Topic: BBC: Analogue technology can be frustrating – is that part of the appeal?

[EarlJam]

The BBC had an article over the weekend on analog technologies and whether the "frustration" and "difficulty of learning" are part of its charm. To be fair, the authors do recognize that digital tech is "de-skilling us". Not sure I completely agree with that. When I made the transition from editing motion picture film to video editing, I felt that the art remained but the craft had been lost. Much the same as the transition from the magic of the wet darkroom to the clinical precision of the digital workspace. In any event, it's an interesting story.

The revival of film-based photography is partly driven by the same sensibility. The Vienna-based Lomography organisation – established in 1992 by a group of students as an arts movement to promote the taking of spontaneous and experimental photos – espouses such things as the "joy of light leaks" typical of cheap Chinese and Soviet-made plastic cameras, generating all sorts of interesting creative outcomes.

Indeed, rule number nine of Lomography's 10 golden rules highlights the accidental nature of shooting on film rather than a digital camera – and even the lovely surprise of getting your developed film delivered back from the processing laboratory:

So you get a roll of film back from the lab. Who is that person? What's that swirl of light flickering across the image? How did the colours turn out like that? Or what about that accidental double exposure – how the hell did that happen? What was I even trying to shoot there? It's these happy accidents that we love. (Michael)

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20240426-why-we-continue-to-embrace-analogue-tech

[Francois]

It's funny because I recently heard the Lomography founders say that experimentation has been replaced by planification in the digital era.
I think we can all agree with that. If on film you never have a true certainty of what the results will be, that is totally not the cast with digital. I feel that this is where filmmaking widely differs from photography. With a cine camera, the most you could do is expose, develop, cut and splice.
With a cine camera, all you do is expose, cut and splice in a much more flexible fashion. Most people don't jump into Aftereffects to add stuff.
But on the other hand, with photography, we went from choosing the emulsion according to what the end goal is, figuring out the best way to expose this mysterious piece of celluloid, learning about the best way to get the image we want by choosing the proper developing process... to just looking at the histogram and adjusting the speed, ISO and aperture until the major portion of it all is on the right. Then if you're picky, you spend countless hours on Photoshop to make it look decent. So in a way he's right, there is a loss of skill in the artisanship sense of the term.

[Indofunk]

This is a music meme, but just replace the mixing board with cameras 😁

[Francois]

 

[EarlJam]

With a cine camera, all you do is expose, cut and splice in a much more flexible fashion. Most people don't jump into Aftereffects to add stuff.
But on the other hand, with photography, we went from choosing the emulsion according to what the end goal is, figuring out the best way to expose this mysterious piece of celluloid, learning about the best way to get the image we want by choosing the proper developing process...

I'll take slight exception to this comment, from my 16mm cine production experience 40-50 years ago. We very much did make decisions on emulsion speed based on filming conditions; spent an inordinate amount of time metering each shot to make sure exposure would be within range for a particular emulsion; often worked with the lab for specific reels and particularly for B+W film, to adjust processing to meet specific D-min and D-max requirements; and kept track of lighting and exposure per shot to ensure that a scene would cut together seamlessly, and that scene-to-scene transitions tracked as well.

I will agree that aside from fades in and out, and the occasional dissolve, I didn't need to think much about transitional effects or optical printing beyond title and credit crawls. I got into single-camera video production in the early days of Betacam, which we treated very much like electronic film. I look at the requirements for an editor in the digital age and accept that my 1970s and 80s skills wouldn't have been remotely competitive 25 years ago, let alone today. The advent of non-linear editing systems in the late 80s functionally meant that an editorial decision never needed to be made, because you (or your client) could see all the variations rather than accept the right one and move on to the next.

I have much respect for today's video and stills editors, but I miss the magic of the wet darkroom for stills, and the sense of satisfaction from viewing the final cut of a show on the Moviola or video monitor. Different skill sets, same art, vastly different craft.

[Francois]

I didn't talk about 16mm because it is a different beast when compared to Super-8, or even Double-8.
The people who did 16mm and 35mm were definitely not the same. These formats were not really sold to moms and pops who wanted to see the kids run around the yard (which was where the vast majority of cine film was sold, not in terms of length but in term of cassettes).

Lets face it, you don't need a PhD to put a cassette in a Super-8 camera, make sure the batteries are fresh and press the button.

[EarlJam]

Lets face it, you don't need a PhD to put a cassette in a Super-8 camera, make sure the batteries are fresh and press the button.

A memory: After film school, my dad really wanted me to follow in his footsteps and become a teacher, so I tried an end run and enrolled in a Masters in Instructional Media program at one of the local uni's. The guy teaching "Instructional Filmmaking" was a PhD whose instructional plan was literally as you describe: "Make sure you have fresh batteries, load the cartridge into the camera, and go out and shoot." His scheme was to shoot a cassette or two of *something*, then when the film came back from the lab, write a script around the footage and cut out the bits of film that didn't fit the narrative. I made it to the second week before dropping the program altogether.

Later on, I managed the AV unit for an educational research agency. I was told by one of the senior researchers that PhD stood for "push here, dummy" (no offense meant to any PhD's on this forum) and that any general-use AV equipment with more than one button would be problematic for most of the staff. They were all highly educated and capable, just so narrowly focused on their specific fields of research that common technology was often confusing.

[Francois]

any general-use AV equipment with more than one button would be problematic for most of the staff. They were all highly educated and capable, just so narrowly focused on their specific fields of research that common technology was often confusing.

They must be really happy with the iPhone!