What I was trying to say:
- If I were a theater owner I wouldn't be interested in switching to digital at only 2K at the current prices.
- If I were a director, I wouldn't want to shoot in 2K or 4K when one could shoot film and have the negatives definitively scanned at 8K in some years.
1. I'll repeat it- if you're a theater owner, only the distribution channel would make you interested in switching to digital *at all.* No matter when you switch, you're looking at >$150,000 per screen per 5-10 years vs. $50,000 per screen for 20-30 years in direct capital costs, plus higher expenses over that time period. The *only* reason to go digital in any number of screens at all is currently 3D digital and IMAX releases. That's it, no other reason exists if you're an independent. The current prices have nothing to do with it, and the current resolution has even less- the prices have to make sense in terms of an ROI, no matter what the costs are unless they're trivial. If you're holding out because you want higher resolution instead of a better ROI, it's likely you won't be a theater owner for very long.
2. If you're a director, you're worried about making your producer's money back and your profit in the year of release, not ten years down the road. You're not likely to be shooting the next RHPS. You've got two shots to make your money back and make a profit, theater release and DVD release. Waiting until 8k becomes viable to make your money back is going to cost you a *lot* more money than making it up front. You're not likely to be a director long if your question is "What resolution will my film be at in 10 years?" instead of "What's my shooting budget and how do I best make a compelling film within that budget?"
If you're a director, then the film vs. digital question has nothing to do with resolution. It's got to do with equipment availability, post production and fx capabilities/timelines/costs, the ability to judge lighting on set, speed of production, length of takes, color and luminance response and most importantly, overall production cost. It may also be that the producer makes the call, as he's the big numbers person.
Here's a Wikipedia stat:
Rick McCallum, a producer on Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, has commented that the production spent $16,000 for 220 hours of digital tape, where a comparable amount of film would have cost $1.8 million. With disk-based systems such as the Red One, the cost would be even lower, and exact backups can be stored at different locations on different media as well. However, this does not necessarily indicate the actual cost savings percentage, as the very low incremental cost of shooting additional footage may encourage filmmakers to use far higher shooting ratios with digital.
Now, $1.8M is noise in a big production budget, but it's still a fair amount of money, and if you're one of the 75% that don't make money it may be the difference between you getting another gig soon or not.
You keep trying to analyze things in terms of resolution, that's not how the business of film making works. Business works in terms of numbers- the only way to be a successful director is to make your numbers big and make your films profitable. The only way to be a successful theater operator is to make your profits on your screens. You keep avoiding looking at the numbers, and that's where you're off-base.
Look at it this way- the bulk of folks going digital are going 2k. That's
despite the fact that if you take a 35mm film master and scan it at 4k, you get
better resolution than if you dupe film-to-film. If resolution were the driver, nobody would go 2k, and everyone would have skipped right to 4k. Why is it that the bulk of theaters are still analog? Because
the numbers don't make sense and
resolution is a trivial concern.
Paul
