Since the introduction of videotape in 1956, there has been recurring debate about the possibility that video would someday supplant film as the dominant medium for the production and distribution of motion pictures. Ramifications of this debate are significant, and not just in terms of image quality and audience experience. While there is much overlap between both these media, video and film each represent a distinct culture. Hundreds of businesses, thousands of jobs, and multi-millions of dollars are invested in each of these cultures' expansion. Several factors have recently cranked up the heat on this simmering debate: the introduction of Sony's new 24P camcorder (the HDW-F900 HDCAM) at this year's NAB convention; Panavision's large investment in developing a new line of compatible lenses and accessories; and George Lucas' intention to shoot the next episode of Star Wars with the new camera.

Proponents of electronic cinematography face a number of challenges. One of video's most fundamental problems has always been that it looks too "real." Audiences have come to associate the video look with live programming such as sports, political conventions, and other news events. Moviegoers prefer to watch narrative motion pictures through the veil of dreamlike unreality provided by film. Virtually all theatrical motion pictures, movies-of-the-week, and one-hour episodic shows continue to be shot on film. A fact that continues despite many efforts made by cinematographers and video engineers to duplicate film's look: the lowering of video enhancement; the addition of filters, netting and other diffusion in front of and behind the lens; and the processing of videotapes through post-production effects like Film Look.

One of film's distinguishing characteristics is its rate of 24 frames-per-second. Many filmmakers believe that while NTSC video's 60 interlaced-fields-per-second rate may offer higher temporal resolution (i.e. a more "realistic" picture), the imperceptible flicker of 24 fps is an essential element in film's dreamlike quality. Sony's development of the new 24P camcorder is a response to that belief. Notes Larry Thorpe, Sony's vice-president of acquisition systems, "We wanted to give a tool to those filmmakers who had an open mind about the possibilities of digital acquisition, but did consider the 24 frame rate a crucial part of the film look. . .As we evolved our high-definition cameras and worked more with cinematographers, we learned more about what really constitutes the film look. We realized that we could technically implement the film look in a digital camera, and we have done that."

Achieving a film "look" isn't the only challenge facing those who would originate theatrical motion pictures on video. While video cameras are typically designed to bring images to the small screen of a television set, theatrical films must achieve a high degree of resolution even when projected on hundred-foot screens. And it's quite unlikely that the next episode of Star Wars will be a direct-to-video release. A key element limiting image resolution in video is the relatively small size of the imaging surface. According to John Galt, Panavision's senior vice-president of advanced digital imaging, "one of the big issues with this format is that the 2/3" CCD is very small. And to get an image on a large screen, you're magnifying 2 1/2 times more than you would be magnifying with 35 millimeter film. The frequency response requirement of the lenses of this format is much higher than for existing cine lenses because of the smaller format."

The CCD's smaller image size also results in a longer depth of field. To achieve selective depth of field approaching that of 35mm requires a very fast lens. Nolan Murdoch, Panavision's director of product development, states, "We've designed the first two zoom lenses to optimize imagery at T1.6, which is equivalent to a 35mm depth of field of about a T2.8-and-a-half. So although it's not quite where 35 millimeter tends to be shot these days, which is a 2 to 2.8 split, it is much better than a typical video lens. That gives you some amount of selective depth of field that is not typically available in video. . .We are encouraging people to shoot wide open. If they're looking for selective depth of field, that's the only way to get it, and the lens has been optimized to shoot at T1.6."

Many cinematographers feel caution-if not fear and resentment-when considering digital image acquisition. Panavision's decision to purchase more than 100 of the $100,000 cameras and fit them with a new line of Panavision lenses and accessories may help to assuage some of those concerns. Remarks Panavision's Murdoch, "We have 2 zooms right now - a 6-27mm and a 9.5-105mm. We will have a 5mm prime [equivalent to a 12.5mm cine lens] around the end of summer, then we'll have 2 smaller zooms with similar focal lengths. Then we're going to do a series of primes after the 5mm - 7mm, 10mm, 15mm, 24mm, and a 35mm." But the process of developing a new line of lenses for the Sony's new cameras will take some time. Details Panavision's Galt, "In the Primo series of lenses, there are 43 different lens types, which developed over a period of 17 years. Today, we're starting from ground zero. An awful lot of development has to take place, and we are only at the beginning of it."

Panavision hopes to not only help optimize the image quality of the digital format; it also hopes to bridge the divide between the film and video cultures. Sony's Thorpe admits, "[The 24P camera] does look like an ENG camera, and I think film people would have other ideas about size, shape, weight and disposition of controls." That's where Panavision comes in. Says Panavision's Murdoch, "We've attempted to make it cine-friendly, which includes using our standard accessories like follow focuses, matte boxes and remote motors. Basically allowing a typical film crew to work as they would normally, being able to follow focus with a properly calibrated lens, with a big focus scale, and the sorts of processes they're used to working with on a film show. Our goal was to make the transition as easy as possible."

One of the defining elements of the video culture is the on-set monitor. On a film shoot, only the camera and lighting crews-and maybe the director-have the expertise to envision what the scene will ultimately look like when broadcast or projected in a theater. A video tape offers few clues. On a video set, producers and would-be producers don't hesitate to voice opinions about the images even as they are being created. This creates a dilemma for some directors of photography. Over the years, Sony's Thorpe has put various generations of HD cameras into the hands of film directors of photography. He observes, "Generally it starts out with 'I will not have a monitor on the set.' That evening they look at the playback on a high-def monitor and they're simply blown away by the pictures they have created. Then they say 'My god, if I had been looking at that picture, I might just have tweaked the lighting a little bit here and a little bit there,' and the next thing is that the monitor is brought out to the set. In most cases I have watched, they feel empowered by the monitor and end up shooting with the monitor [on the set]."

The decision about whether or not to use a monitor on set is complicated by the fact that what one sees on the monitor may accurately represent what will appear on the videotape, but the monitor image may not necessarily indicate what will show up on a movie screen. Cautions Thorpe, "Color reproduction on the high-definition monitor is not the same as color reproduction for film positive. . .It is different in its hue, its saturation, its color gamma, and the luminance values that can be assigned to it. So what [cinematographers] have to learn, and it's generally by some tests, is how to interpret what's on the monitor, vis-à-vis what they want on the screen." Peter Gloeggler, Sony's Marketing Manager for broadcast and production camcorders, appends, "On a small monitor, you might say, 'This looks too crisp,' and then use a lot of filtration. But when you put it up on a hundred-foot screen, it turns out to be softer than you wanted it to be. There's going to be a learning curve."

One clear advantage of the digital format is that it allows for the precise collection of film and video metadata, or as Murdoch explains, "all the various parameters that are available on a camera. In our case, we have the ability to collect up to 16 channels of data, such as where the focus is, where the T-stop is, what the focal length of the lens is, as well as pan and tilt information from the head. If you're on a dolly, you may have the boom-up or boom-down information as well as the actual dolly moves in and out. So any of that data, along with all of the camera data, such as gain, switch settings and black levels, we can collect."

"In the case of the video camera, we can record all of that back onto the third and fourth audio channels," Murdoch continues. "That is then used down the line for motion tracking or CG work, where you want to match an animation character or a CG element, with a shot element. It's something we've been working on for quite a while in film cameras. But we haven't quite figured out where to store all that data because you have picture with film, and then you have a data file over here, and it's hard to marry those. With the digital camera, it's much easier because obviously you can marry the data with the picture immediately."

This isn't Panavision's first attempt to bring cine optics and accessories into the video world. Panavision introduced the Panacam (a tube video camera with cine lenses and accessories) in the mid-Seventies, and has been working with Sony since the late Eighties. But while the Panacam may illustrate Panavision's long-term commitment to a video and film marriage, it also points out one of filmmakers' main concerns when considering electronic image acquisition - the plethora of now-obsolete video formats. A 35mm film produced in the 1930's plays just as well today, in virtually any theater in the world, as it did on the day of its release. It would be a lot more difficult to find a way to screen a video extravaganza recorded in 1965 on the two-inch Quad format.

Concerns about digital acquisition also pertain to the latitude or dynamic range of the recording medium itself. Recent tests have shown wide latitude in underexposure, with the new format able to read six to seven stops in the shadows. While the relative abilities of film and the digital media to record and recover shadow detail may be debatable, it is generally agreed that highlights lost to video clipping are indeed lost forever. Sony's Gloeggler heeds, "Film negatives can capture an enormous dynamic range so that - even if you are incorrect a little bit in terms of exposure - you can recover from minor error in the original capture. We cannot capture on a piece of tape that same enormous amount of information that is captured on the negative. So in the actual acquisition process, it's necessary to be more precise so that you do not overexpose and then put valuable information in the highlights into the clipper so that it's gone." The issue of greatest concern regarding digital acquisition may be its archivability, a topic recently discussed by ICG Magazine writer Mark Woods (see "Future Shock" in the April 2000 issue.)

Given all the potential difficulties in moving from film to video, some might ask, "Why fix what isn't broken?" At least part of the answer lies in the escalating costs of film production and the perceived incremental cost savings of digital origination. Purists might argue that it's shortsighted to risk compromising aesthetic quality to cut costs. Galt forewarns, "Whether they're going to get the kind of image quality they get from motion picture film or not, is only part of the debate. . .I think it's arguable that the replacement of the Technicolor process with chromagenic film printing processes was not an improvement [in image quality]. You have to think about this in a much more pragmatic way. Will one argument win out over another? I don't think that history suggests to us that that's what will happen. You will see an evolution, and finally a migration of technologies into something else."

So where is the market for the new 24P camera? While effects-laden features like Star Wars - Episode II will be the first to originate on 24P video, it will likely remain a novelty in the feature world until a Merchant-Ivory style period piece successfully adopts the new format. Meanwhile, Sony is pinning its short-term hopes on television. Says Sony's Gloeggler, "If you are shooting electronically for video distribution, you can achieve the same dynamic range that you can achieve with film in the finished product. Generally, you will not get any better results going through the telecine than my camera can achieve looking at the real scene." Opines Thorpe, "The biggest business in the next couple of years will be less in the movie world. Prime-time television production and commercial production that is done today on 35mm film will move rather rapidly towards [the 24P format]."

Over the past 100 years, the technology behind film production has developed quite considerably. Panavision's Galt suggests applying a similar perspective to the development curve of digital image acquisition technology. "What we have to realize is that the technology that exists today is very much in its infancy in terms of its ability to provide the cinematographer and director with the tools that they take for granted in motion picture film. It's going to take some time [to evolve]." Development of the technology is only part of the equation. Many great cinematographers have devoted countless hours to expanding the bounds of the filmmaking craft. Similarly, when skilled directors of photography dedicate their talents and energies to the creation of digital images, beautiful pictures will no doubt result. In many discussions of the new Sony 24P camcorder, the question is asked, "Is film dead?" Of course, no one even peripherally involved in the motion picture industry would seriously argue that it is. What proponents of digital image acquisition do claim is that the 24P camcorder is a new tool that will find an ever-expanding range of applications. So the real question isn't "Is film dead?" but rather "Is digital cinematography finally about to come to life?"