[opendtv] Re: Vox: Film vs. digital: the most contentious debate in the film world, explained
- From: "Manfredi, Albert E" <albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2017 04:58:28 +0000
Craig Birkmaier wrote:
1. Perhaps the most important is frame rate, and the cinematography
techniques employed to deal with the low 24 FPS frame rate STILL
commonly used for motion pictures.
First of all, the films are projected at least at twice that rate, to reduce
flicker. But more to the point, when first invented, that 24 fps was not chosen
for any sort of "look," other than to make the motion appear as natural as
possible, and the sound too, while not gobbling up reams of expensive film. It
was a typical engineering compromise of the day. Silent movies were shot
slower, like 18 fps. And motion looks pretty bad in silent movies. Even there,
it wasn't intentional. It was an unfortunate artifact.
Now, when 24 fps is used, it is meant to evoke an artifact that we have come to
associate with the "suspension of disbelief" we enjoy, when at the movies. But
if the inventors of movie film had had 60 fps as a viable option, my bet is
that they would have jumped at it.
So bottom line, when people talk about the artistic effects of 24 fps capture,
that does amount to nostalgia. Cause --> effect.
2. Film does not use a fixed grid of sensors
That's an advantage of film. It would be nice to allow pixels to rearrange
themselves randomly, and somehow to slave the display's pixel arrangement
accordingly.
But even film grain fits in this nostalgia conversation. Film was meant
originally to be as fine-grained as possible, at any given speed. In fact,
Kodak kept introducing better films, T grains, and so on, to improve the state
of the art. Over the years, grain got less and less visible. It was only after
the fact that cinematographers used exaggerated grain for artistic effect. Film
was not invented with that in mind.
Same with CRTs. The raster scan was meant to be as smooth looking as possible,
within the constraints of spectrum needed to get the image to the screen.
And still today, isn't it silly how the "TV image look" is **still** created
with wide-apart raster lines? As if we're still viewing TV on ante-diluvium
CRTs? I've seen HDTV images portrayed that way on film. So that is actually a
misapplication of nostalgia. HDTV doesn't look like that.
Bottom line: The artistic effects explained in the Vox article are based on
nostalgia, NOT intended by the inventors of the film or audio media. Maybe in
the future, MPEG blocking artifacts will be thought of as "artistic" too, and
people will wax eloquent, verbose, and poetic, about how some producer or other
insists on achieving that "blocking artifact look."
Bert
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Other related posts:
- » [opendtv] Vox: Film vs. digital: the most contentious debate in the film world, explained- Manfredi, Albert E
- » [opendtv] Re: Vox: Film vs. digital: the most contentious debate in the film world, explained- Craig Birkmaier
- » [opendtv] Re: Vox: Film vs. digital: the most contentious debate in the film world, explained - Manfredi, Albert E
- » [opendtv] Re: Vox: Film vs. digital: the most contentious debate in the film world, explained- Craig Birkmaier
- » [opendtv] Re: Vox: Film vs. digital: the most contentious debate in the film world, explained- Manfredi, Albert E
- » [opendtv] Re: Vox: Film vs. digital: the most contentious debate in the film world, explained- Craig Birkmaier
- » [opendtv] Re: Vox: Film vs. digital: the most contentious debate in the film world, explained- Manfredi, Albert E
- » [opendtv] Re: Vox: Film vs. digital: the most contentious debate in the film world, explained- Craig Birkmaier
- » [opendtv] Re: Vox: Film vs. digital: the most contentious debate in the film world, explained- Manfredi, Albert E
- » [opendtv] Re: Vox: Film vs. digital: the most contentious debate in the film world, explained- Craig Birkmaier