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Author Topic: The "I hate digital" rant thread Matt Fields Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 545 From: Ohio, United States Registered: Jun 2005 posted 08-13-2010 07:19 PM                     Please place all "I hate digital" comments here so you don't have to comment every time someone has a problem with their digital projection equipment.  |  IP: Logged Carl Martin Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1424 From: Oakland, CA, USA Registered: Feb 2002 posted 08-14-2010 04:46 AM                        i hate digital.  |  IP: Logged Randy Stankey Film God Posts: 6539 From: Erie, Pennsylvania Registered: Jun 99 posted 08-14-2010 08:31 AM                     I hate digital because it causes people to think that making movies, pictures and multimedia is easy, it doesn't take any real work to do it and that any idiot can do it. Then they try it and fuck it all up. I have to come in and clean up their mess and it looks like it's all my fault. Digital projectors need to be fitted with some kind of difficult-looking controls. It should be a series of complicated buttons and knobs that have to be adjusted just the right way or else the system won't work. That way, most people will keep their cotton-picking hands off and those who don't can be punished for tinkering.  |  IP: Logged Martin McCaffery Film God Posts: 2481 From: Montgomery, AL Registered: Jun 99 posted 08-14-2010 09:13 AM                        Yea! Back To Vinyl! This is the right forum for this, isn't it?  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 08-14-2010 02:28 PM                     MArtin.... You're close... just think Vitaphone instead!  |  IP: Logged Monte L Fullmer Film God Posts: 8367 From: Nampa, Idaho, USA Registered: Nov 2004 posted 08-14-2010 02:44 PM                     It degrades the job down from "film handler" to "button or touch screen" pusher... ..but at least, you don't hear the repetitive 24FPS film chatter when you'r in a room with 8 machines going all at once..0 -Monte  |  IP: Logged Aaron Mehocic Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 804 From: New Castle, PA, USA Registered: Jun 99 posted 08-14-2010 04:25 PM                     It has forced me to wake up from my 20+ years of being in film coma to make me ask "what will happen to this place after I am gone?" . . .  |  IP: Logged Bruce Hansen Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 847 From: Stone Mountain, GA, USA Registered: Dec 1999 posted 08-14-2010 06:08 PM                     Digital is just a fad. 0 = nothing, 1 = very close to nothing.  |  IP: Logged Tony Bandiera Jr Film God Posts: 3067 From: Moreland Idaho Registered: Apr 2004 posted 08-14-2010 07:48 PM                     quote: Matt Fields Please place all "I hate digital" comments here so you don't have to comment every time someone has a problem with their digital projection equipment. Screw that, I'm still gonna comment on the stupidity of D-Crapema in any and all applicable threads. And yes I hate digital.  |  IP: Logged Matt Fields Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 545 From: Ohio, United States Registered: Jun 2005 posted 08-14-2010 09:18 PM                     Well, it was worth a shot!  |  IP: Logged Jason Metcalfe Expert Film Handler Posts: 134 From: Austin, TX, U.S. Registered: May 2010 posted 08-14-2010 09:40 PM                     The nail in the coffin will be the first big studio picture distributed solely on a digital format. I don't hate digital cinema but I do hate 3-D, which I pray is nothing more than a fad.  |  IP: Logged Carl Martin Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1424 From: Oakland, CA, USA Registered: Feb 2002 posted 08-15-2010 01:21 AM                        well, the new "restoration" of metropolis is only being distributed digitally, on blu-ray apparently. i hear reports of artifacting and freeze-frames galore.  |  IP: Logged Demetris Thoupis Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1240 From: Aradippou, Larnaca, Cyprus Registered: Apr 2001 posted 08-15-2010 02:11 AM                     I cannot say I hate digital because I like to embrace all possibilities the Digital offers that film cannot and vice versa. I find film installations more challenging than Digital and I always believe that film rules. But we cannot close our eyes to the emerging technology. We find Digital threating to our profession. In a summary.... digital is good but not as good as film YET. Demetris  |  IP: Logged Ron Curran Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 504 From: Springwood NSW Australia Registered: Feb 2006 posted 08-15-2010 02:45 AM                        The difference is that the introduction of sound early last century, and CinemaScope in the middle, involved massive investments that paid off. They made a massive difference to the cinema experience. The punters are not plonking down dollars to see a movie because it is shot and/or projected digitally. They buy The Concept. That can be a great story, a special event or Avatar 3D. Sometimes The Pitch can be The Concept … Arnold and Danny - Twins. Poitier - Guess Who's Coming To Dinner. D-cinema is about saving money for film studios/distributors, so it is inevitable. The challenge for exhibitors is to design methods of saving or making money from such a large investment. I am not sure about the alternative content route; after all, if distributors are footing part of the conversion bill, they will want their product unspooling through the projector as often as possible. There will be space savings in new builds because there will be no need for a platter, rewind bench or print storage. There will also be staff savings; this is where single screen operators will win. The multis are already operating on minimum staff - that is why they exist. Our experience with e-cinema shows us that we can operate with the tech guy on the door. He has to be in the booth at start time for a film show (OK, he doesn't HAVE to be but we insist on it). So he can do double duty and have contact with the paying customers. There is also the possibility of flexible programming. Holding on to a film print for subsequent limited screenings can be lucrative. We have done this with independent films; validated with an e-mail to the distributor, with advantages to both parties. Whether the majors would trust us with such a proposition is debatable. The bottom line is that home cinema is capable of better image and sound than the prints or files will deliver to our audience. So cinemas should be showing 70mm Vision Premiere prints. The cost of converting to that model is about half of converting to d-cinema. This is not going to happen.  |  IP: Logged Frank Angel Film God Posts: 5305 From: Brooklyn NY USA Registered: Dec 1999 posted 08-15-2010 10:34 AM                        quote: Jason Metcalfe The nail in the coffin will be the first big studio picture distributed solely on a digital format. And a studio would do this because....? Every screen, no matter the format MAKES THEM MONEY. When they open their tentpole titles hoping to make that 50, 60, 70 million in a single weekend, that takes every screen they can get their product onto. You make money by making your product available to as many of the buying public as possible, be it movies or baked beans. You don't make money by saying, "Oh, am not going to put my baked beans in that super market because I don't like the shelves they use. You FIGHT to put your product on as many shelves as possible. Until the cost of making and distributing prints is more than the potential for earned income by that print, the studios will still sell their product using film as well as hard drives. And please remember, the rest of the world is also part of the equation -- in poorer countries with worse economies (are there ANY countries nowadays with economies that are worse than ours?), they may be needing film prints for quite some time out. And I admit, everyone seems to have his own pet take on the life of film vs digital, but it's all based on alchemy -- saying that film will last for the next 50 years or that it will be gone sooner rather than later, is all pure speculation and one guy's guess is as facetious as the next.  |  IP: Logged

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