35mm battle to be HD

[downix]

A close friend who is getting his MFA from AFI in Directing is shooting his thesis this Spring. He is shooting 35 as is the vast majority of the films coming out of there. Why??

Because he is getting his MFA from AFI, that's why!

Roger

My Ex-Fiance studied film at Ferris State University, and her final was shot on 16mm. I'd not classify a state colleges film progoram as in the same league as AFI, but they still run film.

[MovieStuff]

A close friend who is getting his MFA from AFI in Directing is shooting his thesis this Spring. He is shooting 35 as is the vast majority of the films coming out of there. Why??

Because he is getting his MFA from AFI, that's why!

Roger

My Ex-Fiance studied film at Ferris State University, and her final was shot on 16mm. I'd not classify a state colleges film progoram as in the same league as AFI, but they still run film.

Yes, everyone in film school wants to shoot film. That's why it's called "film school". But after film school, people have to work in whatever format the industry dictates.

Even Spielberg, who said he would never shoot digital, is going to shoot digital when he does the next Indiana Jones movie. Now, people can take the position that Spielberg is simply "selling out", or that it is only because Lucas has a vested interest in digital, or that Sony is wanting to broaden its digital holdings in the film industy, or that theater owners only want digital so they can get away from having to run Hollywood material, or that the television industry wants there to be an easier transition between HD cable and theatrical, etc, etc, etc. Anyone taking any or all of those positions would be 100% correct. But so what? They only prove that industry movers and shakers are creating a tidal force for the expansion of digital, regardless of what we think looks best. As I have said many times, this is not an issue about which format is "best". It's about which format is "good enough" to get the job done within a given market.

I find it amusing that I sit here explaining this concept on an 8mm forum where, almost every day, we all rationalize that Super 8 is "good enough" to get the job done in the face of a larger and equally cost effective format like 16mm. ;)

Roger

[downix]

Not dissing digital at all. Just pointing out that state colleges still opt for film in addition to the high-end filmschools. If I could afford a HD rig, I might consider going HD myself, but then wake up laughing. I don't see the need for a digital setup at this time, I just love the celluloid too much. Of course if on someone elses dime, I would seriously consider Digital. But when the dime is my own, I'll stick to the format I can trust the most to deliver the look I desire the most.

[MovieStuff]

Not dissing digital at all.

Nor should my posts be mistaken as support for digital over film. I love film and hate to see everything being bought down to the lowest common denominator.

Just pointing out that state colleges still opt for film in addition to the high-end filmschools.

Yes, that is true. You can also still get a fine arts degree doing basket weaving and pottery at some places. When I worked for CRS Sirrine running their media department back in the 80s, I interviewed about 20 artist position applicants that had masters degrees in art that couldn't draw a straight line with a ruler. I have found that what is practiced in schools often has little relevance to the working world.

I'll stick to the format I can trust the most to deliver the look I desire the most.

As do people working with digital every day of the week.

Roger

[S8 Booster]

Apparently 35mm wil go down in flames taking S16 with it in the downdraught and as I told many years ago; 8mm will be the sole affordable film survivor possibly B&W bu´wadda ´eck.

By the way, I think we 8mm shooters keeps a few empolyes at Kodak buzy and Kodak makes profit from it as well. Now, that is unique in the digital age :!:

R

[Santo]

Spielberg's been on a real downhill slide with his own filmmaking choices and creative decisions for a very long time now. He's doing way better from a producer point making mass-appeal movies, than a hands-on creative filmmaker. His choice to go with digital to shoot a "movie" movie set in the 1930's, continues this unfortunate trend showing how he's coming close to losing it as a filmmaker beyond being able to create a slick artifice. He's not at the state of insulated meglomaniac delusional dementia that Lucas sunk into, but he's headed in that direction.

It's pretty sad to see how most of these baby boomer generation of filmmakers have aged so badly! Such great films early in their careers, and now they seem to be stuck in a bizarre loop, re-visiting, pointlessly revising and debasing their own work. Coppola with his overlong and pointless additions to APOCALYPSE NOW -- REDUX (trying to make a buck, is that what that was all about?) or countless GODFATHER variations, Lucas -- what can you say about this guy and his horrificly bad new generation STAR WARS films and his continued attempts to control stuff? And Spielberg making really, really bad homages to Kubrick or this ongoing series oversentimentalized throw-away movies driven more by attempts to please a demographic than anything.

These guys have nothing more to say and haven't had anything more to say for about a decade now.

I'm going to see THE AVIATOR this week. I hope old caterpillar eyebrows isn't going to let me down. Despite being jacked around by Mirimax on GANGS... he seems to maintain his drive to be an interesting filmmaker who isn't caught in some downward spiral of navel-gazing. But then again, looking at his early film output, he always was about risk-taking rather than crowd-pleasing and nostalgia like Lucas and Spielberg.

Too bad Coppola can't get his shit together, because he used to be into taking risks, too. It seems the shift for Coppola really came from his mediocre DRACULA. Which coincided with his discovery and over-enthusiastic embrace of CGI.

Hey, I'm starting to see a trend... digital filmmaking has sucked the creative life out of almost all these guys!

[Alex]

Spielberg shooting Digital for the next Indiana Jones is quite interesting.

I don't believe Lucas has impressed anyone with what he did with the latest Star Wars being shot on Digital, the acting is stiff and the arena scene should have gone straight to gameboy.

I bet Spielberg's reason for shooting digital is as simple as cutting down on traveling to other locations so he can have more family time.

As Roger would say, that is one more reason that digital is being used. What I think causes tension is the digiteers constantly clamoring that digital is better than film.

The reality is both formats will find or keep their niches, but can't they learn to just get along? NO, because format preference drives camera production and camera production drives outrageous claims.

[looneyfarm]

Hey, I'm starting to see a trend... digital filmmaking has sucked the creative life out of almost all these guys!

I agree these guys haven't directed anything with a cultural impact for ages now, but I don't think it has anything to do with digital filmmaking. Especially Coppola and Lucas have always been technology fetishists. It just seems that their time has passed.

[Santo]

I bet Spielberg's reason for shooting digital is as simple as cutting down on traveling to other locations so he can have more family time.

Probably. The movie is just going to be going through the motions project, anyways, as it seems to be shaping up. Sort of like a TEMPLE OF DOOM. But then again, how old are his kids?

What I think causes tension is the digiteers constantly clamoring that digital is better than film.

Oh, this is exactly what pisses me off. Any time somebody is trying to ram something inferior down my throat trying to sell it for some megacorporation, I get pissed off. I'm a capitalist, not a "corporationalist". Seeing that clown "rebel" Rodriguez blather on and on about how his shitty-looking ONCE UPON A TIME IN MEXICO looks better than film does is really annoying.

Personally, I myself have incorporated DV in projects, and have a HD-film hybrid project I'm putting funding together for. Digital has its places as a creative tool -- but to lie to everyone and hard sell it like that and present it as something it is not is pathetic and annoying.

[MovieStuff]

Spielberg's been on a real downhill slide with his own filmmaking choices and creative decisions for a very long time now.

He's certainly hit and miss, that's for sure. I hated "A.I." but loved "Catch Me If You Can." Never saw "The Terminal" but there was just something about it that didn't move me to go see it. Maybe on DVD.

It's pretty sad to see how most of these baby boomer generation of filmmakers have aged so badly! Such great films early in their careers, and now they seem to be stuck in a bizarre loop........trying to make a buck, is that what that was all about?

Well, I hate to break it to you but that's what the motion picture industry has always been about. It's commerce, not art. Occasionally someone comes along and creates art but they do so inspite of industry pressures and mechanisms, not because the audiences demand it. If audiences say digital is "good enough" then that's the new standard, regardless of what we think of the quality. I mean, just look at what's happened to the music industry.

I'm going to see THE AVIATOR this week. I hope old caterpillar eyebrows isn't going to let me down. Despite being jacked around by Mirimax on GANGS... he seems to maintain his drive to be an interesting filmmaker who isn't caught in some downward spiral of navel-gazing. But then again, looking at his early film output, he always was about risk-taking rather than crowd-pleasing and nostalgia like Lucas and Spielberg.

I don't know. I certainly think Marty is a terrific director but, in all honesty, his retreading of countless gangster stories with all the same actors playing all the same parts spilling all the same blood from movie to movie sort of puts him in the same category you just described above with Lucas, don't you think? To me a great director that changes from film to film is Phillip Kaufman. "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" is as far removed from "The Right Stuff" as it is from "Outlaw Josey Wales" (which he actually directed, despite what the credits say). All his films seem to have been shot in the time they take place, which I find refreshing.

Hey, I'm starting to see a trend... digital filmmaking has sucked the creative life out of almost all these guys!

Agreed. But, also, I wonder if our enthusiasm (or lack thereof) is also responsible. I mean, look at my response to seeing "The Terminal". I always know I can just see it on DVD at home so I seem less likely to venture out to the theater these days. Perhaps subconsiously they know this and feel that digital is "good enough" because the profit venue is more and more home theater? Just a thought.

Roger

[Santo]

The music industry! :lol: What a disaster that is these days!

Then again, look at why that is: megacorporations owning music companies and manufacturing "stars". Not that "stars" haven't been manufactured for a long time! But here we've got it to a fine art. Disney Inc. is really amazing with their Mouseketeers Britney, Duff, whatever...

Endless, endless hip-hop clones. They were all getting tired ten years ago!

AMERICAN IDOL :?

It's like the worst stuff ever perpetrated on the public over the course of music is now all there is. Cover tunes and clones.

Man, you've got to be "in the know" to even learn about worthwhile contemporary acts like The White Stripes because you hardly hear anything about people who are any good and interesting!

I never thought a whole lot about the 80's or even the early 90's, but you can look at those years as really golden with a lot of distinctive voices and interesting risk-taking going on compared to what we've got now. There's been a number of articles in a few newspapers recently about teens and early twenties wholesale rejecting current lifeless pop music en masse for just the reasons I say in this post. They aren't stupid. A megacorp music world sucks rat shit! Just like a megacorp film world.

[MovieStuff]

A megacorp music world sucks rat shit!

Hah! Don't mince words, Santo. Tell us how you really feel.

Roger

[Nigel]

Speaking from my own personal exprience....

Things for me were looking really glim last year at this time. Shooting is my sole source of income and I couldn't find anyone who wanted to shoot film. They all were saying that it was too expensive and that they had never worked with it. I was being to honest with people in telling them that I didn't shoot video.

Things now are looking great for me for the early part of 05. I have 4 projects right now that are all shooting film and two of them were cold calls from people wanting me to work.

After the New year I am going to do some more tests with a Varicam and CineAlta to get a better feel for them--I may even shoot them next to some film and project everything on a 2k screen.

What I am getting at is that film is far from dead or dying and my eating doesn't seem to be tied to video like I thought it was going to be last year. At one point I was trolling eBay for DVX-100's.

Ahhh the business of Film and Filmmaking.

Good Luck

[S8 Booster]

The music industry! :lol: What a disaster that is these days!

These days :?: :?:

Music died with the ´60s and the final nail in the coffin had "disco" printed on the nail head especially shittyfied by "SatireDay Nit Feeevver" (abt 1978) Hailified by Ugh!.. Beee Geees of the sexies :!: (We´re Only In It For The Money!) - In hand of doubleshitty producer which my soft disc can not remember the name of right now.

Whatta Blunder.

It is funny too that by the time music reproduction could have taken a step up (CD) the music had died prior.


Sad sad but film industry is 2 decades into it too.

And, no Santo it is not the suckers like Spielberg etc who has gotten old and faded - it is you that have elded but with eyes and mind widened. These guys have never delivered anything but shit. They have produced the same shit all the time. Total lack of finesse too. Funny it took you so long ;-)

These and current films are so bad that it wouldn´t matter if they were shot on film or DV. Personally wouldn´t watched them by any means.

R

[Santo]

Whoa! Hold on! I still think films like SCHINDLER'S LIST is pretty darn great! JAWS still stands up strong as a terrific classic adventure/thriller and CLOSE ENCOUNTERS still has a great sense of wonder to it. Hey, Truffaut's in that one, too! STAR WARS retains a genuine charm and RAIDERS remains a highly entertaining big-budget b-movie.

It's just that once those two guys did their thing - mostly homages, admitedly - they were done (except for SCHINDLER'S).

Here's a comparison that I just did thinking about this. Got me thinking this thread. Where are great popular directors/filmmakers when their "glory years" of their 30's - 40's are over? I think, this is the measure of a great filmmaker. How do they celebrate, say, their 60th birthday or so???

Hitchcock makes PSYCHO and knocks everyone on their asses.

Kubrick makes FULL METAL JACKET.

John Ford puts a 10 carat diamond in his career making THE SEARCHERS.

Now as far as these baby boomer generation wunderkinds go...

I guess we'll see how the last STAR WARS film goes. I don't know what Speilberg will be making, but it doesn't look promising. Another Indiana Jones movie? Coppola made THE RAINMAKER around the age of 60 -- anybody remember that one? What happened to Coppola?

Sort of puts things in perspective.