[Frameworks] 35mm film will be dead by 2015 and News Corp

[Fred Camper]

Quoting Carlileb at aol.com:

> I also think that this "look" appeal-thing is like wanting to buy  a
> blow-up doll as a substitute for a girlfriend.

I really don't want to restart the film/video thing, but feel the need  
to make a couple of observations.

It seems to be entirely acceptable and unquestioned on this list to  
post that some or all forms of video projection look like crap, as the  
analogy above, film=live girlfriend and video=blow-up doll, confirms.  
Praise of video's own unique possibilities, many of which are  
different from film and can produce results that film cannot, seems  
almost entirely absent.

As a format for presenting film, it is, of course, imperfect, as I  
myself argued almost three decades ago, though that was in the days of  
VHS, a lot worse than more recent formats.

But we need to remember that film is not a "girlfriend." It is a strip  
of plastic with a bunch of chemicals, not a lot more "substantial"  
than digital formats, and almost as alienated from actual human  
presences. The pseudo mystical statements with words like "never"  
strike me as not substantiatable. We cannot predict what future  
technology will come up with. To the film critic who once defined a  
great film as time spent with people one likes that one wishes would  
never end, I would reply, if you want a real person, go out and spend  
time with one!

One analogy one might consider is to a live concert of classical music  
versus a recording. The difference there is huger than between film  
and high quality video, and some people I respect, John Cage and Peter  
Kubelka to name two, got/get pleasure out of recordings. Yet I can,  
and many times a good recording is preferable to me, and more musical,  
than a bad performance. I once heard one of my heroes, Ton Koopman,  
live, leading his group in some Bach cantatas. I have all his  
recordings of these. Yet, yet, yet, the acoustics in the hall were so  
poor,  much was lost, and in the end I got more pleasure from the  
recordings. Yet of course a recording can never replace, or be the  
same as, a concert with live performers. But recordings are invaluable  
for many reasons, not the least that they permit multiple listenings.

VHS wrecked the aesthetic of many, if not most, films. There are  
perhaps some films whose aesthetic will be mostly or totally lost even  
in 4K projection. I suspect they are very few compared to the films  
destroyed on VHS or even on DVD. A small or even medium-sized loss is  
not a ruination. I hope those who want to work with film will keep it  
alive in various ways. And I don't want to lose film, certainly not  
for preservation of films, and will still always prefer it for films  
shot on film. But we have little influence over what happens on the  
industrial scale, and while we should do what we can, a group of our  
size and influence is not going to stop time. In the end, no one can.

Fred Camper
Chicago