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Celluloid vs digital: what are the REAL differences?

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superboyac:
I've been reading a little about this celluloid issue in film recently.  One of my favorite directors is Tarentino, and he is very vocal about his preference for celluloid.  But I don't *quite* understand what the complaint is.  It doesn't sound like a technical complaint...that is, it doesn't sound like there's anything you can do with celluloid that you can't accomplish more easily with digitial.  And the way he explains it doesn't sound like that's what it is either.

Some claim there's a look to celluloid that digital can't do.  But I don't know if I buy that either.

At some point, it sounded to me like it was more of a complaint of accessibility.  Like, he just prefers that the process is more tedious and difficult so that it won't be so easy to make a film.  That's really what it sounds like to me, but I can't tell.  And if that's what it is, what's the complaint there?  That there will be a lot of mediocre films being made?  I don't really get it.

40hz:
There's a tongue-in-cheek heavy metal rant that hits on much of the problem with digital - it's too tempting to abandon discipline and education and just let the technology drive the art form. With the result that a lot of "projects" make it to the screen which have technically advanced production values - but are very poor movies nonetheless.

Here's the rant I mentioned previously. It's about music, and metal, and it's over the top both in both the pronouncements made - and the language used to make them. (NSFW! You have been warned.) But it's spot on once you see the joke and read between the lines to get to what's really being said. I think it applies equally to movie making...or most other art forms.

Check it out:

superboyac:
There's a tongue-in-cheek heavy metal rant that hits on much of the problem with digital - it's too tempting to abandon discipline and education and just let the technology drive the art form. With the result that a lot of "projects" make it to the screen which have technically advanced production values - but are very poor movies nonetheless.

Here's the rant I mentioned previously. It's about music, and metal, and it's over the top both in both the pronouncements made - and the language used to make them. (NSFW! You have been warned.) But it's spot on once you see the joke and read between the lines to get to what's really being said. I think it applies equally to movie making...or most other art forms.

Check it out:


-40hz (July 31, 2014, 12:37 PM)
--- End quote ---
That was excellent!!
So it IS an issue of accessibility and not what I was thinking, which was some kind of technical limitation of digital compared to film.  This is a people problem...as in because the tech has made things easier, we maybe aren't as anal throughout the process as we used to be.  I get it, but again, that's not the problem of the technology.

I guess what I'm a little sensitive about is this attitude that technology is "bad" because it has made things easier.  And every time I look into the issue, it's not the technology that's the problem, but the way it's being used.  And really, ultimately, i don't really care.  So what if hundreds of people are making bad movies.  I don't care.  I will find the good one, whether I'm in 1950 or 2014.  I suppose this makes it more like finding the needle in the haystack...but before, we wouldn't even know there was a needle in the haystack...because the haystack was smaller and pretty satisfying.  So whatever.

MilesAhead:
That video was cool.  The "lowering the ante to get in the game is a bad thing" argument was also made about PCs.  With an affordable machine on your own desk rather than renting computer time, and compilers that only cost a few hundred bucks, just about any schmuck can get into the Computer Programming game.  The old timers lament that this brings the going rate way down etc..

I suggested to a fellow street dweller that an Associate's Degree should be required for homeless people.  That would help keep the pretenders out of the racket.  The food lines are getting longer.  I see more and more new people walking along all dirty.  Some with shirttails and no pants.  We must raise the standard before it all goes to hell.  :)

MilesAhead:
On the film thing, I wonder if directors like Q.T. don't like digital because the money men will pressure him to use it to hold down costs.  Also I wonder if it's possible that there are known formulas with film to get certain looks without experimenting.

In other words if Q.T. has to switch to digital will his standard bag of tricks no longer work without laboriously relearning how to get the effects?  I'm just speculating.

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