Tarantino: "Digital projection is the death of cinema"

[DEAD34345]

I like Quentin Tarantino, and I like his movies, but he is literally insane. That's actually mostly a good thing in my opinion, because his movies are all also kind of insane (in a good way), but I really wouldn't take him seriously on something like this. I don't understand his argument because the article in the link doesn't explain his viewpoint at all, but it's probably just Tarantino being crazy anyway.

 

[shootthebandit]

Surely digital cinematography is more accessible to everyone. Therefore you can get low budget indie directors making higher quality films. The easier it is for keen amateurs to get into then the more likely you are to see good indie titles getting into the mainstream

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

Dont care about what he thinks. Only thing that ruins cinema is shitty movies and 3D.

 

[zelda2fanboy]

Film is a much higher resolution than digital and it seems like a rip off to go see a digital projection with the same 4K picture quality of newer high end televisions. On the other hand, I've seen many, many physical film projections in my life that looked like crap from decaying film, misframed projection, dim bulbs, and mismatched sound. Digital projections are nice and uniform. I haven't had too many issues with digital stuff (outside of a garbage home projector at a dying ghetto movie theater) at all. In the old days, it always felt like a crap shoot in my area if the movie was going to play all the through without a hitch. We are far from the years of union professional projectionists and have to rely on a low paid teenager a lot of the time to change the reels. And you could always tell when the reel changes were coming because the quality would go way down and those ugly cigarette burns start showing up.

 

[Guitarmasterx7]

Is it just a "READING A BOOK ON PAPER IS SO FAR SUPERIOR TO READING THE SAME BOOK ON A SCREEN" kind of mindset? Honestly the only conceivable problem I can think of with digital projection is that people will probably find ways to bootleg full quality films. But I dunno, Tarantino is a fucking weirdo anyways, I've just come to expect him to say and do crazy shit. Makes damn good movies though so it doesn't bother me.

 

[Arqus_Zed]

...

Is this really news to anyone?

It's Quentin Tarantino, for fuck's sake! He's against digital filming, of course he's going to be against digital projection! I mean, this is the guy that actually, manually damaged the footage of one of his films (Death Proof) to give it a more "grindhouse" feel. He's a nostalgia-fueled retro-film fanboy, everybody knows that.

That said, I love the crap out of (most of) his films.

 

[Hagi]

if on the other hand you were to take a film that had, just for the sake of argument, been recorded in a digital format equivalent to DVD/480p and attempt to convert it to the same higher resolution future digital media formats it would look like fucking shit...and there is no way to extract further detail from the format. none. all you have is 640×480 pixels and that's it for all eternity.

That's not actually true.

There's plenty of ways to extract further detail from that format. Most of them also used in gaming, you should've seen at least some of them if you've ever went peeking into a config file for any of your games.

You won't ever get the same quality as something originally shot in that format, not unless you're dealing with extremely simple pictures. But to say 480p is and always will be 480p is simply false, especially when claiming it'll always will be like that.

And that's just automated methods. If it's truly important you can still have a team with Photoshop go over the footage frame-by-frame to touch things up.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Nothing new here, a lot of film auteurs have been saying the same thing for ages. Jean Louis Comolli. Peter Greenaway. Godard has founded his whole career on that thought. That Tarantino should join the chorus of "film is dead" is completely expected.

 

[Something Amyss]

"Digital projection, that's just television in public. And apparently the whole world is OK with television in public, but what I knew as cinema is dead."

This sounds like a tantrum, to me. "Things aren't like how they used to be and it sucks!"

Does the interview continue after he tells someone to get off his lawn?

Seriously, this sort of superficiality is Tarantino's problem in the first place.

Honestly the only conceivable problem I can think of with digital projection is that people will probably find ways to bootleg full quality films.

They did that before digital projection.

 

[Areloch]

Or do you have some special copy of Star Wars that looks crystal clear on your 4k TV? If you do, you could probably sell it back to Lucasfilms for a pretty penny.

i don't have to have some copy of Star Wars that looks crystal clear on a 4k TV because Lucasfilm/Disney already do...and it'll be stored on FILM awaiting transfer.

but i can see you didn't bother to heed my request...at all.

Well, they actually don't. Kinda a known deal that they lost/destroyed the original negatives (I think they were turned into the special editions). All we'll ever have are the reproductions. That's one area where digital does far better than film. You can make backups of backups of backups and never lose anything.

That's what I was referring to about selling back to Lucasfilm.

Also, what request? To think about what you said? I like how you say 'don't come up with a counterpoint for your side'. That was neat. And I did cover that. Yes, a 480p video will always be 480p. And that does suck. I concur entirely. But as cameras get better, the pixel density is going to get to the point where it doesn't really actually matter. Unless you get Bigotron-sized displays, your average high-resolution LCD tv will eventually be superseded by the recorded resolution and the issue is nullified.

We're not there yet, but that's the direction we're headed. A 4k display is something like 9megapixels. If you can record film at 32mp or higher, you're officially operating well past sub-pixel resolutions compared to your consumer display. Which means you're achieving the same effect as film. Again, we're definitely not there yet, but we're moving towards it.

as for "why you dont just turn down the res on the software/your OS"...flat panel displays only look properly sharp if they are running at 1 for 1 in their native PHYSICAL resolution (or a in a quarterly subdivision of it where 4 physical pixels are used as 1)...whereas on a CRT you could change the resolution of the image projected by the CRT and if you don't understand that...well there's really not much point discussing it further: you don't understand the tech and you don't understand what i'm talking about.

Oh. You're doing THAT.

"Ooh, I made a technical point that really doesn't pragmatically matter, but you just are too dumb to understand the technology"

Don't do that.

Yes, CRT got away with changes to the resolutions made in software/OS, but that's not because they were magic. It's because everything was pre-emptively blurry by virtue of the projection. As you say, there's no additional data being generated. CRT's don't spontaneously create a better image from lower resolution information fed from your computer. All it is is that it's blurry pre-emptively, so it's not quite so noticeable. Even CRT displays will show up as pixelated garbage if you crank the resolution down past where the native blur compensates.

The fact is, if you're lowing the resolution because your system can't handle it, it doesn't have anything to do with the display anymore. Yes, a notch or so step down in resolution may potentially be less noticeable on a CRT than a LCD screen, but only relatively few steps. And if having some pixelation in your display is that much of a huge downer that the slight pixel density difference between the active resolution and the montior's native kills your experience, you would cough up for a machine that could operate at native. While technically a problem, it's only a problem in the most specific of cases.
Most people that have to operate on lower-than-native either don't care that much, or work to fix it. Having a CRT display isn't going to automagically fix how the display looks.

 

[My name is Fiction]

Digital projection will SAVE cinema.
It's cheaper, in the long run, and will have better quality of sound and video.
PLUS, it makes it damn near impossible to permanently lose movie because it's so much easier to store and copy.

you can't take a digital recording and transfer it to a higher resolution format without a loss in quality.

think about that for a second.

i mean really think.

don't just dismiss it offhand and look for a counter because that's your already chosen your side of "the argument".

atm you can take any film (on film) from any decade of the 20th and can convert it to any format you wish including any future digital media formats that feature a higher digital display resolutions because film doesn't have "a resolution".

if on the other hand you were to take a film that had, just for the sake of argument, been recorded in a digital format equivalent to DVD/480p and attempt to convert it to the same higher resolution future digital media formats it would look like fucking shit...and there is no way to extract further detail from the format. none. all you have is 640×480 pixels and that's it for all eternity.

this is what the future holds if everything goes "digital" (as it currently exists).

because display resolutions are inevitably only ever going to increase.

not everything new is universally better in all respects.

You hit the subject on the head there. A resolution gate issue could be a major problem down the line in a couple decades. But also there is diminishing returns in all things. Like the difference between a dvd and a blueray, big difference. But will the next blueray be as noticable as the last gap in graphical fidelity? Probably not due to the limits of human perception. Like who the fuck needs a 4K TV? I mean you got the same issue with framerates. 300 Frames per second? hype. 600? Sure but now i can not tell.

 

[J Tyran]

It's like that episode of Archer in the first season where they are on the zeppelin: sure, there's something cool about a voyage over the sea in the air, but it's never going to catch on in the mainstream ever again. Sure, you have some advantages like blowing out the engines doesn't cause the aircraft to crash, but that's not good enough to keep everyone using zeppelins over jumbo jets. It certainly wasn't the death of the travel industry to switch to jets.

Unrelated tangent but we might be seeing commercial passenger airships again, mainly for the same reason cruise ships still exist despite airliners being around. Sometimes the Journey is more important than the destination, can you imagine a holiday cruising over the Serengeti or the Alps? It would be awesome and the right location could command almost any range of prices, obviously people that just want to go to from A to B will use an airliner but airship cruises could be "mainstream" in their own way just like the age of cruise liners never died.

OT;

Is this just some connoisseur thing from Tarantino? I honestly don't understand his position but maybe someone more into films might understand where he is coming from, I don't understand it with some audiophiles wanting tube amps etc either.

Sometimes old stuff is better though,

Spoiler: like CRTs for retro gaming

 

[Boris Goodenough]

I mean you got the same issue with framerates. 300 Frames per second? hype. 600? Sure but now i can not tell.

Let's not forget those aren't true FPS (Hz), just refresh of the same frame several times.
Fighter pilotes have been tested at seeing the difference between frames at upto 220 FPS.

 

[Areloch]

snip

Wow, it's like you didn't actually read what I said and decided to go full 'cooing at a small child' level of patronization.

You must be a real treat to talk to in person too.

You may note, I was agreeing with you, I was just pointing out that CRT's aren't magic.

They don't 'make' additional resolution, but you avoid minor pixelation due to the natural blurring of the projection.

I also think you're massively overstating how annoying non-native resolution rendering is. I pretty much never run games at native resolution(though I do put it close) to get better performance. Console output has pretty much always been like this.

My point was, while it's true, it's seriously not that big of a deal. And you can get CRTs to exhibit the same effect if you crank it down far enough. Rather far, yes, but again, CRT displays aren't magic. Pixels and jaggies are there on LCD setups, but like CRTs, it's only really a problem if you seriously crank down the resolution.

I'm not trying to wage an attrition war, but you keep making this some sort of 'I post a pretentious reply, and then when I'm countered, I throw my hands into the air yelling 'YOU JUST DON'T GET IT'' deal. It's really annoying. (And yes, going for the 'well clearly you're just too stupid to understand what we're talking about' is going for the pretentious, "I'm better than you" approach).

If you'd read what I wrote instead of trying to figure out how to write a counter point as insufferably as possible, you may note I didn't claim you were wrong, I just don't think it's as big of a problem as you were making it to be.

 

[Ratty]

The guy has made his entire career out of nostalgia for sleazy 1970s Grindhouse films. To the point of making Death Proof for the "Grindhouse" double feature which had fake distressing on the movies to make it look like the film was old/worn out etc. Of course he's going to say film is better.


Personally I think film is better artistically in certain circumstances (like since Captain America took place in WW2 it just didn't look right to me not being shot on film) but I realize digital is here to stay. There's no use complaining about that. How about mentioning how dreadfully overused digital coloring (blue and orange, washed out grays and browns oh my!) and lighting effects (fake lens flares anyone?) in movies is now?

 

[Areloch]

*snip*

to be fair i did get you mixed up with Tanis so there are some crossed wires in the posts.

Wow, it's like you didn't actually read what I said and decided to go full 'cooing at a small child' level of patronization.

You must be a real treat to talk to in person too.

don't.

and that's friendly advice as you're new here before you take umbrage.

For the first part: fair enough.

However, to the second part, don't what? Point out that your posts taking on a really obnoxious tone is really obnoxious?
Sorry, but I hate reading that sort of posting tone. I know that it's easy to default to(and really have the urge to use it myself sometimes) but it just comes off as douche-tastic and doesn't do either side of the conversation any favors.

I get you weren't doing it personally, but just pointing it out for you, it's a really unflattering way to have a discussion and a fast way to escalate things.

 

[Olas]

The guy has made his entire career out of nostalgia for sleazy 1970s Grindhouse films. To the point of making Death Proof for the "Grindhouse" double feature which had fake distressing on the movies to make it look like the film was old/worn out etc. Of course he's going to say film is better.

I don't think it's that obvious. You can appreciate a certain visual style without insisting on actually using the format that created it. I kinda hoped in my heart that Tarantino was clear headed enough to realize the difference, but I guess not.

Personally I think film is better artistically in certain circumstances (like since Captain America took place in WW2 it just didn't look right to me not being shot on film) but I realize digital is here to stay. There's no use complaining about that. How about mentioning how dreadfully overused digital coloring (blue and orange, washed out grays and browns oh my!) and lighting effects (fake lens flares anyone?) in movies is now?

But couldn't you just simulate the effect by shooting on film to begin with, then converting to digital without correcting the imperfections? I imagine you could also reproduce the effect artificially in post processing, but I'm sure some people would decry it as being "not the same".

Ultimately it's a very silly mindset. The people who shot old movies on film would probably have loved the digital technology of today, it just didn't exist.

 

[Username Redacted]

Quentin Tarantino: Digital projection is the death of cinema

Film Industry: Pompous auteur who's directed ~4 good movies has an opinion that we give ~0 fucks about.

 

[RicoADF]

A find it rather silly that you are bring up this argument in opposition to digital projection. Since for film you need to transport multiple bulky and heavy film canisters to every movie theater, where as with digital you just send it over existing internet infrastructure. This ignores the fact that you can reuse digital medium, and don't have to use all those chemicals inherent in developing film.

Progress happens in green directions as well, the fact you're talking about it is an example of progress in and of it self.

I think your getting how a movie is made mixed up with how it's delivered to the audience. A film can be recorded on the far superior analogue film and then digitised at the resolution the production team wants, then edited and distributed as you mention. This is like having the negatives of old film cameras, you keep the film stored for safe keeping incase you need them later. The advantage is if you need to upscale the film you can't with a digital copy, a film recorded at 1080p will always be 1080p, but a movie recorded on film and digitised at 1080p can always have a higher resolution digitised at a later date as analogue can be recorded in whatever resolution you want.

In the future when they want to remaster a movie in 100,000k they can just pull out the film and digitise at the far higher, and hard drive consuming, resolution. The only downside of film is they degrade over time, however they can be preserved and kept in good condition, film studios now know how to do this. Not to mention even if the film is damaged, then you still have the previous (hopefully higher res than you needed) digital copy as backup. Using film does not mean ignoring digital, the 2 formats are not mutually exclusive.

Source: Film, media and photography courses I have completed as well as personal experience.

I totally get his romanticizing about film, but just knowing the physical and technical advantages of creating, storing, and transporting digital over film makes me wonder what the hell he was smoking before he opened his mouth.

Please read above, Tarantino is talking about studios using film for recording due to their lack of 'resolution', they can always be upscale with no loss in quality unlike digital, film makes the best master/negative copies as they can always be digitised at whatever resolution they need and then edited. He knows far more about how movies are made than most people on this site (it's his profession after all), I'd suggest people stop and listen rather than condemning someone over a comment they do not understand.

 

[Brennan]

atm you can take any film (on film) from any decade of the 20th and can convert it to any format you wish including any future digital media formats that feature a higher digital display resolutions because film doesn't have "a resolution".

This isn't true. Film does have a max resolution as defined by the film grain. It's different depending on the manufacturing and ISO sensitivity (and frame size of course), but it most certainly does have a finite resolution. It's just not a grid like with pixels: blow up a film image too much, and it starts to break down into a collage of discreet chunks of color just like a digital image. It just looks like sand under a magnifying glass, or the pattern on a piece of galvanized metal, rather than the precise grid of a digital raster-based image.

IIRC your average 35mm film frame has a resolution (in terms of grain size relative to frame size) about equivalent to something in the mid 20s in megapixel terms. If you're shooting or displaying digital in 8k, you're getting a resolution more or less analogous to 35mm film. Right now that's expensive, and fairly demanding in terms of processing, write speed, and storage when you're shooting uncompressed footage for a movie (though storage is still much cheaper space wise than an equivalent amount of 35mm film), but in another ten years, or probably even just five, that won't be the case. Digital filmmakers are already shooting in 8k whenever/wherever they can afford to, which means you have to move the goalposts up to IMAX to retain film supremacy when it comes to base resolution in the near future.

In projection, the irregularity of film grain creates a more abstract resolution that feels more "natural" and thus more easily accepted by our animal brains than a precise pixel grid. And with movies, the the fact that each frame has its own random grain structure allows sequential frames to dither into each other more fluidly inside our brains, whereas a pixel grid is consistent across frames and therefore does not get "lost" to persistence of vision like grain does.

It's likely possible to replicate these effects using something like an exotic new sensor technology that captures and/or encodes pictures in an exotic new non-raster format, but it's more practically likely that ordinary raster resolutions will simply be pushed so high over time that you won't be able to project anything large enough to make a difference (provided you're just not cropping to magnify a small portion of an image) without exceeding the human eye's field of view. Probably just doubling up to 16k would be more than enough to wipe out the difference for 35mm. Dunno what it would take for IMAX.

...But that's assuming no generational degradation when going from the original negatives, to edit print, to distribution print, and so on, which is not the case(extra fun if the film was digitally scanned, then re-printed from processed digital files). The truth is even if you're watching at an early festival showing, you're not even seeing a film print at it's full resolution and clarity, which is why for most ordinary cinemas, digital projection tends to look better than film regardless.

Honestly, resolution isn't a real problem. Compression is. If you have even a 1080p TV at home, and you're not sitting with your face less than a meter away from the screen, any image crappyness you see is probably either bad/flawed compression, or bad/flawed upscaling. Shoddy compression is rampant in the home video world, both online and disc, and it's only gonna get more glaring as resolution goes up. Most stuff online, both video and still images, has been aggressively compressed and/or downsampled to save bandwidth (including stuff like Netflix streaming), so what you see on your computer/TV is 99% of the time not even close to the quality either your monitor/TV or the base image/video formats are actually capable of.