As a film student, I have a strong opinion in this matter. I have always swayed towards traditional film to shoot movies. I totally disagree with the idea of shooting with digital. On top of that they are shooting in on the Sony F23 which I totally 110% disagree with. The Sony F23 camera shoots full HD 1920X1080 which is standard today for most consumers as being very good quality but when it comes down to it, it just doesn’t cut it for theater presentation. Most movie theaters project their films either on 35mm prints, 2k, or 4k digital projection systems. 2k projection systems project at 2048×1556 which is quite a quality jump in video resolution from 1080p and 4k projection systems which are now very common in most theaters present 4096×2160 video resolution. This is almost 4 times the quality of HD 1080p. So if you were to watch this film in digital projection, you would notice a loss of video quality because the recorded resolution is a 1/4 of the size of the actual screen at the movie theater. Now if they wanted to still stick with digital to retain that depth of field, they should shoot it on the RED One camera which has been shown to be successful in the films Angels & Demons, Knowing, and Night at the Museum 2. The camera shoots full 4k video and provides a perfect “film look” while still retaining a digital format, and you can pretty much have whatever type of dept of field you want. Plus on top of that Red, the company who makes the Red One camera also coming out soon with newer models of their cameras which support up to 28k video or 28000×9334 pixels. But if I were the cinematographer of the film I would still shoot full 35mm film stock because when it comes down to it, there is no such thing as pixels in film.

The funny, and ironic, thing about this, is that when a traditional film is made, on 35mm, it has to be digitized so that the effects can be added. And then it is re-printed onto film reels when it goes out to theatres, unless it is being sent to theatres that use DLP. So in the end, the footage is all made digital in the first place. Shooting it digitally allows them to skip that step in the process.

Personally, I have no personal preference with regard to digital over film or film over digital. I have qualms about both.

For one thing: Indiana Jones 4 was shot on 35mm to give it the classic Indiana Jones feel. Spielberg refused to shoot digitally, because he wanted the picture to maintain the grainy look that film creates.

I think it wise for us to wait and how the first teaser looks, before we make our final judgement on the look of the film. Afterall, like Prince Caspifan said: Dante Spinotti has been in the business for a very long time. We have no reason not to trust his judgement call.

His shot compositions are elegant and sweeping and I think the film will, at the very least look great! Whatever he shoots on, he knows how to compose a beautiful shot and he has an amazing eye.

-Prince Caspifan