Sundance Film Festival

The panel put on by Slamdance actually featured mostly Sundance filmakers, seating American Son director Neil Abramson, The Wackness and Wind and the Water DP Petra Korner, The Wackness co-producer Brian Udovich, Real Time director Randall Cole (the only Slamdance film represented), and Sundance short Adventures of Baxter & McGuire: The Boss director Mike Blum.

The panel mostly focused on distribution and how the individuals came to be filmmakers–most participants stating Sundance is the biggest boom on the path towards distribution. No surprise there.

The most interesting story of how a filmmaker came to be was the evolution of Neil Abramson, a South African native who found his love for the art by sneakily snapping photos of police brutality during Apartheid.

However, as expected with Kodak being the presenting sponsor, the discussion did turn toward film versus HD/video acquisition. Below are some notes on each panelist’s take on the issue:

Neil Abramson: Chooses film over digital as he perceives the medium still offers the best latitude and depth. He also said that for a feature, both cost-wise and picture-wise, film is still a better deal when looking at the entire workflow. While he loves the film medium, he does have fears that at some point digital will be perceived as “good enough” and “cheap enough” to where film could be largely replaced by video in the industry.

Mike Blum (who gave up his position at Disney to direct full-time): Notes that postproduction with film media has stayed largely the same for the past 75 years, while digital workflows incorporate “thousands” of different standards and people/processes that haven’t been used for very long at all. He says that for independent movies digital can raise the overall costs by incorporating the challenges of working with a “slew” of different people in post.

Petra Korner: As a cinematographer, she still refuses to shoot digital at this point in the game due to “look” concerns. She doesn’t feel, from a DP standpoint, that video will ever replace film but feels that video will find its own way and establish a niche within the industry.

Randall Cole: Cole says the depth on HD is out of control and that digital cinema cameras are still too big for his purposes–finding the Arri SR3 Super 16 camera to be the right choice for Real Time, which was shot inside a car (tight quarters), and on location in a decrepit, Canadian steel town. The 16mm gave a grainy look and feel he was looking for to help establish his movie in the 1970s.

Brian Udovich: Brian said that digital has it’s place. As a filmmaker you have to decide what type of material you want to shoot and where you’d like to see the movie displayed (big screen, TV screen, etc.). From there, media can be decided as best fits those parameters.

On the digital projection front, Blum said that he sees much improvement in that arena, although he still advocates film to capture. But, claims he sees digital projection as an opportunity to bring certain cost advantages to aspects of the industry. Korner on the other hand, with her cinematographer eye, says that current digital projection offerings are still problematic with the highlights in greenery/foliage and human faces–falling too short for her tastes.