January 29, 2014 – Hope For Film

By Jon Raymond

If you aren’t shooting in 4K (aka Ultra HD or UHD), you’re two years late. In two years from now any film you shot in HD will be as obsolete as the stuff you shot in SD. But don’t take my word for it, and expect that within a few weeks or sooner, there will be new advances announced. Keep tabs on 4K news here.

4K is just slightly smaller than digital cinema resolution (6% smaller at 3,840 × 2,160 pixels, 256 pixels less wide) to accommodate the TV 16:9 standard as opposed to cinema’s 17:9. Purists will be annoyed (although 1080 HD is also 16:9).

Could 4K become the new near-first run releasing window (instead of VOD), just as theatrical once was before Day and Date, Ultra-VOD, VOD, and digital platforms became the rage? With 4K Blu-ray, disks become very attractive, versus buffering HD streaming or cable.

Nobody Knows Anything #2: What Makes A Film Good?

By Charles Peirce

Everyone, I’d hope, has some thoughts about what makes a film good. Perhaps it displays a degree of craft or a particular aesthetic sensibility, covers specific subject matter, has a quality story, certain stars, etc. As you get older and your exposure to cinema becomes both richer and more refined, that definition probably becomes more nuanced. Still, if further pressed most people will also have some few “guilty pleasures” — films that don’t fulfill all their own requirements of what makes for a good film but which they like anyway. Perhaps they were childhood favorites, particular genres or kinds of stories that give comfort, or they just have an indescribable something. It can all seem very subjective, but that discrepancy, between our self-defined tastes and our secret loves, is a telling one.

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