Celluloid no more: distribution of film to cease by 2013 in the US

[buggz]

Celluloid no more: distribution of film to cease by 2013 in the US
A report projects movie studios will go completely digital in the near future.

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/...All+content%29

[vinny]

hooray!

[dsphotog]

If that's true, acetate film base production will be a very small niche market. We may be coating our own glass plates sooner than I expected.

[georgl]

Another superficial article, they talk about distribution and therefore print film - it has nothing to do with acquisition (not even the same stock) or still photography.

[Drew Wiley]

Anybody know how long it's been since still film was made on celluloid base - nearly a hundred years?

[Sevo]

Anybody know how long it's been since still film was made on celluloid base - nearly a hundred years?

It already got unpopular before WW I after a series of disastrous cinema fires. It was widely banned as a consumer material by the twenties, and phased out as a professional projection material by the fifties (indeed, there had been moves to make acetate security film obligatory in the thirties, but celluloid saw a comeback due to wartime economies). As process film and motion picture taking stock it kept around until polyester bases became widespread - for multi-strip colour processes and optical masking effects its dimensional stability sometimes was still needed up into the seventies.

[bigdog]

Another superficial article, ...

It also only "projects" ...

[brucetaylor]

I read an article elsewhere that reported more specifics: it was 20th Century Fox that declared they would stop distributing film prints by the end of 2013.

So a bit less dire, but still a concern. There are thousands of theaters around the world in less wealthy areas that will be projecting film for some time, the cost to the theater for converting to digital is high. An acqaintance of mine is a filmmaker, a significant part of the National Cinema of Ecuador. He shoots digital to save money (they can shoot more films per year that way), but has to convert to film for distribution because the towns have film projectors in their theaters.

There are a lot of big players in Hollywood that still prefer to shoot motion picture film, but that acquisition infrastructure has been supported by the striking of thousands of prints for distribution.

[Sevo]

There are a lot of big players in Hollywood that still prefer to shoot motion picture film, but that acquisition infrastructure has been supported by the striking of thousands of prints for distribution.

Has it? I am not particularly up to date, but back when I studied cinematography, taking and print film used different processes. Besides, in Germany the labs dealing in originals, edit copies and internegatives generally were not handling bulk prints - the former were associated with the studios, the latter were part of the distribution system.

[Steve Smith]

So a bit less dire, but still a concern. There are thousands of theaters around the world in less wealthy areas that will be projecting film for some time, the cost to the theater for converting to digital is high.

It appers to me that a lot of cinemas in the US are owned by large corporations. In the UK they are owned by smaller companies, and in many cases, individually, privately owned. These cinemas will not want to invest the thousands of £ necessary in something which might be obsolete in a few years when their optical projectors still work fine.


Steve.