Christopher Nolan Says Digital Is All About Money, Not Quality
http://movies.msn.com/movies/article.aspx?news=735114&affid=100055
The rush to digital and the degrading of the movie-theater experience is devaluing the work of filmmakers, director Christopher Nolan told the audience at the Producers Guild of America's Produced By Conference on Saturday.
"I want to work with the best possible image quality, and that's film," Nolan insisted. "Film has the most range, the highest resolution by far. But you won't hear that, because there's no money in sticking with the old format.
"There's a huge danger to this, and it's being motivated by economic pressure."
In the hour-long session with his producer Emma Thomas, Nolan – who also famously refuses to shoot in 3D – said that he is so old-school he insists on printing and showing dailies at the end of every day's shoot. He also refuses to use digital intermediates, a step that is almost mandatory for special effects work, because he says they degrade the image quality.
"We're seeing an incredibly rapid and precipitous shift based purely on the economics of production," said Nolan of the push to digital filmmaking. "We're being forced to buy [digital] cameras like they're iPads or iPhones, but that's not what's best for the audience."
The filmgoing experience, he added, is also being hurt by the poor quality of projection in many theaters, and by pre-show advertisements.
"I went to a theater last weekend, and they were showing ads for TV shows on the screen," he said. "They really are treating it like you're sitting there in your living room. We're reducing it to 2K [digital] projectors that show ads for TV shows, and that runs the risk of devaluing what we do as filmmakers."
http://movies.msn.com/movies/article.aspx?news=735114&affid=100055
The rush to digital and the degrading of the movie-theater experience is devaluing the work of filmmakers, director Christopher Nolan told the audience at the Producers Guild of America's Produced By Conference on Saturday.
"I want to work with the best possible image quality, and that's film," Nolan insisted. "Film has the most range, the highest resolution by far. But you won't hear that, because there's no money in sticking with the old format.
"There's a huge danger to this, and it's being motivated by economic pressure."
In the hour-long session with his producer Emma Thomas, Nolan – who also famously refuses to shoot in 3D – said that he is so old-school he insists on printing and showing dailies at the end of every day's shoot. He also refuses to use digital intermediates, a step that is almost mandatory for special effects work, because he says they degrade the image quality.
"We're seeing an incredibly rapid and precipitous shift based purely on the economics of production," said Nolan of the push to digital filmmaking. "We're being forced to buy [digital] cameras like they're iPads or iPhones, but that's not what's best for the audience."
The filmgoing experience, he added, is also being hurt by the poor quality of projection in many theaters, and by pre-show advertisements.
"I went to a theater last weekend, and they were showing ads for TV shows on the screen," he said. "They really are treating it like you're sitting there in your living room. We're reducing it to 2K [digital] projectors that show ads for TV shows, and that runs the risk of devaluing what we do as filmmakers."
