How digital tech is changing films

A 110 years after their invention, movies are still synonymous with film. It may be still a few decades before celluloid actually disappears from motion pictures. Yet like in most other aspects of life, cinema too is going digital.

Today every aspect of film production is influenced by digital technology. The latest to hit film making is the digital intermediate (DI) process. In simplest terms, DI is the conversion of film to digital bits and then back to film again.

While that might sound simple, in reality it's a bleeding edge process that will evolve over many years and has great potential to revolutionise the entire film making process. DI will influence everything from production on sets to the delivery of content to consumers and everything in between.

Most individual parts of the film making process have been around for a long time -- scanning, digital effects, composting, digital editing and film recording. What's new is the degree of integration of these processes and the ability to evaluate the look of the digitally manipulated images without requiring printing to film.

The output of the digital intermediate process, therefore, becomes the master print of the movie in digital form. From that master, a film negative is created for the purpose of striking release prints, and/or a compressed or uncompressed digital file is created for digital distribution.

Central to the DI process is the digital representation of the picture. This representation is the data that form the basic (input) images and is manipulated and adjusted to achieve the final look of the film. Not only can a show be colour corrected in ways not previously possible but that the entire show can be manipulated digitally extends the creative palette for visual effects.

As a result, it might allow some shows to shoot faster and, for better or worse, with less discipline. For example, a period piece could be shot with modern airplanes or TV aerials visible, knowing that they could easily be removed later.

Digital intermediate also provides an elegant way to combine footage shot in different formats, be it film or video. Scanning film takes time and time is money. The result is that film makers and vendors must make choices about how much data are scanned from each frame.

This number and the scan resolution, influences the economics of the entire process. But the process isn't free -- traditional lab work is still cheaper for film delivery though the prices will inevitably comes down.

For current theatrical releases, the finished data are usually recorded to film, creating a negative for replication of release prints. Since the digital master is more consistent than the convention interpositive, it provides higher quality.

This makes the creation of digital cinema and home video/DVD masters more straightforward. This means that replication in other formats becomes easy and inexpensive.

Though we're not quite there yet, as prices come down, some type of digital intermediate process may soon seem like a creative no-brainer for any show that will be released on film.