How I learned to stop worrying and love digital cinema

Yes, it's a bit of a film geek question. Consider the source. I myself LOVE film, even the weave and stutter and all the "bad" things about it. I remember in a film class in college, we watched Hiroshima, Mon Amour, the beginning of which, due to a threading malfunction, had sound that was garbled and watery. I thought that was the way the film was supposed to be and loved the weird surreal sound. Oops.

Even in it's purest, most perfectly projected form, film tends to weave (which is why the image tends to drift around - for some reason i tend to picture the MPAA green preview screen - which many people seem to hate). Now there's digital projection (DLP) which I was apprehensive to experience, loathing the digital look of the preshow. But, I fear I may actually like it. Yes, the weave is gone, and hairs and scratches, even the cigarette burns are gone (and I do miss those horribly). But at least what being shown is film. Even if shot digitally, most films have a 35mm transfer and THEN become digital again.

So, as a film geek and a techno dork, what's so bad about digital cinema?

I shot "The Bet" on HD and saw it screened digitally in a theatre and I thought... Well, I thought it looked awesome. A bit pristine, but there was no film involved anywhere in the process. Someone afterwards even assumed it was shot on Super 35.

I could, for $3,000, buy a Red Scarlet (when they're released next year) which shoots 3K. See the diagram for some insight into SD, HD and 2-5K.


That little itty bitty box way in the corner that says "SD" - that's what you see on a normal TV. At BEST your expensive HDTV is showing 1080p - that's even Blu-Ray definition. The Scarlet, a $3,000 camera, shoots at 3K. Ok, geek out done.

The only issue I have with shooting digital is there's a much more limited range of what the sensor can capture versus film. Basically that means it blows out the highlights. They still haven't managed to fix this. Once they do, film will, I think, disappear. Immediately.

Now, actually, I get to the point of why I started writing this. I love the idiosyncrasies of anamorphically shot films. The stretch lens flare, the compressed bokeh, even the blue horizontal lines from lens flare (though I could do without it; Hawk lenses tend to minimize it). You are now probably wondering what the fuck is bokeh? Bokeh is "is a photographic term referring to the appearance of out-of-focus areas in an image produced by a camera lens." (thank you, Wikipedia)

Anamorphic lenses, while creating a horizontally stretched lens flare...


but also compress the bokeh...


There are issues with barrel distortion...

See the bowed lines to the right – which I've read can be minimized.

But if you compare these two images from two different Star Trek films, the way the anamorphic lens affects the blurred areas (bokeh) is, in my opinion, more cinematic that spherical.

Click for make big.

Meh. Maybe I'm not a film geek. Maybe I'm just a geek.

"Detox" - the next step

As soon as we get draft 5 into a very, very nice place, which i am aiming to have it wrapped up by the end of June, we'll be submitting it to both the WGA and copyright office for the obvious copyright protection. Then it'll be heading off to the Wildsound screenplay competition. Why there? They offer full feedback on every script entered. Which is what we want. At this point, I don't see us winning anything. I just want some good, solid, industry feedback before heading into draft 6. So why copyright it before it's "finished?" Any changes after draft 5 are going to be fairly superficial, I think, and close enough that that initial protection should hold.

Additionally, the script is being broken down to facilitate budgeting. Plus, a temporary treatment has been written (pending changes) which is fairly bare bones. Same with character breakdowns. This will be worked on while draft 5 gets its feedback from Wildsound.

Moving forward. Slowly. But purposefully.

I've asked before. Now it's important.

UPDATE: Two new votes popped up which have brought the overall score UP to 2.4. Thanks to whoever it was that voted. Too bad the "real" votes aren't counting like they should. An arithmetic mean of 8.2 and a "weighted average" of 2.4. At least it's going up.

So I'm asking again. IF you've seen "The Bet" please, PLEASE, go to IMDb and/or Amazon and leave some feedback. Write a review, make a comment, rate, something. I honestly don't care if it's a good or bad review or comment, as long as it's honest. And if you DO have some stake in the film, don't hide it, call it out.

If you saw my previous post about the IMDb rating discrepancy, you can understand why I want "real" voices and not just numbers on the pages for "The Bet." As an independent filmmaker, it shouldn't matter what the "masses" say, but when one low rating has such a detrimental effect on the overall score, something's amiss. The "masses" aren't speaking, someone else is. And it'll hurt me (and the others this has happened to) in my career. Who's gonna want to work for someone who's sole film has a 2.2 rating? And trying to get a feature off the ground, I need all the positive reinforcement possible.

Besides, I'd rather see an actual written review/comment than a cursory numeric rating any day.

It only takes a minute to sign up and they never spam. Please. Go. Rate. Comment. PLEASE.

"Detox" FX estimate

To see how we were doing keeping Detox low in the budget arena, I decided to get a quote from a popular FX house to handle the various effects. I'm not spilling any beans on what those effects are, nor who quoted it, nor what the amount was... I'll just say I was pleasantly surprised at what the estimate came back at. Something that's entirely doable should we actually get this thing off the ground as a self-funded project.

Ah yes, the prospect of producing this ourselves. The very first rough estimate seems doable, but there are so many elements that need to be figured out - such as LOCATION - which will really decide if we can get it off the ground without "studio" funding.

So much vagueness.

IMDb User Ratings

EDIT: Apparently, I'm not the only one hit with a sudden 1-star vote that drastically lowered the overall rating. Over at Without a Box's FORUM, a number of people are reporting their independent films were hit with the past month with a 1-star rating which dropped their film's score way below what that one vote should have. I don't know (nor do the other posters) what's afoot, but letters to IMDb have met basically deaf ears. What's the deal?

I value people's opinions. I do. And this post isn't about whomever it was that voted 1 star (out of 10) on "The Bet" IMDb page. This post is how that one vote dropped the average from 9.1 stars to 3.2 stars. One vote out of 17.

I get their weighted averages and all that, but doesn't it seem unusual that one vote has that much effect? I mean, really, this is America, after all. Votes don't mean anything.

My latest obsession

I have lately been obsessed with the '90s for a variety of reasons. Recently I rented (from a not very near video store) Run Lola Run. I popped it in just to see how it started and ended up watching the whole thing (and loving it to the point of obsessing over it the entire week I had it rented). What's awesome and fucking annoying is that there's a music video on the DVD. I am known to, at times, rip items from DVDs, but this one I couldn't rip and it makes me... insane. Someone did. Here it is. I love it.

"Collector"

Trailer for a Russian short film that looks... awesome.