This week’s Watercooler* was interesting.
The conversation was dominated by two topics: The Film Look and Video AI
It seemed appropriate, as those are the topics I’m seeing dominating many conversations in our industry. Personally, I’m still struggling with my peers’ fascination with replicating the artifacts of a chemical process – artifacts that the industry spent decades and hundreds of millions of dollars to minimize or eliminate.
Is nostalgia that powerful? Or is it the difficulty of innovating that falling back to the past is the preferable route?
It’s not that Kodak wasn’t onto something. But grain and halation were not their ultimate goal. Serving their clients’ needs was the goal. And I guess if our clients are asking for the Film Look, that’s what we will keep delivering.
Here’s the question rattling around my head after the watercooler:
Have we conflated The Film Look with the Cinematic Look? Maybe when our clients ask for filmic, they are really asking for cinematic? And maybe it’s us who default to film emulation?
Because the cinematic look starts in preproduction, which is a hard discussion to have when our conversation doesn’t begin until after picture lock.
At that point, adding layers of grain and halation is all that’s left.
Which makes me a little sad.
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The internet was heavy on Gear this week. I hope you enjoy it.
I’ll see you next Sunday.
