heavensent

Introduced in 1895 ... is 35 mill still being used to shoot movies ?
Or has video taken over ?

Groucho

Yes, 35mm is still widely in use. As an example, Unstoppable was shot in 35mm.

Rypro 525

Aren't most movies still shot in 35mm? Also, alot of times you can tell if a movie was shot in hd video or on those "red" cameras as there is motion blurring during darker scenes (see Public Enemies

Numanoid

Yes, several movies released in the last few years cost 35 mill.

heavensent

maybe video... HD or otherwise... will never reach the quality of 35 mill movie film

Jay G.

Maybe, but unlikely.

Video will never match film exactly, so some may always prefer the look of a movie shot on film, like how some prefer vinyl albums to CDs. However, film has it's own limitations, we're just used to them since film has been in use for decades.

Cameras like the Red One have already matched 35mm in terms of detail resolution (at least theoretically). Eventually, like it's happened with still cameras, digital video cameras will keep increasing resolution until they're offering resolution on par with 70mm. Alternatively, or concurrently, the framerate could be increased from 24p to 48p and possibly higher. And this without significantly increasing the size of the camera or media required.

Film will always have a place, but as the quality of digital cinema continues to improve, the convenience and economic advantages of shooting digitally will cause it to continue to catch on.

The Bus

I have liked some movies, specifically Collateral and Miami Vice, more due to the aesthetic choice of filming on video.

E. Honda

Don't most films nowadays film on 35MM (either spherical, Super35 or Panavision) and are telecined to to a digital intermediate, for color correction and editing, then are printed back to film for distribution prints?

mario_c

DV, even very high end, has yet to catch up to 35mm. The lovely quality it lends to a big screen production in the hands of a master cameraman can't be touched, not yet anyway. But never say never where technology and Hollywood is concerned.
An interesting footnote: big studio movies claiming to use Red cameras actually use it for intermediary shots while the body is filmed on 35mm (see: The Lovely Bones. Actually, don't, I just know that's an example.) I was surprised to see 70mm falling out of favor even for IMax level productions, but that's just me.
Now if you're a struggling indie filmmaker or freelance shoot/edit person, DV is great. The new SLR cameras offering 1080p, 24 fps, broadcast quality DV for under $500? That requires a crew of exactly one? Can you not love that? I can't. But it's a stepping stone to getting your work recognized and a shot at painting with the big canvas.
My opinion, I don't know anything about it.

Jay G.

Yes, the majority of films are still shot on 35mm.

There's a lot of films that have either been shot exclusively on Red One, or a majority was shot on it.

For example, Steven Soderbergh has shot his last 3 movies on the Red One, Che, The Girlfriend Experience, and The Informant!

The Social Network was shot on Red One. Fincher's upcoming Girl With the Dragon Tattoo will be shot on Red cameras.

The recent film Fair Game was shot on Red One

District 9 was shot using 9 Red One cameras, although I certain scenes were shot on HD cameras.

Lars von Trier’s Antichrist was shot on the RED One camera and Phantom HD.

My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done was shot on RED One, although director Werner Herzog has made less than favorable statements about his experience with it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_One#Filmography
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_9#Filming
http://camerarentalz.com/book-eli-shot-red-camera/
http://camerarentalz.com/shot-on-red/

Films shot specifically for IMAX, like Under The Sea 3D or Wild Ocean are still shot on IMAX film. The Dark Night was reportedly the first feature film to even partially use IMAX cameras.

http://www.imax.com/underthesea/down...NotesFINAL.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imax#Fe...n_IMAX_cameras
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_IMAX_films#2009

If by "IMax level," you meant epic films shot on 70mm, like Laurence of Arabia, it's generally thought that the explosion of multiplexes with smaller screens meant that there were few theaters that could show films shot in 70mm in the original form. Thus productions were less inclined to deal with the increased cost and the larger, heaver cameras required for the larger format.

However, it's still not vanished completely. Inception was partially shot on 65mm.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/70_mm_film
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incepti...ilm%29#Filming

Rypro 525

Question Jay (since you would prob know) would a movie shot with Red One cameras look really bad cropped in pan and scan, ie movies shot using with Anamorphic Lenses, or would it look like a movie shot in Super 35?

Matthew Chmiel

Anamorphic lenses exist for Red cameras.

If the director shot the film using such lenses, the film would be cropped from the original 2.40:1 aspect ratio.

Even if the director didn't shoot the film using such lenses, the director most likely framed the film for the 2.40:1 aspect ratio and allowing for technical gaffes to be allowed in the 1.78:1 viewing area.

Jay G.

It depends on what Super 35 you're talking about, the full 4-perf Super 35 at 1.33 aspect ratio, or 3-perf Super 35 at 16:9 aspect ratio.

The Red One has a sensor about the same size and aspect ratio as 3-perf Super 35.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Dig...ompany#Red_One
http://reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=23192&page=3


It also depends on what aspect ratio the movieis shot for, whether 16:9 (1.78 or 1.85), or for scope (2.35, 2.39, or 2.40). And then it depends on what you're modifying the aspect ratio to, either 16:9 or 4:3.

For films intended for 16:9 presentation, 3-perf and Red One are going to use the entire frame. 4-perf will matte its 4:3 image to 16:9. Modification of the intended aspect ratio isn't really needed for WS/HD presentation (at worst, they open the 1.85:1 matting 2% to 1.78:1). For 4:3 modification, 3-perf and Red One would need to be cropped by about 25%. For 4-perf, the image would be opened up all the way, similar to how 16:9 films are shot on standard 35mm.

For films intended for scope, 3-perf and Red One are going to use the 2.35:1 portion inside their 16:9 frame, while 4-perf uses the 2.35:1 ration inside its 1.33:1 frame. For 16:9 presentation, the film could be opened up to full frame in 3-perf and Red One, while 4-perf would open matting to the 16:9 image inside its 1.33:1 frame. For 4:3 presentation, 3-perf and Red One could open up the mattes vertically, showing more image on the top and bottom, but would still have to crop some of the sides. For 4-perf, the image could be opened up all the way again, but this usually causes too much empty space in the image. Instead, the image is also opened up vertically and cropped on the sides, but there's a little more wiggle room in terms of framing the modified image.

For comparison, here's screencaps of LOTR:FOTR, which was composited in 16:9 and cropped to scope for presentation, and it's scope and 4:3 images compared:
http://dvd.ign.com/articles/366/366890p1.html

And here's Harry Potter 2, shot in 4-perf Super 35, and it's scope and 4:3 images compared:
http://plum.cream.org/HP/cos.htm

Jay G.

The Red One can take certain standard 35mm anamorphic lenses, but I don't think there's any anamorphic lenses designed specifically for the Red One.

Keep in mind that the standard aspect ratio of the Red One is 16:9, so a regular anamorphic lens would squeeze this vertically by about 1.8, creating a 3.20:1 aspect ratio. You'd need a special anamorphic lens that sqeezes by about 1.35

Instead, The Red One has a 4.5K mode, introduced last September in a firmware update, that records in a near-scope aspect ratio (the Red site claims a 2.40:1 AR, but the Wikipedia specs indicate approx 2.33:1):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Dig...ording_formats
http://www.red.com/products/red-one#product-tech-specs
http://camerarentalz.com/45k-redcode-42-red/

Not the RED One, but Robert Rodriguez shot Once Upon a Time in Mexico in 1.78:1 HD, cropped to scope for theaters, and then opened it up to 1.78:1 for home video. This has happened to a few Super 35 films like The Recruit as well. And as I mentioned before, the LOTR films were all processed in post at a 1.78:1 aspect ratio. So the 1.78:1 frame is being protected in many cases for films intended for scope.

Matthew Chmiel

You're right, I was thinking there were specific anamorphic lenses for the Red (i.e. the Lomo); but they're actually 35mm anamorphic lenses.

Once Upon a Time in Mexico was shot on the Sony HDW-F900.

The only films I can think of that were shot using the Red One and framed for 2.40:1:

- The Book of Eli
- Che (Part One)
- The Girlfriend Experience
- Knowing
- The Social Network

It'll be interesting to see how they're framed when in 1.78:1/1.33:1 (if cropped or opened up).

mario_c

Soderbergh's films definitely look like HD. Rodriguez' films look shot on film and look gorgeous in their own grainy gritty way - he absolutely showcases the possibilities HD offers. But of course he's not a tortured artist like Soderbergh.