The End of Celluloid As We Know It

[beamish13]

It's up to cinephiles like us to keep celluloid alive. Buy prints online and deposit them at archives.

"We're all in this together."

[stroszeck]

On a serious note, where can one purchase good quality full film prints? I've been interested in buying a whole set up for a while but I've held back cause seemingly most online sources sell 2-3 minute movie trailers on film as opposed to whole reels.

[Matt]

On a serious note, where can one purchase good quality full film prints?

It's generally illegal to sell or buy 35mm theatrical prints, that's why they're hard to find. You have to know people.

And seriously, very few film archives want Joe Gooddeeds dropping off boxes of prints at their front doors. It costs a lot of money to preserve and restore films, so if you want to celebrate film, take that money you would have blown on a print the archive likely already has a copy of (in better condition) and donate it directly to the archive.

[dad1153]

Movie Studios Are Forcing Hollywood to Abandon 35mm Film. But the Consequences of Going Digital Are Vast, and Troubling.

Nothing new (just a lengthy mid-'12 summary of where we are and where we're headed), but I like how the article opens:

Shortly before Christmas, director Edgar Wright received an email inviting him to a private screening of the first six minutes of Christopher Nolan's new Batman movie, The Dark Knight Rises. Walking into Universal CityWalk's IMAX theater, Wright recognized many of the most prominent filmmakers in America — Michael Bay, Bryan Singer, Jon Favreau, Eli Roth, Duncan Jones, Stephen Daldry. If a bomb had gone off in the building, he thought, it would have taken out half of the Directors Guild of America.

"It was a surreal experience because it felt like we were all going to get whacked," Wright recalls.

As the directors settled into their seats, Nolan addressed them with words ripped from the plot of an old Batman serial.

"I have an ulterior motive for bringing you here," the British director announced.

And then he made a plea for 35mm film.

Nolan pointed out that The Dark Knight Rises was made on celluloid. That he is committed to shooting on film, and wants to continue doing so. But, he warned, 35mm will be stamped out by the studios unless people — people like them — insist otherwise.

There is a war raging in Hollywood: a war between formats. In one corner, standing with Nolan, are defenders of 35mm film. Elegant in its economy, for more than 100 years film has been the dominant medium with which movies are shot, edited and viewed.

In the other corner are backers of digital technology — a cheaper, faster, democratizing medium, a boon to both creator and distributor.

A few months later, Nolan steps out of the editing bay to discuss his purpose on that December evening. He says he wanted to remind his fellow filmmakers what photochemical film can do. It is too easy to forget the beauty and power of 35mm.

"The danger comes from filmmakers not asserting their right to choose that format," Nolan says. "If they stop exercising that choice, it will go away. I tell people, 'Look, digital isn't going away.' "

[MyNameCriterionForum]

This has already been mentioned, right?

The bit with Dunham is typical for her, of course... ignorance, smugness and privilege always seem to go hand in hand. Of all the beginning filmmakers out there, she's in a better position than most to have the opportunity to at least experiment with celluloid, but of course she posits her disdain for the medium and its history as some sort of absurd male-dominance thing ("You have to be a duude who knows how to operate machines..."). Right, yet another example of intelligence=bad, par for the course for the last several "voices of their generation" despite their Ivy League educations. Well, Lena, I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but all that evil phallic technology actually frees you to express yourself, allows a framework within which you you can flail away all you want, however "awkwardly" (uh-huh)... maybe it's not a coincidence that the best uses of digital technology in feature films have, so far, been made by directors whose previous work utilized celluloid brilliantly as well (Godard, Mann, Lynch). But go ahead and keep making "jokes" about shoes and orgasms, it's kinda cute, like Cathy Guisewite, haha.

[Brian C]

I feel like you have to be looking really hard for reasons to hate Dunham to single her out from that clip.

[Kirkinson]

Yeah, when I read what you wrote I was expecting a link to some sort of long Q&A where Dunham expounded obnoxiously about digital cinema's superiority over the course of several minutes. Then I clicked it and got a trailer that lasts a minute and a half, in which Dunham appears for all of three seconds and says something totally innocuous.

The movie looks interesting, though. I remember reading about it a few months back and I've been looking forward to it ever since.

[bearcuborg]

While I appreciate Dunham's talent and thoughts about cinema, in this documentary I would rather hear from Jody Lee Lipes who shot her movie beautifully on a digital camera, and then shot NY EXPORT OPUS JAZZ in the very same year on 35mm. He is a talent to watch.

[matrixschmatrix]

This has already been mentioned, right?

The bit with Dunham is typical for her, of course... ignorance, smugness and privilege always seem to go hand in hand. Of all the beginning filmmakers out there, she's in a better position than most to have the opportunity to at least experiment with celluloid, but of course she posits her disdain for the medium and its history as some sort of absurd male-dominance thing ("You have to be a duude who knows how to operate machines..."). Right, yet another example of intelligence=bad, par for the course for the last several "voices of their generation" despite their Ivy League educations. Well, Lena, I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but all that evil phallic technology actually frees you to express yourself, allows a framework within which you you can flail away all you want, however "awkwardly" (uh-huh)... maybe it's not a coincidence that the best uses of digital technology in feature films have, so far, been made by directors whose previous work utilized celluloid brilliantly as well (Godard, Mann, Lynch). But go ahead and keep making "jokes" about shoes and orgasms, it's kinda cute, like Cathy Guisewite, haha.

Did you really just complain that Dunham genders her observations too much in the same post you compared her to the comic strip Cathy on the grounds that they both talk about, you know, lady's stuff, like shoes and orgasms?

None of what you said had the slightest relevance to what she actually says there, which is basically that digital technology meant she didn't need a crew with decades of experience to shoot a feature, which is demonstrably true (whatever the resulting quality of that feature.) As that's been one of the main points in digital cinema's favor since it's inception- and Dunham is unquestionably in a better position to make the argument that digital democratizes the filmmaking process than fucking George Lucas- her comments seemed entirely reasonable.

[MyNameCriterionForum]

Did you really just complain that Dunham genders her observations too much in the same post you compared her to the comic strip Cathy on the grounds that they both talk about, you know, lady's stuff, like shoes and orgasms?

None of what you said had the slightest relevance to what she actually says there, which is basically that digital technology meant she didn't need a crew with decades of experience to shoot a feature, which is demonstrably true (whatever the resulting quality of that feature.) As that's been one of the main points in digital cinema's favor since it's inception- and Dunham is unquestionably in a better position to make the argument that digital democratizes the filmmaking process than fucking George Lucas- her comments seemed entirely reasonable.

Did you really just use "gender" as a verb? Is that the sort of thing they teach at Brown? No, I called her a spoiled brat resorting to mild sexism in her mocking remarks about (slurs speech) duuudes who, like, actually know things and care about, I mean, learning and other stuff. She's brain dead as a feminist, as is Cathy Guiseweit; don't turn that shit on its head and drop it back on me.

If the producers of this film wanted to interview a filmmaker who benefited from utilizing digital media, they could have chosen any number of more convincing examples from the dreaded "mumblecore" genre, most of whom - despite their films still being garbage - don't share Dunham's gender (noun), or obnoxious provenance and connections, etc.

[matrixschmatrix]

Did you really just use "gender" as a verb? Is that the sort of thing they teach at Brown?

Well now who's being reflexively anti-intellectual?

No, I called her a spoiled brat resorting to mild sexism in her mocking remarks about (slurs speech) duuudes who, like, actually know things and care about, I mean, learning and other stuff. She's brain dead as a feminist, as is Cathy Guiseweit; don't turn that shit on its head and drop it back on me.

Well a.) in the context in which she used it, I think 'dude' is meant to be a gender-neutral term, as it often is with young people, and all the perceived double reverse sexism is entirely on your end and b.) I have no idea of where you're getting the idea that she's against 'learning and stuff' from what she said there.

If the producers of this film wanted to interview a filmmaker who benefited from utilizing digital media, they could have chosen any number of more convincing examples from the dreaded "mumblecore" genre, most of whom - despite their films still being garbage - don't share Dunham's gender (noun), or obnoxious provenance and connections, etc.

So, uh, they should specifically avoid interviewing filmmakers of Dunham's gender, i.e. women? Golly, no sexism going on here.

[RossyG]

Anyone who uses a rising intonation at the end of sentences, making a statement sound like a question, deserves a slap regardless of gender.

"I don't think I ever would have been making movies????"

[domino harvey]

Rising Intonation sounds like something you throw at the end of a sequel title

[RossyG]

Here in the UK, it could easily be the title of a module in an acting course. So many young actors talk that way nowadays; one even send this annoying quirk back in time when she used it in the recent Titanic TV series.

[Michael Kerpan]

don't turn that shit on its head and drop it back on me.

What a thoroughly obnoxious post this is. (The whole post --I didn't want to quote the whole thing, but I needed at least some quote to identify the object of my disdain -- and this was the part that I picked).

[flyonthewall2983]

To put this back on track, here is an interview with Keanu and the director of Side By Side.

[Matt]

David Bordwell, via Schawn Belston at Fox, has some helpful figures on the cost of film prints and digital scans in 2012 and some interesting facts on preservation:

*Both Fuji and Kodak are still making film stock, even new emulsions, but the decline in usage will raise prices. A 35mm print now costs $4000, a 70mm print runs $35,000 and up.

*All studios are still making 35mm negatives for preservation, typically from 4K scans. Ironically, their soundtracks, usually magnetic, can’t match the uncompressed sound of the files on a Digital Cinema Package (DCP).

*Most classic films in a studio library are not available on DCP. If an archive or cinematheque or theatre wants one, there are ways to make on-demand DCPs. But it’s not cheap. A 2K scan runs $40,000; a 4K scan, somewhat more. Schawn opts for 4K because a digital version should be the best possible. It might be the last chance to make one!

[LouieD]

*All studios are still making 35mm negatives for preservation, typically from 4K scans.

That says it all to me right there. Digital is NOT archival, film is.

[MichaelB]

*All studios are still making 35mm negatives for preservation, typically from 4K scans.

That says it all to me right there. Digital is NOT archival, film is.

Yes, but the huge advantage of digital masters from an archival perspective is that you can lock the film away for preservation and strike virtually everything you need off the digital master. The ideal is to touch the 35mm originals as little as possible.

[LouieD]

*All studios are still making 35mm negatives for preservation, typically from 4K scans.

That says it all to me right there. Digital is NOT archival, film is.

Yes, but the huge advantage of digital masters from an archival perspective is that you can lock the film away for preservation and strike virtually everything you need off the digital master. The ideal is to touch the 35mm originals as little as possible.

I disagree, have you ever had a hard drive fail? Or a DVD refuse to play? I have. And what's to say that when you go take a digital "film" off the shelves in 30 years it will still "work" or you'll have the proper equipment to play it? There has yet to be invented a storage medium for digital which is 100% safe or failproof, but we still have films over 100 years old looking like they were made yesterday.

[MichaelB]

I disagree, have you ever had a hard drive fail? Or a DVD refuse to play? I have. And what's to say that when you go take a digital "film" off the shelves in 30 years it will still "work" or you'll have the proper equipment to play it? There has yet to be invented a storage medium for digital which is 100% safe or failproof, but we still have films over 100 years old looking like they were made yesterday.

Which is precisely why sensible archives don't junk their 35mm materials. But the great thing about high-quality digital masters is that it means that the 35mm materials barely need to be touched any more unless things go wrong - which is unequivocally a good thing.

Speaking from my own professional experience, I can't exaggerate what a difference this made to the way the BFI National Archive has operated over the last decade. Previously, getting a film out of them made the blood-out-of-a-stone trick seem like a doddle, because preservation was understandably their overwhelming priority. But now, they can use 2K and 4K masters to run off copies for all sorts of purposes: the BFI's YouTube channel, a timecoded DVD-R for research viewing, a Blu-ray, a DCP, you name it - while the original film materials remain locked away in meticulously climate-controlled vaults. Hopefully, once they've finished with the nitrate elements fuelling their current Hitchcock silent restorations, they won't need to be accessed again in decades.

[LouieD]

I see your point, thanks for expanding on it.

[Duncan Hopper]

As well as disk, you'll find that the digital copy will have been backed up to magnetic tape, all decent companies do this, disk is for only short-term access, not archive. As mentioned before, this is due to the high failure rate and future compatibility issues.

If done properly, there will be a local and 'off-site' archive copy. So there is very little chance of not be able to access digital copies after many years.

[Jean-Luc Garbo]

With 35mm Film Dead, Will Classic Movies Ever Look the Same Again?

In June, director Martin Scorsese tried to show his 1993 film The Age of Innocence at the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens. Thelma Schoonmaker, Scorsese's editor for the past 40 years and a three-time Oscar winner, called Grover Crisp, the senior VP of asset management at Sony, for a 35mm print. But Sony not only didn't have a print, it couldn't even make one.

"He told me that they can't print it anymore because Technicolor in Los Angeles no longer prints film," Schoonmaker recalled. "Which means a film we made 20 years ago can no longer be printed, unless we move it to another lab—one of the few labs still making prints."

And that's just the opening to the article. It goes on to chronicle the choices that archivists have to face as digital becomes the dominant medium for preservation.

[mfunk9786]

So people with enormous influence and capacity for preservation like Scorsese need to make sure that there are labs that have the proper capital and accessibility to filmmakers and studios to make sure that cutting celluloid prints isn't going to go away entirely. Then it's going to become a niche pain in the neck to accomplish, but at least there'll be a place (and there are a few as of now according to that article) where that can be done for years to come.