Every year about this time, spring is ushered in by a gathering of the broadcast industry in Los Vegas, Nevada, otherwise known as NAB. This annual conference of the National Association of Broadcasters showcases new technologies in support of all aspects of the broadcast industry. I’ve attended the conference many times in the past and it is quite an impressive showing of all kinds of high tech equipment, hardware, software and especially new digital cameras. What strikes me always about all this stuff – probably because I’m a Kodak guy – is that the vast majority is dedicated to a single cause…trying to replace motion picture film!

For as many years as I can recall, the floor of NAB is jam-packed with an incredibly diverse number of offerings from various manufactures of digital technologies like motion capture devices and digital image manipulation technologies – all developed specifically with the goal of emulating the look and efficiencies derived from the eloquent and mature medium of motion picture film.

The Society of American Archivist defines Archival Media as ‘resistant to deterioration or loss of quality, allowing for a long life expectancy when kept in controlled conditions’.
If we try to apply this definition to the different types of storage media currently used in the motion picture workflow as it is structured today, it is highly unlikely that we will be able to find many media that fit this definition: other than film, that is.

Whether the production in question uses hard drives, CD’s , tapes or DVDs to store their content, there is always the very real probability that a hard drive will crash, that a tape will get scratched, that the format used will be obsolete and render the information unreadable in a few years (even if the information is still intact). What good does it do to have perfectly good information that you cannot access?

In 1986 Ted Turner turned the motion picture industry up side down by purchasing the icon studio Metro Goldwyn Mayer for $1.3 billion dollars. This studio in existence since the early 1920’s with titles in its film library like Gone With The Wind, Wizard of Oz, Dr. Zhivago, 2001 a Space Odyssey and many other classics was falling into the hands of what many said was a crazy man with far too much money. Ted didn’t want the studio lot, nor the film laboratory Metrocolor, all Ted wanted was the vast library that MGM had amassed over the previous 60+ years.

During the next few years Ted Turner proceeded to show the industry what could be done with their library and the literal gold mine that was before them in a fledgling consumer market. By 1990 with Ted’s cable network booming and home video sales growing the other studios were now starting to assess their own libraries in order to emulate what Turner Entertainment was accomplishing.

Hype or Reality?  In advertising. ‘digital’ is a codeword often intended to mean ‘sharper, cleaner, faster, cheaper, better’.  In some applications it may be, but not in the art and craft of movie making.  As Kodak’s TV Segment and New Product Development manager, Bob Mastronardi deals with the hype and the reality of digital every day.  Here is some of what he hears – and his reactions.

Hype:   Digital capture is faster because it requires less lighting.