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Comment by bprater | Hacker News Reader

You may have not noticed it, but the benefits of film have been going extinct this decade. Check out how many feature films are shot digitally versus on film. Unless you are Spielberg, you are shooting digitally.

Currently, there are small digital cameras like the Blackmagic Pocket Camera (BMPCC) camera, under $1k, which have a capability to shoot images that are so similar to 16mm film that the average consumer couldn't tell.

The bottom-line today: if you want the 8mm vibe, you oversample your image when shooting (16mm or 35mm digital) and then degrade the image in post-production to 8mm.

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This is pretty indisputable. Yes, recent and popular movies are still being shot on film, which very well reflects the fact that old habits die hard, and that creatives, producers and investors easily let their own biases and "shibboleths" get in the way of hard data.

I suppose one argument might be that the additional hurdles of the traditional workflow can be a constraint that boosts creativity.

Or unless you are Quentin Tarantino; see Inglorious Basterds (2009) to see what rich colors film can provide.

> Sean Mattini .... digital colorist assist

Edited and color graded on digital intermediate

The image retains characteristics of film even though it goes through DI, even color quality. (Quality in the sense of 'different', not strictly 'better'.)

I think it's the principle of "you can't work with what's not there" - film (especially talking several years ago vs. today) will capture a different and usually wider dynamic range, and lend a different starting point that that might not be possible or easy to simulate.

Film is beautiful and has a great 'by-default' aesthetic - but many digital imaging systems have been able to capture more dynamic range (and far more resolution) for a few years now, and it isn't that hard to add grain and emulate the kind of image response for popular stocks in post...

These days it's really more of a tactile choice - 'do you want to work with film' - than aesthetic.

Well I'll admit my acquaintance with the equipment is dated by a few years since it turned out programming was more fun and paid more :P I imagine it still gets you a different quality and a different set of possibilities, even if digital has taken the rational and technical upper hand in many situations.

More on-topic, it also occurs to me that the Kodak cameras mentioned here will produce an image that the average film student or hobbyist (I guess that's the market?) with a canon or red wouldn't likely be able to reproduce convincingly, so that's interesting.

Anyway what I'd really like to see resurrected is 3-strip technicolor! That'd be retro

Or better yet, The Hateful Eight, in which he takes film to a new level, shooting on Ultra Panavision 70 (which perhaps counter-intuitively is 65 mm film).

Other people are going digital, but Quentin Tarantino seems to be busy taking film to the next level instead :)

The "70" in Ultra Panavision 70 mostly refers to the projection system. As projected in the the theater, it uses 70mm film. During the filming process a 65mm stock is used. The extra 5mm was for the optical soundtrack.

Or JJ Abrams. Or Christopher Nolan. Two of the most profitable and prolific directors of today.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/behind-screen/help-star-war...

Pity it looks like shit if you don't live on the first-run circut, but I guess us peasants who don't happen to live in NY and LA only deserve scratched-up seconds.

Honestly, I thought the opening shots of the snow-covered landscape and a few of the longer interior shots didn't look that good. However the close-ups looked amazing.

You may not have noticed it, but a quite popular movie was recently shot on film. (The Force Awakens)

Mad Men (TV series) was shot on film, it looks very nice.

But I suppose it could also have been shot digitally and nobody would have spotted the difference. Maybe.

From season 5 they switched to ARRI Alexa cameras and added grain in post to emulate the film look. So you proved yourself right here, nobody did really spot the difference (and every season of Mad Men looked fantastic).

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