Film Is Dead (It Just Doesn’t Know It Yet)
19 Aug
I’ve used the Canon 7D to shoot a ‘behind the scenes’ documentary on a major Bollywood movie (Anjaana Anjaani; releases 24th September 2010).
I’ve used the same camera on a video feature for CNNGo.com, a few short documentaries I’ve made in Mumbai and on a short film for my friend and colleague Anand Sivakumaran. With the lenses out of just the Canon stable it is possible to generate gorgeous images straight out of the camera. With third-party lenses, additional kit for the camera and some efficient colour-grading software there are very few reasons for the independent filmmaker to consider wasting significant resources on shooting her film on actual film.
Yeah yeah yeah! I’ve heard all the arguments for acquiring on film and how video ‘just doesn’t look like film’. You know what? Get used to it.
95% of a film’s lifetime is now destined to be based on digital delivery – be it DVD, Blu-Ray or digital downloads. Television premieres, VOD (video on demand) and most other ways that audiences will watch a movie DO NOT INVOLVE PHYSICAL FILM! So why the hell are you wasting so much time, money and effort to strike that first physical print?
As any studio executive or producer will tell you, the real costs are in promoting a film. If you are an indie, every dollar, pound or rupee you save on acquisition can then be pumped into informing your audience about the release and/or continued run of your film in a multiplex near them.
Pay your final respects to film and understand, that acquiring on 35-mil stock is soon going to be a creative choice i.e., because the filmmaker was going for a certain visual aesthetic. For the rest of us, there is digital.
This is a good thing
