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Topic: You are not a filmmaker, unless you are shooting and editing real film
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Raleigh M. Christopher
Expert Film Handler
Posts: 130
From: New York, NY, USA
Registered: Jan 2016
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posted June 27, 2016 06:10 PM
I can't agree with you. So many people are apologists for digital. With film, you are actually recording the effects of lightwaves. It IS more natural. Digital is NOT natural, at all. It's merely a computer's approximation/interpretation of reality, while film actually records the reality of the effects of lightwaves, just as a record is a physical representation of a soundwave.
The world is analog by nature. The way your eyes and ears see and hear is an anlog organic process. Little 0's and 1's are not floating around in the atmosphere. Digital and Analog are not equals, in any way, shape or form. Analog will always be more natural and superior to the harsh, artificiality of digital.
Think of a shadow. It's a bright sunny day, and there is a tree standing next to your house. The light from the sun hits the tree, and an image of that tree is projected onto the wall of your house. It's not in color it's merely a shadow - light versus an absence of light. Never the less, an image is created, an impression left. This is a wholly natural process. Think of the shadow as like black-and-white film. It's not in color but nevertheless the image, or an impression, is left behind. This is the same way that film works. These colored dyes and silver hallide crystals are sensitive to light waves and an image or an impression of those light waves are left on the film. With digital it is a completely artificial process. A computer chip merely interpreting reality, spitting out "000 11 01001 11110001 00000 111111" etc. There is no way it can be argued that film is just as artificial as digital.
Your ears hear because a little bone in your head vibrates when sound waves hit it. Just like a stylus vibrates to cut a groove into a master platter to record a soundwave. Conversly, the stylus vibrates from the physical representation of the soundwave to recreate a real, natural soundwave.
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Tom Spielman
Master Film Handler
Posts: 339
From: Minneapolis, MN, USA
Registered: Apr 2016
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posted June 28, 2016 01:15 AM
I recommend you do a few google searches using questions like: "Is the brain analog or digital?", "Is the body analog or digital?", or "Is life analog or digital?"
You might be surprised at the results. Your body uses electrical signals to communicate information from one part to another or to store it. There are both analog and digital components to these transmissions. The are some neuroscientists that think that certain parts of the brain work more digitally while others work in analog.
So no, analog isn't more "natural" than digital. Our brains don't use binary computation or anything like that. But using "on" and "off" as meaningful states is very much a part of our nervous system just like it is in the digital world.
Either way, film is a technology used to store the patterns of light that passed through a lens at a certain place and time. It stores them in a way that can be used to create a small scale simulation of those same light patterns later on. But it is very much a man made technology.
In digital camcorders, a CMOS sensor, wiring, CPU, and flash storage do the same thing. Arguably more like the human iris, optic nerve, and brain would do it (while still being very different).
A film projector is a very mechanical beast and for movies in particular there is nothing natural or even analog about 24 frames per second. It's close enough for eyes and brains to interpret it like we would the natural world with the help of our imaginations but anyone can tell the difference.
Our eyes and brains don't really work in fps but faster frame rates start to look less like a movie to us and more real. Some people are attached to 24 fps, not because it's more natural, but because it's more "cinematic". It looks like what we are used to thinking of when we think of a movie.
The "natural" argument really falls flat for me when you think about what movies largely replaced, - live theater. Imagine someone arguing about how "natural" film is to a proponent of live theater back in the 20's.
[ June 28, 2016, 09:08 AM: Message edited by: Tom Spielman ]
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Raleigh M. Christopher
Expert Film Handler
Posts: 130
From: New York, NY, USA
Registered: Jan 2016
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posted June 28, 2016 09:47 AM
I still don't agree with you. Analog is and always will be a natural way of recoding and reproducing light and soundwaves. Digital is not. And our bodies are not digital. That is prepostorous nonsense made up by digital apologists.
Film is man made, but the process is natural.
Of course live theatre is even more faithful to reality. Those are real live flesh and bone human beings walking around in space. That doesn't negate the artificiality of digital video.
Analog, as a concept, takes in all information. Digital by it's very nature lacks and cannot display all information. Think of a an analog clock versus a digital clock. The sweep of the second hand as it moves from one second to the next, covers to infinity, evey division of time. With a digital clock, it is IMPOSSIBLE. You can only extend the decimal place out another step. And no matter how far out the decimal place is extended, it will always lack. Forever.
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Tom Spielman
Master Film Handler
Posts: 339
From: Minneapolis, MN, USA
Registered: Apr 2016
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posted June 28, 2016 06:04 PM
quote:
Yes, it is a completely analog process, because those silver halide cyrstals are light sensitive, and change physically when light hits them the first time. When white light is then passed over them again in reverse, the original light waves that changed the crystals in the first place are recreated.
The original light waves are approximated and that is true whether it's an analog process or a digital one. It's the methods that differ. Both rely on light sensitive materials. With film, the light causes chemical reactions. In the case of digital cameras, it's an electrical reaction.
The reason I'm saying that capturing movies on film isn't analog (the way I define it) is because you aren't capturing the light continuously. You are capturing it at specific intervals, - like 24 frames per second. It very much resembles the way analog audio is digitized. In that case you're sampling the audio signal every so many thousandths of a second. With film you're sampling the light every 1/24th of a second. In that way filming is more like a digital process. Note that I didn't say binary. I said digital.
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Raleigh M. Christopher
Expert Film Handler
Posts: 130
From: New York, NY, USA
Registered: Jan 2016
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posted June 29, 2016 07:20 AM
How about a still photogtaph taken on medium format film. Are you going to claim that is "digital" too?
I need to understand how you personally are defining analog.
Here is one definition of analog:
"Home : Technical Terms : Analog Definition
Analog
As humans, we perceive the world in analog. Everything we see and hear is a continuous transmission of information to our senses. This continuous stream is what defines analog data. Digital information, on the other hand, estimates analog data using only ones and zeros.
For example, a turntable (or record player) is an analog device, while a CD player is digital. This is because a turntable reads bumps and grooves from a record as a continuous signal, while a CD player only reads a series of ones and zeros. Likewise, a VCR is an analog device, while a DVD player is digital. A VCR reads audio and video from a tape as a continuous stream of information, while a DVD player just reads ones and zeros from a disc.
Since digital devices read only ones and zeros, they can only approximate an audio or video signal. This means analog data is actually more accurate than digital data. However, digital data can can be manipulated easier and preserved better than analog data."
The last half of the last statement about digital data being able to be preserved "better" than analog data is highly suspect and dubious, however.
http://techterms.com/definition/analog
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Osi Osgood
Film God
Posts: 10204
From: Mountian Home, ID.
Registered: Jul 2005
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posted June 29, 2016 12:21 PM
That's an interesting thought. I guess you'd have to define what "film" means. Is "film" an actual piece of celluloid, or is "film" referring to a storyline, as many people consider the term "film".
If it's in the "story-line' vein, then yes, digital can be considered film, or be used in the expression, "making a film" ....
... without film. ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
--------------------
"All these moments will be lost in time, just like ... tears, in the rain. "
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Raleigh M. Christopher
Expert Film Handler
Posts: 130
From: New York, NY, USA
Registered: Jan 2016
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posted June 29, 2016 01:42 PM
I don't think we can have this debate if you keep insisting that the human body pervceives sound and lightwaves in a digital fashion. It's just absurd.
Also, in your comparison earlier between film and digital video, it seemed you were trying to make the case that analog was just as artificial as digital or that digital was somehow just as analog as film. The difference is that once the lightwaves hit the light sensitive dyes and crystals, and they are physically changed, the buck stops there. And you have an image, an impression, that can be read instantly, is perceivable instantly, by the human eye. CCD's measure light intensity, but then there is a chip saying "okay, I'm going to assign that one a value of 01, and the next 101, and the next 1110, then 0100001 etc. It's digital that is an approximation, not film. It's funny too because people who defend digital always make the "you can't perceive it anyway" argument, admitting that digital is incomplete and not natural.
And you never addressed the question of a still photograph. And how about the groove, the physical representation of the sound wave, literally, in a vinyl LP versus a digital file? Do our ears hear "digitally".
Yes both film and digital video operate with frames and it's the persistence of vision that creates the illusion of movement. But the argument is about the manner in which light and sound waves are recorded, and film being a more natural process of recording lightwaves with greater fidelity.
Also, you are mixing up terms digital and binary. Digital is 0's and 1's. Binary can be on or off, red or blue, black or white. You see the difference there?
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