Tuesday, April the seventh, 2009.... a date that will live in infamy?
Last night I saw ADVENTURELAND presented in digital projection with a Sony 4K projector and I witnessed the end of cinema as we know it. A few days earlier I had seen the film projected in 35mm in a different theater and commented on the slight fuzzy look of the film. Last night, in digital world, these problems vanished. It really does look better, and even a hardcore skeptic such as myself has to admit it. The theater manager explained that the feature "film," (can we even say that anymore?) arrives at the theater on a Tuesday, in a heavily padded hard case in the form of a hard drive... even though they used to get the film prints on a Thursday and have to rush to build up the reels for the Friday openings. Presumably this is so the film (there I go again) can be tested - actually it would be the hard drive that is being tested.... but they hook up the cables and push a button and bingo, perfect movie presentation on screen - it looked perfect from the front row, too. It was akin to seeing a "cadillac answer print" at Skywalker's main screening facility. And it will never scratch or fade, assuming the tech stuff stays current. The old saying "the projectionist gets final cut" just went out to pasture. (As did the union projectionist.)
Granted, there are some big and wide ranging issues to consider, which I'll try to touch upon below, but we've past the "this digital will all blow over" point now as far as exhibition goes. Quality wise, this is a done deal, folks. 4K digital projection looks better than 35mm film projection, and Elvis has left the building. Long live the king, the king is dead.
What does all this mean? Well, it's complicated. There are many ways to approach this elephant...
Let's examine the tech in a separate posting... but for now just assume I've babbled on for four pages about ones and zeros and circles of confusion and analog this and digital that....
So then there is the issue of what this means for Kodak and Fuji, to take yet another hit on their revenue stream with considerably less release prints to strike... don't forget we've already lost Agfa -they no longer make film, period.
And then there is the issue of how this might effect film distibution - one is tempted to say "now they can show anything, including my sister's wedding video or my next indie feature" but when the projectors cost 150k, isn't that more likely to make theater owners clamor for SPIDERMAN 6 and SUPERMAN 8, etc?
Granted, there are some big and wide ranging issues to consider, which I'll try to touch upon below, but we've past the "this digital will all blow over" point now as far as exhibition goes. Quality wise, this is a done deal, folks. 4K digital projection looks better than 35mm film projection, and Elvis has left the building. Long live the king, the king is dead.
What does all this mean? Well, it's complicated. There are many ways to approach this elephant...
Let's examine the tech in a separate posting... but for now just assume I've babbled on for four pages about ones and zeros and circles of confusion and analog this and digital that....
So then there is the issue of what this means for Kodak and Fuji, to take yet another hit on their revenue stream with considerably less release prints to strike... don't forget we've already lost Agfa -they no longer make film, period.
And then there is the issue of how this might effect film distibution - one is tempted to say "now they can show anything, including my sister's wedding video or my next indie feature" but when the projectors cost 150k, isn't that more likely to make theater owners clamor for SPIDERMAN 6 and SUPERMAN 8, etc?
Also one has to consider what "cinema" is or was: is it sitting quietly for two hours watching a dream, or is it sitting in a dark room with strangers that makes it cinematic? With celluloid in the booth, you have to consider the fact that the shutter is closed for half the length of the film - we're in the dark, really although we don't register it with our eyes. With 24p digital, we're back to "staring at a light bulb," as I sometimes call TV. Lots to discuss here.
But to wrap up this post, I'll return to my pet peeve - I just saw my horse in this race, 35mm film, get left in the dust by the rookie on the track, digital. And this was clearly a film that had enough of a budget to tell the story with - I swear there were two dozen electricians on this film, plus carpenters, greensmen, etc... The producers paid for quality work, both on set and in post and some portion of the process didn't deliver. The close ups as projected in 35mm were substandard... period.
Look at this production still of the lead actress to illustrate some of what I am talking about.
When I saw ADVENTURELAND in 35mm, it looked to me to be slightly worse than the resolution of this compressed production still, minus the "noise" in the shadow areas and obviously compressed highlights that are blown out. Pay attention to the lower eyelashes, which are slightly soft and don't show the contrast they could, or did when I viewed the asme scene in 4K digital projection. Granted, there are a couple of KEY close-up takes on Kristen Stewart that are soft because the focus puller missed his mark - these are not the shots I am referring to. I'm talking about the ones they got right.
What does all this mean? It means it costs a lot of money, and yet I didn't see the fruits of all that labor fully, or as well as I should have, until I saw it projected in 4D. To my eye, the film could have been given a straight photochemical finish and been presented in 35mm for what would have likely been a fraction of the post-pridcution cost, and when the big close up came in the (film-based) theater, I would have seen good detail on the actress' eyelashes instead of something milky and fuzzy. Instead I had to watch it go from film to digital to screen, in 4K to see what the film makers should have seen in work-printed dailies, if anyone still did that, so basically it's an issue of generational loss, or quality control, I'm not sure which..
More about all this soon. This stuff really has me pondering the future.
But to wrap up this post, I'll return to my pet peeve - I just saw my horse in this race, 35mm film, get left in the dust by the rookie on the track, digital. And this was clearly a film that had enough of a budget to tell the story with - I swear there were two dozen electricians on this film, plus carpenters, greensmen, etc... The producers paid for quality work, both on set and in post and some portion of the process didn't deliver. The close ups as projected in 35mm were substandard... period.
Look at this production still of the lead actress to illustrate some of what I am talking about.
When I saw ADVENTURELAND in 35mm, it looked to me to be slightly worse than the resolution of this compressed production still, minus the "noise" in the shadow areas and obviously compressed highlights that are blown out. Pay attention to the lower eyelashes, which are slightly soft and don't show the contrast they could, or did when I viewed the asme scene in 4K digital projection. Granted, there are a couple of KEY close-up takes on Kristen Stewart that are soft because the focus puller missed his mark - these are not the shots I am referring to. I'm talking about the ones they got right.
What does all this mean? It means it costs a lot of money, and yet I didn't see the fruits of all that labor fully, or as well as I should have, until I saw it projected in 4D. To my eye, the film could have been given a straight photochemical finish and been presented in 35mm for what would have likely been a fraction of the post-pridcution cost, and when the big close up came in the (film-based) theater, I would have seen good detail on the actress' eyelashes instead of something milky and fuzzy. Instead I had to watch it go from film to digital to screen, in 4K to see what the film makers should have seen in work-printed dailies, if anyone still did that, so basically it's an issue of generational loss, or quality control, I'm not sure which..
More about all this soon. This stuff really has me pondering the future.
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