Speech on Film Vs Digital

For my Public Speaking class I recently gave two speeches on Film Vs Digital. One speech sided with film and the other with digital. This is the speech on gave supporting the digital side.

How many of you have heard of Avatar? This incredibly beautiful movie was not made using film cameras. It was made using a digital camera similar to ones in our phones. Digital filmmaking is quickly becoming the fastest growing method of filmmaking. As a filmmaker, I personally shoot on digital cameras and several directors and cinematographers are switching over from using the traditional 35-millimeter film to digital shooting formats.  This has allowed for more films to be made at a faster, cheaper, and more efficient capacity.  

Digital cameras, which are a relatively new movie-making tool has also been gaining serious traction among professionals in the field as well as the studios. Most studios are now planning to switch over to an entirely digital filmmaking workflow.  According to LA Weekly, studios are demanding the switch from 35-milimeter film to digital, and for good reason.

Starting purely with the look and quality of digital footage, digital has a much cleaner image when shot in the proper conditions and lighting. One of the many arguments against digital filmmaking is that film subjectively has a better look. This is a mostly irrelevant argument at this point in time. Currently the “film look” can be emulated through editing the image.  In an interview with Wired.com filmmaker Robert Rodriguez says “we could make a digital movie and have it look exactly like a film from the era”. He did just this and showed his results to film purist Quentin Tarantino who finally admitted he was blown away with the results of digital.  Other qualities that make digital better than film aesthetically is the cleanness of the image. Film deteriorates in quality over time. Digital video and images last forever. This also means there won’t be any scratches or dusts spots on the image as it’s being projected in digital, one of the many things our eyes have gotten used to after watching movies projected on film for so many years.

The cost of making movies on film far exceeds the cost of making movies on digital. According to Ken Rockwell of kenrockwell.com, “For $600, your 1,000 feet of film only runs about 12 minutes.”  And then he goes on to elaborate on the other processes that involve processing film so it can be digitized and edited; he says “Thus we've spent about $2,200 for 12 minutes, or over $10,000 for an hour of film.” The costs of film as you can see is exorbitant. We have students here at Ithaca College still deciding to shoot on film, and they’re driving the costs of their productions upwards of 2000 dollars. Not exactly a shoestring budget for college. If the students shot on digital, they could have made the cost of shooting their movie potentially for free. Comparing this to the costs of certain digital formats, film is over 10 times more expensive then certain pro-sumer based storage devices and on the pro cameras it’s still about 5 times more expensive. Also, film storage only gets one use whereas digital you can get a potentially infinite reuse of the storage device. According to Rich Lackey, an expert in Digital Cinema Technology, the cheap cost of digital filmmaking has led to the advent of more competition in the field of filmmaking. More competition means more movies, which is good for us, the audience.

The first movie to win an Oscar for cinematography that was shot on digital was “Slumdog Millionaire”, ever since then, more and more movies have been made digital cameras.  Roger Deakins, a cinematographer, widely regarded as one of the best in the industry made the switch to digital in the James Bond film “Skyfall” and he expressed how much he loved the digital format. Other filmmakers are also making the switch. James Cameron, who most recently directed “Avatar” claims that film has been dead to him for years because you can’t make 3d with it. 3D although disliked by some, is known to be a great source of profit for the industry and generally is a very positive aspect of filmmaking when used correctly.  Some incredibly well made digital 3D movies include: Avatar, Hugo, How to Train Your Dragon, TRON Legacy and Prometheus. Peter Jackson bought 48 RED Epic Digital Cameras for his most recent movie “The Hobbit”, which is also being shot in 3D.  These are some of the biggest names in Hollywood now saying that digital is the most superior filmmaking medium in terms of ease of shooting.

Shooting digital also has its advantages from other perspectives. It gives the filmmaker the most manipulation after something has been shot. For example, if a scene was not recorded at the correct settings, RAW video now allows for an editor to go change the settings afterwards on the computer. This is not a luxury that film has over digital.

In the end, the ones who stand to profit most from digital filmmaking is us, the audience. Now movies get to push the limits more than ever before, and we can see these great expansive and beautiful multi-dimensional worlds created right in front of our eyes. Overall digital is cheaper, faster and easier to manipulate than film. Soon enough film will be a thing of the past, and digital will be the only acceptable method of making and viewing movies. So the next time you watch a movie ask yourself, is this shot digitally or on film? Chances are you won’t be able to tell, because by this point digital is not just equal to film, it’s surpassed it.