Jump to content

Digital vs. Film...which is better?


karelm

Recommended Posts

I prefer to watch movies that are shot and projected on celluloid film.  I know very few theaters or current movies that take this approach these days.  It could be a bias I have based on the superiority of the original Star Wars trilogy compared to the hyper digital prequels.  At Comic Con, Charlize Theron made a comment that made me realize there are definitely advantages to films that are introduced due to the digital progress.  She said there is a sequence in her new film where "I felt real confident about at the start but during filming thought it isn't working.  It wasn't until I saw the daily's (a rough edit of the day's shoot) that I realized it did work and that reinvigorated my performance."  Being digital enabled her to have an even better performance.  I realized prior to digital film making this was impossible because the film stock had to be developed and edited so the director, editor, cast were somewhat blind.  Clearly there are advantages to digital. Or is it a crutch?  Is modern film making at a worse or higher level of craftsmanship because it is digital?  What are your thoughts?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

With film, they really had to make sure what they were capturing was as good as they could get it. There wasn't much room for error, otherwise you're wasting film stock and the studio's money.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, karelm said:

At Comic Con, Charlize Theron made a comment that made me realize there are definitely advantages to films that are introduced due to the digital progress.  She said there is a sequence in her new film where "I felt real confident about at the start but during filming thought it isn't working.  It wasn't until I saw the daily's (a rough edit of the day's shoot) that I realized it did work and that reinvigorated my performance."  Being digital enabled her to have an even better performance.  I realized prior to digital film making this was impossible because the film stock had to be developed and edited so the director, editor, cast were somewhat blind.

 

Viewing dailies isn't a new process to digital filmmaking, though. It's always been typical for filmmakers to watch the previous day's work but the only difference now is everybody can take a DVD home or to their hotel room at the end of the day whereas they used to have to all gather in a screening room every night.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

12 hours ago, mrbellamy said:

 

Viewing dailies isn't a new process to digital filmmaking, though. It's always been typical for filmmakers to watch the previous day's work but the only difference now is everybody can take a DVD home or to their hotel room at the end of the day whereas they used to have to all gather in a screening room every night.

How was this done before digital?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

http://variety.com/2012/digital/news/digital-dailies-speed-filmmaking-1118055545/

 

Here's a Reddit thread on the subject. Not the best source but the top comment does corroborate a lot of stuff I've read about the old Hollywood process which is that typically on studio shoots a quick, rough print would be developed in-house, but on location they'd be going blind longer since they had to send it to the studio for developing and then they'd receive a can back. Depending on where they were e.g. "wilderness" shoots, they might just have to wait til they got back to LA. So that aspect would be more convenient now digitally of course.

 

But there are countless anecdotes about it throughout Hollywood history. Jimmy Stewart hated watching them as I recall. Sidney Lumet talked about it a lot in his book. Seem to remember reading there or somewhere else that they'd often rent a cinema if they were on location if possible.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Mr Turner is probably the best I've seen digital. That one kinda made me feel like the aesthetic issue is just gonna be more and more a losing battle as time goes on.

 

From what I've heard, though, film is still the best medium for preservation?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think film has gotten to the stage that it doesn't actually matter anymore. It's purely down to the director and cinematographer's choice. 

 

Skyfall was shot on digital and looks as good as anything shot on film IMO. 

 

Dunkirk looked spectacular on film but TFA looked waxy. 

 

Depends on the filmmakers. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, filmmusic said:

I prefer the look of a film with the grain.

I can't stand the clean, sterile, lifeless digital. It looks cheap to me.

 

I'm pretty sure they can make digital look like film with all its flaws. Sometimes digital can look distractingly clean & sharp (The Cure For Wellness). It's like they want to exploit the advantages of digital technology a little too much. But there are times when it looks good too (Deakins).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Stefancos said:

Why would you say that? If anything digital storage, when properly backed up, is far superior.

Apparently there is no single effective method to store digital files effectively.

 

Karol

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Bilbo Skywalker said:

Skyfall was shot on digital and looks as good as anything shot on film IMO. 

 

Was SPECTRE shot on digital? It would be interesting to compare.

 

Was KOTCS shot on digital? It sure looks like it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, Richard said:

 

Was SPECTRE shot on digital? It would be interesting to compare.

 

Was KOTCS shot on digital? It sure looks like it.

 

KOTCS was shot on film wasn't it? Spielberg shoots all his movies on film?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 minutes ago, crocodile said:

Apparently there is no single effective method to store digital files effectively.

 

Karol

 

The National Archives of Australia has been talking about this for years and has announced compliance with a new ISO that ensures digital files created today will always be accessible decades or even centuries from now.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well...like I said. Bil, to me it looks digital, but you're very probably right.

 

 

 

2 minutes ago, Sally Spectra said:

 

The National Archives of Australia has been talking about this for years and has announced compliance with a new ISO that ensures digital files created today will always be accessible decades or even centuries from now.

 

Oh, great! PHOENIX 5, and SONS AND DAUGHTERS forever! ;)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, Bilbo Skywalker said:

 

Thanks for that :)

 

 

 

1 minute ago, Sally Spectra said:

It only kind of "looks digital" because of all that piss yellow colour grading and overall murkiness in some scenes.

 

Shame :(

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, Richard said:

"Digital lighting"? 

Please explain.

 

Like when they create lighting digitally rather using lights on set. 

 

I dont know if KotCS uses any but the jungle sequence sticks out in my mind as being particularly fake looking. I don't know enough about cinematography to really comment on it though. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

42 minutes ago, Sally Spectra said:

It only kind of "looks digital" because of all that piss yellow colour grading and overall murkiness in some scenes.

 

Has nothing to do with digital film but with digital grading.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Alexcremers said:

 

I'm pretty sure they can make digital look like film with all its flaws. Sometimes digital can look distractingly clean & sharp (The Cure For Wellness). It's like they want to exploit the advantages of digital technology a little too much. But there are times when it looks good too (Deakins).

maybe if they apply a film grain plate on top.

But still, i'm not sure the movement will look like the original film..

maybe the frame rates are a bit different..

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Perfectly-projected film beats perfectly-projected digital so badly that it isn't even a conversation.

 

Thing is, perfectly-projected film was always hard to come by; you might see a thousand movies and encounter it once if you're lucky.  You need a gigantic screen and pristine film and a massive amount of light, and most theatres were/are incapable of providing any one of those, much less all three.  With digital, you're at least not dealing with prints that are ruined by the end of the first day of shows; so in terms of the real-world average of viewing experiences, digital beats film so badly that THAT isn't much of a conversation, either.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Watching Shin Godzilla on blu-ray. This is an odd mix of a movie shot digitally where some shots look amazing and others look awful. It must be something about these foreign films where they use a lot of natural light, coupled with a digital shoot, it results in a weird appearance where it looks like it was shot with some second-rate point-and-shoot digital camera from the mid-2000s. But again, I think it's the lighting and I shouldn't expect Hollywood slickness from a modern Toho production.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

22 minutes ago, Bryant Burnette said:

Perfectly-projected film beats perfectly-projected digital so badly that it isn't even a conversation.

 

Thing is, perfectly-projected film was always hard to come by; you might see a thousand movies and encounter it once if you're lucky.  You need a gigantic screen and pristine film and a massive amount of light, and most theatres were/are incapable of providing any one of those, much less all three.  With digital, you're at least not dealing with prints that are ruined by the end of the first day of shows; so in terms of the real-world average of viewing experiences, digital beats film so badly that THAT isn't much of a conversation, either.

 

2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, at The Curzon, Mayfair, in May, 2001. It was a new 70mm/6- track magnetic stereo print, struck from the original negative.

That was perfect.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sorry for the boring response, but it depends on who's making it, and what their visual project is. Both digital and film can be good in capable hands.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Not a question of which is better (technically speaking, film is better in some ways, digital in others). They're simply different formats, what's more important is how they're used. 

 

Though we all have our preferences. I've always loved the celluloid look.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 7/23/2017 at 8:13 PM, karelm said:

I prefer to watch movies that are shot and projected on celluloid film.  I know very few theaters or current movies that take this approach these days.  It could be a bias I have based on the superiority of the original Star Wars trilogy compared to the hyper digital prequels.  At Comic Con, Charlize Theron made a comment that made me realize there are definitely advantages to films that are introduced due to the digital progress.  She said there is a sequence in her new film where "I felt real confident about at the start but during filming thought it isn't working.  It wasn't until I saw the daily's (a rough edit of the day's shoot) that I realized it did work and that reinvigorated my performance."  Being digital enabled her to have an even better performance.  

 

 

I can see where Theron is coming from, and that aspect can help actors with their performance (especially since she produced Atomic Blonde too). However, some actors don't like watching themselves. They prefer to do several takes and call it a day, while others go over scenes numerous times to satisfy the director.

 

Digital can also make filmmakers less disciplined since they can delete takes they don't like and keep the camera rolling (like David Fincher). Some are rigorously self-disciplined and treat a digital shoot similarly to a 35mm shoot, where they get what they need, stop recording, and move on to the next shot.

 

I was originally a hardcore film purist, but I participated in a commercial shoot a few months ago. The director and DOP used several digital cameras (the Red Epic and Sony F55), and I was floored at the quality of the raw images during playback. It's all how the cameras are used and how the final grading is done. Digital and film cameras are just different tools, they're not necessarily superior to each other.

 

Although I think studios should archive their digitally shot films on film negatives as a backup if the original digital files are corrupted or deleted.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 minutes ago, Matt C said:

 

I can see where Theron is coming from, and that aspect can help actors with their performance (especially since she produced Atomic Blonde too). However, some actors don't like watching themselves. They prefer to do several takes and call it a day, while others go over scenes numerous times to satisfy the director.

 

Digital can also make filmmakers less disciplined since they can delete takes they don't like and keep the camera rolling (like David Fincher). Some are rigorously self-disciplined and treat a digital shoot similarly to a 35mm shoot, where Although I think studios should archive their digitally shot films on film negatives as a backup if the original digital files are corrupted or deleted.

 

How do they transfer a digital frame to a physical film negative? Do they use a tiny projector that exposes the image onto the film frame?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Guidelines.