The Film, Thats a Wrap - Essay Example

Film, that’s a wrap! Introduction Capturing images in film required the use of celluloid covered with silver halide crystals that formed an imaged when exposed to light. It was not until the late 1800's that British photographer Edward Muybridge succeeds in taking the first photographs with motion. Motion pictures then gain popularity when Thomas Edison and W.K. Dickson develop the Kinetoscope, a device that projected films through a peephole, in 1889. By the early 1900’s, the motion picture industry was created and a new market was born, attracting people from all over into nickelodeons and movie palaces. For nearly a century, film has been the leading choice of professionals for capturing images, unraveling a multibillion-dollar industry until 2000. Digital capturing devices got their start in 1969 at Bells Lab with the invention of the charge-coupled device (CCD). The CCD, an invention by George Smith and Willard Boyle, uses an electrical charge to activate pixels when light hit the censors rather than create an image through grain re-arrangement It was not until the Dogme 95 era in the early 1990's that filmmakers saw the potential of digital cinema as a viable form for telling stories. Approximately a decade later, George Lucas and Sony teamed up to create the first professional digital video cameras that offer many of the same features of 35mm motion picture cameras. The release of Star Wars II in 2002 marks the instance in the film history when a one-hundred percent digital production of the film becomes successful, sparking the embracement of digital film revolution. For nearly a decade after 2002, companies such as ARRI, Red, Sony, Canon, and Panavision on digital film have spent billions of dollars on research and development to further the efficiency of digital film cameras. It is a digital millennium. Everything is going digital: cars, houses, computers, everything under the sun is. Just like in every other industry, controversy dominates as to which between the devil we know (old), and the strange angel (new), is the path to maximum achievement and not doom of the film industry. This study will discuss in depth the features of digital film that saw it overtake and kill the film, plus the mileage it has so far gained above it. Color grading This is the process of alteration and enhancement of an image, video, or motion picture to achieve a certain appearance. Digital film allows for capturing and post-editing, making this process much easier as compared to film. According to Paramour Productions, digital shooting allows for post-shoot editing of individual scenes unlike in the film era that supported only two shooting modes: tungsten-balanced and daylight-balanced films. This means color temp fluctuation was very likely, varying as per the available light’s intensity, which meant all the footage needed correction to achieve a white consistent point to start the grading. This further explains why in the film era, a shoot required several rooms with different customizations to achieve variations. However, today, digital filming allows shooting from a single location or prop and with the use of advanced software, allows easy color alteration or grading from just a computer unlike the use of actual rooms, props or scenes to achieve certain effects. In addition, and according to Hoad, Hollywood incorporates much use of digital color grading to achieve extreme special effects impossible with film as it allows for post-production alteration as with the 2000 movie O Brother, Where Art Thou? It is the first filming to be put on a hard drive, allowing for creation of a Digital Intermediate point (DI), from where the editor used “virtual crayons” to achieve an explosion of special effects. The guardian refers to color grading as an absolute necessity. Distribution, marketing, and exhibition According to Fischer (95), in the year 2000, Hollywood disseminated a full movie, Titan AE via the internet, which it digitized before sending it to its destination, Atlanta. This was the introduction of the digital film distribution era where digitized films are transmitted through innovations in internet, satellite, and hard disks. Disney’s evaluation of film distribution via digital means in comparison to the traditional copying, insuring, and transporting of physical film reels revealed that digital distribution is much more efficient, and cheaper. The internet is the leading digital aspect of the dot com era, which distribution companies aim to use in reaching the extensive globe without incurring the costs mentioned. In addition to distribution where clients can buy and download films instantly after they appear online, it is easy to market them through uploading trailers that give an overview of featured movies, therefore letting the buyers to choose from what they prefer. These features are impossible with the old reels and tapes. It takes longer for the productions to get to clients, and tend to be costlier owing to the costs incurred during distribution. Exhibitors can also keep a better count of how many times theater owners show their films. Due to the simplicity of digital projects, a theater owner could reduce labor cost by eliminating or reassigning their staff to other positions. Unlike film, digital images do not wear out or fade over time so exhibitors guarantee that they will be showing high quality images at every single show. Dynamic range and resolution Chow (20) firmly states that film retains advantages over digital film. For instance, the resolution offered by film is incomparable to what digital film can offer. Film also offers a better dynamic range as well. These two aspects come by owing to the fact that it is easier and faster for the saturation of digital sensors, resulting in flat highlights and washed-out appearances of images. Nevertheless, Myszkowski, Rafal, and Grzegorz state that this does not stop the domination of digital over analog film, as it is cushioned by the fact that despite the comparable image qualities, digital film production is far cheaper than film, as it does not require the expensive re-production procedures of creating thousands of copies (53). This gives digital film an added advantage thus preference over analog film. Stereoscopic 3D film technology Integration of technology in digital film camera has made it possible for the recording of stereoscopic images, that is, regular motion camera systems that record individual images from two points of view (two-perspective). Such results in the creation of images with perceived depth such that they have height, width, and depth making the viewing more realistic, interesting, and mind-blowing. In the past, stereoscopic films seemingly appeared as a gimmick to raise the prices on admission without adding any value to films. That notion is undergoing change with the introduction of the Fusion Camera System developed by James Cameron and Vince Pace by the late 2000's. Rather than utilizing a parallel camera rig in which the lenses are limited on how close they can get, the Fusion rig uses a beam spider that allows the lenses to achieve extreme precession in depth. The focus of this technology is not to create illusion of objects flying towards the audience but instead emerge them in the environment and the story (Wrenn). Since its debut, films like Avatar, Hugo, and Life of Pie either have won nominations or have won best picture or cinematography titles at the Academy Awards. Additionally, films such as Avatar, Pirates of the Caribbean, On Stranger Tides, Transformers, and Dark of the Moon have generated over 1 billion dollars in box office sales each. One thing that James Cameron points out is that this technology would have not been possible without the progress of the digital cinema cameras. Storage and preservation Cieply flashes back to the time when Paramount Pictures and Warner Brothers would pack 35-mm film master copies and keep them in archives after figuring out that reselling oldies made them more money (1). The cheap one-off system of storage is one they referred to as “file-and-forget” where the stored reels and tapes would only self-destroy after outliving their lifespan. Cieply then brings in the digital system that he says costs $12,514 in preservation costs per 4K digital master year in comparison to the film master storage system that costs a mere $1,059 in the same period as it requires regular conversion to match the fast changing technology for it not to be outdated and irretrievable. That is far as the bad about digital storage goes. On the positive aspect, it is obvious that storing digital film requires less space. Today, a single hard disk can house tens of thousands of films, saving much space that would in the case of reels and tapes take up rooms and rooms of space. On another note, it is easier to have several copies of digital films that one can easily stash away and recover when need be. Contrary to this, the loss of a reel or tape in the film era meant total loss of it. In addition, digital films can be stored in virtual means that is safer from harm or alteration unlike analog film that could easily get scratches or have the reel cut rendering it irretrievable and lost for good. Digital film storage therefore preserves more in a small space, at lesser risks of loss, for much longer than analog film storage methods. These factors, in addition to other unstated ones, pushed the film industry to embrace digital film production mechanisms, whether willingly or by force. To wrap things up, the year 2011 erupted with the truth, seemingly inspired by the preference of digital film to traditional film, that film was indeed dead. This is after the leading film camera producers bowed to the reality- ceasing their production. Termination of film camera production How is film going to remain alive when it is impossible to shoot them? The reason why shooting of traditional films is disappearing is that the leading producers of film cameras (Panavision, ARRI, and Aaton) put to an end the production of them in 2011. Rather, the focus is now on exclusive advancement of design and manufacture of the new trend in film: digital cameras. ARRI confessed that the demand for the film gadgets gradually disappeared, leading to them not producing film cameras for mass sales, but rather manufacturing them only upon demand. In addition, ARRI says it has noted that of the overall camera rentals, film cameras only contribute to a maximum of 40 percent. To back this up, Jean-Pierre, Aaton founder, said that people who still need to use film cameras go for the many unused ones that lie out there in the world; they do not go to buy new ones. He adds that continued production of film cameras will mean the end of business for them. Panavision on their part revealed that they last built a film camera, the 35mm Millennium XL, in 2009. Panavision is currently working to match the onset of digital camera technology after discovering that film cameras at this instant of time are “weak and inappropriate” owing to the peoples’ choice of having lots of different tools in achieving different image tools and looks (Kaufman). Conclusion In summing up, it is logical to conclude from the discussion that good old film is dead, and trying to revive it is overly impossible, and would not get past the planning stage. Unlike the many decades of developing film, digital film quickly spread through the industry, changing its every aspect such that trying to alienate the two would only result in killing the entire film industry. How is that? For one, the world is already accustomed to digital quality films, which reverting to film would certainly result in downgrading. Second, the film distribution agencies are now digital, running insignificant traditional distribution methods that were costlier. It is impossible to revert to the old distribution methods because it will mean rise in film costs to clients, and might cause lagging in the now booming film industry. On a much crucial note, the world today is digital, including the screens that display the films and the decoders used to play them. This simply means that the modern day systems cannot support he old film formats, meaning billions of people worldwide would have to change their film sets, and exhibitors to abandon their expensive installations put up to accommodate the advance in digital technology. Just like technology is here to stay and grow, so is digital film. Concisely, it time to come to terms with the death of traditional film, allow for its burial, and embrace the new order of the film industry: digital. Works cited Chow, Alex. Digital Travel Photography: Urban Landscapes. Toronto [Ont.: Shutter Pub. Group, 2010. Print. Cieply, Michael. “The Afterlife Is Expensive for Digital Movies.” The New York Times. 23 December 2007:1. Web. 25 November 2013. Fischer, Herve?. Digital Shock: Confronting the New Reality. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2006. Print. Hoad, Phil. “Hollywood’s new colour craze.” The Guardian. 26 August 2010. Web. 25 November 2013. Kaufman, Debra. “Film Fading to Black.” Creative Cow.Net. 2011. Web. 25 November 2013. Myszkowski, K, Rafal Mantiuk, and Grzegorz Krawczyk. High Dynamic Range Video. San Rafael, Calif.: Morgan & Claypool Publishers, 2008. Print. Paramour Productions. “How cinematic color grading is actually done.” Model Mayhem. 2012. Web. 25 November 2013. Wrenn, Eddie. “Avatar: How James Cameron’s 3D film could change the face of cinema forever.” Daily Mail. 26 August 2009. Web. 25 November 2013. Read More