riotinmyskull

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Side by Side Official Trailer (2012) from Company Films on Vimeo.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2014338/

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the answer to the first question is probably the most heartbreaking.

RocShemp

That looks very interesting. I'll definitely watch it.

Oh and obligatory [Don LaFontaine]From the producer who starred in The Matrix...[/Don LaFontaine]

Solid Snake

well considering Kodak is pretty much dead. It's a scary idea of film being gone. Being a student/independent filmmaker now...I still hold onto the idea of film being better solely for the image quality. BUT....digital is sooooo close to being there and it's soooooo much cheaper....which helps me out financially.

RocShemp

You finally made an independent feature, Snake? Any chance we can see it?

I'm currently getting a project going. I'm surprised how agreeable most of my contacts have been. Years ago, the people I planned to work with were very eager when it came to talking about it but all fizzled out when it came to getting something done. This time seems very different. Thanks to one of the actors I contacted, I got access to a crew.

Ash Ketchum

Thank you for sharing this. I hadn't heard of it before. I'm curious to see it. How will we get to see it? Will it play theaters? Go to a cable channel? Come out on a streaming site?

What I'd really like to see, though, is a stirring defense of film, by showing actual film images--beautiful, original, unrestored chemically created images--and projecting them on film and showing filmmakers and editors holding up strips of film and looking at them and touching them and describing the magic of the experience--something you can't possibly get from a hard drive. And I would like this production to be shown without a single trace of digital anywhere in it.

Solid Snake

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I'm still excited to see this. This is something that interests me very much as fan and as a filmmaker. Understandably though...ponying up the money to develop 16mm is very hard when you're living in your car. I do use digital..I just..don't get the image I want though. Not that 16mm image.


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Shannon Nutt

I watched this (HD rental via VUDU) over the weekend and recommend it to most of the forum members here...there's nothing particularly informative here for most of us (who understand the differences between film and digital), but it's fun to see so many notable directors (Cameron, Fincher, Nolan, Scorsese, Lynch, Lucas...to name just a few) in one presentaiton commenting on the topic.

Solid Snake

Just noticed that Amazon Instant Video has this. Free if you have Prime.

Ash Ketchum

I eventually did see this--at a theater in New York sometime last year. And then I forgot all about this thread. It's an interesting documentary, but it's pretty much an infomercial for digital. I would have preferred a more skeptical host, one with a more inquiring mind than Keanu.

Solid Snake

infomercial how?

jfoobar

Sorry, calling this an "informercial" for digital is not an accurate description at all. Watched it last night and thought it was a worthwhile hour or so for lovers of film.

sauce07

I was hoping for more of filmmakers discussing their role in the switch over to digital and how they feel about it and less recent history lesson about digital filmmaking.

It was still good, just expected more. In fact I really liked the extra interviews on the DVD, wanted more of that.

Mabuse

I watched this last night. It's on Netflix.

Not a bad film in any way, but watching it was troubling to say the least. While a few of the famous filmmakers interviewed defend celluloid, most sing the praises of digital.

I want to point out that this is about digital filmmaking in all aspects, not just photography. So digital sound, digital editing, and digital effects are all discussed. There are so many famous names on show and while a few describe the benefits of the "old ways" most of them laud the ease, the cost savings, the flexibility, and the limitlessness of the digital tools.

But that mostly left me pulling my hair out saying, "That's nice that it's now easier, cheaper, and unlimited, but you're all making really mediocre movies." I love Scorsese, but Scorsese praising digital effects and CGI when I know he made fucking Hugo is insane. James Cameron is very prideful of his Avatar and Titanic accomplishments, but his earlier movies that he made with mostly analog equipment are simply better movies. Having digital tools has not helped out great directors' game.

Robert Rodriguez talks about Once Upon a Time in Mexico, his first foray into digital cameras. Now he would go on to do something pretty damn cool with Sin City, but OUaTiM is a piece of shit. He tells the story of how he remembers wincing at the sound of film going through his camera during production of El Mariachi, because every frame was money, but with the digital he didn't have that problem on OUaTiM. But look at the fucking results man! El Mariachi is 100x better than OUaTiM. The tools aren't the issue.

Lastly, there's this obscure director, I think his name rhymes with Lord Blucas. He's in this thing trumpeting how digital everything is better than analog everything. And he's saying how with all of these groundbreaking effects we can dream bigger and show more and all this bullshit, and then I think of the films he made. Holy shit. They feel tiny. They don't inspire anything but arguments.

bluetoast

Saw this a while ago, but since the thread is here, some thoughts:

I am a huge fan of film, and seek out 35/70 mm wherever I can. But it's funny to see Tarantino insulting digital at every turn, yet loving the grindhouse movies of the 70's. But you can bet your ASS that Jack Hill, Roger Corman and Gerry De Leon would have been using digital to do their cheap and dirty shoots if it were available.

hanshotfirst1138

Nolan at least argues for the color-quality and aesthetic of celluloid, and that at least he feels like the medium and presentation are superior. Tarantino's necrophiliac argument is basically "I grew up listening to music on vinyl and watching movies on film, so ergo that's the way they should always be so as not to tarnish my lovely nostalgic memories." I get his love for the idiosyncrasies of celluloid projection, the mystique of watching a scratched print with others, and the magic of film itself, but the fact is that HDCAM, DIs, and DCPs give filmmakers, especially independent filmmakers, an amazing amount of freedom in creation and distribution that they couldn't have had ten years ago.

Dan

Fincher is a perfect example of someone who has made the most of digital filmmaking on a large scale. His digital films are beautiful. Can't say the same for some of the others, though. It's all about having the right cinematographer who knows how to get digital photography to look best.

My opinion is:
Filmmakers should be able to use whatever they want to produce their project, assuming they can afford to do so. Nobody should get in their way, and I don't think that will change.
In that regard, I don't think film will ever disappear. It'll just be produced on a much smaller scale.

But for projection? Other than special 70mm/IMAX events and 35mm 'revival' screenings, I'm perfectly happy with digital projection. Whether it's Blu-ray, 2K DCP, 'LieMAX' or whatever. I don't hold a high level of nostalgia for film projection's quirks, so I'm glad to see the quality of the 'standard experience' go up, not down.

All that said, I'm seeing Altman's Thieves Like Us tonight in 35mm, so...

rocket1312

I'm confused. Are you implying that if Hugo had been shot on film with practical effects it would have been a better movie? Or that if digital technology didn't exist, he wouldn't have even bothered with Hugo and would have just shot another masterpiece on film? Where does Wolf of Wall-Street, which was shot on film except for all of the special effects shots which were shot digitally, fit into the equation?

It just seems weird to cherry pick a handful of digitally shot films that you don't like as proof that the arguments in favor of digital are invalid.

Mabuse

I'm not cherry picking. I'm saying that by and large the overall quality of filmmaking has declined during the time that digital tools have emerged. Rodriguez made a better film than OUATIM with $7,000 using odd bits of 16 mm film. Scorsese has not made better films since embracing digital. James Cameron's films have made a lot of money, but Terminator and Aliens remain his best films.

Matthew Chmiel

What? Scorsese has only shot two films digitally: Hugo and The Wolf of Wall Street. And they're both great films.

Solid Snake

The quantity of films today is more than ever cuz of digital. I'm pretty sure though the quality of films has been about the same since a long ass time. The problem w/ that is w/ the internet... the crap isn't hidden away. It's right there all the goddamn time. How much crap hasn't arisen from the past? Old bad films aren't really remembered unless they're really bad. Today.. we never forget cuz they aren't hidden by the bullshit ravages of time, yo.

rocket1312

Still seems arbitrary to me. Movie making technology has been changing fairly constantly over it's 100+ year existence. There's always some newer and better tool for filmmakers to use and yet some new movies aren't as good as older movies. Was anyone calling for the death of the Steadicam because Marathon Man wasn't as good as Midnight Cowboy? And really, does anyone actually expect Scorcese to come out with another Taxi Driver at this point in his career? And whether he does or doesn't, does anyone actually think it will have anything to do with whether or not it's shot digitally? Either way, that doesn't change the fact it's cheaper and logistically easier to shoot digital.

Dan

All this says is "these directors made better movies when they were starving artists."

Which, sure. Okay. But that has nothing to do with digital vs. film. At all.

Fincher has made his BEST movies using digital.
Cuarón made a masterpiece using digital.
Lynch made-- nevermind.

Mabuse

But I can take my argument further and say that as these guys got older and more comfortable, they endorsed digital movie making, made worse movies, and in the mean time the next generation of filmmakers coming up are not as good as the previous generation. So the young directors are not as good and they are having these tools handed down to them that are also not as good.

I'm referring to guys like Cuaron, Rodriguez, JJ Abrams, Bret Ratner, Justin Lin, Rian Johnson, etc. These guys just aren't that good. Many people have been called the next Spielberg, but the truth is there is no next Spielberg. Not anywhere on the horizon.

Ash Ketchum

There is no next John Ford, no next Howard Hawks, no next Orson Welles...etc. Heck, there's no next Hayao Miyazaki, no next Kinji Fukasaku, no next John Woo...AAAAARRRRRGGHHH!

(Rest assured, there is sure to be a next Michael Bay )