Comment by lordwiz
Film formats still rule, but I’m curious what comes next. What I’m seeing in the mainstream is large-format 65 mm / IMAX 70 mm film, which feels like a premium big-screen experience, almost too premium to access nearby.
Film formats still rule, but I’m curious what comes next. What I’m seeing in the mainstream is large-format 65 mm / IMAX 70 mm film, which feels like a premium big-screen experience, almost too premium to access nearby.
I'm sure there are still some stubborn old directors shooting movies on film but aren't most shot digitally today? And even those shot on film are surely immediately scanned so post processing can be done digitally? Can't imagine anyone is still sitting with razor blades and splicing tape putting scenes together.
One Battle After Another was shot and released on VistaVision. Sideways 35mm basically.
VistaVision is being used more often as a cheaper way to get to IMAX or 70mm projections sizes. The gear and filmstock is less expensive for production and you can laser out to the other formats at roughly the same resolution you capture at.
Film formats are out for a long time already. No cinema has film projectors, everybody went digital only already. Only very very few still can do 70mm for the tiny percentage of superstar vintage directors.
Super 16 was one of the best formats. All the film schools had only 16 mm cameras, certainly not 35mm. And all the best revolutionary 70ies productions were shot on cheap 16mm in natural light. This changed with Spielberg and the new blockbuster approach, and then the depressing Reagan years when everybody went back into the studio with huge lighting efforts and psychological dramas.
Mumblecore and Dogma 95 brought back some pure 16mm with post blowup efforts (cinemas only had 35mm projectors then), but digital with the Arri Alexa and Red killed that. Next is better projector technology for cheap. The format and camera wars are over.