Death and resurrection of the film negative

Jordi Bransuela, director of photography and director of the Master in Photography Direction at the CHESS, reflects on the state of the cinematographic negative. Are we witnessing a resurrection?

In the mid-90s, I remember participating as a camera operator in a short film with an “experimental” camera (I don't even remember the brand) that recorded in high definition (HD) video. It was sold to us as the preamble to digital cinema and the technology that was going to replace photochemical film. Shortly afterwards, and discussing the filming with Tomás Pladevall, a technical reference for our generation and later mentor, he explained that back in the early 80s he had already experienced a similar situation with video technology that was said to replace film. He did not give any credibility to the new technological “wonder” and told us that it was something recurring that happened from time to time, something like 3D cinema (we will talk about that another day).

Certainly Pladevall's predictions were shown to be true more or less until the appearance of the ARRI Alexa in 2010. I am sure that at this point many will have already doubted my memory or knowledge, and will be shouting inside "...what about the F900? What about the F35? What about the Panavision Genesis? But, and above all, what about the RED ONE?!” Calm down, calm down. It is true that, prior to Alexa, there were already many cameras that were used to shoot films and that all of them at the time were someone's bet to replace the photochemical. But let's be serious, can anyone with a minimum of photographic knowledge affirm that the RED ONE, or any of the ones I mentioned before, could seriously compete with photochemical support as a means of capture? If your answer is affirmative, I am sorry to tell you that, for me, they clearly could not and that while it is true that they were cameras that provided things and, above all, concepts (RAW recording, Log curves, expanded color gamuts...), they were light years away from the qualities that any cinematographic negative was capable of providing.

When I talk about qualities, and going into the subject a little, we would talk about some elementary concepts; concepts that are not at all exotic and that anyone without needing to be a photography director could clearly see in a comparison. We would talk first about the exposure latitude, a term directly related to the dynamic range or capacity to register the difference between highlights and shadows. The negative film, due to its logarithmic behavior in the capture (non-linear, with different response depending on the intensity), showed in certain emulsions (especially those with high sensitivity) an astonishing registration capacity, and could even exceed 13 points of dynamic range. This allowed, for example, filming in very extreme lighting situations, with great light contrasts, with extreme overexposures and always relying on “negative burned, negative saved.”

Before the ARRI Alexa, the “usable” dynamic range in digital (very different from the manufacturer's dynamic range) could reach nine points in the best of cases, making overexposures extremely dangerous and forcing the director of photography to know very well where each luminosity of the scene “fell” to avoid generating noise due to underexposure or unrecoverable burns due to overexposure.

Another parameter long acclaimed by defenders of photochemistry referred to the registration of color, either due to the color palette that the negative offered us, or due to the quality of the reproduced color. We could continue talking about less obvious, but equally important terms: the most natural reproduction of highlights, the best color reproduction in underexposure, the ability to enlarge the frame for a large screen... In short, no digital camera prior to 2010 was capable of supporting a comparison with a standard color negative, be it Kodak or Fuji.

Moment of the “click”

Most of us cinematographers who have experienced the transition between photochemical and digital (both in still photography and film) remember the moment of the “click”; the moment when we internally told ourselves that now yes, that the camera in front of us was indeed the definitive one, the first that could compete head-to-head with the film and that it was going to change everything. Others will do the same in more epic terms and will talk about the moment of surrender (Xavi Giménez A.E.C, how many magnificent terms and wonderful concepts I have learned from you!), a vital moment in which, after having been brave defenders of photochemical values, they had to surrender to the evidence and recognize that digital capture had reached a level capable of competing with photochemical one.

I have several friends in this last category and I could even mention the last of them, the last one who managed to shoot a film in negative, back in 2014, defending tooth and nail the validity of the medium in the face of the disbelief of the rest of the industry, which was already totally digital. For me, and I suppose for many others, that moment was the premiere of Heavy rain, a James Bond film released in 2012 and photographed by Roger Deakins with an ARRI Alexa Studio. In the 125 years of cinema history, there have been, in my opinion, three great changes or revolutions. The appearance of sound in 1927, the birth of panoramic cinema in 1953 and the arrival of the ARRI Alexa in 2010. Why this and the arrival of color or the digital intermediate (DI) not? Well, because this changed the film industry completely, all over the world and for all budgets, causing the way in which films were shot to be completely transformed in two or three years.

And the question I want to ask you now is, what has happened in the film industry so that 10 years after the change, when the industry has already made a total transition to digital, negative filming is experiencing a spectacular boom in Europe and the USA? What explains this renaissance of photochemistry?

I am part of a school (ESCAC) where we have always believed in the negative as a learning method, even in the most turbulent times; Back in 2015-2016, when it seemed that even Kodak was going to disappear, we remained firm in our commitment to continue filming and teaching our students through negative exposure. It is not a merely romantic question, but the certainty that it is the best learning method for a future filmmaker. Digital has many advantages: for example, immediacy, on-set visualization, the possibility of shooting very long takes without stopping and repeating them without having to cut the shot...

All of these advantages become potential drawbacks when it comes to training someone who has to learn to optimize time or master a technical process that goes beyond seeing something they like on a reference display. Let's say that ours was not pure romanticism or nostalgia for the negative: it was a sign of identity and that is why we considered ourselves outside the general market trend. This does not mean that we neglected the digital process, but always from a prior photochemical approach to control the elements.

Going back to that critical period, I remember talking to a classmate about how long we could “hold out.” Our school had become practically self-sufficient: we had the latest generation 35 and 16mm cameras; We had the best camera mechanic in Barcelona, ​​formerly of Camara Rent; We had bought the best telecine on the market... Anyway, we just needed Kodak to continue standing and for someone, even if it was on the other side of Europe (the last Spanish laboratory closed in 2014), to reveal the filmed material to us and return it to us for telecination. Fortunately it happened that way and, furthermore, two or three years ago, the trend began to change: negative filming in the industry began to grow again.

It was no longer just Tarantino or Nolan with their great blockbusters, but much more modest people who were beginning to bet on filming in photochemical again. First it was 16mm, with video clips, some documentaries, indie films and some advertising. Little by little, 35mm also came back, especially in advertising and finally also in feature films. Prices for second-hand 16mm cameras skyrocketed again and it was clear that something was up. Everyone wanted to shoot things in negative and, since school, we noticed this boom with more demand than ever for our Master in Photography Direction, based on that learning that I told you about before. That boom continues today and I will even tell you that we are perhaps at the highest point since 2012. I say the latter not only from what I have been able to read, but from conversations I have been able to have with Rodrigo Ruiz Tarazona, director of Cinelab Romania and a great connoisseur of everything that is filmed in Europe and how it is filmed. Right now he tells me about a real explosion of negative filming and lists at least six high-level productions that are going to go through his developing facilities. They have gone from developing documentaries, indie films and advertising, to developing large format series and films. The industry is back. The question is why?

For some time I have been reflecting on this topic and on other similar ones (for example, the use of optics vintage or the use of analog video formats, etc.) and I have my own theory about it. Every drastic change in technology has an initial euphoric moment, where there is an absolute infatuation with what is coming and a total defenestration for the previous model. With digital, that infatuation has lasted for 10 years, and in many cases it is still intact. Digital offers enormous advantages for most of today's shoots. Increasingly faster filming, where the media practically flows from the set to a cloud where the editor has access to it at the same time it is being recorded; where the visualization is wonderful and allows us to grade directly on set; where we have a monstrous resolution that allows us to fill ever larger screens and reframe at will… Digital has no rival… or does it?

The digital image

We have seen that digital has enormous advantages over paper compared to photochemical (especially logistical), but there is one thing that 99% of directors and cinematographers cannot stand: having the so-called “digital image”. And what do we call “digital image”? It would encompass several concepts in a broader one, going from a perfect, static image (without noise or internal movement due to the grain), with a very high level of detail, capable in many cases of reproducing a very, very real image to another extreme, reproducing electronic and unreal colors with an unnatural representation of the highlights, with an image "crippled" by the representation of the edges of the elements of the scene and the compression, making it, in short, very unattractive. Paradoxically, both could be classified as “digital” images: one for being extremely clean and perfect, and another, for just the opposite, obtaining a poor image with problems derived from low-quality digital capture.

And why this rejection? In the case of low quality capture it is obvious, but what about the perfect and pristine image? Well, basically, because the film negative has been the capture medium throughout the 20th century, building a collective aesthetic framework, accepted by both creators and viewers, first in B/W and later in color. That frame had and has visual characteristics that in many cases we continue to look for, even though our capture medium is digital (we add grain, we soften the images with vintage filters and optics, we put photochemical color emulation LUTs...)

There are those who compare the negative with painting, perhaps because the two methods are subtractive, because of their pigment colors, because of their lack of sharpness comparable to the line, because of the grain of their image comparable to the texture of the canvas... and that same comparison also serves to symbolize the singularity of the method and perhaps its main difference with respect to electronic and digital. The organic and unpredictable against the binary and a thousand times reproducible.

Although there are other reasons that could be argued, from my point of view, the previous reason is the main explanation for this new photochemical boom: there is a certain fatigue on the part of some creators of the so-called digital image. Directors and cinematographers have always sought to have their own unique image that would give them production value and uniqueness. Their tools to do so have always been the same: light, optics, filters, color grading and, in photochemical times, the choice of negative and its processing. It is true that we have all developed and adapted our own methods to “personalize” the image generated by a digital camera and make it more “organic” or imperfect, but perhaps some have begun to think that why so much effort to disguise something, if the most effective solution was simply to use the support they were trying to emulate. Unlike five years ago, filming in photochemical has more prestige than ever and is even a sign of uniqueness and production opulence... In fact, not everyone can afford it! Major American blockbusters once again choose the negative as the capture format, and then scan it and follow the usual process.

The Alexa is still wonderful, but for many it is already synonymous with low risk, a specific and known color palette, a texture that is too clean... There are cameras that can compete with the Alexa (finally), but even those cameras are not that different from the Alexa itself. If we want something really different we have to opt for the film negative, that's clear. Like someone who paints in acrylic and switches to oil, everything is paint, but they are different pigments and they give you different things. That might be a good comparison.

For years I did not understand those who were happy about the possible disappearance of the photochemical capture medium. There was a declared war between the supporters of one side and the other, and their battles were followed in forums and magazines by the entire group. My position has changed over the years, but what I am very sure of is that anyone who calls themselves a director of photography has to defend the coexistence of the two formats. The wealth that it brings us to be able to continue rolling in negative for certain projects is something we should not give up. Likewise, there are projects in which only digital capture makes sense, therefore, what better option than to be able to choose!

If negative capture eventually returns to normal and developing and scanning prices remain competitive, the negative may have a chance. Who knows: if this continues, we may soon see a new Kodak Vision 4 negative or even a new ARRI 35mm. Let's dream...

The negative is more alive than ever and I hope and wish that it is not a last-minute rattle, but that it is truly the commitment of a group convinced of maintaining a magnificent format, which logically has its disadvantages and differences compared to digital, but that is precisely what really makes it attractive, giving us things at the image level that no digital format can provide us.

Jordi Bransuela

Director of Photography and colorist.

For 3 years he has directed the Master's Degree in Photography Direction at the CHESS, where He also develops his teaching side, something that he is passionate about and that allows him to continue learning and experimenting every day.

www.jordibransuela.com