Truth…past the hype of Digital: how actor contracts have changed the camera landscape

Film Fading to Black – Creative COW.

This article explains something I’ve been unable to for the past 2+ years, why there was suddenly a huge shift from Film to Digital in capture medium in productions, namely television. Read this an you will understand how it wasn’t a sudden breakthrough in digital or that the medium had caught up or surpassed Film as many would like people to think. The single biggest factor was a clause in how projects under AFTRA jurisdiction could be done far cheaper than ones under SAG, and that the AFTRA contracts ha a clause that these cheaper projects had to be shot on video….enter the shift to 90% TV Pilots in Digital.

This has made a push and perception that is nearly irreversible I think, an because of the speed and manner in which this is all happening I fear for the future of film for the fact that medium should be a choice, not a mandate. Instead of the addition of digital capture to the list of choices for someone to hoot with, we may simply lose Film as one. For when people have tried to explain all this before, reasons were given as to why the medium was supposedly superior, or cheaper, all of which I knew to be false and relative arguments, and no one ever looked to see that it was a clause in a contract that did it.

This saddens me though I still hope for there to be an eye opening change where people will look to realistic reasons and differences and see beyond hype. -f

October 20, 2011 | Categories: 35mm, f., photography | Tags: digital, f., film, motion picture | Leave A Comment »