Digital VS Film? Seriously!

learnfilmonline

learnfilmonline

Alright guys,

In your true honest opinion, I know some of you hate change, and never think film is going to die. Do you think film will die one day due to digital?

Me: Hell yes, we don't even have a choice. It's coming.
 
The Future of Film?

Let's have some fun. What do you see in the future. Let's say 20 years from now.

Me: Red is going to be the myspace. Then a new camera system will come out even better. And create hologram images. Movies will look like a hologram. So while your sitting at home missiles will wizz by your head.

Now for the movie theater, it will be like Disneys soarin over califofnia, but with more feel, like if there a fire you feel the heat. Also hologram.

3d will be big but will be just like AOL, MYspace.

Your Thoughts?
 
Probably, but it will be a long time before it does.

As an audio guy who grew up during the age of analog tape I can attest that there are things that digital audio just doesn't do... yet.

There is just something about the sound of analog tape that digital audio just cannot duplicate. Audio for many years was all about a clean signal path because analog tape induced hiss, so everything else became as clean as possible and tubes were avoided like the plague once transistor technology was mastered. But part of the "rock/pop" sound was "slamming" the analog tape to induce a natural tape compression to the audio signal. When digital audio tape was introduced many in the music industry complained that digital was "cold", "sterile" and "lacked warmth" - except for the classical music and film engineers who were overjoyed by the lack of tape hiss. A turn-around in technology occurred; people went back to tube pre-amps, etc. because it "warmed up" the signal; and advanced computer-aided design and manufacturing methods created tube and other products with a superior signal-to-noise ratio. When computer DAWs were introduced into the mix (pardon the pun) a great many tape saturation simulators hit the market, but a trained ear could tell the difference.

The music industry is currently going through a radical change as the newer crop of engineers have never used analog tape. That, combined with better plug-ins, means the digital revolution and the death of analog tape is almost complete. The same thing will happen with film vs. video. Give it another 25 years or so and film will be relegated to history classes.
 
Denny said:
If they can duplicate film,
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They can't duplicate film. That's something that will never happen, for sure. :)

They can certainly capture an amazing image, that looks superb, on a digital medium - and that image is going to be close enough, and even eventually accepted by consensus (by both audience & industry) as being "superior" to genuine film - but it will never be film.

Looks like your two threads got consolidated. I'm still working on my "vision of the future" reply. It's kinda complicated. Btw, you can already load 3D footage to YT.
 
Denny said:
If they can duplicate film, I'm sure audio won't be a problem.
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If you read carefully you would have read that analog tape is all but dead, the film industry is almost exclusively digital, in many ways to its benefit. However, digital, despite all of the computer aided technology, does NOT sound like tape. The way the music industry has transmogrified itself it is getting away from the analog sound. Most pop music is overly compressed in the digital realm in an attempt to duplicate the tape saturation of the "good old" days. That is the essence of the "new" sound plus the (horrible in my opinion) "louder is better" syndrome. Another issue is that there is so much technology that can "fix" things (such as comping, AutoTune, Beat Detective and sample replacement) that a large percentage of music has become a product that no longer requires talent, but that is another thread entirely - or maybe not; will they eventually be able to "fix" an actors performance in the digital realm? Makes me think if the Pacino film "Simone;" or perhaps more properly "S1M0NE."
 
The battle between film and digital will ultimately be decided by economics rather than quality. While Kodak is fighting a good fight sadly the cost of producing and displaying a movie on film compared to digital is what will decide the outcome. Thankfully Kodak itself is involved in the digital domain so it is unlikely it will go the way of Agfa and Polaroid.
 
I forgot where the source was, but;

There is an 'HD Film(Celluloid)' in the making. It is supose to record through lasers onto a film like surface that is suposedly industructable.
 
Denny said:
Let's have some fun. What do you see in the future. Let's say 20 years from now.

Me: Red is going to be the myspace. Then a new camera system will come out even better. And create hologram images. Movies will look like a hologram. So while your sitting at home missiles will wizz by your head.

Now for the movie theater, it will be like Disneys soarin over califofnia, but with more feel, like if there a fire you feel the heat. Also hologram.

3d will be big but will be just like AOL, MYspace.

Your Thoughts?
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I don't get the comparison to MySpace and AOL. Red is going to be a fad that fills up with spammers and fraud?
 
Film itself might die, but the "film look" never will. I think that there will always be people trying to achieve the look of film with their digital equipment, even long after no one uses actual film anymore.
 
digital video, holograms, all that stuff will eventually take over but people will still always use film no matter how popular it still is
 
Okay, so what's your point? Just make films on the media you like if they are available. We could debate gas or electric too if you want, or we could be out making films.
 
And I like the sound of hardcore on a 7-inch.
 
Yep! You can still go to Fry's Electronics and buy an $80 Sony record player. I did, as I have a couple hundred records. In fact, I bought the album soundtrack to the sci-fi movie, INSEMINOID, just last year! Still sealed, off of Ebay. I'm one of these people who doesn't like to dump a format, just to jump on the bandwagon. Then again, I was the first one on my block to have a 24 bit recorder, back in 1998.

Laserdiscs? Still have them.

Digital Compact Cassette? (DCC) Still have them. Though, I knew those were going out of style (to lesser quality MP3s! WTF is wrong with people?), so I ended up buying 3 playback/recording decks.

I also love that my Digital 8 video camera plays my 8mm tapes from the 80's, my High 8 tapes from the 90's and Digital tapes from the 00's. Now, that is great backwards compatibility!
 
My two cents.

Film is great. It's beautiful when handled properly.

Buuuuuut...

With current technology, I can understand why HD will reign supreme. Really nice HD cams with lens packages can absolutely rival the look and quality of a movie shot on 35. I don't think anyone has any question about that. The look might not be identical, but in terms of 'quality', digital is totally on the same level.

Plus, investing in an HD package and kit for your production company will cost you a fraction of what a 35mm package and kit would cost. And then you factor in the cost of transferring the negatives with film...super costly. You could argue that digital has to do this also, but the fact is, an increasing number of movie theaters are installing HD projectors...in a decade, that's all we'll be using...so you don't have to transfer to film with digital.

Look, all you have to do is look at photographers. An insane amount of professional photographers swore never to go digital...now 95% of them are digital.

It's a no-brainer for most of us.
 
Nobody truely believes film will be the norm forever. Some may hope so but then, some liked riding horses more than diving cars too. Evolution is something that happens ragardless of it's popular vote.
 
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