[Lava Lamp Freak]

Steven Spielberg is requiring that Indy 4 only be presented in 35mm. Reading through the comments on JoBlo, it seems a lot of people dislike DLP presentations. I'm confused by this, as I always prefer going to digital theaters since the picture is cleaner and doesn't jump around like film projections.

What's the deal with 35mm being better than digital?

No digital Indy 4?

[ort888]

It's especially odd considering how big of a hard-on George Lucas has for anything digital.

[turtle777]

I think the reason is that there was no DLP in 1957, so how could they have possibly used it ?

-t

[d4nth3m4n]

maybe he's miffed that they're going to stop making polaroid film next year.

[Jawbone54]

Snooty.

[::maroma::]

Perhaps he wanted to keep it feeling even more like the old Indy movies. From what I've heard a lot of people are concerned that it will be too modern and not as "raw" and "gritty" as the previous films. Keeping it 35mm would help that, I would guess.

[SirCastor]

The only thing I can think of is a matter of practicality. DLP theaters are few and far between.

Still... for something as big as this, I would think they'd make every effort.

[Chongo]

Piracy arrr! DLP would mean prefect clones, arrrr sorry.

[Eriamjh]

There's only a handful of DLP projection theatres in the who US and probably not many more in the world.

There's nothing wrong with film. It looks great when the prints are new.

[Don Pickett]

Originally Posted by Lava Lamp Freak 

What's the deal with 35mm being better than digital?

There's two issues here. One is that 35mm movie film has a wider dynamic range than any of the digital formats, which still blow out when overexposed and clog up when underexposed. As a lot of directors and cinematographers (although not Spielberg) like to push their film to get funky effects, shooting on digital limits what you can do in camera. This gets more complicated when you consider that there are several issues at play with using digital cameras: the quality of your CCD(s), the quality of your conversion and/or compression process, etc. The technology just isn't there yet.

The other issue is digital projectors, which are still a very young technology. Personally I don't like them, as I can see artifacting and banding, especially in areas which transition from light to dark. Assuming that the new Indiana Jones film will have a fair number of explosions and the like, I can understand why Spielberg wants this.

There's a third issue which has nothing to do with quality and everything to do with politics and money. One of the reasons the studios are pushing digital projectors is that they want to move to a completely new form of distribution: digital downloads straight to the theaters. There are some legitimate reasons for this. It saves a lot of money in film, processing and duplication costs, and it theoretically means a better product at the end. No more film getting damaged or lost in transit, no more having to run a spliced film because you can't get a new copy for a few days, etc. However, directors and theater owners rightly see it as a way for the studios to exercise even more control over the industry, which would be a bad thing.

Imagine this scenario: Theater chain A is competing with theater chain B. MegaMovieStudio, Inc., allied with Chain A, suddenly has "technical difficulties" and can't get the downloads to Chain B's theaters until Sunday of opening weekend. It is unfortunate that Chain B missed an entire weekend of the new blockbuster's profits, but these things happen.

Or, imagine that a director is having a dispute with MegaMovieStudio, Inc. Even though his contract gives him final cut, the studio wants him to make a more family friendly version of the film. He refuses, and a week before the film is supposed to open there's a server crash at the studio and all the copies of his work are lost. Too bad.

[Eriamjh]

Go to Wikipedia and read the Indy 4 page. It says that Spielberg is going to the same look of the old Indy films. To do that, he's not shooting digital. He's even doing as little CGI as possible.

[Dakar the Fourth]

Originally Posted by Eriamjh 

It says that Spielberg is going to the same look of the old Indy films. To do that, he's not shooting digital. He's even doing as little CGI as possible.

He's like the anti-Lucas. Good for him.

[olePigeon]

Originally Posted by Eriamjh 

Go to Wikipedia and read the Indy 4 page. It says that Spielberg is going to the same look of the old Indy films. To do that, he's not shooting digital. He's even doing as little CGI as possible.

Yay! That means top-notch props and miniatures.

[Montezuma58]

Originally Posted by SirCastor 

The only thing I can think of is a matter of practicality. DLP theaters are few and far between.

Still... for something as big as this, I would think they'd make every effort.

The majority of the screens in town here have digital projectors.