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Saturday, March 08, 2014
Will the shift to digital destroy movies as we know them?
io9.com: Digital movies are becoming more and more popular, but some people are saying the move could destroy movies as we know them. But it's not issues of film quality that have them worried — it's film preservation.
I (and Akiva) are taking a class that was like all about this. We even took a trip to the Hollywood theatre in Dormont and talked about the switch to DCP and the like. Short answer our class came up with is yes. DCP will kill film. But my question has been...why do we care so much? What is it about classic movies only on 35mm that we care so much about? If there are movies that are on film that people want to see, they will be/ are put in a digital format. Everything else we don't really care about apparently. It's also a terrible business model: maintaining a theatre based solely off the principle that a person wants to see an old but not classic movie because its on 35mm is not a solid customer base.
Personally, I like both. Film has this nostalgic aspect to it that I really like and Digital just has an endless list of possibilities. I definitely think there should be more emphasis on saving everything because who knows where film will go in the future and I don't think we should lose what we have now. I don't necessarily think everything is getting lost though. Indie Films are bigger than ever now and I don't think they will ever die out. So even with this big change to digital in the industry, we still have those films that aren't so big but that we love.
I don't know if the shift to digital will be bad for the original film process. I personally think that film is becoming outdated and is clunky when compared to the universal digital medium. There are countless opportunities that digital provides that film is lacking. Although digital has changed the way in which movies are viewed, the shift didn't occur on accident. There is reason behind the shift because its better and more universal. This is just funny to me because technology changes for a good reason and there are clear benefits of using digital over film. A couple of years from now, people will not even notice that film is out of the picture because digital will have completely taken over the movie industry.
I think there are definitely some truths to this. Like anything that has to do with an increase of technology and digitalization, the original processes are going to become more lost over time. I think it's interesting to consider the movie industry, one that has been around for so long and has been so incredibly popular, because I don't think you'll ever lose the true quality or feel of the movie as we know it. Yes, there may be some differences and discrepancies along the line, but the product is mostly the same.
This is an interesting conundrum. Do we want to/need to store every movie ever made? If yes, then why? Will people ever go back and see some obscure movie that is on film or some outdated digital format? Anything that is deemed a "classic" will always be maintained in most formats from it original one onwards. Take Disney for example, many of the "classic" movies we grew up with, such as Aladdin, Cinderella, and The Lion King have all be remastered in "special editions" on their anniversaries or other proper times and sold for a while and are available on all modern mediums. So, ultimately, maybe it should just be left up to the companies to figure out on their own. I mean, I wonder if anybody knows how many film movies we still have vs how many have been lost?
5 comments:
I (and Akiva) are taking a class that was like all about this. We even took a trip to the Hollywood theatre in Dormont and talked about the switch to DCP and the like. Short answer our class came up with is yes. DCP will kill film. But my question has been...why do we care so much? What is it about classic movies only on 35mm that we care so much about? If there are movies that are on film that people want to see, they will be/ are put in a digital format. Everything else we don't really care about apparently. It's also a terrible business model: maintaining a theatre based solely off the principle that a person wants to see an old but not classic movie because its on 35mm is not a solid customer base.
Personally, I like both. Film has this nostalgic aspect to it that I really like and Digital just has an endless list of possibilities. I definitely think there should be more emphasis on saving everything because who knows where film will go in the future and I don't think we should lose what we have now. I don't necessarily think everything is getting lost though. Indie Films are bigger than ever now and I don't think they will ever die out. So even with this big change to digital in the industry, we still have those films that aren't so big but that we love.
I don't know if the shift to digital will be bad for the original film process. I personally think that film is becoming outdated and is clunky when compared to the universal digital medium. There are countless opportunities that digital provides that film is lacking. Although digital has changed the way in which movies are viewed, the shift didn't occur on accident. There is reason behind the shift because its better and more universal. This is just funny to me because technology changes for a good reason and there are clear benefits of using digital over film. A couple of years from now, people will not even notice that film is out of the picture because digital will have completely taken over the movie industry.
I think there are definitely some truths to this. Like anything that has to do with an increase of technology and digitalization, the original processes are going to become more lost over time. I think it's interesting to consider the movie industry, one that has been around for so long and has been so incredibly popular, because I don't think you'll ever lose the true quality or feel of the movie as we know it. Yes, there may be some differences and discrepancies along the line, but the product is mostly the same.
This is an interesting conundrum. Do we want to/need to store every movie ever made? If yes, then why? Will people ever go back and see some obscure movie that is on film or some outdated digital format? Anything that is deemed a "classic" will always be maintained in most formats from it original one onwards. Take Disney for example, many of the "classic" movies we grew up with, such as Aladdin, Cinderella, and The Lion King have all be remastered in "special editions" on their anniversaries or other proper times and sold for a while and are available on all modern mediums. So, ultimately, maybe it should just be left up to the companies to figure out on their own. I mean, I wonder if anybody knows how many film movies we still have vs how many have been lost?
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