Shooting Digitally and Watching Movies in Digital Cinema Theaters

Around the world including the United States, filmgoers typically watch movies in theaters that play film prints using standard 35mm film projectors. These are the regular theaters where people have been watching movies for decades. The projectors may be constantly changing and developing, but essentially, it's that same 35mm film format that's being used for the projection. However, a number of cineplexes are already allotting digital cinema theaters that don't use 35mm film projectors anymore. They use digital projectors, specifically those that project in high-definition (HD), 2K, or 4K resolution.

Now, with the dawn of digital technology already reaching the point of being able to compete, although not necessarily beat the film format just yet, the question is: "Up to how long can the use of celluloid really last?"

Technical Side of Film Projection

Unlike a 35mm film projection that uses rolls of film prints played on the big screen, a digital projector uses a file version of the movie, which allows a digital playback on the big screen. Usually, when checking a digital cinema theater in theater lists, it has a description with the words "digital projection," in a similar way that IMAX theaters and RealD 3D theaters have their own descriptions in theater lists as well. Those without additional descriptions are expected to be standard theaters projecting movies in 35mm film format.

The HD format offers 1920 x 1080 pixels of maximum horizontal and vertical resolution, while 2K and 4K offer 2048 and 4000 pixels of maximum horizontal resolution, respectively. The latter two's vertical resolution may slightly vary depending on the aspect ratio of a particular movie, which basically refers to how slightly wider or narrower the screen the movie occupies during playback.

Film Format

Although regular improvements for film negatives and prints require filmmakers to always update their knowledge on the latest developments, the film format has considerably remained the same as what pioneer filmmakers used during the early days of filmmaking. It uses a film negative during the shoot and a positive film print for the release copy, which is used for film projection.

Digital Format

The camera developments in digital cinema is trying its best to climb up the ladder and finally beat the resolution, dynamic range, and overall features of the celluloid, which still remains unbeaten up to this day. So far, some of the most popular examples of these digital cinema cameras include the Arri Alexa, Sony CineAlta, Red One, which are acknowledged for their top resolution and dynamic range for digitally filmed productions.

Practicality of Digital Filmmaking

With the demanding amount of money required when shooting a film, for all these years, the digital revolution has paved way for more opportunities for both mainstream filmmakers working on low-budget commercial productions and independent filmmakers -- they can finally produce their financially-challenged and long-shelved projects.

There is already a wide range of cameras for digital filmmaking from the small handycams to the premier digital cinema cameras. Generally, documentary and guerilla filmmakers go for the more mobile camera options, while those who are more aesthetically keen with cinematography, camera work, resolution, and overall quality of the footage choose the more high-end camera options. These are mostly the ones that are bigger, more technical to operate, and relatively more expensive to buy or rent.

The digital format clearly offers a more cost-effective workflow that tends to overcome its weak points over the very expensive celluloid filming process. Given how powerful digital filmmaking technology has become, it wouldn't be a surprise that the near future would already require more and more movie houses to build or convert theaters to digital format, as compared to the present standard, which still uses 35mm film for most movies' theatrical releases.