The title of film vs digital on the internet has become an over argued cliche.
Article or video responses to this question inevitably conclude that the story, the message,
is the most important thing in cinema, far more important than the question of celluloid
vs pixels, the medium.
However, using a theory from Marshall McLuhan, I’d argue that the medium is the message.
The way films are presented, through their medium of choice, is inextricably linked to
the message or story of the film, and affects how the audience interprets the movie on a
subconscious level.
In 1964 Marshall McLuhan published the book Understanding Media, in which he theorised
that the medium in which content is presented is as important, if not more important, than
the content itself.
Taking film as an example, he’d argue that the conventions of filmmaking which originated
from the medium, such as using a cut to show time passing, had as great an impact as the
message of the story.
Today I’ll take this a step further by arguing that in cinematography, the medium used to
shoot a movie, be it digital or film, has a profound psychological impact on how the
audience interprets a story.
I’ll go over the basics of what film is, illustrate the differences between digital
and film technology, and breakdown the choice of mediums in creative applications from popular
cinema to show the effect that they have on an audience.
There’s a reason that films are called films. When cinema was first created there was only
one medium that enabled the illusion of moving images that we call movies.
Let’s get a little technical.
Film is made from a photochemical gelatin emulsion.
When light hits this emulsion for a short period of time, such as 1/50th of a second,
it absorbs and imprints those light rays onto the emulsion.
After exposure, the film is then developed by passing it through a combination of chemicals.
This fixes and imprints the image onto the piece of film.
Usually negative film is used, which means that when exposed and developed it imprints
an opposite image on the film.
Colours are reversed, the darkest parts of the film appear light and the lightest parts
appear dark.
Later this negative is then turned into a positive.
To screen the film in a cinema a projector is used, which passes light through a positive
image, and projects an enlarged version of the film onto a surface.
From the late 1800s up until the early 2000s this remained the dominant medium for capturing
and presenting motion pictures.
After the 2010s however, digital cinema cameras have become the dominant medium for capturing
images.
Digital cinema cameras use the same concept as film cameras, but the film emulsion is
replaced with a sensor which captures light in pixels, which is stored digitally.
This footage is shown in cinemas by digital projectors.
Currently we’re living in a world with an abundance of mediums for capturing images
for cinema.
From different sizes of film, 16mm to Imax, and different digital mediums, iPhone to 8k
cinema cameras, we’re faced with more mediums than ever to tell stories.
I’d break the differences between film and digital down into 3 main categories: texture,
practical differences, and the base characteristics of the two mediums.
When considering the differences between smaller gauge film stocks, like 16mm, and modern digital
cinema cameras, one of the clearest differences is in the texture.
Because of the chemical nature of film it produces a texture, or film grain, which is
random and seen as visually desirable.
The smaller the film size gets the more the grain is accentuated. Which is why the untrained
eye finds it easier to identify whether something was shot on film when viewing 8mm or 16mm
footage, as opposed to fine grain 70mm.
Because it’s made up of 1s and 0s rather than chemicals, digital texture or noise,
is predictable and patterned, meaning it’s usually viewed as undesirable, hence all the
de-noising software out there.
Partly because of its historical connection to the past, film texture is associated with
being romantic, nostalgic and sentimental.
The lack of digital texture means images appear sharp, clean and clinical.
Practically film has many attributes which are commonly viewed as limitations.
Shooting on film is costly. Both the price of purchasing the film stock as well as its
development.
Digital cameras can roll far longer, with the only cost of rolling the camera being
hard drive storage.
This means that typically movies shot on film shoot less takes.
Some enjoy the limitation and discipline that this provides, reasoning that overshooting
can dilute the director’s vision of the film. Others like that digital allows them
to get far more options.
Finally let’s consider the inherent characteristics of film and digital. Film stocks come in set
ASAs with set colour temperatures.
Film typically produces colours which have beautiful levels of contrast without being
overly saturated.
Digital cameras are able to adjust the ASA, or the camera’s sensitivity to light, as
well as the colour temperature with the press of a button.
With digital cameras that shoot in raw, large adjustments to these parameters can also be
made in post production.
Whereas film ‘bakes in’ the look of whatever light is captured onto the negative.
Typically this means that shooting on film establishes the specific colour and exposure
on set, while digital images can be manipulated more in post production.
Let’s take a look at Phantom Thread, shot on film by Paul Thomas Anderson, and Ex Machina,
shot digitally, to see how the mediums they were shot on affected the messages
of the films.
There’s a trend for period movies to utilize film. I’d argue that using the nostalgic,
textural medium of the past that shooting on film provides, enforces the old world storytelling
in period films.
Phantom Thread is set in the 1950s, where the only medium to capture images was through
film photography.
Paul Thomas Anderson wanted to create a look for the film which was ‘dirtied up’, the
opposite of beautifully polished period film conventions.
To achieve this he push processed the film stock which increased the textural grain in
the image.
Science Fiction movie, Ex Machina, went a different route. The production design and
overall look of the film needed to be far more clean.
Dealing with a story about artificial intelligence in a futuristic world, a cleaner, digital
medium with 16 bit colour science shot at 4k, helped visually support the message of
the film.
So different mediums can be used to shoot different genres. But what about two films
which are both character studies: The Wrestler, shot on 16mm film, and The Joker, shot on
a large format digital camera.
The old, gritty, textured look of 16mm film supports the telling of a personal story about
an aging wrestler who is forced to come to terms with his own deterioration.
The Wrestler is shot with a documentary aesthetic using a handheld camera. 16mm film was historically
the medium used for making documentaries, which further supports its choice as the medium
to best tell this story.
For Lawrence Sher, the key to the cinematography of Joker was finding a medium where he could
best compose the character in relation to his environment.
He wanted the audience to be psychologically connected to the character through a close,
intimate perspective.
Through the medium of large format digital capture he was able to shoot on slightly longer
lenses, while maintaining his desired compositional perspective.
There is no medium which should be considered better or worse, they’re just different
tools which we can use to tell stories with.
If the medium does indeed hold as much power as the message of the story, then it’s our
job as filmmaker s to carefully think about which medium works best to convey the right
visual idea.
Whether shooting on a phone or 70mm film, it’s still important to consider the affect
that the technology has on the audience.
The argument shouldn’t be about whether film or digital is better. The argument should
be about which one is right for the story.