Not necessarily. There are still those who are dedicated to doing it all in the film domain, incl. projection. Tarantino is the most well known of these but there are others.
Originally Posted by bdkphoto
Not necessarily. There are still those who are dedicated to doing it all in the film domain, incl. projection. Tarantino is the most well known of these but there are others.
I am about half with you Drew. Hollywood is largely sooooo unimpressive despite how hard they try to do so with CG effects. I go to about tw0 movies a year and like one of them. The problem is not film vs. digital but lame overblown ideas in both. I hated the Hateful 8-widescreen technicolor can not recuse a lame cliched idea.
Thanks,
Kirk
at age 73:
"The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep"
Redford is another major player. Like I hinted earlier, this is the town, and UCB Pacific Film Archive is the venue that would know. But I'm betting a helluva lot of the "alt" momentum rather than going retro will gravitate toward convenience video flicks, given the fact that can now be done with DLSR's. The single serious advantage real film has at the moment is that a few big name directors with real budgets are advocating it. By comparison, it's an absolute jungle trying to break through the vast herd of competition at the low end. The equipment or tech side of all this doesn't really concern me. Some of the best photographed movies I've seen from recent years were made in China and Vietnam. Sometimes we'll rent a disc for the alleged superb acting or our own in-house popcorn evening, like last nite. Fortunately, I took a nap earlier in the evening. But for sheer filming and lighting technique, some of the classic old black and white flicks have never been surpassed yet.
I refused to succumb to peer pressure to see 'Hatefull'. I had a free pass to see it projected on film, correctly as Music Box can do it right!
I asked my friends how they liked it and for a brief synopsis. Very glad I did not see such a waste of 'reel film'.
They did not like it. Ha
The key to movie theaters for me is, go during afternoon senior discount, never buy the crappy popcorn, candy, soda and sit so nobody is in front on me.
I like full immersion from close viewing positions. I am happy to follow action with my entire head.
I never sit among the masses, who seem to need a crowd.
This is also self protective, as I weep during almost any big screen movie. I buy into emotion so intensely that it's embarrassing. Few know this. It's a secret.
I weep because I would far rather either be out shooting or in the darkroom. I weep because I have to use earplugs to keep my ears from ringing, the damn speakers are so loud. I weep because the kid behind me is has Ebola and is picking his nose. I weep because we just wasted fifteen bucks just to get in, and I can't stand the smell of artificial butter all around me. I weep because the insanely overpaid actor in the movie is probably a total jerk in real life.
You need a hanky...
I never said the number was zero -but- there are no major theater chains projecting film anymore, just some art houses. Tarantino had to fight like hell to get his movie premiered with a projector. The rest of the world watched digital prints of it. If you checked out the first link in tgtaylors post #19 it shows that nearly 90% of hollywoods top 100 grossing films were shot digitally in 2015. The use of film is actually declining in hollywood, not growing. The are lots of folks who like film, but the industry has moved on.
For me the move to digital has opened up creative opportunities. I directed a music video last year and I'm working on some new "motion" art projects. My friends and colleagues - folks that have made there living shooting for the likes of National Geo - are now doing full length documentaries along side of their stills work. I think it's fantastic.
All this has next to nothing to do with large format photography. I've seen the numbers for professional photographers in the US and less than 5% shoot film (of any kind) - even just occasionally. The numbers have stayed flat over the last few years, but there is no actually growth in film use.
If you think there hasn't been a growth in film usage, you need to reread the link. 90% of Hollywood's top grossing films (if true) is not 90% of all films. Moreover, only 39 films were shot on 35mm the previous year compared with the 100 last year (some, of which , were 16mm, 65/70mm).
A couple of random quotes:
“There’s nothing wrong with 35mm film; it didn’t need replacing. People simply thought that digital capture was a cheaper way of doing it. However, digital is more complicated and, in some cases, it requires a more expensive process.” Two film stocks helped him deal with extremes of light (the desert) and dark (“a completely black set”), and the resolution is preferable to his way of thinking: “To capture all the resolution of an anamorphic 35mm image, you need a scan somewhere between 8K and 12K. So while everyone brags about 4K cameras and scans, we’re shooting on, effectively, a 10K camera. Why replace that with an inferior technology?”
Ditto Philippe Garrel, whose Jealousy avoided a digital intermediate no less: in an email Ted Fendt shared with me, d.p. Willy Kurant observed that “the prints on release stock are clearly superior to the digital copies — the blacks in low light and the details in the whites.” (Garrel’s next film, L’ombre des femmes, is being made the same way.)
Thomas
There's a more sinister side to all this. Ever notice how name-branded gas station franchisees get forced into fancy upgrades like mini-marts, and once they get neck deep into debt in order to meet this demand, guess who ends up owning the station outright? I suspect that this same kind of takeover strategy has factored into neighborhood theaters being forced into very expensive new digital projection technology. It's about big studio controlled near-monopolies. Hence the associated drift into an emphasis on teenage blockbuster action flicks. They're the ones spend on theaters, and by essentially taking over what does or does not survive as a theater, the big dogs have closed the loop in film distribution. Don't worry, there's plenty of rebellion out there, just as in all the arts. But it won't
bring us back the Yellow Father.
This is just not true... I don't know where you get your facts.
Yes many houses have converted to digital, but there are lots of movie theaters that still project film, but just art houses, it just depends where you go. They often keep a few set up for certain movies.
When it comes to BIG BUGET films, there are still many that use film. It's the smaller budget films that use digital, this isn't really the cost of the film or the processing, which I've been told is pretty much the same in the film vs digital compassion, it's a "cost" of the additional steps involved and access to the camera equipment vs shooting on the RED cameras or Canon etc. Additional people, and access to loaders who actually know how to load, which are disappearing. So it's just easier to use digital not the cost of the film, labor and steps cheaper. This is what I've been told by all the camera operators, DP's and loaders I've asked. I "got out" a little over a year ago, so I will admit my info is "dated" by a year, but movies are 2 years out anyway so it's not totally off.
I believe the professional stats, but that's because most "professional photographers" do weddings et al. So yea, that makes sense.
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