Ingmar Bergman
1918-2007

"Probably the greatest film artist, all things considered, since the invention of the motion picture camera."
- Woody Allen

László Kovács
1933-2007

Film is dead

People that know me know that in the past, I've been a HUGE supporter of movies shot on film, and I always have been. My opinion has always been that if you can afford to shoot on film, then that should be your medium, and you should leave video to the people who can only afford to shoot on that. Well, although high-quality video has been slowly creeping into big-budget productions in the past 10 years, I've only just now been convinced that film is dead. Yes, you've heard me right. I've said the thing I never thought I ever would: film is dead.
Don't get me wrong - I hope it never goes away and that people continue to shoot on it for years to come, but in terms of film production, the technology has finally caught up to the point where you simply can't tell it's not film.
One word of note, however: this doesn't apply to all shot-on-video films recently. Although Robert Rodriguez's Sin City and Once Upon a Time in Mexico were both shot on video, the former used so much green-screen photography that there really was no basis for comparison, and the latter was shot almost completely in daylight. Besides, Rodriguez is DP on all of his own films now, and he really doesn't "light" anything, so there was really no way to judge how the equipment handled shadow.
I also don't want people to think I'm including films shot on cameras like the Canon XL-1 and the Panasonic DVX-100A (films like 28 Days Later, Murderball, and Once), which are great films, but which obviously have that "video look". I'm talking about films that are using the latest cameras, and in that respect, we are very close to revolutionizing the film industry.
I'm now going to talk about the movie which single-handedly changed my mind on the whole film/video situation. Before this movie, there were really three different uses for video in major films:

1. Low-budget films shot on an "inferior" video format (i.e. November)
2. Used in major films as an experimental element (approximately half of Collateral was shot on Hi-Def video)
3. Expensive, advanced cameras used in effects-heavy films (Superman Returns)

I was waiting for a mainstream, narrative film to really step up and try to use video in a way which wouldn't call attention to itself. Michael Mann had used video in Collateral and Miami Vice in a highly stylized way which mostly highlighted the video aspect rather than attempt to make it blend in.

That all changed with Zodiac. This film also used Mann's Viper Filmstream camera, but lighted the footage in such a way that it was nearly impossible to tell that it hadn't been shot on film. There's only one scene in the entire 3-hour film which belies its video-based medium, but I believe the "flaw" had to do more with the fluorescent light-lit diner it was filmed in (and the reaction of that light with the video lens), rather than the camera technology itself. Below are several film stills from Zodiac, taken from a DVD source, at different points in the film. Notice how well the camera handles shadow and black levels. The biggest give-away with video - the slight "jerkiness" in moving images that comes from the video being shot at an artificial 24 frames per second (rather than video's usual 30) - is entirely absent in Zodiac, giving the movie a very film-like smoothness (although this is obviously absent from the simple still frames below).

Zodiac film stills

I saw this movie projected twice in the theater, and although I knew prior to its release that it was shot on video, I knew after seeing it that this movie would fool many uninitiated people into believing it was shot on film. I knew after the first, beautifully-lit sequence with the two kids in the car that I had just heard the death-rattle of film.

More Loveline

These are really funny, check it out...
(At-work warning - strong language)

The "Angry Nintendo Nerd" reviews old, bad games:
Back to the Future for NES
Ghostbusters for NES

Edward Yang
1947-2007