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Posted: |
Jul 30, 2014 - 10:45 PM
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By: |
manderley
(Member)
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Movie film that is, apparently a deal has been struck with Kodak to keep it available for directors in the future:
http://online.wsj.com/articles/kodak-movie-film-at-deaths-door-gets-a-reprieve-1406674752
Among the big name directors who lobbied the heads of studios to help find a solution were Quentin Tarantino, Christopher Nolan, Judd Apatow, and J.J. Abrams, who is currently shooting "Star Wars Episode VII" on film.
In the agreements being finalized with Kodak, studios are committing to purchase a certain amount of film without knowing how many, if any, of their movies will be shot on the medium over the next few years.
They're going to have to start subsidizing the labs as well. 
I think one needs to define clearly whether film survives as a "taking" medium or it survives as a printing/mastering medium.
I wouldn't give great odds for a survival of film in a camera, but printing and mastering negatives are still really the only dependable way of making sure a film will survive at least 100 years. Some of the digital files of films less than 20 years old are already being corrupted and unplayable, and the technology for playback changes so quickly that the computer programs to retrieve the images as well as the hardware to play it back are all systematically becoming obsolete over the years.
Film will remain a quality storage medium for quite awhile as long as its stability is not compromised.
The use of film for vaulting and backup will also give rise to more independent boutique film labs and film suppliers who specialize in the very arcane areas of restoration.
There is already evidence that the studios were trusting the computer technology and systems to back-up and protect their negatives and are now finding that it's not always the case. Now they are many years behind in protecting their elements on film, and it's going to be a very costly process in catching up.
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Since most of Hollywood's last twenty years consists of unmitigated crap, maybe the corruption of the master digital repositories of this stuff would be a needed cleansing of our collective cultural palate.
But save David Fincher's ZODIAC, by all means.
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There is already evidence that the studios were trusting the computer technology and systems to back-up and protect their negatives and are now finding that it's not always the case. Now they are many years behind in protecting their elements on film, and it's going to be a very costly process in catching up.
How does a digital back up go bad unless your system fails? I thought digital files stay pristine and like new forever as long as you don't recode or compress them.
http://blog.unl.edu/dixon/tag/digital-preservation/
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Posted: |
Aug 16, 2014 - 12:06 AM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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Movie film that is, apparently a deal has been struck with Kodak to keep it available for directors in the future:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
They're going to have to start subsidizing the labs as well.
How true, as this article from the Los Angeles Times earlier this year makes clear:
Deluxe to close Hollywood film lab
By Richard Verrier
March 6, 2014, 9:52 AM
In a further sign of film's exit from the Hollywood stage, the post-production company Deluxe said it was closing its local film laboratory..
In a letter to customers, Warren Stein, chief operating officer of Deluxe Laboratories, said the Hollywood film processing facility will close May 9.
"The capture and exhibition of motion pictures has transitioned from film to digital in recent years," Stein said in the letter obtained by The Times. "Our processing volumes have declined sharply and as a result, the laboratory has incurred significant financial losses. This has forced us to make this very difficult decision."
Following the recently announced closure of the Deluxe laboratory in London, Deluxe's only remaining film processing facility will be a small operation in New York.
"I would like to thank all of our employees for their incredible contribution to the success of Deluxe, their dedication to meeting the needs of our many customers and their loyalty in recent years as the business declined," Stein wrote. "While emotionally attached to our 100-year legacy with film, we are firmly focused on the future of Deluxe. In this historic time in our industry, we wanted to thank our customers for their business and for their trust."
Deluxe's announcement is the latest indication of film's phaseout.
Last year, Technicolor, the French-owned film processing and post-production company, closed a film lab in Glendale. That lab had replaced a much larger facility at Universal Studios that employed 360 workers until it closed in 2011. Also last year, Technicolor closed its Pinewood film lab in Britain.
As more movies are shown digitally, the dwindling number of film screens has made releasing movies on 35-mm less attractive, especially given the rising cost of film prints for major movies. Film print costs have been rising rapidly as suppliers have scaled back production.
As The Times reported in January, Paramount Pictures took a historic step when it informed theater owners it would stop releasing major movies on 35-mm film, with the Oscar-nominated "Wolf of Wall Street" being its first major film that was released all digitally. (the studio subsequently said it would make some exceptions to its all-digital policy).
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Posted: |
Aug 16, 2014 - 1:52 AM
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By: |
CinemaScope
(Member)
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American Hustle was shot on Fuji neg, & in an interview the director said they used the last of it, no more left. If you're a big name director with enough pull you can insist on shooting of film, but how long for? Kodak are not going to keep on producing film if they're losing money doing so. I think film has a future as long term preservation, but it doesn't have to be film as we know it, 35mm with four perfs per frame, it could be something quite different, it'll never be projected, just scanned.
It was great while it lasted, & gave me a good living.
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Even if all production in the future is digital video, striking a film negative master is the only viable medium for long-term archiving.
Granted, that's not enough raw product to keep Kodak (let alone multiple manufacturers) alive, but it is the only long term solution.
A spinning hard drive may record ones-and-zeroes, but they are, in the end, analog ones-and-zeroes. That degrades eventually.
DVD-RAM is a medium- to long- term solution, according to the Library of Congress. SSD may be another medium- to -long- term solution. But the changing standards for coding and playback of digital files remains a huge issue.
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