Why call it a film?

Post by **sooper8fan** » Thu Jun 16, 2005 12:51 am

There are so many "film"makers here, there, everywhere, and it's awesome. What I don't understand is why so many people call their finished product a "film" when it's shot entirely on video and never gets blown up to 35mm or anything like that. Am I missing something here?
I have a friend who's taking "film" classes, but he's never shot film and he doesn't know crap about film. I mean, he didn't even know that running film at faster fps results in slow-motion. I don't think they even teach any "film" fundamentals in his class. He talks about making "films" all the time, yet he shoots with a friggin' Canon XL1. What the heck? It's great that people have an affordable medium to create with, but if you shoot your project on video and it stays on video, I say it should be called a "movie" or a "video" unless it ends up being blown up to 35mm or something.
Obviously, shooting on video and shooting on film are two entirely different worlds. There's a lot more to know and consider when shooting film, in my opinion. So why call yourself a filmmaker when you don't shoot film?
Also, I don't mean to offend anybody with this post...hell, I shoot video for a living. It's my bread and butter. But ever since I started shooting with Super8 a few years ago, the term "filmmaker" has taken on a whole new meaning to me.

Post by **Guy Bennett** » Thu Jun 16, 2005 9:28 am

Could be that the word "film" has taken on the generic meaning of "moving pictures," independent of the medium/material used. Just as in (American) English, "rhetoric" is generally understood to mean inflated, essentially worthless speech, and "literature" any printed information.

Post by **mattias** » Thu Jun 16, 2005 11:05 am

the average joe, who's responsible for how language evloves and gets used, couldn't care less what format something was shot in. i don't see why it's important to make the distinction between film and video really.

/matt

Post by **audadvnc** » Thu Jun 16, 2005 9:50 pm

I happen to agree with sooper8fan, but the world at large has a looser definition of film:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_%28disambiguation%29

"...in academics, the study of motion pictures as an art form"

And motion pictures can be created and viewed in either chemically or electronically generated form. So I guess we lose this battle.

Post by **Evan Kubota** » Mon Jun 27, 2005 3:51 pm

"What I don't understand is why so many people call their finished product a "film" when it's shot entirely on video and never gets blown up to 35mm or anything like that. Am I missing something here?"

Great timing on this thread. I generally agree, and it especially bothers me when 'film'makers who have put very little effort into their projects adopt the label 'film' in an effort to grasp at quality...

Post by **audadvnc** » Tue Jun 28, 2005 10:11 pm

"...it especially bothers me when 'film'makers who have put very little effort into their projects adopt the label 'film' in an effort to grasp at quality..."

Reminds me of a local dealer for a big 3 US automaker that was suffering the effects of producing shoddy merchandise. They put up a big neon sign on the front of their building announcing "QUALITY!", as in "not just a word, it's a buzz word!"

Post by **namke** » Wed Jun 29, 2005 6:00 pm

does it depend on which side of the Atlantic you're from? I mean, here in the UK we go and see a film; in the US it's a movie... :?

So, a US movie-maker might be a UK film-maker?

Of course, I'm not a film maker (yet - just got some Super 8 kit to experiment with) although I have made videos

john..

Post by **sooper8fan** » Wed Jun 29, 2005 6:42 pm

namke wrote:

Of course, I'm not a film maker (yet - just got some Super 8 kit to experiment with) although I have made videos

I started this thread, but I'm on the same boat as you. I do video production for a living and I've made tons of videos. But I will not call myself a "filmmaker" until I finish a project shot entirely on film. I've shot a lot of Super8 within the past year, but it's been mostly tests of the cameras/film in different situations...nothing scripted or really planned out. Most of it has come out looking pretty good though. I posted a segment of various shots in the other forum, but here's the link to it again:
http://www.desireeandseth.com/sooper8fan-ClipsPt2.wmv
but like I said, I won't call myself a filmmaker until I complete a project shot entirely on film.

Post by **audadvnc** » Wed Jul 06, 2005 4:08 am

I think it's becoming less of a big deal for most people. If you look at a clip on the web (especially a b&w one) can you tell which is which every time? How can you tell - grain, jitter, detail?

And is every video-originated clip deficient by nature? Doesn't the downconversion to MPEG or whatever do much more damage?

Film & video are just tools. Sometimes you need a flat blade, sometimes a Phillips head.

Post by **odyssic** » Wed Aug 24, 2005 8:31 pm

That's why, though everyone may be "artists" who use this and that medium, you're not really a "filmmaker" unless you use film as a medium. This distinction is more important than it seems. As far as small format filmmaking goes... if "film" and "video" are both lumped together, no one seeks out the real "films" on celluloid so these artists suffer. People see a DVD of their work and say that they've seen the "film" when in actuality they've never seen the film, they've seen a digital approximation of it.

Also, the term filmmaker has some glory attached to it that non-filmmakers want to adopt sometimes, without really deserving the title. In fact, in San Francisco here there is now the school of Digital Filmmaking. If they called it the school of Digital Video, no one would go... but honestly that is what it should be called.

Steven

Post by **steve hyde** » Wed Aug 24, 2005 8:44 pm

....cinema is cinema regardless of the format. I've seen brilliant work done on video and I see kitschy stuff made on film.

Why is making a distinction between film and video important? Filmmaking is about content not format. Film just happens to be an easier format to work with.

Steve

Post by **tlatosmd** » Wed Aug 24, 2005 9:02 pm

odyssic wrote:In fact, in San Francisco here there is now the school of Digital Filmmaking.

*has a diploma for that hanging next to him on his wall* :roll:

Post by **Evan Kubota** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 6:21 am

"People see a DVD of their work and say that they've seen the "film" when in actuality they've never seen the film, they've seen a digital approximation of it."

That distinction is pointless, IMO. 'Film' in that sense refers to a completed motion picture. Of course the DVD contains a version of that movie. No, it's not a literal film print. If you saw a scan of a 35mm still photo on the web, I guess by that logic, you never saw a photo - you saw pixels which happened to approximate that photo. Obviously there is a difference but it's pretty clear what people mean when they say 'I saw ____ film.'

Post by **tlatosmd** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 6:27 am

For me, it's a film or a photo as long as it originated on a chemical medium.

Post by **mattias** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 11:21 am

ccd's are photo chemical devices too, as are all electronics. the difference is how the image is stored, not how it originated. after all it all began with light, didn't it?

anyway, there are millions of words in the world that don't mean exactly what they once did. film for example. it refers to the thin sheet of celluloid that holds the emulsion, and the word itself has nothing to do with photo sensitivity or storytelling. this means tape is also a film based medium by the way. need i go on?

/matt