FILM LABS TECH
the medium now. Once the decision to use film is made, there is an incredible amount of support and celebration.” DIGITAL-FILM-DIGITAL Cinelab Film & Digital opened in 2013 in London and is the only UK company that offers a full-service film laboratory and digital dailies service. Alongside its traditional film lab processes and advanced digital post services, Cinelab introduced digital-film-digital (DFD) as an analogue, intermediate process that transfers digital footage to celluloid film via an ARRILASER. The film is then processed and scanned back into a digital format, imparting an authentic film look on source footage. The growing demand for 4K streaming and theatrical releases has helped drive the adoption of this technology. “Ten to 15 years ago everyone was attempting to get digital cameras up to a resolution that was sort of comparable to film,” says Cinelab CEO Adrian Bull. “Film’s always done a really good job of dealing with resolution, dynamic range and latitude.” For Bull, the key to film’s continued relevance lies in pairing traditional lab craft with contemporary workflows. “What’s important is that we’ve coupled film processing with top-end scanning and dailies services to provide a workflow EXPERT STUFF Kodak’s expansive film laboratory (below); Bugonia is just one of many recent high-profile productions to shoot on film (above)
that makes supporting filmmaking as efficient as possible,” he says. “It is about processing, scanning, grading and sound syncing, so that filmmakers can see their rushes the next morning. Footage that is delivered to the lab at the end of a day of shooting is typically available to view the following morning.” Alongside efficiency, there’s a growing number of filmmakers who want a different look and feel to their work. “Every frame of film is different because of the nature of grain. Digital isn’t like that,” says Bull. “It’s encouraging for us that people recognise the value in shooting film.” Concerns around AI-generated and manipulated content have further shifted perceptions over the course of the last year. “Interestingly, film is one of the only things that is a permanent record of a performance, and so proves someone did what they did. If you shoot anything digitally there’s no provenance to that, whereas film is an artifact.” Bull argues that actors are more likely to be interested in supporting projects
that are shot on film, especially if it is a guarantee of their performance being recognised. “I think it’s going to be an interesting year ahead because already we are seeing so much online content that people don’t trust.” The biggest challenge with labs, according to Bull, is the fact that they require a lot of experience. “Over the 13 years of the Cinelab film laboratory, we have constantly brought in people at a junior level and then trained them up, so that there are new people feeding through the business. That was difficult to do ten years ago because we didn’t know what the future was for film lab operations,” he admits. Cinelab, however, has started this year with two new junior trainees. “They have entered the wet lab side of the business to learn about film handling, prep, processing and printing,” says Bull. “They’ve got the opportunity to learn alongside experienced people.” Despite the rise in film productions, Bull is not remotely concerned about competitors. “Fundamentally, it just increases the potential supply to allow more people to shoot on film,” he says. “We see a lot of millennials coming through who don’t feel like they have shot a film until they’ve done it on film, which is pretty cool. There is a much higher demand for film prints again, and we’re making more film deliverables than we have done compared to the last five years.” Bull stresses that it’s also very encouraging to see high attendance figures in cinemas that show 35mm prints. “People can’t see a 35mm print at home, and there’s something that is still quite different about watching a 35mm print compared to a DCP.”
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