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2-Perf Option

Sep 9, 2009 12:00 PM, By Michael Goldman

Among the network shows recently asked to consider switching from film to digital acquisition (see "Format Wars") was CBS’ Ghost Whisperer. Producers and the show’s cinematographer, James Chressanthis, pondered the request, but eventually declined. At press time, Ghost Whisperer was launching production on its new season shooting, as it always has, on 3-perf, 35mm film, while finding other ways to trim the budget.

“There is certainly attention being paid to costs, and hence, the idea that digital could possibly be done less expensively than film came up, and the network made that suggestion,” says Executive Producer Ian Sander. “We felt 3-perf, 35mm film is a superior format to anything else available, and so our hesitancy about going digital was not about an aversion to ever capturing images on a digital format. It had to do with the fact that we have a hit TV series going for four years that does shoot and process film, and the machine has been working. We didn’t want to change what has been working. Instead, we’ve been able to make new business arrangements with [film] suppliers and labs and transfer companies, and those new arrangements have allowed us to significantly lower our costs from what they were a year ago, competing with the cost of digital.”

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Format Wars To Dean Devlin, it’s all straightforward: Episodic TV production not only should move toward all-digital production and acquisition, it must and it shall... 24/7 Workflow With two episodes and pickups for a third being shot on two different stages and three episodes being edited simultaneously for Fox's hit drama 24, production... Speaking of Film Millimeter recently surveyed six well-known cinematographers to get their thoughts about key issues, trends, and recent innovations in the world of film-based acquisition for both feature film and television. ...

The digital trend, however, ignited a passion in Chressanthis to urge an industry discussion of cost-effective film alternatives for episodic TV. He says he has a firm belief that Super 16, frequently banned by networks from episodic television, is a viable alternative, along with 35mm 2-perf film stock. In fact, Chressanthis recently partnered with Kodak on a 3-perf/2-perf side-by-side comparison test that is currently making the rounds in Hollywood.

“I felt, when it comes to network TV, quality of the image is important to the audience, but at the same time, we are under all these economic pressures, so what to do?” Chressanthis says. “A few years ago, I saw a rerelease in a theater of [Sergio Leone’s] The Good, the Bad and the Ugly on modern print stock. It was gorgeous, but I didn’t realize it was shot 2-perf. Not anamorphic—a widescreen film shot 2-perf. The same reason [cinematographer] Tonino Delli Colli shot 2-perf [on that film] applies today: economic conditions. I also read about [famed cinematographer] Vittorio Storaro advocating 2-perf for acquisition for widescreen presentation, and I realized they are doing this in Europe and that we already have the cameras and lens systems. Plus, today, we have [Kodak] Vision3 stocks that are far superior. With that stock, I can shoot more intuitively and faster—all the detail holds. So I first did a Ghost Whisperer test, and that inspired me to do the [2-perf] test [with Kodak].”

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