Blowing Smoke: A movie about poker, cigars, women, and getting screwed

Wednesday
August 02, 2006

The unintended consequences of going digital

Female Jackie D | Category: Digital
2> Comments

Brilliant post from The Long Tail author Chris Anderson about how shooting digitally changes acting.

[F]ilm costs a lot and must be used sparingly, while digital tape is practically free. The difference between the scarcity economics of film and the abundance economics of digital is, as Bill put it, "the difference between pointing a loaded gun at someone and a toy gun. You point a loaded gun at them and they're going to act different. A film camera is a loaded gun. Digital is not."

Actors hear the sound of the film whirring and can get distracted by the thought of all the money that's going down the drain as it rolls, and how much pressure is on them to deliver in as few frames as possible. As one director says:
I've had to unlearn saying "action" and "cut". I think shooting in digital makes every actor better. You're always in rehearsal and never in performance. There's no "start". It allows for serendipity. Rather than reach an emotional moment and then having to recreate it later with the film running, you capture everything.

Does this mean that, in a digital world, Kevin Spacey may have more than one facial expression?

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Comments

I can see this having an effect on an actor's self-indulgence... if Coppola had shot Brando as Kurtz on digital, they might still be filming.

Comment by pete on August 2, 2006 1:57 PM

And for directors, too. I remember hearing that that's how things went for the Bill Murray film about about Hunter S Thompson... The guy'd say "Great!" after take one and then shoot five more takes. Just this morning a director told me that for production, digital brings wonderful economies of scale. But for post, not so much.

Comment by Crid on August 2, 2006 6:33 PM