EDITORIAL - Film vs Digital: When it will be ended?

Martin Scorsese’s Hugo (2011) is secretly *spoiler alert* a love letter from the world’s greatest living/working director to date to the old Hollywood era he grew up with. The movie itself is a kind of propagandic, which implicitly reminds us about the death of film stock use nowadays. In this highly dynamic globalization state, many filmmakers tend to migrate from film stocks to digital. This so-called modernization, helps to launch the career of many amateur / professional filmmakers due to its efficiency and easy-to-use/learn-nature, while in the same time, slowly sends the film stock industries to its graveyards. Kodak, one of the biggest film stock manufacturers in the world, almost went to bankruptcy and planned to shut down their film stock productions as an impact of the rise of digital filmmaking. Fortunately in 2013, they managed to survive and decided to produce the stocks again as it used to do.

Bunch of A-list filmmakers, such as: Quentin Tarantino, Christopher Nolan, Paul Thomas Anderson and Martin Scorsese are some of the biggest and loudest proponents of film stock filmmaking. Despite all disadvantages film stocks have, those filmmakers are the first barricade to protect and support the old school style filmmaking which embraces and sustains the art of manual film editing. Believe me, it’s far more difficult to cut and edit rolls of film stock than just swipe-cut-swipe your video on your iPhone.

Back in 2004, a legit living movie encyclopedia, Quentin Tarantino, spoke up at Cannes Film Festival that the rise of digital format is the beginning of film stock’s mass graveyard, as quoted: "I'm hoping that while this generation is quite hopeless, that the next one will demand the real thing. I'm very hopeful that future generations will be much smarter than this generation and realize what they lost”. Tarantino and with his other usual suspects (PTA, Nolan, etc), up until now are keeping to be very vocal to raise the awareness of young filmmakers to use and respect the art of stock filmmaking.

However, no matter how loud and hotheaded the propagandas are launched, the dominance of digital format is becoming more and more popular, thanks to the rise of the likes of Netflix, Hulu and other movie streaming platforms. Digital format became widely well-received, that even everybody’s now can be a movie director. Everyday, thousands of videos are recorded using smartphones / pocket cameras then are uploaded to Youtube on daily basis. What disadvantages film stock have, is that its complex nature to be learnt and understood. Film stock technology uses a big camera to record scenes frame per frame. The cameras are typically big, heavy and needs a certain skill to be operated properly (the skill I mean is years and years of experience). Moreover, it is so expensive (not to mention the additional built-ins) and needs a proper maintenance on certain period of time. As for the film stock itself, it needs to be stored properly on certain temperature with hygiene environment state. Film stocks could easily emit acid substances if not properly stored (which is called the “vinegar syndrome” process) and it will become more fragile as the effects of the acid it emits.

Although seemingly inevitable that the gap between the use of film stock and digital format will become broader, but it is worth noting that film stocks could give the biggest and highest resolution possible; sharper and accurate color saturations; and it definitely sharpen one’s skill in photography / editing process. In relation to the never-ending debate of Film vs Digital, I was lucky enough to meet and informally interviewed Mr. Erwin Chandra whose indie films such as: Indeed (2012), Impossible (2013) and Silent Hero(es) (2015) gained critical acclaims in general. The indie filmmaker who goes by the name of Ducko Chan is not quite a fan of film stock and not quite optimistic that it would survive for the next 10 to 15 years later, as quoted: “It’s just a matter of time”. Ducko states that all Indonesia movie theatres are now switched to digital projections, and he argues that digital filmmaking eases newbie filmmakers to learn the basics of filmmaking with the most minimum expenses possible. Despite all advantages digital format have, it also has several problems: corrupted data files, compatibility issues, volatility, etc.

In conclusion, it does not matter which side we stand on (either it is film stock or digital format), because one thing is for sure that filmmaking technology will be moving forward constantly; and as with every breakthrough goes, there is certainly benefits and disadvantages. In the end, it returns to the subjectivity of each individual.