After six years of launching with undercooked comedies, pint-sized documentaries, and one scorching drama made by relative unknowns, the Milwaukee Film Festival will for the first time kick off with a movie directed by a major international figure. Paolo Sorrentino’s “Youth,” which stars Michael Caine and Harvey Keitel as entertainment legends trading jokes and wisdom […]
Introducing the 2015 Milwaukee Film Festival Read More »
Had you asked me yesterday to make a list of the filmmakers who were the biggest proponents of shooting on celluloid, Martin Scorsese’s name would have been close to the top. Sure, the veteran director shot last year’s award-winning “Hugo” using the Arri Alexa digital camera, but most of us figured that was only because
35mm loses another key advocate: Martin Scorsese to shoot new film digitally Read More »
Over the past decade, the movie theater industry has spent millions of dollars converting their traditional 35mm film projectors to digital projectors. Saturday, at the NAB’s Technology Summit on Cinema, it was announced that 50 percent of screens worldwide had made the switch to digital, 70 percent in the United States.
On film blogs, this conversion has largely been derided and smeared — “How can they get rid of 35mm? It’s the best way to watch a movie!” While I understand the sentiment behind this protest, it seems to me that the approach is rather narrow — Hollywood isn’t going to fix the “problem” just because a niche group of purists say it exists. There’s too much money to be saved by going 100 percent digital. What is necessary to actually create positive change is for the everyday moviegoer to join in the fight to keep 35mm alive. Which first requires them to understand what’s at stake.
Making Sense of the Digital Conversion Read More »
