"Digital Film?"

First off let's get something straight, electronic image acquisition is not, I repeat, is not filmmaking. "Movie," I'll buy, but not filmmaking. With that matter settled, it would be prudent for us to consider what it is. Now, electronic acquisition typically tends to be digital, and certainly will be in the near future. On some productions, the process seems to bring out a certain unpleasant attitude and a more disorganized approach to storytelling. In my opinion, the unpleasant attitude stems from the director's belief that s/he can eliminate the team approach to traditional filmmaking - like ditching the director of photography - and truly becoming the auteur. The disorganization arises from the same individual's lack of ability to clearly communicate his/her ideas.

Regardless, electronic acquisition seems to be an emerging art form, and it's very hip to predict its success. But it's not a replacement for the business of filmmaking, or film itself. Too many paradigms are in place for the business people to want to change. In some ways, digital imagemaking is the upstart, pimply-faced kid who occasionally produces something interesting and maybe even art, but ultimately, disposable art. This reality doesn't change the hype and advertising that promotes "film is dead" type thinking. If film is dead, then we've lost a great tool that allows us to see not only feature films of the past and present, but the old-home movies which open a window to our own personal histories. In the electronic realm, that simply isn't possible without content migration, ideally of uncompressed files.

Many people confuse content origination with non-traditional distribution - the Internet and the spin-off configurations that are approached on the path to TV and computer convergence. At the moment, the biggest eye-opener is America Online becoming the senior partner in its merger with Time-Warner. At one time, Time-Warner could've bought AOL for chump change, but not any more. Such rapid paradigm shifts make many people uneasy. That's an understandable feeling, particularly with the onslaught of advertising telling us that the future is in digital. It stands to reason that image origination must be digital too, but sadly (for the electronic suppliers) that's not the case. This hysteria has been going on for quite a long time - one trade magazine first hailed, "Film is Dead" in a 1957 headline. The opinion of Wired magazine might be best construed as: "You mean film still exists?"

On the Newsweek.com website, the article "You Oughta Be In Videos" (dated January 24, 2000), sums up the attitude quite well. It begins with reference to the hubbub in Park City at the 2000 Sundance Film Festival - "the synergy-mad suites at Sony Pictures." The article's main points are the access that these "filmmakers" have because DV cams are so cheap. It covers both sides of the "raise the bar attitude," and the "release of a tidal wave of amateurs" theories. But buried in the copy is the cautionary note that many electronic-imaged productions lack distribution, and some producers' worries that possibilities for distribution are slimmer because the image originates on tape. Many big-name directors are mentioned as being fans and, of course, George Lucas leads the pack. Stressing the assumed advantages of digital production, the piece's unbalanced reportage multiplies exponentially with the great faux pas that "you don't need to light it." Recently, I shot a DV feature that used lots of big lamps on interiors and night scenes. We didn't have enough light for our few day exteriors and the contrast was way too much for the camera to handle. By the way, you can shoot film in the same way with faster emulsions, better lenses that are just as quick, with small cameras, and have a better, longer-lasting image with superior contrast.

Many people - particularly directors and producers - who claim that film is dead are enamored with the immediacy of electronic imaging. A faux reality prevails where if the image looks good on a monitor, then it's okay - just don't have more than one color monitor on set. With this rationale, they feel more in control and released from the so-called "tyranny of the cinematographer." A member of the CML (Cinematography Mailing List) overheard this disparaging comment being made by a panelist at last year's Sundance Fest. The Denmark-based Dogma '95 movement espouses no equipment other than a light mounted on the handheld camera, and this philosophy glazes producers' eyes over with the bottom-line savings on grip and electrical rentals and crews. There's nothing wrong in shooting a production this way if it benefits the script - if there is a script, that is. Such an approach is hardly new - TVs Cops has been doing it for years. This is "reality" television or a documentary, but with a script it becomes a Dogma-style production. Electronic production is not an inherent evil in itself, but there are many short falls - that I will attempt to clear up - if the producer insists on electronic imaging. Unfortunately - like the Titanic - most of these producers only see the proverbial tip of the iceberg: the other costs remain hidden.

"Now" Programming

Examples of "now" programming include MTVs The Real World, NBC's controversial and short-lived Who Wants to Marry A Millionaire, Cops and even CBS' upcoming Survivor, an experimental show in which a group of strangers spend a year living on an isolated island. It goes without saying that all programming isn't created equal. But when the ballyhoo of "now" programming hype and its low production values encroach on mainstream films as being emblematic of the future, I feel that many producers not only don't comprehend their business, but don't want to understand their programs as being future assets - their retirement, you might say. When this "now" programming is coupled with hype - like that surrounding the electronic origination of George Lucas' Star Wars: Episode II - then digital image acquisition must appear irresistible.

Many of the producers creating "now" programming with no thought to the future must belong to the "me" generation. I'm sure many believe that any of their decisions which impact the future won't affect them; when the digital time bomb does go off, these producers will have changed their base of employment - so much for accountability. Beyond lowering the bar for what is acceptable quality, this mindset creates a buzz for the whole industry to embrace the new merely because it is new. With that approval comes the tenet that if it's new, then it naturally must be better. It's a sad fact that producers appear susceptible to sales hype in the same way that they hope audiences respond to the "buzz" of a new release.

With a "now" programming attitude, DV acquisition is much like email - it's disposable communication, expendable commerce or, at best, disposable art. Many of these producers and directors don't understand what the cinematographer (along with the rest of the crew) brings to a production, and that said skills should be treated with the respect demanded. On a project I shot with a director I'd known for years, he suffered a "digital lobotomy," forgetting our past two 35mm production experiences. Since this was a close-to-his-heart project for which he couldn't get funds, he capitalized one of DV's strengths - its relatively cheap access. DV does allow more people to tell stories in a visual medium, and this fact makes for a refreshing, democratic reality. But we shouldn't confuse DV - whose original tapes will only last as long as some Treasury bills, maybe less - with a film-based industry whose libraries are worth billions of future dollars. Just consider I Love Lucy. If Desi Arnaz hadn't made the choice to shoot the production on film with three cameras (courtesy of Karl Freund, ASC), the sitcom wouldn't be in syndication today. Or consider how media magnate Ted Turner took the MGM library to launch all the Turner enterprises, and has ended up with AOL - a truly digital company that recognizes lasting content and production. The films and images they own can be used in any number of ways for many, many years into the future. And for that reason, oh, do I love Lucy.

HDTV and High-Resolution Content Presentation

I, for one, look forward to the proliferation of HDTV sets since all the problems with lower resolution of electronic acquisition will be evident. Film has a great latitude, resolution, and color representation - all qualities HDTV is designed to present. For a number of reasons, digital projection in theaters still has some time before it becomes a reality. One reason is that distributors fear piracy of a digital copy. Another cause involves the business plan of who is going to fund the projectors' installation. Finally, maintenance is also a pressing concern. Anyone familiar with digital post-production facilities knows the number of engineers it takes to keep machines working smoothly.

Thirty-five millimeter film captures six times the resolution of HDTV and can be transferred to any future format that has better resolution. The medium of film isn't hardware-dependent. Film has been called future-proof because it can survive long periods of time in a state of benign neglect, and can be transferred to different future presentation technologies from the original negative, answer print, intermediate, dupe negative, or release print, if that's all that survives. This isn't the case for the current NTSC and PAL video formats - the added information simply doesn't exist. It's possible that a process may be developed to electronically add definition to low-resolution video images for future presentation by HDTVs. DV cams don't come close to resolution of film, although some people are of the opinion that it's "good enough." The next generation of HD cameras lack film's amount of resolution and no one knows if their technology will be compatible with future technologies. Just because the image is HD and digital does not mean that it's easily copied from one format to another. If any compression is involved, there lies the distinct possibility that the algorithms in one format won't be compatible with algorithms in another. This issue of future technologies and formats takes us into what is achievable.

True cost of acquisition - electronic versus film

Of all things, the "Dear Abby" column in the Los Angeles Times (on February 2, 2000) ran a letter in response to "Harriet from Tampa." The letter was to "remind [the] readers that magnetic media are surprisingly fragile. Recording artists and engineers have gone back. . .to discover that tapes made as recently as 30 years ago are flaking away and worthless." Abby replied, "Technology has taken a giant leap in the last 100 years. It's ironic, however, that the most reliable way of preserving the information is still on paper - a 'technology' that was perfected 2,000 years ago." It is only in the popular, media-related press, - one heavy with electronic advertising - that debate ensues about how to record and preserve valued material. My dad's Super 8 movies of our family are still great fun to watch, while the videos he's taken of the grandkids already suffer degradation. Just think about the electronics industry - it epitomizes planned obsolescence. Their products really symbolize our culture's throwaway mentality.

The Los Angeles Times (on February 13, 2000) also featured a front-page article about the Benedictine monks of St. John's Abbey in Collegeville, Minnesota. For the past 35 years, these monks have sought out all medieval manuscripts made in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa before the invention of printing so that the documents can be archived on film. So far, their project encompasses some 25 million pages. Father John Kulas explains that actual copying of manuscripts was relegated to monks, "Here you have the work of a monastic scribe who copied this text [in medieval days]. And here you are, 1,000 years later, another monastic scribe recreating the manuscript in another medium so it can survive another 500 years." This task began prior to the digital revolution, and clearly the monks weren't impressed enough to alter the archival medium.
Perhaps the monks have a different perspective on time, and what will survive over time, than the hipsters hyping digital acquisition with no thoughts as to our future. Even if the quality were equal, there is no current archival method other than film. However, Cobblestone Software will digitize your project and print out the results on paper. Called PaperDisk, the product lasts as long as archival paper. But even this method, since it is digital, remains machine-dependent to "read" the paper record, while a future viewer can simply hold their images up to a light to view them.

Finally, the Calendar section of the L.A. Times (on February 15, 2000) reviewed a tape of silent film shorts based on some of Shakespeare's plays, which is entitled "Silent Shakespeare: Such Stuff as Dreams Are Made On. . ." (Milestone Film & Video). The article states that between 1899 and 1911 more than 300 short films were shot, but only 30 to 40 still exist. One of the shorts, King John, was filmed in 70mm and produced excellent images. Since the shorts were captured on film, they're still viewable, and were transferred to tape to be viewed on TV.

Another industry source that should also pique people's interest is E. H. Zwaneveld's "Extending Video Content Survival Beyond 25 Years - When All Odds Seem Stacked Against It," as printed in the SMPTE Journal (Oct. '99.) The author currently chairs the Association of Moving Image Archivists Preservation Committee, is a member of the International Federation of Television Archives Project Group on "Future Television Archives" and "Metadata" amongst other committees. Simply put, his point is that tape won't last. Content survival is of the most importance. If people persist in originating projects on this volatile medium, there has to be a systematic approach to content migration. This entails movement of the intellectual assets off the current degrading tape onto another tape; then, it must be moved again to another tape before the current tape degrades - ad infinitum. States Zwaneveld, "In the quest to maximize only short term production value, the future is often shortchanged. Instead of total tape lifecycle costs [author's italics], only the initial cost to record tape is considered." What an insightful statement! Consider the Shakespearean shorts mentioned above. If videotape's half-life is 15 years, and these shorts had been shot on tape, then the material shot in 1899 would be approaching its half-life in 1911, and certainly not viewable - i.e. retrievable - now.

Producers who want to originate images electronically usually only look at the bottom line - in the short term, tape is cheap. But they don't realize, or perhaps don't care, about the slippery slope they're going down in terms of managing visual entertainment assets. Forget the hardware issues and just ponder the simple fact of tape deterioration, in the best of circumstances. Are these producers going to archive tapes in the manner prescribed, or even use the highest quality tapes that may survive a little better and a little longer? My grandfather, who was a low-budget exploitation filmmaker in the 1930s, didn't care about his negatives and prints. For years, they languished in garages but yet the images remain retrievable - i.e. viewable.

How many producers store their tape masters in a hot closet in the office, or at home in a non-air-conditioned garage? More than we would care to consider. I know of several producers whose concerns focus on the storage area's security rather than its environmental aspects. Finally, how many of these people in the position to decide the future are even aware of the term "content migration?" If they work with electronic acquisition, this term will become a huge component of their future vocabulary, especially if they want to maintain programs for future revenue streams. With technology surging forward, new forms of packaging springing up and convergence of the Internet and TV, there will be huge future streams of revenue from those programs that do survive. Programs with the highest resolution will be able to move up to the future, higher resolution reality. Oh, I do love Lucy.

The amazing aspect about all of this is the huge segment of the industry that's marching blindly into the void while there's nothing wrong with the current, still workable option - film. Donald Waters, past director of the Digital Library Federation, calls the problem "a time bomb whose full impact will register only in the future." True believers in DV cameras simply confront this problem with the statement that when it's a problem, "there will be a solution." The 20th century is truly the era of the engineer: we've produced solutions for so many obstacles that we've come to expect easy answers. But this is one situation where to consign our heritage into a solution that doesn't exist and, in fact, is a volatile technology, remains an extremely risky proposition.

In the future, Zwaneveld surmises that we can expect more fragile digital recording mediums. Have we learned anything since the disappearance of programming originated on two-inch tape? How many one-inch masters are still in pristine shape with no dropouts? According to Zwaneveld's tutorial, most tape manufactured before 1990 is unstable because of its polyurethane binder. The number of mishaps that can occur with tape can truly boggle one's mind. He mentions "tribology. . .the science of friction, lubrication, and the wear of interacting surfaces that are in relative motion. 'Tribos' means rubbing and rubbing must function as designed to assure reliable signal retrieval." Clearly, this is not the case with film. Nothing should touch the image area on a correctly maintained image retrieval system. But even if a frame is scratched, the image can still be viewed - not so with digital tape. In fact, if the tape degrades in any number of ways, the signal cannot be retrieved. Tape degrades due to magnetization loss, edge oxidation, tape wear, and other issues that indicate the "proximity of end-of-tape life." Van Bogard of the U.S. National Media Lab states that through testing, the best-case scenario for survival of magnetic media is 20 years - this is the best!

Digital Intermediate: The Digital Revolution's Real Strength

Now, here's some good news for everyone to chew on. Digital intermediate is the popular name for scanning the negative into the electronic realm - ideally in a 4K file (film is equivalent to a 5K file) - to take advantage of all electronic possibilities. Even though most productions currently scan film in a 2K file, the possibilities, as it is often said, are truly limitless. To me, the exciting aspects are the ability to control color locally in the frame (think Power Windows), or wire removal or blending the real with the surreal. This technology may become affordable enough to be used by mid-size budget films - instead of a Hazeltine - to time and subtly shape the final film images. Though this is a wonderful application of digital technology, even this method has drawbacks. With past films, if the elements existed, they could be recomposited - such as in Star Wars. The digital intermediate arena manifests the same archival problems as in origination. I know of CGI artists who can't show their work, or access it, because of platform obsolescence.

Future History

We should regard the early 21st century as a time of excitement, not intimidation. The present should be looked at with an effort to determine what can be offered to the future. If we choose the purely electronic avenue, then the disappearance of our contributions may be just a blip in history. Then that void will be filled-in by an inference of what existed before and what existed after. But what saddens me most is the realization that the producer's digital thoughts don't comprehend that the papyrus reed upon which scripts are inscribed will last much longer than finished programs.