movies is felt around the globe. Today, however, it
confronts another major issue—the question of an
all-out conversion from film to digital technology—
one that will be decided almost entirely on the rela-
tionship between costs and profits, the only equation.
In order to understand certain aesthetic judg-
ments made by film producers, directors, and their
collaborators, you should be familiar with the fun-
damentals of how a movie is made—in particular,
with the three filmmaking technologies (film, video,
and digital) and the three phases of the moviemak-
ing process (preproduction, production, and post-
production).
Film, Video, and Digital
Technologies: An Overview
Looking at movies is more about what is on the
screen than the technology that is unique to this
art form. And since that technology is far less
complicated than you might think, knowing some-
thing about it should further enhance your under-
standing of how movies are made. Motion-picture
technology—and the production systems it serves—
has developed in a simple, straight line since the
early 1890s until recently. The three stages in
this technological development are film, video, and
digital.
Film Technology
When we refer to film technology, we mean that
film stock is the medium on which the image is
recorded. Film is an analogmedium in which the
camera (1) creates an image by recording through a
camera lens the original light given off by the subject
and (2) stores this image on a roll of negative film
stock. That stock, coated with an emulsion which
contains silver crystals, yields an image that closely
resembles what the human eye sees. We call it analog
because the image is analogous, or proportional, to
the input. To state it another way, once it is processed
(or “developed”), the negative image (on the negative
stock) becomes a positive image (on positive stock);
the first image is analogous to the second.
Even though video and digital technology have
emerged recently, film remains the dominant tech-
nology. Unlike the newer technologies, film involves
a mechanical system that moves this film stock
through several machines: a camera, a processor,
and a projector. These three machines bring
images to the screen in three distinct stages, and
light plays a vital role throughout.
In the first stage, shooting, the camera exposes
film to light, allowing that radiant energy to burn
a negative image onto each frame. In the second
stage, processing, the negative is developed into a
positive print that the filmmaker can then screen in
order to plan the editing, a process that produces
the final print. In the third stage, projecting, the
final print is run through a projector, which shoots
through the film a beam of light intense enough
to reverse the initial process and project a large
image on the movie screen. (This account greatly
condenses the entire process to emphasize, at this
point, only the cycle of light common to all three
stages.)
Projecting a strip of exposed frames at the same
speed—traditionally 16 frames per second (fps) for
silent film, 24 fps for sound—creates the illusion of
movement. Silent cameras and projectors were
often hand-cranked, and so the actual speed of the
camera, which then had to be matched by the pro-
jectionist, might vary from 12 to 24 fps. Cameras
and projectors used for making and exhibiting pro-
fessional films are powered by electric motors that
ensure a perfect movement of the film (Figure 11.1).
As digital technology replaces this mechanical
process, it is changing the equipment and media on
which the images are captured, processed, and pro-
jected, but the role of light remains the same essen-
tial component.
A movie film’s formatis the gauge, or width, of
the film stock and its perforations (measured in
millimeters) and the size and shape of the image
frame as seen on the screen (Figure 11.2). Formats
extend from Super 8mm through 70mm and
beyond into such specialized formats as IMAX (ten
times bigger than a conventional 35mm frame and
three times bigger than a standard 70mm frame).
The format chosen depends on the type of film486 CHAPTER 11FILMMAKING TECHNOLOGIES AND PRODUCTION SYSTEMS