Posted by Vincent at bg-tc-ppp724.monmouth.com on November 27, 1999 at 01:55:26:
In Reply to: Digital Video posted by SRice on November 26, 1999 at 12:21:26:
: Kevin, I would love to know your view on digital video and its future in filmmaking. Do you think film is on the way out? Have you worked in digital format or plan to in the near future.
: P.S. I saw Dogma and loved it.
I spoke to one of the Skywalker guys re: digital, and his take on it was, it will eventually take over on the distribution end, but on the capture end (i.e., the actual filming), 35mm film will continue to be the medium of choice. The reason being that 35mm has much greater resolution, contrast rations, and latitude than even the best of the best digital capture formats. I remember one of the VA board members wrote a review of the DOGMA digital screening at ShowEast, and he started his report by saying, "I have seen the future of film, and film is not a part of it."- a catchy little tagline to be sure, but what the guy forgot was that the wonderful digitally projected images he was looking at ORIGINATED on 35mm negative film. If DOGMA had been shot digitally to begin with it wouldn't have looked nearly as good. The great thing about digital as far as distribution is concerned is a lot of the varibable when it comes to high speed film printing (i.e., color shifts between reels, and just flat out sloppy printing, something which unofrtunately seemed to affect a decent number of the DOGMA prints) are elliminated- the digital copies will look EXACTLY like the digital master tape which is transfered off of an interpositive under ideal conditions. BUT, lest we forget as I pointed out above- these wonderful images (I believe the guy who commented on the DOGMA digital screening called it a "visual dream") originated off of 35mm negative film.
Vincent