I was wondering, it's probably not economic to shoot on super 8 or 16mm any more- film stock and processing, getting it turned to digital. I mean how would you edit it without getting transfered to digital...
Yet a "good" thousand dollar digital camera is looks very different from film and just seems to suck. At least from what I've seen. I don't know.
What is worth it?
Its a shame the industry is getting away from film I've always wanted to try it out.
If you can find a "Good" digital camera for a thousand I'd like to see it. I paid twice that and I think the really good ones are far more. A "good" one will allow for 24 frames per second shooting, combine that with proper lighting and you can create an image that many will have a real tough time telling from film.
A film camera shooting a scene with flat lighting will create an image that many may think is digital video, by the way.
RJSchwarz
San Diego, CA
RJSchwarz
True. It's interesting to watch some older (and relatively high budget) movies shot on film in the 50s and 60s, and see how bad they look today due to flat lighting.
For example, I was watching 'The Alamo' at the weekend, which was Oscar nominated for cinematography, but looked like a sit-com by today's standards.
that's very untrue. lots of the lower end digital cameras are getting much better. i have a panasonic dvx-100a (sub $2000) and it shoots in 24 progressive and looks very much like film. have you seen the movie zodiac? it was filmed with a $25k digital camera (not cheap , but well within reason if you're making a feature film).
besides, it's all in the print. theaters still use film prints to project movies.
http://www.takezer0.com
I agree that the distance between film and video is closing pretty quickly these days. However, there are a few places where I tend to notice digital artifacts even in otherwise well done digital features. For example, there's a scene in Pieces of April where the family is driving in the car and there is a definitely noticable strangeness in the landscape that's swishing by out the window. I noticed a similar thing in Igby Does Down, so I figure it's just a limitation of the technology. Whether the latest cameras have the same problem or not, I don't know.
However, one of the things I've noticed even more is that not every story idea works with digital video. The most obvious example of that is Fast Runner, where shooting a non-mainstream culture (Inuits) on digital video gave the whole thing the feeling of a documentary instead of a fictional narrative. It made for a very disjointed viewing experience for me.
It would be nice to think that digital is a viable option for any movie, but just like shooting in black and white, it depends on the story. And sometimes it simply won't fit. If you have a story that's told best on film, economical or not, then that's what you should do.
