[Frameworks] Film and Digital for beginners

[Aaron F. Ross]

Wow, what a dangerous topic.  ;)

"Digital" is not a monolith. The difference between consumer 
equipment and professional equipment is HUGE.

For example, richer black is eminently do-able in the digital domain, 
you just need an expensive projector, and the files must be encoded 
properly. Anyway, you almost never get *true* black with emulsion on 
celluloid. You'd have to use Kodalith or something to completely 
block the light. Release prints always have some bleed-through, don't they?

Digital resolution is highly dependent on numerous variables. Just as 
particular stocks and gauges give different grain qualities, so do 
particular digital video standards and equipment give different 
levels of fidelity. A 4K digital projection roughly corresponds to 
35mm motion picture film, but that's a messy, inexact comparison.

DVD = 0.35 megapixels (8mm quality)
1080p Blu-ray = 2 megapixels (16mm quality)
4K Digital Cinema Package = 9 megapixels (35mm quality)
8K projection / UHDTV = 33 megapixels (IMAX quality)

Don't forget that color space is different in digital projection. 
Instead of subtractive transparent dyes, in digital projection, 
you're working with additive red-green-blue light. To complicate 
matters, there are many different color spaces for the digital assets 
themselves.

And the color depth is different for different digital formats, too. 
Crap formats like DVD use only 8 bits of data per channel. DCP uses 
12 bits. That means it has a lot wider dynamic range and also finer 
gradations of tone.

The lifespan issue is somewhat mythologized. The concern of 
archivists that digital media will "self-obsolesce" is a very valid 
one. However, if you are clever, you can future-proof your digital 
assets by authoring them to the best possible format and transfer 
them periodically to new storage media. The data may not be readable 
in a post-apocalyptic scenario, but otherwise the lifespan of digital 
media is actually theoretically greater than that of analog media. 
This is because digital media can be endlessly replicated with no 
generation loss.

The sound issue must be addressed as well. I think it would be 
difficult to argue that digital sound is worse than analog. 
Traditionally, sound-on-film technologies have sucked, at least until 
the advent of Dolby Digital.

Finally, digital cinema opens the door to higher frame rates and 
richer colors with new technologies such as laser projectors. Old 
fogies seem to hate the heightened sense of reality that these new 
methods bring. Film offers a safe haven of limited temporal 
resolution that provides a framing effect that some believe enhances 
the narrative. I disagree, and can't wait for higher frame rates and 
better approximations of how the human eye-brain system works.

A side note... with proper application of digital technology, old 
media will often end up looking/sounding better than when they were 
first produced. That has most certainly been my own experience.

Aaron



At 7/13/2012, you wrote:
>Hello everyone,
>
>This question isn't about experimental cinema specifically, but it's 
>certainly an important question for our world, and I think 
>experimental filmmakers (and scholars, critics, etc.) are among 
>those best equipped to answer it. So here goes. There is some 
>preamble meant to set the stage, but you can skim it and skip down 
>to the question if you want.
>
>Each semester I teach an introductory cinema studies course called 
>"Film Aesthetics and Analysis." The main goal of the course is to 
>teach students how to analyze film aesthetics (in case the title of 
>the class didn't make this obvious), and it is aimed at the general 
>campus community, not just Cinema majors. Indeed, the majority of 
>students in the class are non-majors who have never studied film before.
>
>Early in the course I talk about filmmaking on a very material level 
>- call it the "nuts and bolts" of filmmaking, a subject I return to 
>periodically across the semester (e.g. how cameras work, the process 
>of editing, projection, etc.). I have always privileged film - that 
>is, analogue, photochemical, mechanical, "celluloid" film - but to 
>keep up with the times I have been trying to talk more about digital 
>cinema technology, with a view to contrasting the two media. Though 
>I'm a luddite when it comes to film, I'm not necessarily interested 
>in converting my students to that mindset, nor to favoring one 
>medium over another. I simply want my students to understand the 
>ramifications of shooting, editing, projecting, and viewing films on 
>different media.
>
>SO NOW, THE QUESTION: what would you say are some of the most 
>important, and most fundamental, differences between making and/or 
>seeing "films" in these two media, in terms that intro-level 
>undergrads can understand and appreciate. For example:
>
>-true black is not possible in digital projection the same way it is 
>in film projection (something I can actually demonstrate in class).
>-differences in resolution.
>-different "lifespans" of film and digital.
>
>And so on and so forth. Though I do talk about things outside the 
>realm of film aesthetics specifically (such as the cost of digital 
>conversion, preservation issues, etc.), my main interest is in 
>showing my students the concrete, appreciable consequences that 
>attend the decision to do something in film or in digital. And to be 
>able to demonstrate them in class with specific examples - using the 
>16mm and digital projectors I have in the classroom - would be nice, 
>so suggestions of such specific examples would be appreciated.
>
>Thanks in advance for any ideas.
>Best,
>Jonathan
>
>Jonathan Walley
>Dept. of Cinema
>Denison University
>
>_______________________________________________ FrameWorks mailing 
>list FrameWorks at jonasmekasfilms.com 
>https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks

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Aaron F. Ross
Digital Arts Guild