For The Record

This Roger Deakins quote is a few days old and has gotten around, but I’m posting it anyway because as “duhh” and after-the-fact as it may seem to some, it’s a significant benchmark statement from a guy of his stature: “This year or next will see more or less the end of film. It’s been a long time coming, really. Film has had a good run.”

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17 thoughts on “For The Record”

  4. Not sure why you would be that surprised, Jeff; Deakins has has never been one of these D.O.P.s who’s anti-new technology, he was using digital intermediates pretty much as soon as that process became available…If it had been said by Gordon Willis, THAT would have been surprising… I wonder how much hate mail Deakins is going to get from the old guard at the ASC for being one of the few DOP’s honest enough to admit such a thing….

    Do wonder if will truely “die” or whether shooting on film will simply become a “cult” thing, like the experimental guys who insist on using Super 8 stock…

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  5. I’m afraid he’s right. It’s a shame, because even the best 4K digital can’t match the resolution of a clean, new, 35mm print.

    That’s not even accounting for the intangible sort of magic that comes from watching the image created by brilliant light blasting through a photographic image, captured on celluloid, and projected on to a huge sheet of pearlescent white vinyl. The sensation created by watching that happen 24 times per second simply can’t be re-created by digital means.

    Spielberg, Tarantino, and the other celluloid torch-bearers will hold out to the bitter end, but won’t be able to fend off the inevitable. I’m sure that the technology will eventually become so good that I won’t be able to tell the difference, but in the meantime, I’m actively seeking out 35mm screenings of everything I can.

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  6. I love digital, but I think in an ideal world both digital and film would be equally available to film-makers to use where they see fit. I like the idea of film-makers having a variety of different formats and aesthetic textures at their disposal, to suit the particular type of movie experience they’re trying to conjure up, but sadly one format will always wind up superseding the others. Enjoy the transitional period, I guess, where you have so many different visual textures available: traditional film stock, digital video that looks pretty much like film, digital that looks unabashedly digital, 3D, ect.

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  7. In this digital v. film discussion we’re leaving out an important element, which doesn’t seem to get much discussion. How are these digital files (finished films) stored. Are they stored uncompressed?Servers are getting less and less expensive, but what about back up?

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  8. The most valid, practical concern on the film side of the debate is one that still bothers me quite a bit – you can’t recover a damaged digital file. Film can be repaired, but a corrupted file? I mean, they’ll probably have back-ups and everything, but it’s not out of the question that we could enter a new era of the lost film.

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