Cinema Canada (Mar 1977)

by Rodger J. Ross THE FILM:VIDEO DEBATE The November issue of American Cinematographer has an article on this topic, made up of excerpts from a speech by Lars Swanberg at a conference of the Nordic Film and Television Union in Copenhagen. Mr. Swanberg, who is head of the department of technical information and development at the Swedish Film Institute, lashed out at those who are making an issue of film vs. video. He claims that television broadcasters have set out to prove, at any cost, that film is inferior, even to the extent of using half-truths and manipulated statistics. This is happening especially in ENG (electronic news-gathering) applications. But there is another, more favorable side to this film/video controversy — the use of electronic equipment to produce videotape recordings for purposes other than broadcasting. According to Mr. Swanberg, over 13,000 audiovisual program titles were produced in the USA in the year 1973 more than the three television networks, NBC, CBS and ABC, together broadcast in prime time during that year. He then goes on to define “‘video” as a medium and a new industry based on non-broadcast television. He claims in support a statement by Lars Edling, video expert at the University of Lund, that the formal difference between television and video is that television involves broadcasting while video means playback from a video recorder connected to a TV monitor. There is a need for some term or designation that would describe nonbroadcast program production on videotape, but “video” seems a _ poor choice. Video is already defined in dictionaries as an adjective, of or pertaining to television, especially to the picture portion of the program, Long-time Supervisor of Technical Film Operations at the programming centre of the CBC, Mr. Ross is the author of two books, Television Film Engineering and Color Film for Color Television and has also won the Agfa-Gevaert Gold Medal, awarded by the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers. 42 / Cinema Canada TECH NEWS and as a noun, television. The Alphabetical Guide to Motion Picture, Television and Videotape Production, published by McGraw-Hill, defines video as a term pertaining to the bandwidth and spectrum position of the signal which results from television scanning and is used to reproduce a picture. (My own definition of video is a means for producing pictures by an electrical scanning process instead of optically, as with film.) The term or designation selected should not be so obviously exclusive as to still further aggravate the confrontation between television and film. After all, programs being made on videotape do not have to originate always with electronic cameras. Film can — and very often does — contribute significantly to program production on videotape. It is so easy to make transfers from film to videotape that quite often the use of a film camera for making the original recordings is preferable to the much more costly and inconvenient electronic camera and its videotape recorder. Future Prospects for Film Too often filmmakers look on television as an enemy, committed to depriving them of their livelihood. As the portability and versatility of electronic equipment is improved, television makes ever greater inroads into areas previously the exclusive preserve of film. The latest development in this direction is the widespread acceptance by broadcasters of ENG, displacing film cameras in news gathering and related applications. Of course, as Mr. Swanberg points out in his lecture, large numbers of instructional, educational, promotional, industrial, scientific, advertising and amateur films will continue to be produced, and television broadcasters may even “rediscover” film when the current overenthusiasm with ENG subsides. A much more realistic attitude towards television would be to take advantage of the opportunities that electronic systems offer to expand film use. By far the most profitable avenue of exploitation is in the production of programs on videotape using film as the original recording medium. The film camera is a_near-ideal picture recording device. It is light in weight, relatively simple in construction, and can be taken anywhere as hand baggage. In reality, a film camera is a combination camera-recorder, with the recording material in a magazine attached to the camera. Compare this with portable electronic equipment consisting of a camera, control unit, videotape recorder and power supply. A film camera is a mechanical-optical device that needs relatively little maintenance, and no preliminary setup adjustments before recording can commence. The recording material — film — has built-in response characteristics, yielding perfectly sharp images in color when exposed to light through the lens. Accompanying sound can be recorded on the picture film (single system) or separately on magnetic tape (double system) without an electrical connection between’ the camera and sound recorder. The capital cost of the film camera and its accessories is only a fraction of the cost of electronic equipment giving pictures with comparable quality. Film-to-Videotape Transfers An even more important advantage in making original recordings on film is that afterwards either film prints or transfers to videotape can be made from the originals. A common practice in film production is to edit the originals into A and B rolls so that, by printing first the A roll, then the B roll, from common start marks, effects such as fades and mixes, titles and credits can be added. A similar procedure can be followed in making transfers to videotape, except that these and other effects can be put in electronically. At the same time, the picture color balance can be shifted in any desired direction by adjusting the video camera controls. Several different methods can be used to transfer film to videotape. The most common method, employed