I rented Side by Side last week. A documentary detailing the past, present and future of film making, produced by Keanu Reeves.
Keanu interviews many film makers including Scorsese, Cameron, Lucas, Nolan and Fincher about their experience and preferences for analogue and digital film making.
It was an entertaining watch, however there wasn't much material in it that I wasn't already familiar with, as I watch a lot of making of features and blu-ray behind the scenes documentaries.
I am very appreciative of the technology available to me as a film maker today, as I don't think I would of had the patience to deal with the labour intensive methods of the past.
Colour timing for example, just having 3 colour wheels to play with plus exposure would have been extremely limiting and time consuming.
I found it interesting how the restriction of shooting time to roughly 10 minute chunks due to having to change film reels was seen by different directors.
While Nolan insisted that the actors needed the breaks that changing the reel affords, Fincher was of the opinion that once the camera stops rolling the energy on set drops. Fincher is famous for leaving the camera running continuously and his take count can reach forty or fifty until he is happy, something that would not be possible using analogue film.
