The news in movie cameras – and I’m talking about the huge for-pro-motion-picture-kind – is that ARRI, Panavision and Aaton have all ceased production of film-based cameras.
This may come as sad news to some, but it shouldn’t because hot on the tail of the end of movie film cameras, the digital realm is promising some unbelievably awesome technology that will make future movies crispier, sharper and more colorful than ever. Now before anyone says anything, yes it’s true that in films like Collateral, which was shot in digital, you can see artifact problems and I don’t deny that. However what’s available now will cure all those issues in one fell swoop.
The company that’s coming to the forefront when it comes to digital cinema is Red Digital Cinema Camera Company, particularly their EPIC line of cameras. The resolution on newer models is 28,000 x 9,334 which is much better-suited for the silver screen than what came before it. To put this in perspective (literally), the frame is 8.5 times taller than 1080p.
Motion picture on film isn’t going to go away completely, but it’s definitely a dying art. Why? For the simple reason digital is more cost-effective. A RED EPIC is $58,000. That may sound like a ton, but compared to film it’s a bargain if you take into consideration there’s no film processing involved.
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It will indeed be nice to see professionally made high quality films with less grain and higher frame rates. That’s what bugs me about buying a 50 inch 1080p television, I know the movies on Bluray could look sharper than they do because the original source is film in most instances.
Like LPs, I suspect film might make a comeback. I have seen nothing in digital that would be as good, let alone superior. But who cares nowadays – Hollywood produces crap, so what the heck how it is made. The good old brains are gone, which probably applies to the whole Western World as we knew it.