What About Thad?

Jerry Beck has posted on an issue very dear to me — the issue of film projection versus digital projection. (I know its main focus is the non-issue of whether 3-D is a faddish gimmick or not (FYI, it is), but this part was more interesting to me.)

Quite honestly, the only people who see this as a non-issue have never actually threaded a projector themselves. They don’t understand the beauty of being able to see and hold each frame of film; nor do they understand what an event it is to see a print projected.

Technology will march on. Give it a decade and, wow, you won’t believe the “film-like brilliance” of the latest digital projector. But if you’re into cinema history, and you’re a collector of classic films, who gives a shit? The films in question are not made to be shown on video. They are not digital. They are of the resolution they were created in (or close enough for us small-timers via 16mm).

Over and over I have the wonderful ability to blow people away by showing them the REAL THING, that’s right, the REAL THING, not a video replica (all video is is a replica). There is aesthetic (and cultural) value to presenting films in their original film format – period! (Which is why I’ve been weeding the Eastman stock out of my collection, because I can’t justify screening things that unquestionably have better color on DVD.) This “neato old stuff I still have” part is insignificant in the, well, big picture for many of us.

One more thing to think about: film may deteriorate in bad storage conditions, but in all but the absolute worst cases is the film not un-runnable, and I’ve been able to project horribly cared for films dating back to the 1910s. I’m lucky if a DVD I leave on my dorm room floor over night will actually work the next day.

A final thought: thousands of movies, thousands of hard drives, thousands of man-hours necessary to repeatedly back up/migrate/inventory these constantly-needed backups.

Unlike a 35mm neg. Which you put on the shelf and walk away from for 100 years.