Monday, February 13, 2012

The death of film - better, right?

I was looking at another blog the other day for THESE AMAZING SHADOWS, and the post was interesting the from the filmmakers point of view. They had commented on how they had seen their film at a few places, and they were surprised at how the material they spent hours colour correcting material and it looked different every place they saw it.

The comment they made that got me thinking was "as filmmakers we have to accept that we have no control over the final product". I disagree with that. Here's why:

Back in the days of film, I could see the presentation being different.. There were a lot of variables.. The projectors, the lab making the prints, the handling of the print. The projectionist.

However film is now out of the equation, and the chain is smaller.. The digital print, the projectors. There is no degradation over time of the product. Each digital presentation should look exactly the SAME as the final cut as created by the filmmakers, no matter where you see it.

See, theres this thing called standards .. The thing where projectors are set up by. The only reason that presentation is not consistent from venue to venue is because those standards aren't being followed. It is the laziness of the theatres, who don't care about presentation - making sure that their customers just get the bare minimum in quality.

The only place that this doesn't apply is when a film is shown on television. The tv station can make sure that the film is properly adjusted, but no one can really make a person at home calibrate their televisions.

Filmmakers SHOULD be able to make sure that in this digital age, their product is consistent from venue, and it should be up to the theatre owners to make sure that their projection equipment is up to 21st century standards.