Film Vs Digital

[Zappetman]

Witch one do any of you think is better. Personally I prefer film.

 

[D'Snowth]

Just curious, did you start this thread based on the blog I recently wrote last week?

 

[Zappetman]

No. I haven't been on or seen your blog in over a year at least. I didn't know that you wrote about this topic on your blog before. The reason I started this topic is because that I think film is better than digital and I want to know what everybody else's opinion on this. And also the whole debate started by Quentin Tarantino, Christopher Nolan, and Steven Spielberg saying that film is better. I also wanted to talk about this because I someday want to become a filmmaker and TV Show maker myself and I would love to use film when I'm making a Movie or a TV Show (But I my use HD Video Cameras when making a low budget TV Show) but I should go and take a look of what you wrote on your blog to see what your opinion on this is. That cool that you wrote about the debate of film vs digital.

 

[D'Snowth]

For the record, here's what I had to say about the whole Film Vs. Digital debate, if anyone is interested:

http://josephscarbrough.blogspot.com/2016/08/my-unfinished-thoughts-film-vs-digital.html

I also forgot to note that film actually has an even higher resolution that even HD (I think even higher than 4K), it's just that up till recently, we haven't had the technology to successfully digitize film at such resolutions, hence why older shows and movies that were shot on film tend to look compressed.

 

[mr3urious]

Digital "film" does have its advantages in that it is more accessible to amateurs, but I agree, you just can't fully replicate that warmth and detail that analog film provides. Case in point: Thomas the Tank Engine. In its first 7 seasons, the 35mm stock they used really brought out the detail in the Island of Sodor and its engines. But then you get to the later seasons up until the switch to CGI, and Sodor really seems to feel like a dinky model set.

 

[D'Snowth]

Again, digital has the advantage of basically making the whole moviemaking process a breeze by simply importing your footage into the computer, editing it in a program like Adobe Premiere or Sony Vegas or whatever you prefer, export, and you're done. That seems ideal, even for hobbyists and people who like to make things like AMVs and YTPs and such.

I notice that a number of shows in the 90s that were shot on film seem to have been converted to videotape for TV broadcast and DVD, such as SEINFELD and EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND, which, unfortunately, distorts the overall look of the shows. Although most older shows were shot on 35mm film and preserved as such on DVD, for some reason, the color seasons of BEWITCHED on DVD are clearly high quality tape transfers rather than from the source material: when watched on a computer, you get that interlacing that only affects videotape footage, not film, and it does have an overall slightly distorted look when watched on TV.

All that being said, I really wish SST was shot on film from the get-go, but STREET GANG says the producers wanted the show to have a "live" look to it, hence why they went with videotape . . . but still, videotape was still so primitive and poor back then - really, SST doesn't start to look decent till the late 70s, but it also doesn't start to look good till the early-to-mid 80s, and doesn't start to look great till the late 80s. Heck, one of the reasons the first version of Oscar was orange was because apparently those videotape cameras weren't able to record the color purple very well (which is what Jim originally wanted) and would have made him look more like a washed-out magenta.

I had similar problems when I first started filming digital. Up until last year, I had a digital camera (it wasn't a video camera, but shooting video was a function) that couldn't capture certain colors very well: the darker the shade of blue the lighter it appeared on camera (royal blue would look like sky blue), all shades of pink were dull (if it was a light shade of pink, you ended up with the "white tongue effect" those first few ARTHUR episodes had problems with), red always looked muted and slightly orangish.

 

[D'Snowth]

I'm bumping this thread because I really need to know something: what are good, external devices to save exported files on for a physical copy? I'm always worried about something possibly happening to my hard drive, and if it does, there goes the master files of so much of my work (and I've already lost a couple of master files to corruption, somehow).

Before the days of HD, I used to be able to save the files on CD-Rs, which is how all of the digital episodes of Steve D'Monster's YouTube series have been stored, but you only get 700MB of space of those discs, and many of my HD projects have much higher files sizes than that.

I've been told Sony manufactures video discs similar to DVDs or Bluray that allows you to store high quality video files, but I don't know if using them on my PC would work or not (especially considering Windows distorts the video color when you burn them on a DVD anyway).

 

[fuzzygobo]

My experience with film was limited to one college course in 1988. All we had at our disposal were Super 8mm (advanced courses got 16mm). Editing was done with a Movieola machine and a razor blade. Now you're in the filmmaking business!
I was intrigued how sensitive the film was. Shooting outdoors, extreme sunlight can wash out all color, and extreme cold can give your film a reddish glow.
Film was also notorious for attracting dust. When it's run through the projector at 24 frames per second, specks of dust become part of your movie.
Same with optical scratches. Those vertical lines that weave and flow through your film. Can be annoying, but they take on a life of their own. It's funny how digital ads today add these scratches to give it a "vintage" feel.
I love what Norm McLaren and Art Clokey used to do. Scratch every individual frame and create fantastic animation. McLaren's 1949 "Be Gone, Dull Care" still looks phenomenal today. Cheers to that clever Canadian. 8)

 

[mr3urious]

I love what Norm McLaren and Art Clokey used to do. Scratch every individual frame and create fantastic animation. McLaren's 1949 "Be Gone, Dull Care" still looks phenomenal today. Cheers to that clever Canadian. 8)

Norman McLaren also did wonders with "graphical sound". The soundtrack in the 1952 short Neighbours is done not with synthesizers, but by scratching up the sound clip in the film with various shapes. Can't get that digitally, no sir!

 

[D'Snowth]

I'm bumping this thread because I really need to know something: what are good, external devices to save exported files on for a physical copy? I'm always worried about something possibly happening to my hard drive, and if it does, there goes the master files of so much of my work (and I've already lost a couple of master files to corruption, somehow).

Before the days of HD, I used to be able to save the files on CD-Rs, which is how all of the digital episodes of Steve D'Monster's YouTube series have been stored, but you only get 700MB of space of those discs, and many of my HD projects have much higher files sizes than that.

I've been told Sony manufactures video discs similar to DVDs or Bluray that allows you to store high quality video files, but I don't know if using them on my PC would work or not (especially considering Windows distorts the video color when you burn them on a DVD anyway).

So, uh, can anybody give me some tidbits?