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in praise of digital cinematography...

Carbon Helium

152,764 views

sup nerds. Hollywood's push towards digital cameras has come under much scrutiny over the past two decades. The general consensus online is that movies shot on film look vibrant, but those shot on digital look like grey sludge. Today I want to prove that this is far from the case. I believe that digital filmmaking has a lot more potential than anyone gives it credit for. Let's go through some examples, and explore why their directors chose to shoot this way.
Hope you all enjoy :)

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0:00 - intro
1:39 - what's the difference
2:36 - stylistic choice
4:22 - roger deakins
6:37 - continuous takes
8:17 - green screen
11:15 - high dynamic range (hdr)
12:57 - so, which is better?

20 Comments

@CarbonHelium Creator 11 months ago Pinned

Didn't include this in the video, but while researching, I came across this interesting article. Steve Yedlin (cinematographer of Knives Out and The Last Jedi) has done extensive work to emulate the look of film cameras on digital. In fact, The Last Jedi was shot on both types of cameras, and it's extremely difficult to tell them apart! Definitely give this a read if you're interested:
https://www.polygon.com/2020/2/6/21125680/film-vs-digital-debate-movies-cinematography/

@snoot6629 11 months ago

a bad craftsman always blames his tools

@MrCREWCRUSHIN95 10 months ago

REMINDER: Film and digital are NOT enemies. And it was NEVER an 'Either/Or" choice. They should both exist and be used.

@SkiDaBird 10 months ago

Blade Runner 2049 and Dune Part 2 are probably the most visually stunning films of the last decade for me.

@rocketscott 9 months ago

The Batman is a great example of what digital can look like. Of course they had to find imperfect lenses, but I think that really worked visually

@shanjayaweera3036 11 months ago

If Roger Deakins is happy to shoot digital then I am happy to watch it

@smalldeekgeorge 11 months ago

Just look at korean cinematography almost all of them are shot on digital camera especially after 2014. I'm always blown away.

@SpinningSandwich 10 months ago

Speed Racer was definitely meant to look like a 10-year-old directed it. In a great way.

@asherhuskinson6815 11 months ago

Love the video!

I’ve also noticed that the people (at high levels) arguing for the “purity of film” tend to be directors rather than cinematographers.

As Deakins said “it’s not the tech, it’s the person behind the camera.”

@thatRyzzle 11 months ago

At the core, I don't care if a movie is shot on film (35mm, IMAX, etc.) or on digital. I just want the images to have a pleasing amount of contrast, and the colors to be vibrant when they need to be. What I don't want is a dull, greige image all the time.

@Crlarl 10 months ago

The Room was shot both on digital and film.

@DylanCogdill 10 months ago

People with talent and a vision can make anything look good.

@KC-lg8qf 10 months ago

Reminds me of a lot of people in the audio world. They tell you that analouge composition, mixing and mastering can always achieve a better sound than digital....and it's just not true. It's how you use the tools

@Zenshirokojima 11 months ago

If the images are good… the images are good.

Pretty simple.

@KRAFTWERK2K6 11 months ago

The problem is colorists and directors nowdays are fucking COWARDS when it comes to colour grading. They all feel wayyyy too comfortable in their low contrast & low colour LOG footage and don't want to dare to show ANY bit of contrast or vibrancy just to preserve "Dynamic Range" while making everything look way too flat and boring. They shoot digital with all the possibilities to grade it but instead they make it look dull and literally the same. You could edit together almost every TV show and Movie today and you wouldn't notice it's from different shows or films. And that's not good....

@ClubSoda98 10 months ago (edited)

The 2015 adaptation of MacBeth is a fantastic example of digital looking amazing. That movie is gorgeous.

@wipeout2098 9 months ago

Meanwhile David Lynch makes Inland Empire on a 10 year old Sony camcorder. xD

@reaganmonkey8 9 months ago (edited)

I think this applies to a lot of things within this medium. CGI isn’t inherently worse than practical effects. It takes a lot of artistry and skill to make it look good.

@Tardsmat 11 months ago

Ironically, movies shot on film also got made better by digital technology. Nowadays you get high quality scans of the film that are precisely (digitally!) color graded to the directors and cinematographers wishes. Back in the day when film was all there was, what you saw in the cinema was a copy of a copy of a copy, and there was no guarantee at all that it would look anything like what the filmmakers intended, or even that it would look the same as what another theater is showing. That's one big downside of film that we don't have to deal with anymore.

@Breonnick 11 months ago

I think one movie you should mention on film and digital debate is the movie A quite Place part 2. The movie was shot on film EXCEPT for the boat dock scene. With how narrow the docks were they shot that scene on digital because it's easier to move around on digital and you need less lights on set making the scene less of a hazard to shoot.

Yet it looks just the same as the rest of the movie.