Film versus digital

Let me get this out of the way first: I am not a filmmaker, film student or a connoisseur. I'm just a schmuck who really likes movies, and I'm not afraid to read up on subjects which tickle my fancy. With his in mind, many of my opinions on the matter may be skewed, based upon dubious assumptions, or just flat-out wrong.

Recently I've read a number of articles which have popped up highlighting the film industry's growing preference for digital media. Some of them boast an almost tear-jerking level of nostalgia for a dying technology, while others offer arguments in favour of digital which are, at best, mootable.

Chris Nolan with a 35mm Panavision Panaflex XL2

Let's settle on one fact: 35mm is the gold standard for the foreseeable future. This is exemplified by the fact that the best digital motion picture cameras out there simply attempt - as best they can - to imitate the look and feel of 35mm. When done correctly, film will always look better than any comparable purely digital technology. This comes with a caveat, though: shooting on film and getting through the entire post-production workflow "correctly" is difficult and it is expensive.

In a recent LA Weekly article, Christopher Nolan proselytised and pleaded for the continued use of 35mm film. His argument is that the elegance and power of film outweighs any financial benefits to dropping the medium.

The truth is that the studios are fully justified in supporting - if not forcing - the adoption of digital, as it is simply cheaper. Let's keep in mind that they are running businesses and not art studios.

Red Epic-M with all the trimmings.

One reel of standard 35mm film is roughly 300 metres in length. When recorded at industry-standard 24 frames per second, this gives you a speed of 456 millimetres per second, which translates to roughly eleven minutes of footage. Compare this to the Red Epic digital cinema camera^[1] (used to photograph such upcoming films as Ridley Scott's Prometheus and Peter Jackson's The Hobbit) recording at 5k 2:1 and REDcode 5:1 (which will likely be what most features shoot with) onto a 256GB SSD^[2] will net you just under an hour.

This obviously allows the crew to focus more on the artistry of what they're doing, and less on timing their takes correctly. The knowledge that the SSD can be overwritten (as opposed to a bum reel which must be trashed) also relaxes everyone involved, as a mistake does not mean blowing a $500 reel.

Red's proprietary SSDs
known as RedMags

Another issue which needs to be addressed is that of data loss. Digital's strength in this regard is obvious: film - being an analogue technology - cannot be losslessly copied. That is to say, a copy will always be inferior to the original - a copy of a copy doubly so. The SSDs that are used in digital, on the other hand, are really just examples of newer hard drives that you'll find on any modern desktop PC. This means that the footage which it contains is nothing but a digital file - a huge chunk of binary data. As we all know, digital data can be copied ad infinitum with no loss of quality. This is great news for editors, and - again - introduces massive financial savings. Unfortunately, the SSDs in question are, again, simply glorified hard drives. As someone with vast experience in the field of I.T., I can assure you that any flash/EEPROM based storage degrades much faster than anything you can imagine. While an adequately sealed reel of film can last centuries, you'd be lucky to get a lifespan exceeding five years from a flash hard disk.

Personally, I'm in favour of eventually migrating completely to digital cinema, but not yet. Despite the technology massively lowering the barrier-to-entry for professional quality filmmaking, 35mm film has some beautiful light-capturing qualities and nuances that digital just cannot yet measure up to. The inexorable march of technology, however, suggests that the quality of digital cameras and projection will continue to improve and eventually surpass film. At the moment, we're just at the mercy of producers who favour bottom-line over beauty.

[1] The Epic-M and Epic-X models have approximately the same surface area of a traditional Super 35 film frame masked to the 1.85:1 aspect ratio, creating a similar angle of view and depth of field as the Super 35 film format.

[2] SSD: Solid State Drive. A modern hard-disk technology which features no moving parts and, thus, fewer points of failure. Basically a bigger version of a USB flash stick.

Guilt, denial and groupthink

As is normal for a group of people who work together, every once in a while at our office an email gets sent out - usually by the boss - hilighting and chastising some egregious behaviour; be it anything from unprofessional conduct with a client to a lack of hygene in the bathroom.

A personal observation is that, usually without variance, every member of our staff (bear in mind, we are a small company of only 8 employees, all sharing a single office) replies with some form of indignation at the behaviour described. Seeing as at least one member of staff must be guilty of said behaviour, the fact that there is a universal display of scorn introduces an ostensible paradox.

From a purely cognitive point of view, this phenomenon never ceases to fascinate me, and I believe it treads into the realm of a branch of mathematics known as game theory.

When the original email enters the wilderness of the office network, the initial reaction of everyone involved is to speculate as to whom the guilty party might be; a zero-sum game is created. By responding with (sincere or pseudo) indignation, the individual believes himself to be removed from the pool of possible suspects. However, the consequences of this behaviour are purely mathematical and fully predictable.

As the pool of possible suspects shrinks, so does the likelihood increase that more individuals will react with this form of veiled denial in order to remove themselves from the pool and eliminate any chance of suspicion. Of course, the guilty party (or parties) must play this game too, in order to avert suspicion. This eventually leads to the absurd conclusion that everyone appears to be in equal disgust at behaviour in which at least one of the parties involved must surely have participated. Thus, everyone involved ends up looking even more foolish.

This is a variation of the so-called prisoner's dilemma that is occasionally found in game theory. As the dilemma itself illustrates, the best possible outcome for all parties involved is to accept, each and equally, some measure of the guilt and for no single individual to deny any burden of the guilt. In this way, the shared guilt amounts to less of a loss than the shared foolishness of the absurdity of a universal denial in the face of evidence to the contrary.

The dilemma, of course, is that none of the parties involved cooperates, even though it's in everyone's best interest to do so.

In this example we see mathematical principles being highlighted in our daily interactions, and not simply being relegated to the notebooks of mathematicians.

Your photography sucks

Have you noticed how everyone and their mother claims photography as a hobby nowadays? Do you know why? I'll cut right through the bullshit: because it's easy.

Okay, that's a bit of an explosive statement; good photography is everything but easy, in much the same way that good abstract expressionism is - I would imagine - extremely fucking difficult to pull off, but that doesn't stop anyone capable of projectile defecating paint from calling themselves an "artist".

Jackson Pollock was a genius. Whoever came up with this abomination, well...

Which brings me neatly to the next point in this disjointed rant: photography is the oil-on-canvas of the twenty first century. Anyone within snatching distance of a camera is equipped to take a picture and plaster it on their Flickr profile, but that doesn't make them a photographer any more than taking a laxative would make me a proctologist.

Annie Leibovitz, Robert Mapplethorpe... These people are photographers. You? You're an asshole with a camera, too much time, and not enough negative reinforcement.

Addendum: Yes, I do recall that I, too, have a Flickr profile. However, I've never claimed to be a photographer nor denied being a hypocrite.