By Bob Zahn, April 29, 2004
The most coveted prize in the motion picture industry is called Oscar. It's an award that is bestowed on outstanding filmmakers-artists, technicians, and crafts people-annually in a ceremony at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Imagine being cited by a body of your peers for outstanding achievement in your field. Indeed it's a very heady moment. Few ever reach this amazing plateau, this Pantheon of moving-image excellence. But imagine for just one moment the energizing impact, the change in palpitation of one's heartbeat, the millions of eyes suddenly turned upon you, the dazed walk to the stage, the cameras, the lights, the attention, and the glow of winning the gold: "I want to thank the members of the Academy...."
"No way," you say? Why? Is it because you're a digital filmmaker? Well, don't despair: Digital filmmaking has already won the Oscar, and this will no doubt be the case in the future as well. I'm not even referring to the heavily computer-generated portions of this year's mega-winner, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King or to such fully computer-generated films as Finding Nemo or Shrek, which won the Best Animated Feature Film Awards this year and in 2001, respectively. I'm referring to documentaries.
This year's Oscar for Best Documentary Feature went to director Errol Morris' Fog of War, much of which was shot with Sony HDCAM CineAlta HDW F900 24p cameras. Two other Oscar-nominated documentaries were also shot digitally; Nathanial Kahn and Susan Behr's My Architect was filmed with a Sony BVW-D600 Betcam SP camcorder (it records analog but uses digital signal processing in its camera) and Sandy McLeod and Gini Reticker's short Asylum was shot primarily with a Sony DSR-PD150 DVCAM camcorder. And lest we forget, last year's documentary winner, Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine, also made heavy use of HDW-F900s.
These are reasons why these are watershed times for the acceptance of digital documentary filmmaking. The documentary is a pure and passionate form of filmmaking that easily lends itself to digital technology. The reason is not glamorous or aesthetic, but rather quite simple: It's less expensive to get the "film into the can" digitally than it is with celluloid. Digital field-acquisition technology is highly portable and simple for anyone to use. And the video-to-film transfer process has improved significantly with the introduction of such technologies as the ARRI Laser and the CELCO recorders. As a matter of fact, due to its cost and quality, digital camcorder technology is about the most democratic motion picture medium there is. As Spike Lee said in the cover article "Digital Spike" in the premiere issue of Digital Cinema magazine (October 2000): "Yeah, you have no excuse. You know, if you want to be a filmmaker, there it is."
Remaining Roadblocks
At the risk of losing your attention while I go on about the "unglamorous" and "unsexy" nature of documentaries, let me continue. Personally, I feel there's more-and better-content in documentary films that "educates, entertains, and enlivens" than in all art forms combined-except for books and other forms of the written word. As an associate member of the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) I have to add, however, that the tools and technology of digital filmmaking have one generation at least to go before they're ready to win the Oscar in the form of filmmaking most traditionalists covet-narrative storytelling. To be embraced by my brothers and sisters in the ASC, the quality of digital cinema capture technology must be good enough-or better-than 35mm motion picture film, which is quite rightly the "holy grail" of our industry (at least for today).
In my opinion field acquisition is the key to the acceptance of digital cinema
. Today capture technology is based on three 2/3-inch CCD image devices that are contained in a beam-splitting prism. Right there is the roadblock to the general and wide acceptance of digital cinema by ASC members that, indeed, are responsible for the images that earn billions upon billions of dollars for the motion picture industry.
Today companies such as Dalsa, Arriflex, Panavision, and others are spearheading a drive to design, fabricate, build, and bring to market 24p or higher-frame-rate digital cameras built around a single 25mm (diagonal) or larger full-color sensor that will allow for the use of traditional 35mm PL-mount prime and zoom film lenses along with optical viewfinders. Combining their expertise in camera design and intimate knowledge of important features-such as variable speed/ramping, variable shutter, extreme heat and cold, and the prerequisite sensor design to accommodate greater dynamic range/contrast ratio and fidelity of color rendition-the result will be a digital camera that will gain the attention of ASC DPs as a viable alternative to 35mm film acquisition.
The race is also on to design, fabricate, build, and bring to market a media-storage device that can record the huge amount of data contained in these images with full-bandwidth, lossless information in an energy-
efficient, compact, and cost-effective platform. That's a hurdle even larger than the camera portion of the equation. If there's any roadblock to the acceptance of digital cinema by ASC members, those two are it. When solved, they'll be the foundation for building a great digital camera system. And-again-let's qualify that by saying that the digital cinema I'm talking about is narrative filmmaking, the art form most responsible for the vast majority of Oscars awarded to the filmmakers at the Annual Academy Awards ceremony. This is not to say that the quality of today's generation of digital cameras and camcorders isn't good enough to make excellent films capable of winning the Best Picture Award. What really wins the Academy Award for Best Picture is a compelling story. Let's always remember: Content is king.
I am confident that the race to build high-quality capture and storage devices will see a significant breakthrough within the next few years. And immediately following that we will see Oscars awarded to narrative motion pictures captured digitally and filmed by ASC members. Digital cinema will have advanced to a point that's "as good" or "better" than 35mm celluloid has been for the past 100 years. At then digital filmmaking will truly have arrived for the Hollywood, with the national and international filmmaking community competing each year for Oscars at the annual Academy Awards.
Oh yes, the last hurdle to the acceptance of digital cinema will be encryption, distribution, display devices, and a quality controlled methodology for uniformity of display. But that's a different part of the crossword puzzle covered by this publication, so stay tuned, keep the faith, and remember: The best is yet to come. I guarantee it!
My personal thanks to Brian McKernan, Editor, who truly has carried the struggle of advancing digital cinema forward with his commitment to this magazine. n
Bob Zahn is the President of BVR (Broadcast Video Rentals, Ltd.), a New York-based service company of "People and Equipment That Work" providing digital imaging solutions to distinguished local, national, and international filmmakers since 1980. In addition to being an Associate Member of the American Society of Cinematographers, Zahn is also on the Board of Directors of the Production Equipment Rental Association (PERA), an Editorial Advisor to Digital Cinema magazine, a Member of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS), a Member of the Audio Engineering Society (AES), a Member of the New York Production Partnership (NYPP), and a hands-on filmmaker.
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