Is there anybody out there?

The main difference is the cost as far as I can tell. 35mm costs a lot to film and develop. Video costs a lot if bumped up to be viewed on a big screen but is otherwise very cheap.

The 35mm also looks different, more movie like, but that's subjective and the use of proper lighting can make video look movie-like or poor lighting can make 35mm look flat and video like.

RJSchwarz
San Diego, CA

quote:

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Originally posted by Spokane36

I am planning to shoot most of my films on digital video. Mainly because they're probably going to be small in budget. With that in mind, I'm interested in knowing the differences between digital video and 35mm film, that way, I could understand how to use this new medium to the best of its abilities.

Your opinion would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

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?Excerpt from the book, "What I Really Want to Do: On Set in Hollywood"?

When storytellers moved from the stage to the screen, film was the medium of choice then because, well, that?s all there was. While significant advances in film technology have taken place, enabling things like low-light photography and high-speed photography, the basic technical fundamentals of shooting a movie have remained the same for nearly a hundred years. In the 1950?s, electronic image acquisition was invented. It took a few years to refine, but video became an alternative for distribution to a mass audience, albeit only to television sets. As we enter the 21st century, storytellers (or ?filmmakers? if you prefer) are being offered an alternative to the high cost of film and the traditionally maligned look of standard definition video.

More and more, the line between filmed programming and taped is getting blurrier. The development of HDTV (High Definition Television), amongst other technical advancements, may eventually make actual film a thing of the past. Only time will tell. In the meantime, if you choose to take work that primarily involves videotape over film, be it standard definition or High Definition, acquiring content with videotape still frequently involves a different discipline and may not be the straight path into Hollywood narrative ?filmmaking? work that you hope for.

?Film? and ?tape? are distinctly different ways of capturing an image for later viewing. Without being overly technical, film is the stuff you put into your still camera at home that comes in a small cartridge. It?s generally a long black plastic-like strip that you wind every time you want to take another picture. A movie camera uses very long strips of film, usually 1000 foot rolls of it, that move through the camera to capture movement instead of still action. Film uses a photochemical process to turn light into actual images that you can see when you look at the strip itself.

Videotape, on the other hand, uses an electronic process to ?store? image information magnetically. This too is a long strip of black material, but videotape is made of different stuff so that instead of converting light into an actual picture you can see like film does, a video camera converts light into electronic information that is stored on the videotape. If you hold a piece of shot videotape up to a light, you?ll never see any pictures.

To most laymen, this might seem trivial. In both cases, an image is being saved, so what?s the difference? A pretty big difference, if you ask those who work in the business. Traditional standard definition video has a definitive ?sharpness? and looks ?real? like you?d see the action as if you were actually standing there. Film has a ?softer? almost more ?ethereal? look. It is not capturing ?reality? per se, but a more ?romantic? and ?hyper-real? version of what happened in front of the lens.

Some of this difference can be attributed to the variations in how film stock and how a video camera process the light. And some of the difference is on account of the frame rate that is used to capture images. Traditional standard definition video in the United States is shot and viewed at nearly 30 frames per second, meaning that it takes roughly 30 still image frames in quick succession to represent one second of real time (29.97 fps to be more precise). A standard film frame rate is exactly 24 frames per second, a difference of merely 6 frames per second. Again, what?s the big deal? Plenty. Our eyes and our minds perceive that slight frames-per-second difference in significantly different ways. The higher the frame rate that you are viewing, the more ?real? and ?sharp? the image will be perceived by your mind. The slower the frame rate that you are viewing, the more your mind will perceive the moving images as ?not as real.?

This is why some programming is captured using film stock and some programming is captured using video technology. Generally, fictional narrative and ?dramatic? programs are shot using film stock with film cameras. And generally, non-fiction or ?live? events are shot using video cameras. For instance, all news programming now is shot using video technology for two reasons. The first is that the purpose of news is to give you a true sense of what is happening in reality. They don?t (or shouldn?t be trying to) dress up the world around us to make it seem more ?romantic? or ?hyper-real.? Video is perceived as capturing a more authentic picture of what reality actually is, so it is the perfect medium for the job. The other reason that news programming and video work so well together is because of the immediacy that video offers. Because it is an electronic process, the images can be seen right away, as opposed to film stock, which must be ?canned out? of the camera, taken to a film lab for processing, and then printed for viewing. Video can either be sent ?live? or can be saved for later viewing on videotape.

In contrast to news programming, most movies are shot using film, which gives the audience a slightly less-reality based version of what was going on in front of the camera. And because fictional entertainment doesn?t have to be put on your television by 6 o?clock tonight, there is time to take film to the lab and go through the methodical process that eventually becomes a movie or dramatic TV show.

So, what this boils down to is that when someone says that they are going to ?film with their video camera,? they are technically incorrect. Not that the message isn?t getting across, but this is more a function of being lazy with the language. You can?t literally ?film? with a video camera, but because film is all we had to use for many years, it became the common way of describing image acquisition no matter what kind of camera was being used.

But, there?s a wrench to throw into the question now, which is generated from the advent and growing use of High Definition technology. Essentially, High Definition is still video technology but with greater resolution than your normal standard definition television can offer. Without being technical about it, HD gives you a ?better? picture than what you?re used to. So cool, your TV will never look the same once everyone can afford it. What?s the problem? Well, it depends on whom you talk to. For many, there isn?t a problem at all. HD gives the user all the benefits that traditional video had to offer in providing a ?real? version of life along with the immediacy of seeing your pictures right away. It?s similar to the difference between your ?old? film still camera at home and your shiny new digital still camera you got for your birthday. But HD also has the added capability of mimicking the ?look? of traditional film if need be?sort of. How well it accomplishes that is a sometimes-heated debate among industry professionals. But the point here is that now some ?films? that you see in the movie theater were actually shot using High Definition video technology, so they technically aren?t ?films? at all. If you?re just starting out in the business and you don?t understand the fundamental difference between film and video, it?s important to learn because it will have an impact on the types of work you choose to take and whether or not your career goes in the direction you mean it to.

Don?t confuse ?image acquisition? with distribution and how an audience actually sees the final product. A still picture or a movie can be acquired using any kind of camera, be it a film camera (still or movie) or a video camera (digital, standard definition, or High Definition). Light reflects off of real objects and bounces through the lens on your camera. From there, it is either converted to electronic information (in the case of video) or the light reacts with the film stock to create a photochemical reaction, which results in actual images being created. Whichever method you choose, you have a representation of reality that was filtered through the idiosyncrasies of the technology you used and stored on either a strip of film or a strip of videotape (or even a computer hard drive).

Once that step is complete, those images can be converted to almost any other format. For instance, if you shot a movie using film, you can convert those frames of action to standard definition or High Definition video so that it can be viewed on a television monitor. The conversion can be saved to videotape, a DVD, or even to a computer hard drive because at this point, it is just electronic information. Even though the ?movie? is now being saved electronically, the images were still acquired using actual film stock so that the overall quality reflects the way the film technology ?records? the reality that actually happened. The conversion to video will introduce certain ?video qualities,? but the overall ?look? will still be more like what you?re used to seeing in the theater.

In the same way, some movies are now being acquired using 24-Frame High Definition cameras and later converted (scanned) onto actual film stock so that they can be projected in a movie theater using a traditional movie projector. In this case, the movie that you actually see has both the qualities of the High Definition camera that is was shot on and the qualities that the film stock added when the image was scanned onto it. To confuse matters even more, you could easily be watching a movie that was acquired using video, scanned onto film stock, and then converted back to ?video? for viewing on TV, VHS videotape, or a DVD.

So it is not as simple as looking at your television set and thinking that just because it?s on ?video? that it was ?filmed? using a ?video camera.? Using the proper terms is important and understanding is even more so.

Brian Dzyak
Cameraman/Author
IATSE Local 600, SOC
http://www.whatireallywanttodo.com

Hmm.. Real and sharp... Interesting stuff bjdzyak, I'll think about it.

There are a few things to consider here: look, sharpness, and motion.

LOOK: All film (35mm, 16mm, Super 8mm) has a broader dynamic range than most video (you get more detail in the highlights and shadows). The color response of film is often more visually appealing than that of video, although higher-end cameras like the DVX100B can imitate this response to some extent. Choosing different film stocks (200D vs. 500T, Fuji vs. Kodak, etc.) offers an array of options not in the strictest sense available when shooting video.

SHARPNESS: Standard definition video has a resolving power somewhere in the neighborhood of 700 lines of horizontal resolution. 35mm is closer to 5000 lines (or higher). The image area is larger and lenses are interchangeable, meaning that you have a broader choice of optics and those optics will be less prone to chromatic aberration (one big problem with consumer video cameras is the lens system--the image sensors on such cameras are tiny and it's tough to make a lens that can resolve a sharp image in such a small area). Additionally, because of 35mm's larger image area, a greater control over depth-of-field is possible (allowing you to throw your background out of focus while keeping your subject in focus). Because of this, focus on 35mm is critical and almost always requires a camera assistant running a follow-focus during the take. Digital cinema cameras like the RED ONE have 35mm-sized sensors and therefore inherit many of these same benefits and liabilities.

MOTION: 35mm is shot at 24 frames per second (24psf). Most video cameras shoot at 29.97 frames per second interlaced (60i). Most higher-end cameras (like, again, the 100B) have the option to shoot in 24p, and do a pretty good job of it. 24p looks more filmic, but can also look jittery if not shot correctly.

Many of these looks can be imitated through the use of software, lens adapters (more trouble than they're worth, IMHO), and creative lighting techniques. What makes film film is that the look is just THERE and you don't have to spend time and money and energy trying to get it to look 'filmic.'

I haven't shot 35mm, but I'm currently trying to put together a 35mm short for production about a year from now. I have shot with the RED, and can say that although the image quality is gorgeous, the large sensor and touchy focus can be a real killer. I think my personal favorite acquisition format is 16mm or super 16, scanned to high-def.

OTHER THINGS TO CONSIDER: Yes, shooting film is expensive. VERY expensive. And so are the cameras, and the lenses. You pay a hefty price for such high-quality equipment. And it's also heavy. VERY heavy. Especially when you load up the camera with 1000 feet of film. Don't plan on shooting handheld without support equipment and a strong camera operator.

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Andrew Gingerich
Exploding Goldfish Films
Check out my blog at http://www.exgfilms.com
and my reel at http://portfolio.exgfilms.com