Not too long ago I rewatched Avatar: The Way of Water on 4K Blu-ray and about 10 minutes in, I blurted out loud in a tone of sheer awe, “Holy shit, the image is so clear!”
Recently many viewers have complained about various movies and TV shows appearing far too dark and at the same time analogue film has seen something of a comeback. For the longest time, 35mm film has been the gold standard for features and TV, but IMAX 70mm has also exploded in popularity among blockbuster filmmakers.
There has also been a strong push for vintage lenses as seen in Dune and Poor Things for an extreme example. The characteristics of film and older lenses have also led to the development of post-processing tools which can approximate the look: digital film grain, computer-generated anamorphic flares, render settings to create light bloom and much more.
None of this is necessarily a bad thing, but I feel these trends are evidence of a long-held mischaracterisation of digital filmmaking itself. Digital is not film, but that is a good thing.
The Eternal Debate
When digital cine-cameras first emerged on the scene in the early 2000s, fierce debate sprang up almost immediately among established filmmakers, film buffs and hobbyists. This debate was brilliantly illustrated in the excellent documentary, Side By Side, presented by the breathtaking Keanu Reeves.
The detractors of digital film cameras had many technical arguments about resolution, dynamic range and colour space; digital was flat, dull and too clean compared to film. Almost all of these technical drawbacks have been improved upon since then, with many digital cameras comfortably matching and even outperforming film in some areas, especially low-light filming.
This leaves detractors with the more artistic arguments also heard in Side By Side: digital was too sharp to the point of looking clinical; the absence of film grain meant the images lacked texture; digital didn't have the character of 35mm.
And this is where I feel some missteps have been made in attempting to address these artistic arguments. The problem stems from the perception that digital was meant to be the replacement for film and this is an idea many studios, production companies and camera manufacturers embraced – no new film cameras are being built and Kodak is virtually the only company in the world still making 35mm film.
Naturally, if one sees film as the gold standard and feels an inferior product is being pushed on them, they have every right to be angry. Digital should never have been treated as a replacement to film, but simply an alternative tool. Because the goal of making digital the worthy successor to 35mm, is what created all the post-processing techniques to make a digital image resemble the character of film.
In my opinion, if you want your movie to look like it was shot on film, then you should probably shoot it on film.
The (Often Ignored) Strengths of Digital
The breakthroughs made with digital filmmaking technology often feel like an exercise is making digital look more like film. Many of these strides have been great, but there's a danger in continuing to view digital as film's bastard cousin and that is ignoring the strengths of digital.
Many of the criticisms of digital filmmaking can be wielded as powerful creative tools. Pixel-perfect digital sharpness can be off-putting, but it also means less is lost in capturing an image. Ultra-high resolutions combined with super sharp modern lenses mean nothing is lost under film grain, light bloom or chromatic aberration (Google it).
(^Look at the rich detail of this digital image)
But digital's big leg up on film is colour space. For a while, film had digital beat on dynamic range, but digital could always be pushed way further in post. Colour filters and post-processing was always possible with film to a certain extent, but it was never even close to matching the scope of what could be done with a digital image.
Digitally shot movies which understand these capabilities feature striking, vibrant images, rich in colour and detail. These are films like Pacific Rim, Mad Max Fury Road, Avatar and Aquaman. Coupled with the “taller” aspect ratios I mentioned in a previous article, these movies can look like opening a window into a fantastical reality when watched on a modern TV.
Digital's sharpness and colour space can be used to create stunning images even when the intended look isn't as vibrant and saturated. For the longest time, director Zack Snyder stuck to shooting on film, even when many of his films featured loads of digital VFX. But starting with Justice League, Snyder has embraced using RED cameras for Army of the Dead and Rebel Moon.
Snyder famously loves a desaturated colour palette in his goal of mimicking the artwork of Frank Frazetta. You'd think digital cameras wouldn't render these kinds of images well, but Snyder's digitally shot films still look great because he understands the power of contrast. He eschews vibrant “poppy” colours in favour of deep shadows and bright highlights.
When filmmakers don't embrace the strengths of digital, but also don't put the work in in post to ape the film look, you end up with what I like to call, “digital mush.”
Digital Mush
(^Can you even see what’s happening here?)
This is the problem underpinning those “too dark” criticisms of many recent shows and movies. One of the early areas digital outperformed film was in low light conditions. Michael Mann famously embraced digital in films like Miami Vice and Collateral for precisely this reason.
However, it seems recently this aspect of digital cameras combined with the latitude afforded in post-processing is being used as a crutch rather than a tool. Film has a fixed ISO (Google that too), so to get proper exposure you need a certain amount of light. With digital, however, you can just boost the gain to render something usable. Sure you can technically see what's in the frame, but there aren't more photons hitting the sensor, the sensor signal is simply being amplified.
Now that cameras have dual native ISOs (Google is really getting a workout here), digital cameras can be pushed pretty far in low light, but it's a stop-gap solution to poor exposure. The best way to make brighter images with more detail is to add more light. If you simply boost the inputs to the camera or fiddle with the brightness in post, sure technically you can see what's happening, but the highlights or shadows will be missing detail, resulting in flat-looking digital mush.
(^A superhero movie should never look this drab)
Filmmakers like James Cameron and James Wan clearly understand this which is why Avatar and Aquaman look so crystal clear and vibrant.
The Search for “Cinematic” Images
The rejection of digital clarity and fetishisation of the “film look” is also driven partly by some aspiring filmmakers searching for a shortcut to “cinematic” images. If you take a cursory visit to the filmmaking corner of YouTube you'll find a lot of videos titled something like, “The One Trick for Cinematic Footage,” or “The Most Cinematic Lens” etc.
Not to disparage the people making these videos of the people who enjoy them, but this all strikes me as coming from a place of insecurity rather than creativity. It seems to me many aspiring filmmakers these days are more concerned with their footage looking “legit” rather than making something of artistic merit.
It's worth noting that many of the channels making these videos are hosted by videographers, not filmmakers. This is not to downplay the talents of videographers, but they have a different goal than filmmakers. Videographers shooting weddings, commercials or corporate videos often have very little control over location, lighting or art direction and they don't always have the budget to hire out specialised equipment. This is why videographers need a one-size-fits-all camera, lens and lighting package.
Their goal is to make good-looking footage which will impress their client, not to tell a story. This is why videographers often need tricks to make “any location look cinematic,” or a certain lens that “turns anything into a movie.” More often than not, the tricks are the same: Black bars for widescreen; shallow focus to blur the background; slow motion to make handheld camera look smooth and anamorphic lenses for cool lens flares and soft edges.
There's nothing wrong with any of these techniques on their own, but calling them inherently “cinematic” is very narrow-minded. These are all technical tricks to approximate something that looks like a movie rather than creative choices motivated by the substance of a story or the artistic sensibilities of a director.
And I feel this is why digital's strengths are being ignored because when you have a super sharp, crystal clear image produced by a camera which can expose almost anything, the onus of creating a “cinematic” image falls entirely on the person using the tool.
Famed cinematographer Roger Deakins once said, “Filmmakers shouldn't hide behind chromatic aberration.”
The character of an image isn't something created within the camera, it is created in front of the camera.
I agree, although digital has become more dominant in recent years and definitely has improved relentlessly, we still have the Nolan’s of the world prepared to use film to present their vision. For me. commercial aspects of filmmaking have far outweighed the content of the film with very poor scripts. We still see films which are in my view amazing performances, production and screenplay but, this is outweighed with a new function of Hollywood which is big star, tons of action but terrible script. The one upside of this is an upsurge in small productions, from all corners of the globe, with up and coming directors being a lot more prolific on streaming platforms. Whichever way the future of films go and as a relatively old person I still see wonderful films coming out which tick all the boxes of script, cinematography, cast and soundtrack.
The eternal debate: tube vs. transistor, digital audio vs. analog, film vs. digital video, sound vs. silent, photograph vs. paint, CGI vs. optical. Hell, mono vs. stereo, B&W vs. color, bakelite/ceramic vs. vinyl-microgroove/magnetic and disk vs. cylinder, probably as well. (Disk vs. cylinder was even the subject of a patent suit, whence we got “RCA Victor”.) The older format being inevitably championed as “warmer”, “more realistic”, or something similar. (About the only exception I can think of is AM vs. FM.)
‘Twas ever thus. 🤔😉😊