The digital revolution was the move from physical media to digital media, the transition from HD to 4K, but what does this mean for the future of film as a medium of acquisition? 



Well, at this point, I think we can safely say that although shooting on 35MM or 16MM film may have become specialist, even niche, it will certainly never die out completely, thanks in part to certain stalwart Hollywood directors like Quentin Tarantino who refuse to shoot digitally.



What digital acquisition of video content has done, is that it has reduced the costs of acquiring footage and essentially democratized the film-making process. Movies can be shot and produced for a fraction of the cost that they were on celluloid. Making a feature film is now accessible to everyone.



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 The main issue, however, with digital masters and acquisition, is how we archive and are those archives tried and tested? In a word, no, and herein lies the reason that 35MM and 16MM and film in general will never die out completely.



When we take a look at archiving in general – when high definition revolutionized television content acquisition way back in 2000 and 2001 and DVD became the norm for home video viewers – we all thought that this was the pinnacle of new technology, the picture clarity, the sound, the colors; could this ever be improved upon? It was improved upon in less than five years with the advent of 4K content acquisition. 



Take a trip down memory lane and look at some of those early features and TV series shot in high definition (1080p), films like Session 9 and Star Wars – Attack of the Clones – do their visuals hold up to today’s standards? No, they don’t. With 4K and even 8K content acquisition, HD seems positively antiquated and certainly looks that way when viewing these films.



This is where film still trumps these formats as a basic storage format. Movies shot on 35MM or even 16MM stock is a physical frame size. Now this individual frame can be scanned and blown up to any size you want it as, there is no limit in terms of mastering and remastering because it’s a physical medium. 



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">This is the actual frame of film, it exists, it’s organic, you can touch it, as opposed to modern digital acquisition which is merely terabytes of digital ones and zeros – it exists only on hard-drives. </blockquote>



Let me give you an example of bad digital archiving. There’s
a whole generation of digital photographs between 2000 and 2010 that have
almost simply ceased to exist whether it be attributed to a hard-drive crash –
a software upgrade or a computer crash. How are these modern movies going to be
archived and stored? Will one be able to revisit one of them, like a film print
in over a hundred years’ time and it’s still there, still plays and still
exists.



Gone with the Wind and Wizard of Oz, both shot in 1938 and released in 1939 have been remastered in 4K and they look like they were shot yesterday. In another five years, they can still access these prints, digitally scan them again and size them up to 8K if necessary. These films are now 80 years old – will you be able to access a digital feature in the same way? 



The truth is that only time will tell, but this does make
for an interesting debate.



Another example of retrieving amazing archives is the recently-released documentary Apollo 11 through CNN Films. The national archives in the US had recently discovered 65mm and 70mm film reels of the preparation for and the actual moon landing in 1969. Now the frame size of the film, much like the name suggests, 70mm, is huge. 



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These archive films were then scanned into modern film scanners and painstakingly remastered into the new IMAX digital format. Having recently watched the film, I can attest to the fact that the presentation is truly breath-taking. The details, the colors, the clarity, it truly is a sight to behold. One would never say the footage was shot in 1969.



Which brings me to my final point: Until digital can prove
to us all that in a decade’s time, all these ‘digital’ masters can still be
accessed and stored and made easily available – it hasn’t proved itself as good
an archive as good old-fashioned celluloid. Kodak may be all but dead in terms
of acquisition but its legacy lives on forever in the archives and will
continue to do so. 



– Robert Haynes is the Executive Producer of entertainment at CNBC Africa and the owner of film and TV production company, 42nd Street Films, in Johannesburg.

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Is Celluloid Dead?

The officer stared at me through the glass window as I tried to explain why I didn’t have a visa. I was unaware that the 90-day visa waiver to Tanzania excluded business travel. It was hot, humid and I was soaked from the rain. The only thing between me and paradise was him.
“Mam, would you please step inside the office.”
I knew exactly what was happening; I had seen this before in a Quentin Tarantino movie. I was being detained.
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It was only a few hours before that I had boarded a boat from Dar es Salaam to Zanzibar. For four hours I sat on the rocking boat, watched City Lights &#8211; the silent black and white movie with Charlie Chaplin &#8211; spoke to the German businessman next to me and brushed up on my Swahili.
Now I was here, sitting across the table from three officers, wondering if I’ll fly back to South Africa in handcuffs.
I don’t remember how it happened but instead of paying a $300 fine, I got off with a friendly warning and great travel advice.
As soon as I reached Kisiwa House, a bed and breakfast in Stone Town, I dropped my bags and called a tour guide. We weaved through the narrow cobble-stone streets, dodging the children playing and people riding scooters and bicycles. But I couldn’t take my eyes off the doors.
The closer I got to them, the finely chiseled flowers, scales, ropes and chains became clearer. The Arabic style doors, often found with transcriptions, are square at the top while the Indian doors have round tops.
Stone Town, named a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2000, is rich in history. The Persian Baths, Tippu Tip’s House and House of Wonders are popular tourist attractions. There’s a stone sculpture next to Christ Church, which used to be the center of the slave market. The tour guide said the altar inside the church used to be a whipping post to test the slaves’ strength.
After a long day of sightseeing, the tour ended at the waterfront. I picked a spot close to the sea and watched children flip, roll, tumble and dive into the water. In the distance, the fishermen sailed to shore to set up for the evening Forodhani market.
The rain didn’t keep anyone from coming to indulge in the local cuisine which included piles of lobster, fish, octopus and calamari. The food is cooked over a fire and eaten with coconut bread.
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I had an interesting conversation with a fisherman about life at sea. He was part of a team of 10 who worked day and night shifts, so they always had fish. Although he enjoyed his easy life, he longed to experience life outside Zanzibar.
The next morning I was woken by roosters crowing, motorbikes riding and the call to prayer from the Mosques. After breakfast, I set out to Prison Island, a smaller islet off the coast of Zanzibar, by boat. As the waves pounded against the small wooden boat, the two-man crew struggled to steady it. When I looked around and saw only blue I began to understand just how vast and powerful the ocean is. It was thrilling, yet scary.
Then out in the distance I saw the white sandy beach of Prison islet. Although it never housed the incarcerated, its low walls would have made for an easy escape. The island has two main attractions: clear waters for snorkeling and giant tortoise. There were tortoises that were over 150 years old and some weighed up to 200 kilograms.
A few hours later, I was back on the mainland wandering through the stores along Kenyatta Road. While staring at a painting of the Masai, done in the Tanzanian Tingatinga style, I was distracted by a lady yelling at her child.
“Iwe, Musabata!” I smiled. It was a phrase I was all too familiar with, growing up in a Shona-speaking household. It means, “You, don’t touch that.”
I walked over to her, as she scolded her child and struck up a conversation. She left Zimbabwe six years ago hoping to provide a better life for her children. She was a teacher at one of the local schools and hoped to one day return to Zimbabwe.
On my last night on the island, I met some tourists for sundowners at Africa House, a restaurant on the beach with an amazing view of the ocean. Everyone gazed at the sun, in its red, yellow and orange glory, as it dipped beyond the horizon. It was as if they were seeing it for the first time. I sank in my seat and watched a solitary boat sail the vast sea. Perhaps this is what JRR Tolkien saw when he said, “Not all who wander are lost”. Just then Paradise by Coldplay began to play. I smiled, how fitting.

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Is Celluloid Dead?

Wander lost In Zanzibar