end of an era

The thing I've heard myself say would never happen is finally happening. I think it's pretty safe to say it now: film is on its last legs.

The recent death of Kodak as we know it was like a long sputtering flame going out. Ever since my film school days, people were saying that film was going the way of the dinosaur and ever since then I've fought against it. I've shot every single one of my projects on film (Kodak film, to be precise), including my student projects and a 50-minute documentary.

People told me I was crazy to shoot a documentary on film, but I did it and loved doing it. What the doubters don't realize (because they've never done it) is that you can let the film do most of the work, all you have to do is focus the lens. There were times I worked in such dark conditions I wasn't even getting a reading on my light meter but I would shoot anyway and still get a decent image on my Vision 2 500T 16mm stock. I could shoot almost straight into the sun with my 50D and still get lovely detail in the foreground. I calculated exposure so many times with these two stocks I got so I could guess it within a stop before checking my meter. The only roll I ever had to throw out was fogged because I put it in a plastic can--my own stupid mistake. Most of what I shot turned out beautifully; the same stuff on video would probably have looked completely ordinary.

It's not a simple question of resolution. The number of pixels in the latest video format is not what makes the difference. Film has a magic glow that can't be imitated. It also forces the filmmaker to "get it right". In documentary you must compose your shots properly, you can't just leave the camera running and hope you get something decent. In fiction you can't do a hundred takes or fix every little thing in post. It adds a certain exhilaration to the process that you don't get otherwise.

The first thing to become practically unavailable was the optical blow-up. Then it was 16 mm processing in general. Then black and white (there are only two labs in the world that offer 35mm true black and white processing). Then Kodachrome. They threatened to can the Super-8 format entirely, but relented (with proper marketing they could've triggered a hipster-chic renaissance but instead they dropped the ball). Now, digital intermediates are replacing traditional film finishes, reducing the latitude of the final product and making all movies look the same due to over-done colour correction. The gaffer on the shoot two weeks ago told me he hadn't worked on a short shot on film in four years. Labs are closing or scaling back all over the place. The writing is on the wall.

There are a few advantages to these changes (I will no longer have a closet full of answer prints for example), but overall the movies will lose out when everything is born digital, and not just in terms of image quality. Perhaps another time I will tell you about my experience working in the archives and how celluloid is the only true archival format, but I've had enough ranting for today.

Right now in my fridge I have 1000' of Vision 3 colour stock, four rolls of Kodachrome Super-8 (which can only be processed as black-and-white), a 400' re-can of B&Wh 35mm and 8 rolls of 35mm still film. I am undecided as to whether I should ration it carefully or come up with a project to blow it all while I still can.