Why Are Movies Still Shot On Film? | Why Do Some Directors Like Film | Film vs Digital

#movies #imax #film #disney

In 2023 a surprising amount of directors still shoot their movies on film. In this video we take a look at why directors like Christopher Nolan and Quentin Tarantino still choose film over digital.

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[mixdown]

Brilliant Video! Summs up the most important. 3:41 exatly, there is some heay post work on it, and some don't even do that at the end, which results in a very digital look. Newcomers and low budget production of course have to go digital, but Hollwood should really shoot on film, even Today.

[ChrisAnt]

A lot of errors in this. The films mentioned are pretty much entirely shot on film, rather than ‘partly shot.’ You can absolutely get a playback on set. You have monitors and video assist (fun fact - Jerry Lewis invented video assist). You can even cut the video assist. When I did the first Harry Potter films (all shot on film), we began working vfx to a video assist before scans arrived. These days, the film is processed overnight and sent back with you the next morning as 4k scans and proxies. You can be cutting literally hours after wrap. On set, a DoP shouldn’t be lighting to a monitor. Jack Cardiff never did. Gordon Willis etc. They had a light meter, and experience. Exposure is easy to manage. Film has great latitude and technically it has no resolution, only what you scan it at. If we need 8K scans of a film in the future, we can go back and rescan it. We cannot accurately upres a film shot at 2K or 4k (without trickery). And let’s not talk about archival and whether some digitally stored films are accessible any more because the technology to store them has become outdated. The monitor is always for performance, not for lighting shots. So film or digital it’s irrelevant. Many older directors never even looked at a monitor. They just watch their actors and trust their DoP. Regarding costs - film medium is more expensive, but actors and crew are on point when they hear money whirring through a camera. Aesthetically a photochemical and photoelectric process are different and do not look the same. It is an artist’s choice in the same way that the Mona Lisa is an oil painting, not a watercolour. Most of your grips and crew will be the same - a crane costs the same for film or digital, as does a focus puller. The clapper loader actually loads film, though and you don’t need a DIT to manage data as it comes out of the camera. One less person to hire if you shoot film. Shooting film may attract talent and crew to your project. It’s happened to me before. Also, hard drives and memory cards fail (happened to me before) and if a digital camera breaks, you’re screwed. Film cameras are easier to open up and fix a problem mechanically. Like older cars vs newer cars. I hope this clears some of this up.

[StarWitnessTime]

I'm on team film. Digital may 'look better' but film 'feels better'. My 2 cents.

[anthonytt]

With digital I appreciate the convenience of instantly being able to see the dailies, without endlessly filming take after take to see and not being able to see a mistake until you get it projected on a different day. I rather see the cut on the set, after each shot.
Back in the old days, its almost common to see your favorite scene from the dailies, only to realize the boom mic is also in the shot. And be like "wish I noticed that on set that day."

[DKR-]

Definitely prefer film in movies and photography. Colors of some of the old film movies look amazing to me in their vibrancy (and I'm color blind). And if you look at some of the old film photos for example, like movie star head shots, they just look more real and natural.

[Nogoingback]

I asked my 2nd Assistant Cameraman how he liked using digital vs film. He said it was the first good nights sleep he had in years. He went to bed knowing they got the shot versus finding out at 7am the next morning that he missed the focus pull. From a Production Managers point of view I'll take digital any day.

[marcuscook]

Film allows for potential future remasters as higher resolutions become standard (as long as the film stock is sufficiently large to capture the needed detail). With digital cameras, you're stuck to a fixed resolution and that's as good as it will ever look. Old movies shot on large film stock look absolutely amazing today when remastered in 4K.

[thecunninlynguist]

Its sorta like why there are still vinyl releases...rappers love dropping their albums on vinyl. There is a noticeable sound difference

[luckyduck]

Some good stuff. But there’s a lot of errors in this video…

- You can do video playback on sets shot on film. They have a feed from the camera lens to “video village” so the director can monitor - at the very least - in real time.

- The comment about “redos” on film doesn’t make sense. It might be more expensive to do another take since film is more expensive. But in a big budget, film stock is pennies on the dollar

- Film doesn’t capture the “intended look” right out of the box. It still needs to be “color timed”.

- Film scans do take up large files... but so do digital cinema camera files.

[TriangIe]

Well back in the day when it was a choice between either film or analog videotape, film was the obvious choice until microprocessing became advanced enough for shooting the insane digital stuff we do today. Nowadays, it’s basically just like digital music vs vinyl. Both sound great, but film (like vinyl with sound) just has its own unique charm and look to it that digital cannot truly replicate.

[lidarman]

@3:45, I argue that film is always harder. Most people like Nolan actually digitize the film, edit in digital then actually cut the film after the digital edit before final print. Digital editing is always easier in all regards.

[videograph]

Dynamic range of best film is 14 stops. Modern digital cameras has more than 16.
High resolution of film is only “theoretical”. In real world only what you have is a grain.

Only reason to shot at film is “aesthetics” and feeling that you shot «canonically».

This is absolutely the same when now amateurs takes film stills cameras and think that they produce pieces of art

[dogman]

People say they know what they like, but actually, they like what they know.
Film vs. Digital is a great example of this proverb.

[JD-cfmv]

Question : Imagine hypothetically that movies had always been shot on digital (ie film stock had never been invented) and someone came along and said I’ve created this new type of format called film but you need bigger cameras, you can only shoot 4mins rolls before changing into new roll so it slows the performances down and you need to send it away to special place called a lab and it takes 24 hours before you can see the rushes and its more expensive. But the plus side is it gives you better dynamic range and type of look which is difficult to explain (although very few people would notice this) do we think film would be taken up with such enthusiasm?

[sonofacheron]

Really appreciate the quality of this video: informative, unbiased and well edited. Will subscribe to channel.

[tharii]

According to what I study in modules like Signals and Systems, comparing Film vs. Video is like comparing continuous signals to discrete signals. Film has no such resolution specified. So we can even rescan and restore old films in 4K. Meanwhile digital video is in pixels. So even though a 1920x1080 emage is enough for a 42"TV or a 15" Monitor to display with no pixelation, you can see the grid of pixels if you view that in a projector that's far enough.

[mmmab]

Shooting on film made sense up until maybe 10 years ago, but modern digital cameras deliver superior resolution and dynamic range, and also provide so many other advantages over film, as discussed in the video. And if a director likes a softer “film” look, that can easily be achieved in post with simple adjustments. If a project is shot on film it is much harder to adjust the look in post. It’s more of a status symbol to shoot on film these days, like the rock star insisting on only green m&m’s in their candy dish. It makes no practical or aesthetic sense, but is rather a way to demonstrate your clout.

[tykjenffs]

Next video: Why do some musicians use instruments to make music instead of using computers? Roll eyes.

[wathsi]

I'm surprised you didn't refer any Denis Villeneuve films considering they're shot in digital and yet have recieved multiple nominations and wins.

[ReviveHF]

I like both film and digital.
Film : It has occasional imperfection like oil or acrylic painting to convey the idealised image of our perceived world.
Digital : The images look sharp and clear, very immersive, it doesn't avoid unpleasant or sordid aspects of life, it concerned with how things appeared to the eye, rather than containing ideal representations of the world.