Mike Jones Digital Basin
cinematic media rinse cycle

A response to I 'love the look of video'

As a follow up to my previous post entitled 'I love the look of video' I felt a need to repost this superb response from Australian-based cinematographer John Brawley.

Whilst you could read his post in the 'Comments', I feared too many might miss it there and that it deserved a much more prominent spot with a chance for wider readership. John's response is insightful, challenging and distinctly articulate to my deliberately controversial post and presents an informed and broad-based perspective on the make up of Moving Image. It would a misrepresentation to think of this discussion as crudely about Film vs Digital. Its not. Its really about the creative impetuous for acquiring the moving image and valuing its techno-aesthetic qualities on a range of levels.



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I actually couldn't agree more with the last paragraph. Why on earth would you want something to look like film when it's clearly not. Surely the best thing is to use a given acquisition technology that best suits the story or delivery mode required.


Your assertion that digital images have no innate look in themselves is not true however. Even the RAW data from a digital camera is the product of it's sensor. And different manufactures make different sensors. And they all have subtle differences. The idea that that a digitally encoded image is *untainted* is simplistic. They all have differing and measurable signal to noise levels, that will affect the way the image is encoded. Colour science also differs from each manufacturer. So even RAW images will be take on the inherent characteristics of the sensor with regards to noise, colour reproduction and dynamic range. So although it is just DATA, each camera produces a different set of DATA and a different look. Just like film stock.

Your misleading history of colour timing is simply not true. It has been possible to colour grade films for many many years. In fact the whole use of the phrase *timing* comes from the optical process that colour grading was and is still done by today. And for that matter, so are the terms one light and best light. Day for night looks, not to mention scene matching and sheer creative grading is very easily achieved and created using this process. This year's AFI award winning Romulous my father was all finished photochemically aside from a single 4K VFX shot. Obviously it can't be all that bad.

What digital processing has made possible, was much finer control of the colour correction process. And this perhaps is what you meant when you referred to as, "more recently". Pleasantville (1998) was probably one of the first films to be graded in this manner, but mainly because every single shot was a VFX shot by nature of it's storyline. Oh Brother Where art Thou (2000) is considered to be one of the first DI or digital intermediate films graded in this manner, where colour effects were achieved that weren't previously possible using photochemical grading. Both films of course, where shot on film.

And this is my next point.

How is an image scanned from a film negative any less *digital* than a digitally acquired image ?

Once the film frame is scanned it is JUST as digital as a digital image rendered by a digital camera. It starts from exactly the same point as a digitally acquired image. If you argue that film is anti- creative, then all of your arguments about it's post production workflows are neutered when you consider that a scan of a film frame can have all the same image manipulations as a digitally acquired one. A flat LOG scan of a film frame is just as flat and dull as a RAW image from a still camera. The same blank canvas. So let's assume then, that a scanned film frame can be just as digital as a digital acquired digital frame.

What's anti-creative about film in production ? Cost. ? Setup time ? availability ? These are all valid arguments to some degree. But it's also not as simple to look at a single cost on the film's budget and point to it and say AH HA !

While film stock and processing is expensive compared to acquiring digitally, if you factor in the cost for the higher end digital camera platforms, you'll find that the post production infrastructure is significant.

The much championed RED camera, which uses the D-SLR approach to imaging provides some very fine useable images with it's own unique look. And then there's the terrabytes of data it generates. Plus now you have to back all this data up in a safe and redundant way, because you can't go back to the negative for a re-scan if a drive fails. And then there's the actual infrastructure of trying to even edit and view these files. To do it well and safe costs. And again, I would say that it's inherent look is great if that suits your project, and it's as digital as a digital scan of a film frame so all the post grading and VFX work well.

On set it's reduced dynamic range compared with film, like with all digital cameras, means that you in fact often spend more time lighting because you need to ensure that you get it right on the day. Film allows us to be somewhat lazy in this regard. Now this is not film look. This is being cinematic.

The idea that digital is faster to light and requires less light is also a fallacy. Sure, you can turn the camera on and you'll get a picture right away without any lighting. And the same goes for any film camera really. If you want it to look *cinematic* (not filmic) then it still requires a great deal of care and attention on set. You still need a dolly or a steadicam. You still need to be able to light for the camera. You need the same crew and level of experience.

Plenty of people are happy to use digital for what it's great at. Russian ark (2002) for it continuous long take. Films like Blacktown (2005) couldn't be made without digital shooting technology allowing intimate access to non professional actors.

Progressive displays have been around since..well computers, and we've been using them for at least the past 20 years. But most US Drama has been film acquired over the years. We tend to associate video with lo-fi and disposable, simply because that's what most news footage is and that's how we consume it. And it's natural to associate that with *real*.

By dissing the film look, you're actually engaging in the same debate you're pretending you don't care about. The digital mantra that digital is better leaves behind a lot of valuable film-making techniques that lots of people don't seem to be in a hurry to leave behind even though digital film origination as been with us at least a decade.

I think it's naive to dismiss any form of image capture, and hitch your wagon to any one acquisition platform, they all have a place. I recently shot some sections of a film finished to 35mm on a mobile phone.

If this revolution is happening and has been happening for the last few years, why hasn't there been a bigger rush ? Why does all of Soderburg's film originated films sell squillions of tickets while people don't even know he's cranking out other digital films....

How about we just use the best paintbrush we can skilfully use and afford to paint the best picture we can for the story we're trying to convey.

jb - I love the look of what ever the story teller has chosen to use....

*i wait with bated breath to see what David (i'll never shoot film again) Lynch will do after his underwhelming PD150 shot Inland Empire.

Posted at 12:00AM Mar 18, 2008 by Mike Jones in video  |  Comments[2]