in such binary terms. It's about particular dimensions of the moving image. A subset thereof.

What makes film attractive despite everything against it?

In other words, why shoot film? This is not a rhetorical question. Some people, such as myself, and others, appreciate the look of film. It's not necessarily due to habituation. I was weened off film decades ago. Yet I still appreciate the filmic image. There are qualities it possess - that I recognise. That are there in the nature of the materials.

On the other hand I sometimes feel as if I'm required to act out the role of Dr Frankenstein in the classic 1931 movie, as if I were attempting to resurrect the dead. I feel obliged to utter the words "So you think I'm crazy do you?" as Dr Frankenstein said in response to criticism of his experiments, and then to suffer the consequences accordingly.

An alternative role is not that of the paranoic doctor but a role more akin to that of the monster. To identify with the monster. As a hybrid creation rather than as a creator seeking an ego-centric unified rational identity. The outdoor scene of Frankenstein* by the river remains etched in my imagination as one of the most stunning in cinema. It is as if all of the otherwise german expressionist studio scenes were required to make this scene what it is. Alive. It resonates with all the beauty of which film is capable. It is absolutely haunting.

[* The monster is often understood (or misunderstood) as having the name 'Frankenstein', and for some reason I perpetuate that usage here. It probably stems from the fact that the monster emerges as the central character in a film otherwise named after the doctor.]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llH6_bdglns

Derrida speaks of a hauntological aspect to history. The past as dead, but returned as a ghost. Derrida doesn't assign any truth value to the ghost, ie. doesn't require that a ghost represent some prior reality (as historians do). The ghost itself becomes more interesting than what it might otherwise represent. Derridas ghosts are not trying expose some otherwise hidden truth (such as who murdered them) but rather, they are preoccupied in the present state of affairs. Haunting the present.

Film is capable of haunting the present in a Derridean manner.