Hollywood films still largely shot on film - I didn't know that

[Allen Friday]

The standard frame size for a movie shot on 35 mm film is 16x22 mm. A standard frame from a 35mm still camera is 24x 36 mm. That will cut your calculation down by a bit. It is still a lot of film, however.

[Diapositivo]

The standard frame rate is 24 frames/second in the film industry as far as I know, but television uses 25 frame/second so it might be that TV serials are shot on 25 frames/second to ease conversion.

Sport shooting can go at 120 frames/second or more in order to facilitate slow motion replays.

Most film producers produce film that they don't sell to the cinema industry (Ilford to name a famous one) so at least B&" photography is industrially possible even without the film industry. Which means that even if the entire cinema industry switched to digital, we would still have B&W film.

As far as colour film is concerned, "Rollei" and Ferrania produce colour material and they don't sell to the cinema industry as far as I know.

Fabrizio

[Gaga]

The standard frame rate is 24 frames/second in the film industry as far as I know, but television uses 25 frame/second so it might be that TV serials are shot on 25 frames/second to ease conversion.

Sport shooting can go at 120 frames/second or more in order to facilitate slow motion replays.

Most film producers produce film that they don't sell to the cinema industry (Ilford to name a famous one) so at least B&" photography is industrially possible even without the film industry. Which means that even if the entire cinema industry switched to digital, we would still have B&W film.

As far as colour film is concerned, "Rollei" and Ferrania produce colour material and they don't sell to the cinema industry as far as I know.

Fabrizio

To ease some of the confusion with frame rates.

24p Cinema standard, really it's 23.97 frames per second.
25p PAL TV standard, so europe.
30p NTSC TV Standard, so america and some other places.

[erikg]

Anyone know what's happening in bollywood movie production on this topic?

[Moopheus]

Anyone know what's happening in bollywood movie production on this topic?

The (very vague) impression I get is that Bollywood is starting to move toward digital but is a little behind the curve relative to Hollywood. Just the other day I was reading an article about how the traditional single-screen theaters of India are being squeezed out by newer multiplexes. Presumably at some point when most of the older theaters are gone, they'll find it worthwhile to invest in digital projectors and all the rest.

[Tim Gray]

(and one of the main claims to fame of digital video cameras is their "overcranking" capabilities - up to 120 fps on the cheapest Red cameras and up to 600 fps on the Phantom - this is much harder or impossible to do with film).

This is only recently true. Even just a couple years ago it was hard to get a digital cinema camera that could run at those speeds. Cue the story about Apocalypto (Mel Gibson movie) from 2006 where they couldn't get their camera to run at high enough frame rates to do convincing slow motion, so they ran them as fast as they could and then acted 'slow' on top of it.

For quite a long time, film was king when it came to high speed. It's only very very recently that this has changed. Particularly with the Phantom cameras, which is from a company that has a background in scientific high speed cameras, if I recall correctly.

More importantly, film is still used in Hollywood, and on TV. TV shows that are shot in film off the top of my head: 2 1/2 men, Big Bang Theory, Mad men, Burn Notice (16mm). There are plenty of others. The Hurtlocker is a recent example of a big movie shot on 16mm. I think Black Swan was 16mm too. Most of the other Hollywood movies are done on 35mm. Any thing by Christopher Nolan or Spielberg will be on film - Nolan has been using more IMAX. Obvious exceptions to the rule are usually obvious: 300, the recent Star Wars movies, other really effects heavy films. Peter Jackson and Lucas are VERY pro digital.

If you are ever interested, go to a movie/show's IMDB page and look for the technical specs link. They usually show the camera and film stock used.

The NFL is recorded in film too - Not the live games obviously. NFL Films films every game on multiple 16mm cameras, many at 120 fps. They shoot something like 23 miles of film every week during the season. Here's a recent story on it:

http://www.theblackandblue.com/2011/...-of-nfl-films/

[Tim Gray]

To ease some of the confusion with frame rates.

24p Cinema standard, really it's 23.97 frames per second.
25p PAL TV standard, so europe.
30p NTSC TV Standard, so america and some other places.

Actually, cinema IS 24 fps. Cinema shown on TV is 23.98 fps. Most digital cameras that record at '24p' are usually doing it at 23.98 fps.

They have it easier in Europe - it's all 25 fps - cinema and video. Though when they show Hollywood movies, they are sped up from 24 fps to 25.

Lastly, NTSC is run at 29.97 fps. (In reality it's called 60i, and is an interlaced image at 59.94 fps - but it looks like 29.97 to our eyes.) The 'p' denotes progressive, as opposed to 'i' for interlaced. But 30p does run at 29.97 too.

Thats what the 'i' and 'p's mean after 1080i, 1080p, 720p, etc. for HD standards.

[Steve Smith]

Any thing by Christopher Nolan or Spielberg will be on film

I can vaguely recall reading something about Spielberg saying that he would never shoot a film in digital.


Steve.

[Markster]

Does it really matter if it's exposed on digital or film? The end result is edited and then printed onto yet MORE film anyways. The majority of movies shown in theaters are running off of film projectors. Even with digital projectors becoming more normal nowadays, they still mostly run finished film in front of the light to see it on the screen.

So IMO that film you initially shoot with is only half of the equation (or the digital cameras, etc).


P.S. Justified on FX also shot on film. AMC's The Walking Dead also shot on film (16mm, was it? Or did they go 35mm?) and a number of others. It really does add to the picture quality most times.

[Klainmeister]

Isn't IMAX films shot on essentially thousands of feet of 120 film?