Roger Ebert: After 3D, here is the future of film

I feel bad for those guys. Of course their film system is better than the existing digital system, but it is more or less doomed to failure.<p>The problem is that digital came to be not because of the quality or anything that has to do with the movie goer but because it is much cheaper and much more convenient for studios. Now studios do not have to worry about printing film and deciding how much film to print.<p>They do not have to get into situations where a bunch of theatres showing a high budget movie stay empty and a hot selling small movie keeps selling out tickets, but they cannot open new theaters for the small movie because they did not know it would be so hot and did not print enough film copies for it.<p>Now they can open as many theaters as they want for the hot movies, thus immediately satisfy demand without rushing to print new copies, waiting for the new copies, etc.<p>So yes, digital is here to stay. Not because it looks better (it mostly doesn't), but because it is more convenient for studios and theaters.<p>And if 3D does not work, the movie theaters will probably crank up the resolution again but they will keep it digital.

I got giddy when I saw 48 fps. Resolution is nice, but I'm one of those people who constantly notices flicker at 24 fps.<p>It shouldn't be difficult to convert a movie shot on this film to digital, so here's what I'd do: Let Chris Nolan (or whoever's interested) shoot a movie on it, then convert it to digital. Next, do some A/B testing. Select a smallish number of theatres in major markets who would be showing his film on multiple screens and install the needed projectors in one of them. Advertise the choice in those theatres only, and see what happens. If the director likes it, they'll probably talk about it in the press, so that's free advertising right there. If the experience really is that much better, you should see higher viewership for the MaxiVision screenings. After that, it's an easy sell to the studio execs. In all, they spend a trivial amount of money to do some A/B testing and get usable results.<p>Granted, the studios are conservative and often myopic or flat-out wrong (3d), but even they shouldn't have too much trouble seeing whether it's a good (cheap) investment or not.

Film has one huge disadvantage: scratches.<p>I was brought up in Scotland in the UK where we would have to wait until a film had been around the US and the South of England before we got to see it. It would often be scratched, would jump, would break and sometimes would have had whole scenes butchered in a hasty repair job.<p>Digital film has made this a thing of the past (and Piracy has made simultaneous World-wide releases a necessity).

Let's take a closer look at part of this argument: 24fps compared to 48fps and resolution. The article, to be honest, feels like it was copied out of a marketing document. If you look at the chart where they reference the RED system and use an interesting chart to 'prove' their system has higher resolution, you'll notice a few flaws.<p>1. They're using the double frame rate to argue that the resolution is 4x larger then the 24fps framerate, which simply isn't true. It may provide a better picture quality, but that is certainly subjective and depends on the film and how it was shot.<p>2. They're at 4K right now, moving to a 5K film system. RED is at a 5K 24fps system, heading towards 5K 120fps and up to 28K resolution. They can't compare their future plans with RED's current offerings without some logical problems. He does mention RED's future plans, but suggests that studios should use his finishing format with the new RED system (instead of other options that are equally viable).

With all due respect, this has no grounds in reality. As comment there pointed out Trumbull did a 70mm showscan format <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Showscan" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Showscan</a> that was superior to anything in existence then, but it didn't lift off. IMAX also has 70mm (and now digital) and 70mm never took off in mainstream productions.<p>3D, for now, is here to stay. And it's not a war on resolution now, but frame rate. Many filmmakers would be more than happy to shoot/show at 2-perf, but 48fps than 4-perf at 24 fps, since 3D strobing, while panning, is reduced like that. 2K IS enough, for now - as majority of productions show. Convergence of film res and HDTV res at 2K~1080p is what drives 2K now, as is the available equipment (IMAX specific productions are an exception). Occasional shots are shot in 5K (like in Batman Dark Knight), but that's rare.<p>Eventually, resolution will take off to greater heights, but now it's step locked with 1080p - and that's the way things are.

Ebert's heart is in the right place, but there are a number of reasons why his heart just isn't in the same place as the motion picture industry.<p>He outlines a few, and others have been mentioned in other comments here, but what I see as being most harmful for advanced film technology is green screening. So many of the most recent summer blockbuster movies are just shot against a green screen and essentially animated in post. Shoot a few actors delivering their dialog and a few crushing blows against the backdrop and animate the entire picture in CGI. It's a horrific way to make a movie, but it seems to please audiences enough.<p>These movies may not gross big numbers at the box office, but they turn a profit because they're cheap to make. Shooting the live action bits in digital make the entire process easier as well.<p>Cinematography is, unfortunately, a dying art. Capturing gorgeous images on the best recording medium available and projecting them through the best glass with the purest light possible just isn't important to the big production companies. Instead, "churn and burn" is the name of the game. it's akin to the old pulp comics of years past, where good storytelling and artwork gave way to shock value to generate sales. If movies aren't there yet, they're close.

It turns out that the encoding of the current Digital Cinema files is so bad that Blu-ray ends up being better. Many indie houses are making Blu-Rays instead and sending them to the cinemas.<p>That said there's no reason why they could do it right and have high quality digital 48fps. In fact we could do it right now with x264 and other tools, but I guess we don't have enough layers of DRM for that to happen.

Earlier Ebert rants against 3D sound just like the studios when sound was being proposed. Lots of rationalizations.<p>Young moviegoers learn to like 3D. Never mind what the scientists say. They adapt. Similar to playing 3D video games - weird at first, then you get it.<p>Ebert felt ill watching 3D movies. Probably can't play immersive video games either. No surprise he predicts the demise of 3D movies.<p>48FPS? Never mind theatres - when netflix can sell it, it may happen.

I'm not convinced the average consumer cares enough about quality to throw enough dollars at it. Look at how mp3 has vaporized CD sales.

The movie theater is fighting a battle with home and currently 3D is their answer. Is it the best answer? Most films who use 3D these days add it on later and it is done pretty poorly. I find it an interesting proposal, something should be done to continue making going to the cinema an experience.

I wonder how much of this can be done with computer power. Upscaling, frame interpolation (25 to 48 fps), it is all possible. There will be a threshold of what people cannot see/experience. But I think computer power will keep costs lower than highres, high framerate camera's/studio's.

48fps sounds cool. But why do you need to use a film projector to get that? I would expect digital projection systems to handle it fine.