WWII Cargo Cults and Implications for Digital Cinema

February 3, 2014, Electronic Imaging Conference, San Francisco—Harry Matthias from San Jose State University talked about mythologies and their effect on digital cinema. This summer, there will be no more film deliveries to theaters, and all projected films will be digital. Standards from SMPTE and ISO exist to define all facets of these movies from the projection side only, but there are none for origination.

The cargo cults were a result of the Japanese and US forces bringing modern warfare into Melanesia. Before the war, the natives were living subsistence lifestyles that had not been changed in thousands of years. The modern militaries brought in technology and supplies to support the military efforts. Over a relatively short time, the natives became dependent upon the sources of supplies, and tried to re-create replicas of the airplanes that brought in supplies, equipment, and people.

This relationship with new technology is now moving to the filmmakers. Many of the older directors and cinematographers see videos on the Web at and consider them to be reasonably professional or at least good enough. People are capturing images with DSLRs, but are not advancing the cinematographers art. The DSLR is not made for capturing good action images, because a good lens is probably the much larger and heavier than the camera body.

To improve stabilization, people are assembling or buying very complex rigs which require the use of both hands to steady the camera. As a result, the cinematographer loses access to many important functions such as follow focus, zoom, etc. One reason that the cinema cameras are built the way they are, is to provide flexible tools for the skilled cinematographer.

Before these hand-held cameras became widely available, the industry used Arriflex and Panaflex cameras which could be used interchangeably and also could use a wide range of fixed focal length primary lenses and zoom lenses depending on the needs of the subject matter. Now, there are no minimum standards for capture, and minimal efforts to address interoperability.

In addition to lacking standards, there are also too many choices available for workflows. In fact, these workflows are focused on HD and not on cinema. Some examples of data camera design for digital capture include Black Magic Design and RED, because neither these cameras allows the full flexibility and accessibility that the older film cameras had.

These cameras and the DSLRs represent a fundamental misunderstanding with how movies are made and how people work to make these movies. Filmmakers need reliable tools that are accurate and predictable, they also need to have high quality tonal reproduction of colors which is not something you can easily fix in post with Autodesk.

Now that the studios have projection standards, they are starting to work on standards for capture and for cameras. True cinema quality images require 24K with a 12 bit depth in a 4:4:4 structure. Cinema also works with a CAP XYZ color space which far exceeds the gamut available in HD. In addition, the capabilities in these cameras to incorporate high dynamic range and high frame rate defeats the purpose of using film with lighting to create moods.

There is even talk of adding metadata for variable dynamic range to just display characteristics. These characteristics need to be controlled by the cinematographer and not by the arbitrary decisions of some electronics.

The film has been projected at 24 frames per second, historically, which causes motion blur artifacts. People however need blur in real life to allow their eyes to change focus with moving images. High frame rate can eliminate this motion blur, but many comment that it looks to smooth to be real. Disney used these artifacts and enhanced them with added streaks and speed lines to indicate motion in their cartoons

One new technology which can help movies is object-based cinema sound. Predictable software control of some fields can make the movie much more immersive and emotional. The challenge is to get the industry to learn and adopt these technologies while not creating new ways to over do some effects.

The cinema industry needs real cameras like Arriflex, Sony, and Panavision that work in nonproprietary workflows. This equipment will allow the directors and cinematographers to control all aspects of the capture process compared to just getting image that amateurs address. Full manual adjustments with calibration and intelligent interfaces are needed to maintain quality in films. Changes in technology are leading to changes in control resulting in many unintended consequences.