So then, what are your favorite looking 35mm films? What were (is it time to look back at them?) the films that reached the pinnacle of 35mm glory? Maybe that should be its own thread. Don't mean to digress.
There are many films that are still being shot on film, 35mm or otherwise. Digital has certainly caught up in the last few years, and film has almost become the exception to the norm, the way digital was not even 10 years ago.
I saw Argo recently and that looks great. Shot mostly on 35, with a bit of Alexa thrown in. It looks really good, and it's a good movie to boot. Les Miserables was also shot on 35 and looks like it's going to impressive, cinematographically as well as everything else.
I think the advent of digital had really diminished the role of the DP. I think so many films looked beautiful in the past, and we almost took them for granted. There are so many great looking movies, and even the ones that weren't immediately impressive in a 'wow check out this cinematography' way, were still really impressive and shot by those who were great DPs. Really, one
had to be a great DP in the truest sense of the word to be able to shoot a budgeted film, because film is not just simply 'push the red button' and you're good to go. You needed to know how to light without being able to look at a monitor that replicates exactly what you're going to get as an end product. If you look at the best DPs in the world, in general, they tend to be people who shot purely on film and transfer that skillset over to digital and create beautiful imagery. You can get the greatest technicians in the world who know the camera system inside out, but they don't have that eye or that artistry that a master DP has.
With the advent of digital, any wedding or event videographer, or even just mildly rich person who thinks they might like to be a filmmaker can buy a RED or other similar camera, and essentially stick it on auto, because they're shooting raw or log. They get decent images mostly because of the camera system itself, but don't really understand lighting, and don't understand what it is to be a DP. And yet, they call themselves DPs. In the film days, those who owned their own cameras were called owner-operators, because DPs generally don't lock themselves into a camera purchase, so they can choose a camera that suits the story, rather than be locked into having to pay off their camera. I'm not sure when it was decided that 'Camera Operator' is 'close enough' to DP that we should just call them DPs as well.. Not to mention the lack of respect on sets now where there previously was. In the past, the DP was potentially the most respected on set, usually because he was the most experienced person there. These days, even the most experienced DPs can find themselves getting lip from Hair and Make-Up, which simply wouldn't have happened 10 years ago.
But I digress.....
Similar to my points above, this RED stuff looks great. But, that's not because of the camera, it's because of the artist behind it. Give a RED to a beginner and see if he can shoot anything like that...
ill have to switch to a computer
