Side by Side

George Lucas:
Film is a 19th century invention. We are at the top of the photochemical process. This is about as far as it's ever going to go.

Keanu Reeves:
You're presenting a complete unreality and making them feel like it's real, whereas before was captured in reality.

Martin Scorsese:
The only way you can make sure that a film or anything on the moving image is going to be around sixty or seventy years from now, interestingly enough, ironically enough, is celluloid.

Gary Einhaus:
Film is unique because film is a capture medium and a storage medium. So if you really want to go back and if you've stored it under the right conditions, a hundred years later all you have to do is shine light through it...

Keanu Reeves:
Unlike film cameras, you don't have to wait a day to see what you've captured. They're no longer dailies, they're immediatelies.

Martin Scorsese:
The problem for me is that I still think you need to see rushes later in order to concentrate with the performances or just the movement. I still think you need to see them at a special time.

Charles Herzfeld:
The process of shooting film was the Director of Photography's art and secret, and today the cinematographer is monitored on a digital shoot and everything that they're doing can be seen criticised and question.

Joel Schumacher:
I also am convinced that everybody is just looking at their hair.

Martin Scorsese:
My big concern is of the image, ultimately with CGI, I don't know if our younger generation is believing anything anymore on screen, it's not real.

Christopher Nolan:
There are no archival formats worth anything in the digital realm that you would put any stock in.

George Lucas:
There's too much digital information out there not to figure out a fool proof way to store it forever.

Michael Chapman:
In a way, cinema was the church of the 20th century.

Joel Schumacher:
The people who've come before us gave the world new ways to dream. I think it's our job to continue that and to try to give people new ways to dream.

Keanu Reeves:
You must have heard in the late 90s, film is the gold standard. And the tools that you're playing with are what?

Anthony Dod Martin:
Debasing. Threatening. I have been slapped around. If you want to...

Keanu Reeves:
What do you mean, slapped around?

Anthony Dod Martin:
I've been applauded and almost executed in the sentence.

Darnell Martin:
Digital brings you speed. And it almost challenges you in the sense of, can I think that fast? Do I need time to breathe.

David Tattersall:
[about quality of digital] They would say, why are you going backwards? But there's a lot to be said about the necessity to kind of lean back in order to spring forward.

Richard Linklater:
There used to be that encumbrance where film makers were guys who sat around in a coffee shops saying what great films they would make if the man would ever give them a chance. It was kind of great when the day came that is was, well, go do it.

[last lines]

Michael Ballhaus:
Anything comes down to one thing. If you do something with your heart, if you do something that you are convinced of how you feel about it, it doesn't matter what use.

[first lines]

Keanu Reeves:
Since the late 1880s, visual artists and storytellers have used moving images to create amazing works. Movies have inspired us, thrilled us, and captured our imaginations. Film has helped us share our experiences and dreams. Photochemical film has been the exclusive format used to capture, project, and store moving images for over 100 years. It is only recently that new technology has emerged that is challenging film's place as the gold standard for quality and workflow. Digital technology is evolving to a point that may very well replace film as the primary means of creating and sharing motion pictures.