zombie84

I post there regularly still. There's no rampant bashing there, thats for sure. Just occassional. And its full of idiotic Lucas bootlickers. But compared to the Gestappo days of 2003-2006, occassional probably seems rampant.

Fang Zei said:

It's not like that would be a first: from what I've heard you need to do that on the '03 T2 dvd just to watch the theatrical version.

 That code was to see the film with the originally-shot but never released ending incorporated.

Probably stronger than ever. All the crappy CW and prequel stuff has just pushed me back into OT-land, whereas if it was 2001 I would have been distracted by a number of PT stuff, books, comics and games. Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back are still the same classic films they were ten years ago, twenty years ago and thirty years ago. It sucks watching the GOUT, but to be honest I would still be watching my VHS tapes--and sometimes still do--so I can live with it. Meanwhile, the fight to get back the OT continues and grows stronger--I think the post-PT shit has led many people to realise that at the end of the day the OT is really where its at. The hype of the PT is gone and people are realising that the OT was all the more special. Meanwhile, the GOUT, sad as it may be, has become a standard of DVD release now--there's been more releases WITH the original theatrical editions included than without, which is an encouraging sign an will hopefully re-normalise the OOT in the minds of people.

Digitalbits passes along some stats from the DEG:

The DEG announced that Blu-ray software sales grew from $270 million in 2007 to more than $750 million in 2008. Combined DVD and Blu-ray software sales for 2008 totaled more than $22 billion dollars, down slightly from nearly $24 billion last year. The BDA says there are now some 10.7 million Blu-ray playback devices currently in the market, including both PS3 and standalone units, this after just 2.5 years of format availability. By contrast, just 5.4 million DVD capable devices had shipped by the end of the third year of that format's availability. The Year Three U.S. market penetration of Blu-ray is set to reach about 8%, which is impressive given that the Year Three penetration of DVD was just 4.2%. The DEG reported that some 3 million players were shipped in the 4th quarter of 2008 alone. The lowest player SRP for this past holiday season was $149 for an entry level unit. This is just a quick summary of released stats - I'll have more details for you later this weekend.

This is why it always cracks me up when people complain about Blu-Ray commercial failings.

It wasn't that way for music. DVD-A and SACD came out but they failed to dethrone the CD, and downloads have merely supplemented it, not replaced it. As I said, once BR is in there as the new standard it'll stick, and there is really absolutely nothing stopping it from becoming the new standard--its gonna happen, the public wants to switch to HD and BR is there.

The thing people also have to remember is that people want HD. Blu Ray is and will continue to be a success because the public wants it to be--the public is ready for it. In 2005, people were saying, "well, hi-def, do we really need it? Is it really that necessary?" The consumer market wasn't ready. But today people are saying, "yes, we want it, it is necessary." And when people want to own their movies in HD, they will be buying Blu Ray--there's nothing else. Its either Blu Ray or nothing. If Blu Ray fails then it will be about four or five years before another format is developed, released and then saturated to a point comparable where Blu Ray is right now, and the world will not go the next four years with no HD format--it needs and wants one, and its Blu Ray. Its success is sealed basically just because of this.

Anything that comes out afterwards will not be able to compete or replace it for, probably, a much longer period than the reign of DVD because it would have already become the home video standard; the only reason Blu Ray can supplant DVD is because there was still another television standard not yet tapped--HD. Its extremely, extremely unlikely that, once HD television is the standard in five or six years, another standard will replace it, at least for a long, long time (because how much resolution can you get for a home television? You reach a point where you reach the resolving power of the human eye. 2K would be useful, but the amount of effort to replace HD standard with 2K is enormous compared to the really small gain you get, and 4k in the home is a long, long way off, if it ever happens at all due to resolving limits of the eye on so small a screen size). HD is here to stay for a long time and Blu Ray had the luck of getting there first and (eventually) inheriting the home video standard of DVD. It won't be brought down for a while once its in there.

Yeah, I don't know why people think HD downloads will replace disks in the near future; who the hell writes this stuff? Blu Ray has consistently out-performed DVD in its lifespan equivalency and each year is more successful than the previous. The question is, will it have that sudden "take-off" period of wide consumer adoption the way DVD did around 2002 and 2003? Well, like I said, HD monitors make up a minority of the market, so not right now. But I will say this: I was in Best Buy this morning and every single television was HDTV, and they were all much cheaper than the standard-def equivalents being sold in the take-off period of DVD--how long away is the HDTV take-off? Not far.

It just means "the black sheep." The one who doesn't belong. Red hair is very uncommon, and being a step-child makes you a bit of an outsider, so to be a step-child with red hair would make you especially an outsider. Thats all that expression means. Its a very common expression in north america at least.

lordjedi said:

zombie84 said:

Blu-Ray is a niche format that will eventually become a standard format, because HDTV is a niche format that will eventually become a standard format.

I know far more people that have HDTVs than have Blu-ray players.  I'd say that HDTV is not a niche format. 

By virtue of the fact that it only represents a minority of the television market it is a niche, just like Blu-Ray is by virtue of the fact that it also represents a minority of the home video market.

People can buy an HDTV for very little (as you say below), hook it up to their HD cable or satellite, and enjoy a stunning picture right away.  And if they have an upscaling DVD player, their old DVDs will now look even better than they did before.

Then thats exactly the same as how people can buy a Blu Ray player for extremely little and just hook it up as well. How is this relevant as far as the asserted failing of Blu Ray is concerned?

DVD players didn't come down because the format war ended or because recordable players emerged; I don't think most people even knew about the format war, and no one uses recordable DVD anyway.

I knew several people at the time, that were not technical at all, that knew about Divx.  One of them even bought a player because he felt it was the better buy, despite all the drawbacks.

Well, despite your own personal experience, i thought it was common knowledge that like 90% of people out there had no idea it was going on. Most people didn't even know of DVD itself until around 1999. I guarantee you if you go up to someone and say "DivX format" they'll think your talking about the computer codec, if they even know what you are talking about at all. Especially outside of the US, DivX is about as well known by your average person as the RCA video disks.

 

As for Blu-Ray--here's the thing. I don't think anyone ever expected it to replace DVD, so why are people disappointed that its sales are not as good as DVDs?

I don't know where you got this idea.  Every article I've ever read since Blu-ray's inception has made the case that Blu-ray is so much better that it was going to replace DVD.

Well, true there are a lot of uninformed morons out there, and whenever any format comes out theres all sorts of people that just swoop in and proclaim it the next big thing. But no one who ever properly understood the reality of the business expected it to replace DVD in the same way that DVD replaced VHS (ie a seemingly-rapid pace and instant adoption). Most people didnt even realise that DVD started off relatively slowly compared to its later reputation. Blu Ray could never replace DVD in the same way DVD replaced VHS because it requires HD sets, so before that happens you have to ask yourself "when are HD monitors going to replace SD ones?" This process has to occur first. But those people are probably correct in that, IN THE LONG TERM, Blu Ray will be the next DVD in that it will be the next home video standard. But it wont happen until HD supplants SD, and that is still a few years off. The common sentiment I've always found, at least from anyone with an opinion worth listening to, is that BR will inherit the mantle of DVD in the sense that it will be the next-level video standard but not in the sense that DVD will become (literally) obsolete right away.

DVD was a success that had never been seen in home video, and probably won't be ever again, at least in our lifetimes.

Never going to need more than 1 MB of RAM either, huh?

While it is possible, IMO it is very unlikely that the success of DVD will be seen again. It was a completlely unlikely coalescing of elements that enabled it to grow with the speed and infiltrate the market in the manner in which it did, and they are entirely accidental. VHS didnt happen like this, neither did Laserdisc, CED, Blu Ray, HD-DVD, VHS-D or any other format. The reason is because the sheer number of coincidenes and circumstances that would allow them to supplant the reigning format with DVDs speed are so unlikely that just based on probabibility it is unlikely to be seen again in the next few decades (as far as traditional, hard-copy, retail-based media goes).

DVD you could just hook up to your TV and be blown away by the quality, but Blu-Ray requires you to have a completely different television set, and jump between Blu-Ray and DVD isn't nearly as dramatic so there's not as much drive for "you gotta see THIS!!".

I don't know where people get this.  A Blu-ray with 1080p is over double the resolution of a 480p DVD.  DVD was double that of VHS (usually around 240 lines).  Sure, it's best viewed on a screen larger than 32", but I was never really blown away by the quality of a DVD on my 27" TV.  What blew me away was the ability to freeze frame without the frame jumping, select scenes at random, and high speed skip through the movie.  Add in the commentary and other extra features and I was hooked.

VHS also had lots of noise and tape distortion and things of that nature as well--DVD was the first time people got a really clear, sharp picture, and THAT was really what hadn't been seen before. Now that people are accustomed to that, the increase in resolution doesn't seem as dramatic as that jump from low-quality magnetic tape. But it also had to do with the plethora of supplemental features like digital surround sound and commentary tracks and animated menus that added to the wow factor, as you pointed out. Now that thats all common, BR really just comes down to resolution in terms of its appeal, which isn't as dramatic.

I'd say Blu Ray will be the standard home video format by about 2016, if it can hang in there for the next two years or so.

2016?  By that time, I expect HD streaming to become common place.  Verizon already streams the DVR over the FiOS link.  If they can do that today, there's nothing stopping them from streaming an HD video directly to a media center that is either leased or owned.

People will still want disk-based media. Streaming will replace the rental market one day, probably, but people still want to have a hard-copy with a nice package that they can put on their shelves, appreciate, bring with them places. Especially because of DVD, the home video market is a market of collectors, and I'm talking about much of the average consumer fanbase, not just the real collectors that pick up the deluxe limited pressings and such. Look at the music industry, not only are CDs still alive and selling more than they were during some years in the 90s but vinyl records have made a huge comeback. People have always been hard-copy collectors because its satisfying to have that physical library on a shelf--whether it is books, vinyl records, CDs, VHS tapes or DVDs. Streaming, in the near future at least--who knows how consumer trends will be in a decade and a half for now--is just a sort of lazy, "lets see whats on" type of rental/television thing, not a replacement for the buyers market.

Blu-Ray is a niche format that will eventually become a standard format, because HDTV is a niche format that will eventually become a standard format.

DVD players didn't come down because the format war ended or because recordable players emerged; I don't think most people even knew about the format war, and no one uses recordable DVD anyway. They came down because cheap chinese players infiltrated the marketplace and forced the big manufacturer's to compete. Prices were still falling--my first player was a $280 Toshiba in 2001 and six months later it was already down to just over $200 because a lot of people adopted that year--but once Acer and obscure brands like that started putting out players that were $100, companies like Sony and Toshiba had to stay competetive so they began slashing the prices dramatically. With this, disk prices fell dramatically--I remember when $32.99 was the norm for a new DVD, regardless of whether it was a "Special Edition" or not, and this wasn't seen as expensive either because it was a newer and better format, but by 2004 or so when all the prices were in free-fall you would see $22.99 for new DVDs, and now its not uncommon to see new disks for $15. It really traced back to the surge of cheap, non-brand name asian players that caused an industry-wide price crash, which lead to cheaper disk prices as the format replaced VHS.

But thats not necessarily going to happen again. I think people just take the incredible success and disgustingly cheap prices of DVD for granted. In 1995 I was paying $20 for VHS tapes, and now people pay almost the same for a lot of Blu-Ray titles, yet they still complain; our family bought a top-quality VCR in 1987 that cost us almost $300, and you can buy Blu-Ray players for much less today. I don't really know what people are expecting. I think its actually cheapened the home video industry a bit that you can go to the store and get a $50 DVD player and own a recent Hollywood blockbuster on DVD for $6, its sort of made home video a bit disposable but I guess thats just the way its gone.

As for Blu-Ray--here's the thing. I don't think anyone ever expected it to replace DVD, so why are people disappointed that its sales are not as good as DVDs? DVD was a success that had never been seen in home video, and probably won't be ever again, at least in our lifetimes. DVD you could just hook up to your TV and be blown away by the quality, but Blu-Ray requires you to have a completely different television set, and jump between Blu-Ray and DVD isn't nearly as dramatic so there's not as much drive for "you gotta see THIS!!". So, of course Blu-Ray isn't going to be The New DVD. It could never be, because most people are incapable of watching HD content anyway. So it is, and will continue to be, a semi-niche format. A lot of people that have HD sets have a Blu-Ray player, but most people still don't have HD sets. 

However, Blu-Ray isn't going to die. It will stick around for the time being. And what will happen--and HAS been happening--is that more and more people will buy HD televisions sets. HD will supplant standard-def TV within the next five years. Its hard to find standard-def TVs at some retailers now, and HD sets are continuing to fall steeply in price--when an LCD set thats the same size as my TV at home was priced at over a grande three years ago people stayed away, but not only are prices competitive with standard-def sets but it costs less to get an HD set now than it did to buy a standard-def set 10 years ago. And as more people get HD sets, they'll slowly pick up Blu-Ray. Along the way players will continue to fall in price. Your average consumer isn't going to go ga-ga over it the way they did with DVD, but theres still a massive quality difference, and as people get used to the detail of an HD image they'll start noticing that their DVDs look a lot softer and fuzzier by comparison, and they'll get interested in Blu Ray. I'd say Blu Ray will be the standard home video format by about 2016, if it can hang in there for the next two years or so. But its not losing money, and every year more people adopt, sales are strong and should continue to be, so theres not much chance of companies or retailers abandoning the format. Even if the format was failing places like Best Buy need a format to go along with the fancy HD Tvs they are hocking so they'd keep it on shelves.

I'd say the success of Blu Ray will have more to do with the infiltration of HD sets than anything. Your average person doesn't have much interest in Blu Ray, its true, but only because your average person doesn't have an HD set so why in the world would they be interested in something they cant get. Eventually, people without an interest in HD sets will be buying them anyway because when they walk into Best Buy thats all there will be, and they will be more affordable than the last TV they bought anyway, so they will shrug and say "okay, fine." And as Blu-Ray continues to grow, these people will eventually start adapting anyway, just like all the people today who would probably still be watching VHS if it wasn't for the fact that everything had gone DVD anyway so they just went with the flow.

Thanks C3PX, that is a very generous suggestion.

Negative-1: actually, the first 100 pages are available to read if you are interested. Just visit the website for the link (under the 'book' section).

It's an expression.

negative1 said:

i'm sorry, but the original trilogy is not enough for me, i care

way too much about star wars, and i want MORE, more of the prequels,

more of the 'clone war's', more of everything related to star wars..

it gives me something to look forward too, instead of being stuck in

the past..

 

later

-1

 The thing is we wanted more too--but not if they are going to SUCK. We all wanted the prequels, and what we got was not up to par. We care too much about Star Wars to lower our standards and accept crap (I mean, it was bad enough with ROTJ but every family has the red-headed step-child right?). Everyone likes more Star Wars, but some only want more Star Wars if its good, not if its bad, and not if its "eh, its alright I guess."

But yeah. Originaltrilogy.com dude, what do you expect. I'd rather have 2 really good movies (and one okay movie) than a steady stream of crap coming out all the time because I still watch those 3 older movies , they are so good that they have stood the test of time, just like everyone listens to the White Album even though they've heard it a million times over the last 40 years; what would be the point of the Beatles reforming in 1979 and churning out really bad music, or even just medicore music, when theres the White Album? People would have just ignored the new stuff and continued to revere and listen to the older stuff. I mean honestly, who the hell likes Wings these days anyway? Some devout fans do, of course, and its not like its all bad, but theres a reason why 90% of people continue to simply listen to the old stuff, and the same goes for Star Wars. The OT is among the most important filmic achievements of the 20th century and the PT really only amounts to a footnote to it.

The pre-2004 release of the SE was a bad telecine. It was very pink looking for the desert scenes, and the skin tones were off; it just wasn't the greatest. The theatrical prints more or less looked like the 1977 prints in terms of color--they even used Lucas' personal dye-transfer 1977 35mm master as a color reference.

You also get more whining during Anakin's uber-emo "i hate them" confession.

Well, those links don't seem to really work. But I'll say that animation--in the case of Sleeping Beauty--doesn't photograph in the same way that live-action does when discussing depth. In live-action, its a 3d space captured 2-dimensionally--but animation is a 2-d space captured 2-dimensionally. There was never any actual depth to begin with--its all simulated from the beginning. I'm not entirely sure how depth-of-field simulations work in animation, but my understanding is that its a composite effect of some kind. When I photograph a man standing in front of a building, the building is actually ten feet behind him and thus the depth of field actually falls off in a genuine way, but in animation the BG is not actually ten feet behind the subject, its all flat to begin with.

Or am I misunderstanding what you are asking? As far as Lowry goes, I'm not sure how much this effects the qualities you are talking about, unless you are basing your point off pre- and post-Lowry comparisons (again, I can't see the examples you posted so maybe I'm misunderstanding things here). The sort of "blurryness" of the human eye is different than a camera lens just because of the way the eye works, maybe you are right in that there is this indefinable subtle "texture" to the BG in shallow-depth-of-field in real life, caused by some sort of biological phenomena, that makes film grain seem more familiar (but, on the flip side, the amount of film grain visible in a lot of movies is way, way beyond any sort of real-life "texture", and it doesn't just apply to out-of-focus objects but the entire uniform image, which is clearly unnatural from real life).

Digital versus film really doesn't have any bearing on how the depth of field looks in the manner you are talking about--in fact, most digitally shot movie use the same lenses as film productions. A shallow depth of field image captured by a high-end digital still camera has pretty identical image characteristics as with a film camera, in this respect. I think its more about the way the human eye sees things versus the way a lens does. Part of it may be the stereoscopic effect of the human eye (if you look at something up close while covering one eye, the "blurryness" of the BG seems more pronounced IMO, or perhaps you become more aware of it), but I think its really just the way glass lenses capture images. They use the same principles as the human eye but obviously rods and cones and soft tissue is not the same as glass and mirrors and emulsions.

negative1 said:

no reviews?

 

anyone?

 

later

-1

Amazon.co.uk has a review now.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Secret-History-Star-Wars/dp/0978465237/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1227726792&sr=1-1

5 stars ain't bad, right? :p

Fun fact here: apparently, SHOSW is being used as a textbook for a University english course in South Carolina. Weird. Didn't think I'd write a university textbook before I ever went to University.

Hey guys,

Forgive me if this sounds self-promotional. Well, I guess it is, actually. But a lot of people here really seem to have liked The Secret History of Star Wars. For those that don't know, it was a free e-book I wrote examining the writing and storytelling process of the Star Wars series and how it transformed over the years. Anyway, its now being published and is available for order.

http://www.amazon.com/Secret-History-Star-Wars/dp/0978465237/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1227368583&sr=1-3

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/The-Secret-History-of-Star-Wars/Michael-Kaminski/e/9780978465230/?itm=1

You can check out sample chapters on the publishers website http://www.legacybookspress.com or check out the books site for further info and related writings http://secrethistoryofstarwars.com

Actually, Now that I think about it I think this might be the first ever book to actually consider the series from the perspective of all six films.

lordjedi said:

zombie84 said:

But this notion that grain is inherantly bad is not only wrong, it completely misunderstands the argument in the first place.

And I'm not saying it's bad.  It's a part of the medium.  I get it.  I totally do.  What I was asking, and you answered, is that if you could have the image without the grain, would you take it?  Apparently some DPs wouldn't.  There's nothing wrong with that.  But you also stated that DPs can choose film stock that has a very fine grain.  So by extension, if they needed as little grain in the image as possible, would they not choose a medium that provided no grain if it was available?  Since they can have difference levels of grain in the same movie, I can imagine that if they wanted something with nearly no grain, they would take it.  And if something was available that gave them the same image without the grain and they didn't want any grain, why wouldn't they take it?

Probably some would. Whenever you have a choice given, there's going to be someone taking it. But movies today don't really have visible grain. The choice is already there--They don't need video to give them the option. Look at a typical big-budget movie--Iron Man, Incredible Hulk, etc. You won't find visible grain. If you were to take a microscope you WOULD find grain, of course--the grain that actually composes the image itself. Film without grain is impossible because thats what the image is--its like a "painting" without paint. But in terms of "visible" grain--like in Schindler's List or Minority Report, or Aliens--most modern movies don't have it. So DP's don't need video for this. As I mentioned earlier, many DP's believe that film stocks have gotten so fine-grain that they look like video and are deliberately trying to shift emphasis back to the older aesthetics because grain texture is no longer part of the visual art.

Photographers use chemical emulsions because that was the only way to do it for 100 years.

Hmm, yet they still do it. I wonder why that is? Let me guess, they are all old luddites afraid of change who cling on to what they are familiar with. Yeah, sure.

I know plenty of photographers.  The ones that still use traditional film do it because even though it costs them more, they view photography as an art form.  They actually don't like the ability to take 100s of pictures on a single shoot, find that killer shot, and then discard the rest.  They like to take their time and wait for that one killer shot.  They pay for it too.  They have to conserve their film and they have to pay all the costs for processing and storage (they don't throw bad shots away).  Most of them don't do it for anything more than a full time hobby any more since they can't compete with the photographers who are using digital and don't have the same costs they do.  This is what I've heard from photographers and read in photography magazines.

But this is the fundamental part of the issue you're apparently not quite understanding--film LOOKS different. I'm not talking about resolution or versatility or economics--the QUALITY, by which i mean the characteristics, of the image is different. The blacks and colors work differently. The edges look different. The gradients are different. The dynamic range is different. The way whites and blacks get captured is different. Its a subtle difference but its there. Thats why people still shoot on film. Because it looks different, and, most agree, better. I compared it to records vs CDs earlier because of this--records give a different quality, by which i mean different characteristics, to the sound; vinyl records are described as being "warmer" and more "live" sounding, while film has been described as "softer" and more "organic" looking, as opposed to the "harsh" digital counterparts for both mediums.

HD was made for news. AOTC was shot using a news camera that had a cine lens frankensteined onto it.

Pardon me for saying this, but AOTC is a horrible example to use.  Hell, any Star Wars prequel is a horrible example to use.  I 100% agree that those movies should not have been shot with "HD cams" simply because they'll never look any better than they do.  They are maxed out right now at 1080p.  If there's something better 10 or 20 years from now, they'll never look any better.  At least with 35mm, they can take the raw 4k scan and give us a 2k HD video (if something like that comes along).  That'll never be available for the prequels.

Again--resolution is not what I'm talking about. Resolution is the least of the issues. AOTC looks like shit not because its 1080p, but because of the way the digital sensor captures the image. The quality--the characteristics--are ugly. There's no black detail, shadows break up and even show digital artifacts, theres really high depth of field, the edges are really sharp and harsh, everythings way too crisp (despite the low resolution), colors bleed, theres not a very nice pallete, theres noise galore, especially in dark scenes, and everything simply looks mushy and gross. This has nothing to do with resolution. And much of these issues continue to this day. THATS why most photographers refuse to go digital, THATS why, when you are spending millions of dollars on a production you shoot on a chemical emulsion.

But, as I said, a lot of these problems are in the process of being worked out. But its still a decade away before it can even begin to compete with film. Thats why people still widely use 16mm--the resolution is relatively low (ie the same as HD), but the quality of the image is gorgeous and cannot be replicated by anything else.

Johnboy3434 said:

zombie84 said:

"look at how CLEAN this is! Its not dirty! Its really SHARP! You can SEE everything really clear!"

 

Are you implying that crystal clarity is an inherently bad thing? Okay, let's flip the argument around. Instead of "Why should we remove grain?" let's ask "Why shouldn't movies have the picture quality of a polished mirror?" And I'm not talking about movies that already exist. I'm talking about for films that have yet to be made.

 No, I'm not claiming clarity is inherantly bad. But I'm demonstrating that the opinion that its inherantly good is flawed. They are both simply aesthetic choices.

lordjedi said:

zombie84 said:

Um, I'm pretty sure you can't store a terabyte of information on an optical disk.

Yet.  I have no doubt we'll see something that can (consumer ready even) in my lifetime.

 

I'd be surprised if we didn't see this in the next six or seven years the way things are moving now.

As far as the original question though, no you could never 100%, let alone better, replicate film through electronic means, no matter if its analog or digital. Its simply not possible; the process of converting it into electronic signals means you can never get it in a pure form. You could probably get it to the point where the difference is invisible, however, though I'm sure some might argue that the "inperceptible" difference is where the difference actually is. In terms of analog, there's not sufficient technological development to even get us to this point, however, since everyone has gone digital for the last decade and a half. If you're going to convert film into an electronic replication, it really doesn't matter if its analog or digital, whats lost is lost already so you might as well stick with the technologically superior digital realm.

Um, I'm pretty sure you can't store a terabyte of information on an optical disk. Even if you split it across multiple disks, like Laserdisc did, there's no way to get close to an uncompressed 35mm 4K scan (at the least). I'll admit, off the top of my head I don't have exact figures, but the space to save a 35mm scan is at the very least in the hundreds of GB range, and I'm pretty sure, actually in the terabyte range. Aside from which, digital display can't 100% replicate the color and density of film.

lordjedi said:

Cinematographers shoot in 35mm because it has a much higher resolution than digital (for the forseeable future).  [/quote]

No, they don't. Resolution is the least of the concern. If you think the difference between video and film is simply resolution then frankly you are missing the entire point of this discussion.

 

I'm sure they also choose their film based on how much grain is there too, but somehow I doubt they'd mind if they could get the same thing with no grain.

They do, actually, and sometimes this is crucial. They make film stocks in a wide range of grain because grain and emulsion curves matter. In fact, many DP's think film has become TOO fine grain nowadays, its starting to look like video in some ways, so DP's are counter-reacting by going back to an intentionally grainy look.

 If they can indeed choose film that has as little grain as possible, then why wouldn't they choose a medium that could reach the same resolution with no grain at all?

Because GRAIN IS NOT BAD. REPEAT: GRAIN IS NOT BAD. GETTING THIS? ITS AN IMAGE CHARACTERISTIC. LIKE STOCKS THAT SHOW MORE SHADOW DETAIL OR LESS SHADOW DETAIL. Its a matter of aesthetic; most DP's prefer to have grain, which is one of the top reasons they have been resisting the look of video for so long. There is a texture and feeling to film that you cannot be replicated by digital masks, because its an organic chemical that randomly reacts to photons changing its crystal structure. Its like saying, "if you could paint completely smoothly, without any brush-strokes or marks of any kind, why wouldn't you?" Its an ignorant question to be asking. People like the fact that there are marks and brushstrokes; its part of the aesthetic. You might want to check out art history and theory. Ever heard of the impressionists? Van Gough? Hell, ever been to a local art gallery? Some people DO like that smooth, crystal clear look--theres a place for it as well. But this notion that grain is inherantly bad is not only wrong, it completely misunderstands the argument in the first place.

Photographers use chemical emulsions because that was the only way to do it for 100 years.

Hmm, yet they still do it. I wonder why that is? Let me guess, they are all old luddites afraid of change who cling on to what they are familiar with. Yeah, sure.

Digital photography is nearly indistinguishable from film, so many photographers have switched to digital.

WRONG!! Maybe to the layman it is.

 

If a piece of art gets people talking and looks really good, why does it matter if it was done in Photoshop or with brush strokes?

Because if you see the real Starry Night by Van Gough you'd know that what you get in photoshop doesn't even begin to approximate that. Its quite laughable. But hell, using Van Gough is a pretty bold example, go down to an art college and check out any random painting. The photoshop plug-ins weren't meant to replace brush and pigment. They are there for graphic design, for a cheap, quick disposable way of getting "the idea" across that its supposed to be brush and pigment. For photoshop, yeah, its pretty good. For photoshop.

HD was made for news. AOTC was shot using a news camera that had a cine lens frankensteined onto it. Its only since 2005 or so that companies actually started manufacturing cameras with feature film photography in mind. Its in its earliest stages. Resolution and depth of field were the most apparent and obvious issues, so they solved these early--they are also the most elementary, so it was inevitable that this would happen in any case. But resolution is not what the issue is about. There are a million different image characteristics that make film so much more pleasing than video. Thats why 9/10 DP's still shoot on film. And in MOST of those 1/10 cases where video is shot its by non-expert uninformed non-photographer people making the decision--such as in AOTC, Superman, Sin City. It wasn't the photographers, it was tech-obsessed filmmakers who don't actually deal in image-making. And in a lot of TV its executives making the call because 1) they are cheap bastards, and 2) because they are suckers and got talked into going digital by all the camera companies. The whole HD thing was a corporate scam because companies realised they could hock all these expensive cameras to billion-dollar studios if they told them its better. DP's knew better, which is why almost no one chose to shoot in video unless they wanted to experiment with the latest toy or if they were forced to by someone above them. The RED camera exposed the corporate HD marketing scam for what it really was.

I know all this because I work in the biz. I'm part of the International Cinematographer's Guild and have seen the key years from 2005-2008 when people outside of George Lucas and Robert Rodriguez actually started adopting HD.

One day, HD will solve MOST of its problems. Maybe by 2020. Maybe not. People have already been brainwashed that "HD=good" so it'll happen unless people start smartening up. You see it in the names of products--they'll throw "HD" in the product label to subconsciously make you think its better, even when it has nothing to do with digital video display (hell, everything from printers to blenders to exercise equipment). And they've already been partially succcessful in brainwashing people that the inherant characteristics of HD--clear images with sharp edges--are good; "look at how CLEAN this is! Its not dirty! Its really SHARP! You can SEE everything really clear!" A lot of this has to do with the parallel explosion in high-res video games. So I guess the public consciousness of the layperson is shifting. They want movies to look like their X-Box and they want their expensive plasma TV's that they paid out of their ass for to display like you are looking into a mirror. The film industry is driven by different pressures than other fine art mediums. But most cinematographers have been doing their best to resist this, to slow down the process and, hopefully, drive high-def video into a more acceptable aesthetic before its ready for wide professional adoption. For the average guy, the ease and versatility of video is a welcome trade off, but there's a reason why, when you are spending millions and millions of dollars to produce a film, photographers are deliberately going with chemical emulsions.