the question that haunts film makers, film or digi

[nigel]

I get emails saying shot your film on 35mm or 16mm or just film man!, but it costs too much, after watching American Movie I had a look around for Bolex and saw you can get a cheap one for 100 pounds compered to the ARRI SR1 or 2 which is like 4k to hire one.
But then again film it self is expencive.

Or

I could buy a Xl1 or PD150 go digital, then maybe if someone buys it they could spend the 50k to transfer it to film. With digital you can shoot take after take, but then in short "its not film".
But lol i could go on all day, your digital camcodra is a asset so if you get bored or low on money you could alway sell it.

I hear a lot about Robert R, and his $7,000 movie, but that was over in Mexico USA where its cheap anyway, I dont think anyone could ever match that in the UK on film anyway, maybe on digital....who knows.

Just before i go, i remember Robert R in one of his docs, says how HD is going to be the new revolution and kids getting brought up on it will expect better quiality pictures and cgi packed, this is pretty much true in one way as now twenty years down the line all of the new star wars are digital and everyone seem to have gone cgi fu*kin mad.

[rjschwarz]

Couple of points about Robert Rodruigez. He filmed without sound and then synced sound later so if the Actors screwed up he could fake it in the cuts. And they were in Spanish. This allowed him to get a very low ratio of shots to useable shots. He also borrowed the camera he used and had the Distributer pay to have the film blown up for movie presentation. The 7K figure doesn't cover a lot of that sort of thing.

28 Days later is a digital film made using a Canon X1. It's lit so well it's hard to tell except when the camera is used especially to create the stuttering zombie effect. He used film at the very tail end and I never noticed the difference until the audo commentary. That camera can be found on eBay for under two thousand American. Having said that I think Danny Boyle went back to film for the pictures that followed.

Both have pluses and minuses. I think the ability to set up quick, not worry as much about lighting, and the inexpensive cost of the tape and camera, make digital better for super low budget movies. One of Lloyd Kauffman's books has a long debate about the subject, it's worth looking into.

[nigel]

yeah i know what you mean ive heard the commantery and read that book. A lot of directors are going digital cos they can make money from there films. I think you need experiance with film.

[MarkG]

Actually, as of the last few months, the choice is a lot easier . If you have no budget, shoot DV, if you have a small budget, shoot HDV... if you have lots and lots of budget shoot HD or film.

"I had a look around for Bolex and saw you can get a cheap one for 100 pounds"

Probably the good old-fashioned clockwork Bolex: the downside is you can only shoot about 90 seconds at a time, and you won't get sync sound. But I think that's the camera Peter Jackson used on his first feature, and he managed to get the dialog to sync up pretty well.

Either way, I'd strongly consider shooting HD over shooting film. Film doesn't have that many benefits (mostly a better latitude for high-contrast scenes), but it does have a lot of annoying limitations (e.g. not being able to see what you're shooting, and having to wait a day even to see what you shot!).