David Lean Part II - Master of the film epic

[Chris Knipp]

Thanks. Me too.

[Chris Knipp]

Apropos of the 4K Sony series at the Pacific Film Archive currently here is also a lengthy blog entry that discusses the preciptitous digital takeover in Hollywood and once again describes the differences between the two vastly different formats. This may fit better on another thread but it comes up in connection with LAWRENCE OF ARABIA.

http://blook.bampfa.berkeley.edu/201...perfected.html

It still amazes me a little that people are so credulous about new technologies that when they describe them they are always "selling" them. This blog for instance doesn't mention that some new features and shorts are still constantly being made using film cameras, and then the issue is of how they will be shown. I was impressed that James Grey at the NYFF whose new feature is THE IMMIGRANT, was passionate in his preference of film over digital. This seems to be a distinguished club, including

Christopher Nolan
Quentin Tarantino
Rian Johnson
Stephen Spielberg
Paul Thomas Anderson
Wes Anderson
Darren Aronofsky

Some like Spielberg use both.

[cinemabon]

Speaking of Wes Anderson, I love the trailer to his new film - Grand Budapest Hotel. Looks as intriguing as "Moonrise Kingdom."

[Chris Knipp]

7 March 2014 release date, I see. Berlin an appropriate debut location for a film about a grand hotel in Europe between the two wars.

[Johann]

Great point about "new technology" over "film" Chris.

Film is my preferred choice for my photos on Facebook. But I'm about to stop. I've been using disposable Kodak cameras for about 5 years and I've taken many photos and some video with my iPhone (would you believe the Apple iPhone is the MOST USED camera on this earth?).
Black's photography here in Canada is charging more to process 35mm film rolls and you have to wait an extra day now- you used to be able to get it done within an hour. Nowadays hardly anyone uses it, so their "labs" are pretty much extinct.
Film photography will become like Club Jazz, for really purist photographers.
Because it's getting so expensive, I'll have to stick with my trusty Canon PowerShot- a simple to use digital camera I highly recommend.

As for the movie industry, I love that major filmmakers still have celluloid in their blood.
The pixels haven't taken over the soul just yet..

[Chris Knipp]

For artistic purposes the two should coexist. Film is like vinyl records. The sound is better but CDs reign for current consumers and digital has greater flexibility and a kind of durability (though about CDs we don't know). But people are going to MP3, which is a further degraded sound. Nobody cares. Nobody notices.

I switched over to digital cameras three years ago. My film photography had languished for many years for the reasons you cite and also when I gave up doing my own black and white photography in the darkroom due to how much time and money it consumed to do that. Still the hours late at night in the darkroom were some of the greatest times of my life, comparable to making my favorite early chine collé prints or working on collages, encaustics and pastels in my own studio in San Francisco but different, more magical, satisfying a different side of me. The advantage of digital is how many images one can capture and that one can see them right away. On the other hand I find filing and sorting (organizing) and accessing digital photos more of a hassle and simply much less enjoyable because less tactile and physical than dealing with film negative photographic prints.

But digital cameras have been a lot of fun for me and gotten me back to always having a camera in my pocket as was the case when I carried a 35mm Minox in the early Eighties. Now, I sort my digital photos and the best of them turn up on my Flickr Photostream. See: http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrisknipp/

When I thought of going back to darkroom printing some years ago I had a correspondence with the editor of a photography magazine and he told me where I could get all the paper and equipment and chemicals. You can still get them, but they're just from specialized suppliers on a more limited basis.

Digital cameras do not duplicate film cameas. They can do things at night film cameras can't do. But they do not give you good white balance or detail in bright areas and they do not give you realistic or satisfying shadows. None of the inexpensive digital cameras, including the iPhone ones, which, yes, we know is the main camera (alnog with other phone cameras) used to take pictures today, provide image quality comparable to a good film camera. That's funny, isn't it? And nobody cares. Because they like snapping their kitty and putting it on Facebook.

It is needless to point out the advantages of digital for movie-making. I think we have discussed that elsewhere on Filmleaf before. The cameras are more and more portable and more and more inexpensive. You can do longer and longer takes. And so on. And the images don't flicker. It's not a flick show anymore.

[Johann]

yes. Amen on all of that.

So true about satisfying shadows...and white balance. I just took a photo this past week of a Nutcracker in a store window and the shadow I saw did not show up in my finished photo. I kept moving around, trying different angles...ZIP. The shadow was either thinner and "greyer" or disappeared entirely. If I used the kodak (disposable!) it would've shown up exactly as I saw it- and I couldn't see the "latent image"!
It had to wait for processing.
I have a Quebec friend on facebook who lives in Hull who is the most intense film photographer. He uses these old box cameras and he always has one hanging around his neck. That's how I met him. I kept seeing him walking around with it and finally I stopped him and asked him if that was a camera. We then jib-jabbed for a half hour on photography. He buys his black and white (Ilford) film in bulk, and he gets a special discount on the color film he orders from New York City, which he told me is the best place on earth to buy film (en masse). He said the best deal is in NYC.

Photography is Awesome as an activity. It is an Art too. I always try to select an image through cubism- walking around it and looking for the best single shot.