Side By Side (Chris Kenneally, 2012)

Side by Side (Chris Kenneally, 2012)

The documentary was about the film industry and their transition from celluloid to digital. It begins with showing how the editing of film changed from literally cutting and splicing the film together to how they digitise the celluloid and edit from a computer. It then discussed how the filming process itself changed, with filming beginning the process of becoming digital rather than celluloid as the pick up frames one-by-one and the pictures quality is based on the resolution of the image. It finally talked about the projection of digital, as instead of a worker winding a film through a projector, cinemas can make more money as they can play the film whenever they want to, no limitations other than their own opening and closing times and the screens already occupied. 

I learnt many things about how celluloid was used, edited and projected. But I also learnt many facts about the digital side of the industry to. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that many directors and cinematographers and other factors in the film industry who have been a part of it since before digital became the next big thing are actually welcoming the new age of digital, and that they understand George Lucas' point of saying celluloid has gotten to the best it will ever be, and digital is at it's lowest so we have to make the jump from one technology to the next. I also learnt about a new job role in the industry which are colourists, they used to change the colour of the film itself but now they can use digital to change certain parts of the image and keep other parts the same colour as the image eg. Making everything red in the image but leave the sky blue.