Take One Side By Side special 2013

Magazine www.takeonecff.com friDAY fifTEENTH SEPTEMBER

Photo ©Tom Catchesides

Jesse Wood, projectionist at Cambridge Arts Picturehouse

IS FILM DEAD?

side by side Is film dead? Chris Kenneally‘s SIDE BY SIDE frames this Hollywoodcentric debate, examining the impact of digital film making on individual films as well as the industry itself. Host and co-producer Keanu Reeves interviews technicians and directors including Martin Scorsese, James Cameron, David Fincher, David Lynch, George Lucas, Danny Boyle and Steven Soderbergh. Can and should digital and photochemical film coexist?

Accessible and informative, SIDE BY SIDE offers compelling arguments from Luddites and digi fans alike, and encourages you to make up your own mind.

Inside this special edition of TAKE ONE, we speak to Chris Kenneally; julia marchese at tarantino‘s New Beverly Cinema; and chris mizSak at cambridge Super eight.

Watch the post-screening discussion online at: www.youtube.com/user/RedSpectrumPictures

www.sidebysidemovie.com

INTERVIEW

J U L I A M A R C H E S E A T T A R A N T I N O ‘S

new beverly cinema

... the New Beverly is running really, really old school technology, and we‘re just the perfect place for film lovers to visit.

TOBY MILLER - To begin with could you explain a little bit about the New Beverly cinema?

JULIA MARCHESE - The New Beverly cinema has been in Los Angeles since 1978. We‘re a double feature revival house, so we show classic movies, obscure movies, and cult movies. It‘s only 8 dollars for 2 movies, which is super cheap when compared to a multiplex that often charge more than 17 dollars for a matinee. We don‘t play digital prints, everything is 35mm. Almost all cinemas that play 35mm have a platter payout system, which means that they splice the entire film together into one giant reel and just push play, but we still use a changeover system, which means when we get our reels of film they come in 20 minute reels, and every 20 minutes the projectionist has to change over to the next reel. So the New Beverly is running really, really old school technology, and we‘re just the perfect place that for film lovers to visit. Last night we showed LOST HIGHWAY and MULHOLLAND DRIVE as part of a week long David Lynch retrospective, and it was sold out, and everybody hung out afterwards to talk about the films. It‘s a really unique and fun experience.

TM: But then, late in 2011, Fox was the first studio to announce that 35mm prints would no longer be made available?

JM - We got the letter from Fox that said they were going to stop making 35mm prints at the end of 2012. So whenever you go to a first run movie house you‘re only going to be able to see digital. So I started

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a petition in November asking the studios to let their 35mm prints remain indefinitely available for revival cinemas to screen. There are several first run, single screen cinemas in America that are just (Continued on page 6)

"Until recently, film was a digital sandwich between analogue slices of bread. Acquisition was on film and exhibition was on film.

Everything in between was digital."

- Walter Murch Sound and Film Editor

REVIEW

S I D E BY S I D E DIR: CHRIS KENNEALLY/92 MINS/USA 2012

The world of film is changing - in fact, not a lot of it is actually ‘film’ any more. It hasn’t always been perceptible to the audiences of blockbuster fare, but the digital revolution has already had a profound effect on the films we watch. This evolution, and the current simultaneous existence of photochemical film and digital shooting, is what SIDE BY SIDE attempts to document.

Chris Kenneally’s film does an excellent job of showing why we should care about this issue, whilst not assuming too much prior knowledge. Hosted by Keanu Reeves, who interviews an array of film making icons, SIDE BY SIDE is an insightful look at the debates raging in the creative process. Key to the endeavour is that passion for the topic should come across, and it does in SIDE BY SIDE. When Reeves takes up James Cameron on exactly how ‘real’ AVATAR is, the ensuing discussion conveys a fascination not only for film as a medium, but for how it is made, and what effect digital production has on films and the industry as a whole.

When Scorsese tells you it’s a tool at your disposal, you sit up and take note.

SIDE BY SIDE provides a great deal of insight into the people interviewed.

It’s quite clear that James Cameron is as enthused by the technology of film making, in and of itself, as he is by storytelling – hence his pioneering of the recent 3D resurgence. Martin Scorsese seems less entranced by technology for technology’s sake, but looks at what he can do with it as a filmmaker and storyteller. When Scorsese tells you it’s a tool at your disposal, you sit up and take note.

(Continued overleaf)

SIDESWIPes: the outtakes

View deleted footage from SIDE BY SIDE‘s fascinating interviews at http://www.tribecafilm.com/videos/

The biggest crisis that we will have in the digital realm is storage and preservation.

The amount of data generated by us is mind-blowing.

-Ellen Kuras Cinematographer

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At first the subject matter could seem to be a rather niche area, but the efforts taken to explain different roles and stages in the film making process make SIDE

BY SIDE far more accessible than it has any license to be. This isn’t to say the film is dumbed down – far from it – but simply that it explains necessary points without getting bogged down in jargon. Kenneally sets the scene for the uninitiated, and structures the documentary not just by looking at the film format, but also the showing effects of digital technology at each stage of the creative process.

“Why would I trade my oil paints in for a set of crayons?”

- Wally Pfister

forthright in their opinion that this is not necessarily a good thing.

I feel I should call film and say, ‘I’ve met someone.’

- Steven Soderbergh Many of those interviewed view digital or film as a choice to be made by the film maker even if, with digital being far cheaper, it isn’t quite as simple as that. Voices are heard, primarily Christopher Nolan‘s (“Why would I trade my oil paints in for a set of crayons?”), that fear for the future of analogue film. On the flip side, however, Danny Boyle (despite still describing film as “the holy grail”) explains why the stunning shots of deserted London from so many angles in 28 DAYS LATER would not have been possible without small digital cameras.

The average moviegoer, quite frankly, doesn’t give much of a toss about the format that a film has been shot on – especially as the quality of digital film increases. For example, it’s likely that a large proportion of the audience were unaware of the fact SKYFALL was shot in digital; and IN TIME, another Roger Deakins digital foray, is cited in SIDE BY SIDE as a recent example of how far digital has come. However, the continued existence of film as a medium, and the comparative cheapness of digital, has a discernible effect on the type, quality and breadth of films we, the audience, get to see.

SIDE BY SIDE is crammed with fascinating insight from fascinating people.

Much has been said about the effect of digital film making, and the democratisation of film is covered in SIDE BY SIDE. Some interviewees are quite strikingly

It is to SIDE BY SIDE’s credit that the film is impartial in presenting the pros and cons of the film format‘s decline. (Continued on page 6)

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Cambridge Super 8 Group are currently holding an exhibition at Smiths Row in Bury St Edmunds. A lively programme of events accompanies the exhibition.

INTERVIEW

CHRIS MIZSAK OF

CAMBRI D G E S U P ER 8 Sarah McIntosh: Moving into the gallery space, what sort of audience do you hope to draw?

Chris Mizsak: A much broader and wider audience.

It’s new territory for us because our festival tends to focus on a traditional festival program, screening single channel work, but Super 8 as a medium is much more than that, it goes beyond being simply being projections on walls. We thought it would be fantastic to showcase and celebrate the format in all its diversity, inviting cutting edge artists that explore small gauge film in completely different ways.

SM: The festival’s press release uses the phrase “artist”, rather than “filmmaker”. Do you see them a distinctive terms?

CM: It’s a blurry distinction. The way we approached the matter was to have as broad an offer as we possibly could, so you’ve got a gallery exhibition that has been curated to create an impression of both the artist’s work and also how they used Super 8 as a device and as a format. You’ll go through the space and there will be installation works, there will be films projected on the wall, there will be film shown

on digital monitors. But then you have the collective experience of cinema, you have artist’s films that are intended to be shown in the cinema environment or projected on a wall with an audience. Around that we have some of Europe’s best Super 8 workshop leaders offering 4 different and amazingly diverse workshops over the exhibition period. It’s very much within the spirit and the ethos of Super 8, which was actually designed and released as an amateurs‘ filmmaking format, and only then spread out to be adopted by various different groups and strands.

It reeks of nostalgia, it‘s part of the allure of the format.

SM: How much of a role do you think nostalgia plays in Super 8 filmmaking?

CM: One of the main qualities and references in Super 8 is indeed nostalgia; it is often used as a memory device in filmmaking. It reeks of nostalgia, it’s part of the allure of the format. It was released as a home movie format: people filmed weddings, baptisms and holidays with it, all these millions and millions of memories of three decades (Cont‘d on page 7)

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sense. So we set that up to begin with, and I wanted it to not be too elementary or dumbed down but at least give you the basic information to join the discussion.

"people had developed certain workflows which meant they truly were masters of the medium."

INTERVIEW

"S I D E B Y S I D E " D I R E C T O R

chris kenneally Jim Ross: To start off with, how did the project come together? It’s clearly made by folk who love cinema, but the sheer amount of people involved is impressive. How did you make that happen?

Chris Kenneally: I’ve been a post-production supervisor for many years and I was working on a movie that Keanu Reeves was in called HENRY’S CRIME, which he was also producing. A lot of the topics and conversations that we cover in the documentary were things he and I would discuss while we were working. He had also seen another documentary I had made a couple of years previously, about competitive eating, which is

"...initially there was a fear that the actual image quality was inferior, which is the whole reason you’re using a certain camera [...] but that’s arguable now." much different of course, but he liked it. So, he came up to me one day and said we should make a movie about this moment in time, when the way movies are being made is really changing.

JR: SIDE BY SIDE explains how film and digital recording works. Was this an effort to stop the film from shouting into an echo chamber, so to speak, and make more than cinephiles aware of how this affects the films we get to watch?

CK: Absolutely. I knew that the discussions and differences in opinion our subjects would cover would be really interesting, but if you didn’t even know the basics of what they are discussing it wouldn’t make any

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JR: I was wondering what you thought was the balance of views within those opposed to digital film. Some simply prefer film aesthetically whereas others dislike how it affects their workflow, where did you feel the majority of the pushback comes from?

CK: I think initially there was a fear that the technology – the actual image quality – was inferior, which is the whole reason you’re using a certain camera. They thought digital was inferior, but that’s arguable now. You find there are some things digital can do that film cannot, but film has this certain look – which you could recreate in digital but it will probably always look a little different. Also, the basic mechanics of film have been around for 100 years, so people had developed certain workflows which meant they truly were masters of the medium. To ask someone to switch after they have mastered something for decades can seem kind of crazy. Certain guys didn’t want to switch over as they really knew what they were doing and had a lot of success with it. I think there are less and less holdouts now, but there is still a case to be made for film.

Read the unabridged interview at www.takeonecff.com

(continued from page 1) small, Ma and Pop run theatres, and the switch to digital will be too expensive for them. And some of these little cinemas are struggling to get by as it is.

TM: One danger is that there‘ll only be acknowledged moneymaking classics making their way onto the digital format.

"People love great stories.

They love to get into a world and have an experience. And how they get it— it doesn‘t really matter."

(continued from page 3) SIDE

BY SIDE is engrossing on several levels: as an introduction to the concept, as an examination of film makers‘ attitudes to the ongoing evolution of the process, and even as a portrait of several luminaries of the film industry. SIDE BY SIDE is crammed with fascinating insight from fascinating people. The film’s breadth of opinions – of which there are too many to recount in a single article - indicates that there is no ‘right’ choice, and impressively captures a debate that may not rage forever.

Jim Ross

JM: Exactly, it could just be a narrowing of what films are available for us to see. When you leave 35mm and go to VHS you‘re going to lose a big bunch of films, and then from VHS to DVD and - David Lynch then DVD to BluRay - the movies the studios deem unworthy for whatever reason are going to left behind. So I‘ve a concern that with the switch over to digital there are going to be a lot of movies, obscure films and older but not classic titles that never make the transfer to the digital format.

TM: Did your petition achieve some of the aims you had hoped for?

JM: Yes it did. I was really amazed how much dialogue was started by the petition, which was really what I‘d hoped for. The curtailing of 35mm became an issue, which was great, as I feel the studios, if they had had their way, would have been really sneaky about it and made this switch without drawing too much attention.

I know nothing can be done to stop the digital switchover, but I just wanted to be able to ask the studios to keep the prints that already exist available. I was so surprised by the petition‘s forward momentum that I decided to use that energy in making a documentary. I wanted to make a documentary about the New Beverly for years, it‘s unlike any other cinema I‘ve ever been to in my life. We have regulars who come every

No matter where you are, there‘s a little theatre like us near you that needs your help. single night regardless of what we are showing, and we have celebrities coming and we have crazy film lover employees and it just smacks of cinematic wonder. I‘m a first time film-maker, so I knew I couldn‘t take on a huge topic like 35mm or revival cinemas, so I decided to make a movie about the New Beverly, but within that smaller scope to talk about these larger issues. I‘m really hoping to drive home the point to everybody around the world - no matter where you are - there‘s a little theatre like us near you - that needs your help.

I‘m going to be going to the Prince Charles in London to talk abut how revival cinema is important all over the world and how all the independent theatres are something you should be supporting, somewhere you can visit if you want see something other than the latest blockbuster in 3D digital. It‘s important that everybody still has their choice to see T AKE O NE whatever it is they want to see, and I‘m afraid that if this goes away Editor-in-Chief Rosy Hunt then you are going to lose the communal experience of movies. Plus Managing Editor Jim Ross film-lovers that are growing up now will not be able to have the same Associate Editor Gavin Midgley experience that I had - and I think that is really sad.

Editor-at-Large Mike Boyd

Magazine

Interview originally aired on "Bums On Seats" 06/12. Julia‘s documentary is now complete and she is looking for submissions.

Photography Tom Catchesides Print Victoire Limited

© 2013

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(continued from page 4) were captured on these small little film cartridges, so it’s impossible to escape the sense of nostalgia.

Purists will be saddened: they see this as the end of an era.

But I’m an optimist.

Some filmmakers and some artists choose Super 8 because they believe it has alchemical qualities, something magical occurs when they process the film; there is that whole sense of not knowing if something is going to be on the film after it is developed, especially compared to the certainty of digital filming. With Super 8 there’s a time based process involved, you need to consider what you are going to shoot. You can be very free, and improvise what you are shooting, or you can be very structured and very technical. It’s a format that requires a chemical process, that requires time, and a format that conjures up a sense of anticipation; did you can the film correctly? Did it expose? Is it going to come out? And the end result is part of the appeal of the format as well.

Some artists and film-makers also talk about the phenomena of granular synthesis: the distinction between projecting a filmic image on a wall and the emotional, psychological and subliminal effects that has versus the pixellated digital image. So there are

CM: I find that actually quite wonderful, that you have digital apps and technology that allow you to filter and create different types of looks. Whether it’s is purely for the instant gratification aesthetic or in the case of the app iSuper 8, which is probably one of the most authentic super 8 filter looks currently available for the smartphone. MEA Mobile, who developed the app, are real super 8 filmmaking fans, and the app is a celebration of the Super 8 look.

Perhaps it will encourage people to experiment with digital tech as a lead in to visiting eBay and tracking down a cheap old camera and trying the real deal. So it’s kind of a back way into the old technology.

SM: Do you think that this exhibition’s stress on Artists Film shows a possible future for traditional film stock?

CM: Partly, yes. I think recessions can occasionally have the effect of bringing together people and evolving new artistic communities. If Kodak suddenly pulled the plug on stock production, new stocks will evolve, because people will always want to film using low gauge formats, they will always be enough of a critical mass that wants to experiment, that wants to explore the tactile and physical nature of handling films, and experience the joy and anticipation of using projectors and going through that whole physical process of creating something

flicker: artists and super eight 19/01/13-23/03/13, the Smiths Row Gallery, Bury St Edmunds.

Find exhibition details at www.cambridge-super8.org and follow @CamSuper8 on Twitter. schools of thought that try and distinguish between the two qualities of images and how they affect us, how we react to them and how we process those images.

SM: How do you see future Super 8 stocks developing?

CM: Film technology and film formats change all the time. Purists will be saddened: they see this as the end of an era. But I’m an optimist. I think there are lots of film stock that are out there on the market.

Kodak still manufacture TriX - which is a very low contrast black and white stock...

SM: It seems odd that you get people putting their cutting edge photos through Instagram so that they resemble an old Polaroid.

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and presenting it. That is not going to die. There are whispers within the Super 8 community now of some groups that are talking about manufacturing their own film base, using whatever chemicals or plastics might be available. There are geeky scientific and creative enthusiasts out there who are sitting around coffee bars and in big studio warehouses in Berlin or Switzerland thinking about these things, about coating and creating emulsions for these new stocks. So we might actually see in the near future people making their own film base, shooting their own film, perhaps even modifying their own cameras and making their own projectors.

Full interview at www.takeonecff.com or http://cambridge105.fm/shows/bums-on-seats