Random story: I went to the first ever digital imaging and technology film program to run in Canada, first cohort, 20+ years ago. There was one dude in our class that, in spite of the fact that our program didn't allow analog submissions, shot super16 all the time for his "personal projects and art", fine. So he kinda bothered me a bit, but did inspire me to, for the first, time grade my film to look like analog. I sucked all the contrast out, flattened it down and split toned it heavily. Submitted it to class and got the top grade for it. The guy was furious and went to the teacher to complain I shouldn't have submitted film, teacher came back to me to confirm I'd just graded it to look like film, and then told the dude my submission was accepted and my grade stood, but didn't tell him I shot it digital, so the guy goes and submits a 16mm short for his final because he thought I got away with it, ha.
After I graduated, I stuck to the all digital stuff and a couple of folks from my program and I went on to start a film company, and win 3 Emmy awards, over the years I was still in film I saw people bring various analog film things to set to try and see if they could somehow include it, be it some film type, some vintage light panel or whatever, but it was always just fad, there was a period of time everyone brought 35 to set just to "see if we could fit it in later" - it never got cut in, it was too difficult to match it to the digital.
It was always a fad bringing film to set, but those that did, I always admired they wanted to make that statement, no matter how foolish they seemed to many on set, I always appreciated the art they brought to the table.
I recently bought a Sony Cyber-shot DSC-P5 with a broken back screen, honestly I've had so much fun with it, I went out with my wife this last weekend, left the phone at home and brought the Sony, had a blast looking at the frames when I got home, do recommend it.
Sorry for this random ass post, just this is my fav kinda HN content :D
20 years ago HBO made the tv show Rome. They filmed it on analog film. I’ve recently been watching it for the first time and it’s absolutely amazing how well it looks compared to shows shot on digital from the same time. It looks good even compared to modern cinema and because it’s film they could do 4k captures.
For a recent movie, Strange Darling was filmed in analog. Great movie and looks unparalleled.
Dune was filmed on digital, transferred to analog, and the scanned back to digital for distribution.
I guess my point is, that there is some magic in analog. Whether the inherent limitations of the form, or by introduced randomness of the chemical process, or by placebo assumption of “realness”.
We live in an age of Netflix enforcing all shows to look exactly the same and even adding de-aging filters to actors. The gulf between the perceived reality of analog film and digital has never been larger. So yeah, analog excites me.
Random idea about “the look”. Doing an analog transfer might kill the gradation banding that digital images suffer from, especially those that have gone through lossy or low bit depth edits to brightness values in large flat color areas like sky. Analog transfer may add dithering to the bands to make them look more natural.
I'm a film colorist and have done the film print out method plenty of times.
You don't need to print to film to dither and reduce banding, it's trivial to add grain to achieve the same (either digitally or via film grain scans which are overlayed).
The film outs are just a different method of getting a film tone, curve, and grain - though honestly I've done some where people were unable to identify which was the digital master and which was the post film out version. Much of the time it's just an ego boost for the director and dp and a competent colorist can easily recreate it. That said, it's fun to do and means less work on my end so I don't discourage it.
After I graduated, I stuck to the all digital stuff and a couple of folks from my program and I went on to start a film company, and win 3 Emmy awards, over the years I was still in film I saw people bring various analog film things to set to try and see if they could somehow include it, be it some film type, some vintage light panel or whatever, but it was always just fad, there was a period of time everyone brought 35 to set just to "see if we could fit it in later" - it never got cut in, it was too difficult to match it to the digital.
It was always a fad bringing film to set, but those that did, I always admired they wanted to make that statement, no matter how foolish they seemed to many on set, I always appreciated the art they brought to the table.
I recently bought a Sony Cyber-shot DSC-P5 with a broken back screen, honestly I've had so much fun with it, I went out with my wife this last weekend, left the phone at home and brought the Sony, had a blast looking at the frames when I got home, do recommend it.
Sorry for this random ass post, just this is my fav kinda HN content :D