WEBVTT - The Tech of Making Movies, Part One 0:00:00.320 --> 0:00:02.880 Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. 0:00:03.240 --> 0:00:08.959 It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology with 0:00:09.080 --> 0:00:17.960 tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello again, everyone, 0:00:18.040 --> 0:00:20.239 Welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Pollett, and 0:00:20.239 --> 0:00:22.640 I am an editor at how stuff works dot com. 0:00:22.680 --> 0:00:24.800 Sitting across from me, as he always does, is senior 0:00:24.840 --> 0:00:28.200 writer Jonathan Strickland. It's time to make the music. It's 0:00:28.280 --> 0:00:31.880 time to light the lights. You know you you you 0:00:31.960 --> 0:00:35.400 bring this seriousness to to the lyrics at the Muppet Show. 0:00:35.440 --> 0:00:39.279 I have a feeling that it requires gravitas. Yes. So 0:00:39.400 --> 0:00:41.479 we're going to talk a little bit today about the 0:00:41.520 --> 0:00:44.559 technology used to make movies, and we're breaking this up 0:00:44.560 --> 0:00:48.080 into several podcasts because, as it turns out, there's a 0:00:48.080 --> 0:00:50.560 lot of tech that goes into making movies and it 0:00:50.600 --> 0:00:53.680 would be way too much material to cover in one 0:00:53.720 --> 0:00:57.480 single podcast unless we just mentioned things and then moved 0:00:57.480 --> 0:01:00.640 on immediately. Yeah, I agree with you. So we're going 0:01:00.680 --> 0:01:06.400 to talk about what goes into capturing images and sound 0:01:07.680 --> 0:01:14.480 and then projecting them for your entertainment, you lucky people. So, um, 0:01:14.600 --> 0:01:18.319 let's let's start off with talking about We're gonna talk 0:01:18.360 --> 0:01:21.000 about both film and digital here, but let's start with film, 0:01:21.000 --> 0:01:26.560 because of course that preceded digital, So film is an 0:01:26.600 --> 0:01:30.640 interesting thing already. All right, So we're talking about a 0:01:30.760 --> 0:01:36.840 material that is photoreactive. When exposed to light, a chemical 0:01:36.959 --> 0:01:43.039 change occurs and you can capture the light from a 0:01:43.080 --> 0:01:47.640 particular instant and preserve it on film. And this is 0:01:47.680 --> 0:01:51.680 this is how film cameras work. You have a very simply, 0:01:51.720 --> 0:01:54.680 you've got a lens that focuses light. You have an 0:01:54.680 --> 0:01:59.040 aperture which is normally blocked by the shutter. The shutter 0:01:59.160 --> 0:02:01.720 keeps light out from the film. Because of course, if 0:02:01.760 --> 0:02:04.200 you if you had light constantly exposed to the film, 0:02:04.200 --> 0:02:07.600 it would just the chemical reaction would occur in an 0:02:07.680 --> 0:02:10.440 uncontrolled fashion, so you wouldn't be able to capture the 0:02:10.720 --> 0:02:13.840 picture that you wanted, right So, plus you wouldn't be 0:02:13.880 --> 0:02:17.240 able to control the exposure and much light gets to it, 0:02:17.280 --> 0:02:22.280 so washed out. Be this weird, washed out, blurry picture 0:02:22.320 --> 0:02:26.480 of nothing, um, which could be interesting, but it's not 0:02:26.480 --> 0:02:28.840 not going to work as a movie, at least not 0:02:28.960 --> 0:02:34.519 unless you're some sort of grad student in Hollywood who's 0:02:34.560 --> 0:02:39.600 trying to make some sort of quote statement unquote. So 0:02:39.880 --> 0:02:43.200 assuming that's not the case, you need to have the 0:02:43.200 --> 0:02:45.520 shutter there to block light out when you when you 0:02:45.760 --> 0:02:49.959 open the shutter, light comes through the lens, is focused 0:02:49.960 --> 0:02:52.640 by the lens through the aperture, which is the opening 0:02:53.200 --> 0:02:56.280 that exists between the lens and the film, and then 0:02:56.400 --> 0:03:00.520 hits the film. The shutter closes, and the chemical reaction 0:03:00.560 --> 0:03:03.840 that takes place on the film is what preserves that image. 0:03:04.240 --> 0:03:07.440 So uh, that's how a film camera works in general. 0:03:07.560 --> 0:03:11.920 Now a movie film camera is based upon the same premise, 0:03:12.919 --> 0:03:17.600 with the major difference being that film is fed through 0:03:17.760 --> 0:03:22.720 the camera at a certain rate and the shutter opens 0:03:22.720 --> 0:03:26.040 and closes at a particular frequency so that you take 0:03:26.280 --> 0:03:29.600 several images all within a second, and when you play 0:03:29.600 --> 0:03:32.440 those images back at the proper speed, you get the 0:03:32.480 --> 0:03:36.640 illusion of movement. So that's that's the whole basis of 0:03:36.680 --> 0:03:38.800 film right there now, the way it works. And in 0:03:38.880 --> 0:03:42.520 the old and olden days with film cameras, you had 0:03:42.520 --> 0:03:47.320 hand cranked cameras. That sounds like fun, Yeah, um, these 0:03:47.360 --> 0:03:49.840 are the cameras. If you've ever seen footage of of 0:03:50.240 --> 0:03:53.680 old movie sets or even a film where that's it's 0:03:53.720 --> 0:03:57.160 set in that era, you see like the guy peering 0:03:57.200 --> 0:03:59.440 into the camera and he's turning a crank on the 0:03:59.480 --> 0:04:02.080 side of it is the shooting a film. Uh. That 0:04:02.280 --> 0:04:06.040 is physically moving the film past the shutter which is 0:04:06.080 --> 0:04:09.080 opening and closing at a specific rate. Uh. And if 0:04:09.120 --> 0:04:14.400 you were a very good film operator, camera operator rather, um, 0:04:14.400 --> 0:04:18.520 you could move that at a pretty consistent rate through 0:04:18.560 --> 0:04:21.240 the camera. When it was played back, it would be 0:04:23.400 --> 0:04:27.719 smooth ish. Well, because we're human, right, Well, of course 0:04:27.760 --> 0:04:30.599 we're never going to move it at the specific speed 0:04:30.680 --> 0:04:35.680 we need. And again, projector speeds are also variable, so um, 0:04:36.480 --> 0:04:39.920 the theater operators might in fact, in the olden days 0:04:39.920 --> 0:04:42.560 has happened a lot back in the silent film era, 0:04:42.800 --> 0:04:46.560 theater operators might set their projectors to to play back 0:04:46.600 --> 0:04:49.599 a little faster than normal because it meant that you 0:04:49.640 --> 0:04:52.839 could fit more showings in a single day. I see, 0:04:53.240 --> 0:04:56.040 your film would be over faster. So anyway you would 0:04:56.080 --> 0:04:58.800 hand crank the film, the film goes past the point 0:04:58.880 --> 0:05:01.919 where the shutter opens, closes and the images are captured. 0:05:02.279 --> 0:05:05.559 Um as and if you if you were to crank 0:05:05.600 --> 0:05:09.120 the film faster so that you're you're putting more film 0:05:09.200 --> 0:05:12.800 through and you're getting more shots of the action. Uh. 0:05:13.240 --> 0:05:19.200 This actually translated into slow motion, so uh, they back 0:05:19.200 --> 0:05:22.640 in the silent film era, the standard frames per second 0:05:22.960 --> 0:05:25.559 that you would have for for film. And that's another 0:05:25.560 --> 0:05:27.680 good thing to point out film is is we talked 0:05:27.680 --> 0:05:30.320 about film in frames, and a frame you can think 0:05:30.360 --> 0:05:34.160 of a frame as a single still photograph. Yes, okay, 0:05:34.200 --> 0:05:37.920 So back in those days, the standard, and I used 0:05:37.920 --> 0:05:41.760 the term loosely, was sixteen frames per second, and that 0:05:41.839 --> 0:05:44.960 was sufficient to give you the sense of movement when 0:05:44.960 --> 0:05:48.560 it was played back at sixteen frames per second. If 0:05:48.560 --> 0:05:50.599 you were to speed that up, where you take maybe 0:05:50.600 --> 0:05:52.840 thirty two frames per second, but you're playing it back 0:05:52.880 --> 0:05:55.480 at sixteen frames per second, the action would look very 0:05:55.520 --> 0:05:59.080 slow to you, actually look like half speed, because you're 0:05:59.360 --> 0:06:01.640 would be using twice as much film in that time 0:06:01.720 --> 0:06:05.240 being Yeah, yeah, so you're using twice as much film 0:06:05.279 --> 0:06:08.560 to capture the same action. Uh, And when you play 0:06:08.600 --> 0:06:11.600 it back at the normal speed, it feels like it's 0:06:11.640 --> 0:06:13.680 slow motion. Same thing if you were to if you 0:06:13.720 --> 0:06:16.960 were to under crank, if you were to use less 0:06:17.040 --> 0:06:19.800 film to capture the action, it would look sped up 0:06:19.839 --> 0:06:23.480 and jerky. So when you see those old silent films 0:06:23.520 --> 0:06:26.479 where everyone suddenly running at a speed that is not 0:06:27.080 --> 0:06:31.000 humanly possible and everyone's kind of jerking around. That's when 0:06:31.040 --> 0:06:35.640 they were undercranking the camera. And eventually they added motors 0:06:36.080 --> 0:06:40.240 into cameras, which allowed you to create an actual standard speed. 0:06:41.400 --> 0:06:44.599 And uh, it wasn't until they found a way of 0:06:44.600 --> 0:06:48.400 putting sound into um into film as well in a 0:06:48.480 --> 0:06:52.080 in a standardized way that they settled on twenty four 0:06:52.160 --> 0:06:54.880 frames per second, which is the current standard of of 0:06:55.680 --> 0:07:00.600 how many frames per second for film. And now, Uh, 0:07:00.760 --> 0:07:02.359 you were going to say something I could tell and 0:07:02.400 --> 0:07:04.680 I just interrupted you before you can even start. Well, no, 0:07:04.800 --> 0:07:07.960 I was gonna point out that TV cameras shoot at 0:07:08.000 --> 0:07:11.800 thirty frames per second, which is why TV looks different. 0:07:11.800 --> 0:07:15.000 It's got that different feel than than watching a movie. Yeah, 0:07:15.000 --> 0:07:18.280 and it's using video as opposed to film the film. 0:07:18.320 --> 0:07:20.400 So yeah, there are a couple of differences with that 0:07:21.200 --> 0:07:24.440 video is taken in. When we talk about a frame 0:07:24.440 --> 0:07:26.720 of video, it's not the same thing as a frame 0:07:26.760 --> 0:07:29.720 of film because with film, like I said, you take 0:07:30.040 --> 0:07:33.520 the film from a camera. Actually, when you take the 0:07:33.560 --> 0:07:36.360 film from a camera, it's it's in its negative format. 0:07:36.400 --> 0:07:38.640 You have to develop the film before you can look 0:07:38.640 --> 0:07:42.520 at it as if it were a regular image. Basically, 0:07:42.560 --> 0:07:45.720 that's bathing it in in some chemicals that will help 0:07:46.280 --> 0:07:49.800 bring the images out. Um. And then of course, uh, 0:07:49.880 --> 0:07:52.320 you know, stopping the reaction and fixing it in place 0:07:52.880 --> 0:07:54.920 right before it can be you know, preserved for the 0:07:55.000 --> 0:07:58.040 long haul, right right. And that's another time where you 0:07:58.120 --> 0:08:02.080 can't have this film exposed to light because then it 0:08:02.080 --> 0:08:05.440 would ruin the process. It would, but it would it 0:08:05.440 --> 0:08:07.920 would continue. It would be as if you were continuing 0:08:07.960 --> 0:08:11.480 to film on that film essentially, um. And we'll probably 0:08:11.480 --> 0:08:13.200 get into that a little bit more in our second 0:08:13.200 --> 0:08:16.120 part of this where we're talking about post production. But 0:08:17.080 --> 0:08:19.840 the other element of video is that a frame of 0:08:19.920 --> 0:08:22.720 video is not is not like a single image as 0:08:22.800 --> 0:08:28.400 it is in uh in film. Um. Television, at least 0:08:30.440 --> 0:08:32.800 if we're not talking about progressive scan TV. We're talking 0:08:32.800 --> 0:08:38.480 about classic television is played where each frame is made 0:08:38.559 --> 0:08:42.760 up of two fields. Okay. I think of your TV 0:08:42.880 --> 0:08:46.160 as a series of of lines of dots, Okay, like 0:08:46.600 --> 0:08:51.959 horizontal horizon lines, and field number one would be all 0:08:52.000 --> 0:08:56.320 the odd number lines, so lines one, three, five, seven, etcetera. 0:08:56.360 --> 0:08:59.840 All the way down those would be field one, and 0:09:00.000 --> 0:09:02.760 that would be half of a frame, and that would 0:09:02.840 --> 0:09:07.800 that your your television would paint these these dots. Uh, 0:09:07.840 --> 0:09:09.840 and it does at a very very fast rate. It 0:09:09.880 --> 0:09:12.000 sounds like it's you know, like you'd be able to 0:09:12.040 --> 0:09:14.280 see it, but it's so fast that you can't you 0:09:14.320 --> 0:09:17.480 can't perceive it. But it would paint all the odd 0:09:17.520 --> 0:09:19.920 lines first, and then it would paint the even lines. 0:09:19.960 --> 0:09:22.600 That would be the second field, field one and field two, 0:09:22.640 --> 0:09:25.840 and together those two fields would can would make a 0:09:26.000 --> 0:09:30.319 frame of video. Um, and your television would be playing 0:09:30.320 --> 0:09:33.600 that back. Is it thirty or sixty? I think, well, 0:09:33.600 --> 0:09:35.679 I know that when you're when you're capturing it, it's 0:09:35.720 --> 0:09:39.480 thirty frames per second. But um, so it's a little 0:09:39.840 --> 0:09:42.199 it is a little different. It feels different from film, 0:09:42.280 --> 0:09:47.200 and that translates over into digital cinema will get into 0:09:47.240 --> 0:09:53.720 that too. So getting back to the film, uh set, 0:09:53.920 --> 0:09:58.920 So you're limited originally with the old cameras, you were 0:09:58.920 --> 0:10:03.280 pretty limited to stat shots. You couldn't really move the 0:10:03.280 --> 0:10:06.920 camera very much. So if you look at old old movies, 0:10:07.000 --> 0:10:11.079 you'll see a lot of shots that are single take 0:10:11.640 --> 0:10:14.360 and it lasts a good long while and then it'll 0:10:14.400 --> 0:10:17.000 move to a totally different setting and a new scene 0:10:17.040 --> 0:10:20.480 and the point of view won't change very much, right, 0:10:20.520 --> 0:10:22.959 just because of the you know, the setups that they had. 0:10:23.000 --> 0:10:26.520 They didn't have the sophisticated equipment that goes along with 0:10:27.440 --> 0:10:29.960 you know, the setting up the shots that we used today, 0:10:30.120 --> 0:10:33.840 the the dollies and all the cranes and all those things, 0:10:34.080 --> 0:10:37.280 right exactly. Yeah, those and back then you would have 0:10:37.640 --> 0:10:40.520 a tripod, set up a camera on the tripod, and 0:10:40.600 --> 0:10:42.079 that was pretty much it. You might be able to 0:10:42.080 --> 0:10:45.400 do a pan where you you turn the camera uh 0:10:45.440 --> 0:10:49.000 in a certain direction so that you can follow the action, 0:10:49.760 --> 0:10:51.880 but beyond that, it wasn't There wasn't much movement. It 0:10:51.920 --> 0:10:54.400 wasn't until we started thinking seeing things like dollies, and 0:10:54.480 --> 0:10:57.880 a dolly is essentially a platform that's on wheels, uh, 0:10:57.920 --> 0:11:00.560 And the tripod is on the platform, so the camera 0:11:00.600 --> 0:11:03.680 itself is still stable, it's just on a surface that 0:11:03.720 --> 0:11:07.079 can move around. Uh. Many dollies, in fact, I would 0:11:07.120 --> 0:11:10.240 I would probably say most tend to be set on tracks, 0:11:11.120 --> 0:11:15.240 so that in turn also limits the motion that the 0:11:15.280 --> 0:11:18.120 camera will experience while you're capturing film. Uh. This is 0:11:18.160 --> 0:11:23.400 in general a pretty good thing because most filmmakers want 0:11:23.440 --> 0:11:25.920 to avoid the really jerk emotions you would get if 0:11:25.960 --> 0:11:28.920 you were just holding a camera and trying to capture images. 0:11:29.600 --> 0:11:33.040 If you've ever you know, watch any home home video. Ever, 0:11:35.200 --> 0:11:37.840 the home video effect is something that most filmmakers want 0:11:37.840 --> 0:11:40.840 to avoid unless they're doing something like a documentary, or 0:11:40.880 --> 0:11:43.560 they want to evoke a particular mood. Like let's say 0:11:44.360 --> 0:11:49.640 it's a war scene and you want that chaotic feel 0:11:49.720 --> 0:11:53.400 where you know it's every it's very disorienting and frightening 0:11:53.760 --> 0:11:56.280 and you're not really sure what's happening. Uh, you may 0:11:56.360 --> 0:11:59.200 want to have a handheld camera effects so that it 0:11:59.240 --> 0:12:03.240 gives the audience kind of a feeling of disorientation and 0:12:03.320 --> 0:12:06.960 it helps evoke the mood you were going after. Yeah, 0:12:07.040 --> 0:12:09.800 just just to point out for all of you amateur 0:12:09.920 --> 0:12:14.960 home video efficionados, Yes, it can be better than that, 0:12:15.000 --> 0:12:16.800 but most people don't take the time to invest in 0:12:16.800 --> 0:12:22.800 the equipment and practice shooting as a professional uh filmmaker might. Yeah, 0:12:22.880 --> 0:12:24.480 and and there are a lot of that you can't 0:12:24.520 --> 0:12:26.240 do it. Oh sure, there are a lot of people don't. 0:12:26.320 --> 0:12:29.320 And there are a lot of of home filmmakers who 0:12:29.840 --> 0:12:32.840 have made their own dollies, they made their own cranes, 0:12:32.840 --> 0:12:35.080 they made their own steady cams. We'll talk about steady 0:12:35.080 --> 0:12:38.120 cam in a second. Um. Yeah, actually, I ran into 0:12:38.120 --> 0:12:40.240 that in my research and it's it's pretty cool. It's 0:12:40.240 --> 0:12:42.200 not that hard to do to build, you know, just 0:12:42.240 --> 0:12:45.800 a basic setup for home video equipment. Yeah, it's very 0:12:45.920 --> 0:12:47.800 it's it's very much kind of a Jerry Rigg kind 0:12:47.840 --> 0:12:52.319 of approach to it. But really the whole film industry 0:12:52.480 --> 0:12:56.040 is based off of that sort of ingenuity. You know. 0:12:56.080 --> 0:12:58.040 We we look at the stuff that is used in 0:12:58.080 --> 0:13:01.120 films today and you think, wow, it's advanced technology, but 0:13:01.160 --> 0:13:04.080 all of it is pretty much based on some guy saying, 0:13:04.400 --> 0:13:06.240 you know, it would be really cool if we could 0:13:06.280 --> 0:13:09.120 get this such and such shot, but how do we 0:13:09.200 --> 0:13:11.200 do that? And then just coming up with a way 0:13:11.240 --> 0:13:15.040 of making it work. And really it's just refining that 0:13:16.000 --> 0:13:22.200 mother necessity. Yes, yes, hey mama. So uh all right, 0:13:22.320 --> 0:13:26.280 so we've talked about how how film is capturing the 0:13:26.360 --> 0:13:28.840 light and you know, you get it the photochemical reaction 0:13:28.880 --> 0:13:30.960 on the film. You later developed the film and you 0:13:31.000 --> 0:13:33.280 can you can watch it once you play it back 0:13:33.320 --> 0:13:36.679 at a in a projector let's talk about the difference 0:13:36.679 --> 0:13:41.640 with digital. Okay, so to kind of kind of transition 0:13:41.840 --> 0:13:45.160 from film to digital. Let's talk a little bit about video. 0:13:46.240 --> 0:13:49.200 And we mentioned it already about how it's played back, 0:13:49.280 --> 0:13:51.720 it's captured and played back at a different speed than film, 0:13:51.800 --> 0:13:55.640 so it does give you a different feel. Um. And 0:13:55.640 --> 0:13:58.200 this is this is actually perceptible. People will say, like, 0:13:58.280 --> 0:14:01.839 you know, television does not look like visa and even 0:14:01.960 --> 0:14:05.920 watching a movie on TV doesn't feel like it does 0:14:06.000 --> 0:14:08.880 when you're watching it in a in a theater. And 0:14:08.960 --> 0:14:10.840 not just because you're not watching it on in a 0:14:10.920 --> 0:14:15.040 huge screen and you have, you know, a fifty surround 0:14:15.080 --> 0:14:17.680 sound system around you or anything like that. It's that 0:14:17.800 --> 0:14:20.880 the actual quality of the picture and the quality of 0:14:20.880 --> 0:14:23.120 the movement that you see in the picture is different. 0:14:23.880 --> 0:14:26.240 It's because there's a weird conversion process. I'm not going 0:14:26.280 --> 0:14:28.720 to get into it. We've mentioned it before. Then the 0:14:29.240 --> 0:14:32.360 pull down process. Yeah, yeah, there's a weird process that 0:14:32.400 --> 0:14:34.600 you have to go in order to make the frames 0:14:34.640 --> 0:14:38.880 of film fit the frames of video format. And it's 0:14:39.000 --> 0:14:43.440 a very strange mathematical process. Uh. And it doesn't it 0:14:43.480 --> 0:14:46.600 doesn't give you the most natural uh playback, which is 0:14:46.600 --> 0:14:49.520 why it doesn't really look the way it should in 0:14:49.560 --> 0:14:51.080 the lord of the way it would if you were 0:14:51.080 --> 0:14:54.400 seeing it in the theater. Um. Now, video cameras have 0:14:55.720 --> 0:15:00.560 uh an interesting set up as opposed to the the 0:15:01.240 --> 0:15:04.200 film cameras. So instead of capturing the image and putting 0:15:04.200 --> 0:15:07.680 it onto film, it's using something called a charge coupled device, 0:15:09.000 --> 0:15:13.320 all right, So that's a semiconductor image sensor, and so 0:15:13.440 --> 0:15:19.200 it's it's measuring light and it is then taking those 0:15:19.240 --> 0:15:23.280 measurements putting it towards photo sites, which convert this, uh, 0:15:23.640 --> 0:15:27.760 with an analog to digital converter, convert this this these 0:15:27.800 --> 0:15:31.960 measurements of light into ones and zeros. That's where we're 0:15:31.960 --> 0:15:35.000 getting into the digital. Now, these ones and zeros, that's 0:15:35.600 --> 0:15:40.680 just digital information that can either be used to capture, 0:15:40.760 --> 0:15:43.840 to to put onto magnetic tape. You actually wouldn't even 0:15:43.920 --> 0:15:45.840 use the analog to digital in that case. You could 0:15:45.880 --> 0:15:48.880 just put the measurements of the light directly onto the 0:15:48.880 --> 0:15:51.280 magnetic tape, use the magnetic tape to play back in 0:15:51.480 --> 0:15:54.480 something like a VCR and that would take those measurements 0:15:54.480 --> 0:15:59.200 and cover them back into light and sound. Or you 0:15:59.240 --> 0:16:03.360 could do the analog to digital conversion, um, and then 0:16:03.440 --> 0:16:07.560 you have a digital image, right which you can play 0:16:07.560 --> 0:16:11.200 back and lots of devices, as it turns out, things 0:16:11.200 --> 0:16:15.760 like DVD players, computers, that kind of stuff. Uh. The 0:16:15.800 --> 0:16:19.240 interesting thing about digital versus film. Uh, there is a 0:16:19.280 --> 0:16:25.040 difference in the appearance. Again, you're not capturing necessarily at 0:16:25.040 --> 0:16:27.760 twenty four frames per second. Although there are digital cameras 0:16:27.800 --> 0:16:31.600 out there that can do that, they can capture images 0:16:31.680 --> 0:16:34.680 at the same rate as film. In fact, the Attack 0:16:34.680 --> 0:16:36.520 of the Clones was filmed with a camera that could 0:16:36.560 --> 0:16:38.920 do that, and that was the as a matter of fact, 0:16:38.920 --> 0:16:42.800 the very first major movie as I'm not if I'm 0:16:42.840 --> 0:16:47.360 not mistaken that used digital filmmaking. And that's actually that's 0:16:47.440 --> 0:16:50.080 that one of the reasons that you might go to 0:16:50.160 --> 0:16:53.640 this process. You know, you might say, well, hey, why 0:16:53.720 --> 0:16:56.760 would somebody use if there's equality to film that makes 0:16:56.800 --> 0:17:02.760 it different from shooting it directly to a digital version 0:17:02.960 --> 0:17:06.000 of of the movie, why would you do that? Well, 0:17:06.040 --> 0:17:09.439 one of the biggest reasons, um, other than its flexibility, 0:17:09.480 --> 0:17:15.040 is the cost, because there is a huge cost savings. Yeah, 0:17:15.080 --> 0:17:17.040 you don't have to buy film. Yeah for one thing. 0:17:17.320 --> 0:17:23.280 That's that's exactly right. And film unlike unlike digital. You know, digital, 0:17:23.320 --> 0:17:25.439 if if something is actually there's a lot of reasons 0:17:25.440 --> 0:17:28.720 why you would do this, but film, that is one 0:17:28.720 --> 0:17:31.439 of the bigger ones. Right, Film you can only you 0:17:31.440 --> 0:17:34.159 can only use once, that's right. So you buy, you 0:17:34.200 --> 0:17:36.880 have to buy way more film than you're actually going 0:17:36.960 --> 0:17:39.119 to end up using in your movie, because of course, 0:17:39.359 --> 0:17:41.600 you know you're not every take is going to be perfect, 0:17:41.600 --> 0:17:44.560 and you want to make the best film possible, which 0:17:44.600 --> 0:17:47.000 means you have to do lots and lots and lots 0:17:47.000 --> 0:17:49.920 of takes to give yourself as many choices as possible 0:17:49.960 --> 0:17:52.280 in the post production process, which we'll get into in 0:17:52.320 --> 0:17:56.399 another podcast. Um, you wanna give as many choices as 0:17:56.440 --> 0:17:58.800 possible once you reach that point so that you don't 0:17:58.840 --> 0:18:01.600 have to go back and do anything again, or do 0:18:01.680 --> 0:18:06.040 a new scene or anything like that. So, yeah, that's 0:18:06.080 --> 0:18:10.040 a huge cost buying you know, ten times more film 0:18:10.080 --> 0:18:12.919 easy than you're ever going to Actually ten times is 0:18:13.440 --> 0:18:16.080 not even close to how much film some of these 0:18:16.119 --> 0:18:20.080 these movies required in order to bring a two hour 0:18:20.160 --> 0:18:25.520 film to theaters. Um. And also distribution. If you're distributing 0:18:25.560 --> 0:18:29.320 a film, that means you have to actually produce. If 0:18:29.320 --> 0:18:32.000 you have to buy more film to to produce your movie, 0:18:32.080 --> 0:18:34.359 you have to actually make another print of it, yes, 0:18:34.600 --> 0:18:37.840 and then ship that to a physical copy theater. Yeah, 0:18:38.000 --> 0:18:40.240 and if you have you know, multiple screens, say for 0:18:40.280 --> 0:18:43.040 one of the blockbuster films, right, then you have to say, 0:18:43.080 --> 0:18:46.479 you know, have your local screen megaplex and six of 0:18:46.480 --> 0:18:50.400 those screens are showing the same blockbuster movie. Then you've 0:18:50.440 --> 0:18:55.800 got six copies for that one theater alone. Right, that's expensive. Yeah. 0:18:55.800 --> 0:18:59.399 And the other another really big problem with using film 0:18:59.520 --> 0:19:02.040 versus digital I'm not I mean again, film you get 0:19:02.080 --> 0:19:05.000 that certain quality with it, but digital you can see 0:19:05.240 --> 0:19:09.240 immediately how well that take came out. Well. Yeah. Anybody 0:19:09.240 --> 0:19:12.960 who has a digital camera still camera, who has used 0:19:12.960 --> 0:19:15.440 film in the past is fully aware of the differences 0:19:15.480 --> 0:19:17.120 of being able to, you know, go back and look 0:19:17.119 --> 0:19:20.280 at the screen and see what you just shot, versus well, 0:19:20.359 --> 0:19:22.159 I'll see this after I get it back from the 0:19:22.200 --> 0:19:24.520 developer and two or three weeks and then I'll see 0:19:24.560 --> 0:19:28.240 whether or not that that picture actually came out. Um. Yeah. 0:19:28.280 --> 0:19:33.400 The immediate feedback to digital is a huge boon to filmmakers. 0:19:33.440 --> 0:19:36.359 They can see, like, you know, you shoot a scene, 0:19:36.400 --> 0:19:38.119 you take a look at the scene immediately after you 0:19:38.119 --> 0:19:40.159 shoot it, and then you decide whether or not you 0:19:40.200 --> 0:19:44.840 need another take. Uh. With film, you you all you 0:19:44.840 --> 0:19:47.320 can go on is what you saw as the as 0:19:47.359 --> 0:19:49.119 the take was going. But you can't really you know, 0:19:49.160 --> 0:19:53.840 maybe the camera wasn't aligned properly, and maybe the light 0:19:54.000 --> 0:19:56.720 wasn't quite right for the film to capture it. Um, 0:19:56.720 --> 0:19:58.679 but you wouldn't know until you get a chance to 0:19:58.680 --> 0:20:02.760 look at it later on in daily's and that you know. 0:20:03.200 --> 0:20:05.159 By then you're like, you may find out that you 0:20:05.200 --> 0:20:06.919 have to go back and reshoot a scene that can 0:20:06.960 --> 0:20:09.560 push your whole production back. So yeah, digital definitely helps 0:20:09.960 --> 0:20:13.040 during the movie making process to keep things on schedule. 0:20:13.359 --> 0:20:17.320 Assuming you're not someone like Stanley Kubrick, who would do 0:20:17.560 --> 0:20:19.560 a hundred takes of a single scene, whether or not 0:20:19.640 --> 0:20:24.400 it was perfect the first time, that would be immaterial. Um, well, 0:20:24.440 --> 0:20:26.440 you never know, there might be something in the other 0:20:26.720 --> 0:20:29.200 and the other versions one of the other takes. It's 0:20:29.320 --> 0:20:32.360 oh yeah, I never even intended that, but look at that. Yeah. 0:20:32.359 --> 0:20:36.080 Another difference between digital and film, which we mentioned really quickly, 0:20:36.880 --> 0:20:40.720 assuming that you're watching a digital movie on some sort 0:20:40.760 --> 0:20:44.800 of digital uh playback device as opposed to because some 0:20:44.880 --> 0:20:48.320 digital movies are converted into film, right, You shoot it 0:20:48.359 --> 0:20:51.240 digitally and then you transfer it to film. In fact, 0:20:51.280 --> 0:20:52.680 a lot of movies have to be done this way 0:20:52.680 --> 0:20:56.119 because not every theater has a digital projector, so you 0:20:56.160 --> 0:20:58.280 have to convert it into film. But assuming that you're 0:20:58.280 --> 0:21:01.399 watching it from a digital sort and uh, you know, 0:21:01.440 --> 0:21:04.440 like a digital projector, it's gonna look the same way 0:21:05.240 --> 0:21:07.600 the hundredth time it's shown as it did the first 0:21:07.600 --> 0:21:10.080 time it was shown. So if you want those little 0:21:10.080 --> 0:21:11.520 burn marks, you have to put them in there when 0:21:11.520 --> 0:21:15.560 you're right. Yeah, the little hair that's going across the screen. Yeah, 0:21:15.680 --> 0:21:20.679 with film, film degrades over time and overuse. So the 0:21:20.760 --> 0:21:23.439 hundredth time of film is shown, a physical film is 0:21:23.440 --> 0:21:25.639 shown is gonna look different than the first time because 0:21:25.680 --> 0:21:27.240 the film is gonna have some wear and tear on it. 0:21:28.200 --> 0:21:31.680 So that's another thing that the filmmakers taken too consideration. 0:21:32.200 --> 0:21:35.840 So the digital process is different when it goes to 0:21:35.880 --> 0:21:39.720 these photo sites. The light when it's hitting the photo sites, 0:21:39.800 --> 0:21:43.800 that then gets converted into ones and zeros. Some of 0:21:43.880 --> 0:21:49.120 the digital cameras have something called a beam splitter, splits 0:21:49.160 --> 0:21:54.119 the light into component colors. All right, Yeah, So the 0:21:54.160 --> 0:21:58.240 component colors of video are red, green, and blue. And 0:21:58.280 --> 0:22:01.960 we've actually had some listeners right in with a related 0:22:02.040 --> 0:22:06.440 question asking why is that considered the primary colors in film? Why? Red, green, 0:22:06.440 --> 0:22:09.000 and blue? Because in art class I learned that the 0:22:09.040 --> 0:22:12.679 primary colors were red, blue, and yellow, because red and 0:22:12.760 --> 0:22:15.480 yellow make orange, and yellow, blue make green, and blue 0:22:15.480 --> 0:22:17.680 and red make purple, and a whole bunch makes a 0:22:17.720 --> 0:22:21.840 big mess. Um. And the answer to that is the 0:22:21.840 --> 0:22:27.400 difference between additive and subtractive colors. Now we've we've talked 0:22:27.440 --> 0:22:30.320 about this in the past two we got into the cables, 0:22:30.400 --> 0:22:34.040 right right, So let's I'll talk about subtractive colors first, 0:22:34.040 --> 0:22:36.119 because that's that's kind of the you know, you go 0:22:36.160 --> 0:22:38.800 to elementary school and you learn your primary colors red, blue, 0:22:38.800 --> 0:22:41.560 and yellow, and you get a little color wheel and everything, um, 0:22:41.560 --> 0:22:45.639 subtractive and it sounds it's first it seems kind of 0:22:45.760 --> 0:22:50.560 um counterintuitive because you think of it as subtractive, but 0:22:50.600 --> 0:22:54.040 you're adding pigments together to make new colors. But in 0:22:54.160 --> 0:22:58.080 subtractive you start with white. All right. That's that's that's 0:22:58.119 --> 0:23:00.720 one end of the spectrum. And the more colors you add, 0:23:00.760 --> 0:23:04.320 the closer to black you get. So if you were 0:23:04.320 --> 0:23:06.719 to add all the different colors together, you would eventually 0:23:06.760 --> 0:23:11.000 get black. Um. And also I do know that if 0:23:11.040 --> 0:23:13.160