Black swan song
for sweet 16?

The movie business is built on stories of success springing from humble, even poor beginnings. Charlie Chaplin and Alfred Hitchcock went on to define styles and influence countless others; behind the camera Freddie Francis, Alan Hume and Jack Cardiff shot some of the enduring images in cinema. A medium all would be familiar with is 16mm film, which was originally intended for amateur filmmaking it. But it, and its enhanced relative Super 16, has exceeded expectations and been used on standout feature films, documentaries and television dramas over its 88-year existence, writes Kevin Hilton.

It is still successful today. The Oscar and BAFTA winning Black Swan and The Hurt Locker show what the format can do, but in TV, an area it once dominated, 16mm is looking like a dead technology.

The decline can be traced to the BBC’s HD Day in September 2006, when Andy Quested, now head of technology for BBC HD & 3D, announced that S16 would not be accepted as source material for the broadcaster’s high definition services. Quested said that although the MPEG4 compression used was “friendlier to pictures” than MPEG2, there could be no artefacts or blocking. The grain in S16 caused problems in this way for the HD codecs, Quested stated, although the format would still be used for the BBC’s standard definition output.

TV production companies and manufacturers alike were taken by surprise. S16 has a long association with British TV; it was used for news gathering, before video became technically viable and affordable, and has given a filmic look to long-form and episodic dramas when 35mm was too expensive and electronic formats just didn’t look good enough.

Technology has supported S16 with new cameras from ARRI and Aaton, improved film stocks by Kodak and Fuji, new lenses and a full range of hardware and software from the likes of Cintel, Digital Vision and ARRI designed to give greater control over noise, grain and artefacts.

These better tools, combined with a continuing, albeit dwindling, demand from film and programme makers convinces leading figures in the business that S16 is not obsolete.

“It is not out of the picture,” comments Franz Kraus, managing director of ARRI, which launched the Arriflex 416 S16 camera in 2006. “The 416, the then new Ultra Prime 16 lenses from Zeiss, improved stocks and the power of digital intermediate has meant Super 16 is able to compete with the best digital formats - and even 35mm - for TV work.”

Kodak and Fuji have played a major role in sustaining 16mm. Fuji has developed the ETERNA Vivid range to produce higher contrasts and sharper images, while Kodak over the years has worked hard to reduce the potential for grain in stocks, particularly with 16. Kodak promotes S16 as producing exceptional results on a tight budget. Its VISION3 colour negative films for S16 have an additional two stops of dynamic range, with a tighter grain, both of which, it is claimed, give more control and flexibility.

Despite all this Kraus concedes that in the wake of the 2006 BBC statement there was a “huge drop” in demand for S16 equipment. “Over the years since we introduced the 416, 250 cameras have been sold, with strong sales in the first two years and a steep decline afterwards,” he says. “In the US especially people like the look of 16mm - it’s very fashionable - although the networks there have been going digital as well.”

Being fashionable does not always mean widespread acceptance. US TV networks are increasingly accepting digital formats; although film is still strong there it tends to be 35mm, as with Treme and Boardwalk Empire. The HBO series Mildred Pierce is a notable exception. Directed by Todd Haynes, it was photographed in S16 by cinematographer Edward Lachman ASC and post-produced at Technicolor in New York.

In London Technicolor, along with iLab and Soho Film Lab, is working with Fujifilm Motion Picture UK to provide the Complete 16 service. This is based around two packages offering S16 film, negative developing, ultra-sonic clean and prep for telecine, best light transfer to any SD tape format, sync sound and ALE and a DVD copy.

The aim is to convince producers of feature films, TV dramas, shorts, music promos and artist and student films, that 16mm is viable and affordable. Jerry Deeney, marketing manager for Fujifilm Motion Picture UK, observes that while the BBC directive has “definitely contributed to a decline in sales of 16mm film”, and “knocked producers’ faith in 16mm as a suitable format for broadcast”, other factors play a part. “The main effect on the commercials market has been the introduction of new and cheaper digital cameras,” he says. “Producers feel these allow them a convenient and cheaper method of shooting. In general, the creative hearts are still with film.”

The swing away from film, and S16 in particular, has been dramatic in the ad world. “Over the last five years we’ve seen the trend for shooting commercials on S16 virtually die,” comments Andy Cooper, head of marketing at hire company Movietech. “TV drama was a staple for us and that has collapsed completely in the last three years. Both can be linked directly or at least in part to the misconceptions of what the BBC said.”

The sharp decline in demand for S16 equipment is confirmed by Jeff Allen, managing director of Panavision Europe. As he sees it, the BBC “dismissed” 16 and today an “infinitesimal” amount of production is being shot on it. “Major shows like Silent Witness are now digital, so we’re almost at the point where film is being put out of TV production completely,” he says. “We’ve been working on Merlin in S16 and there is talk of it going 2-perf 35mm - but that’s the exception that proves the rule.”

Panavision stocks Arriflex, Aaton, Bolex and Photosonic 16mm camera systems, while Movietech holds the Arriflex 416, Arriflex 16SR and the Super 16 Bolex. Andy Cooper says Movietech had 60 S16 cameras in the UK, which in the past were hired out through the year. “Another reason for the switch, especially in commercials,” he comments, “is the advent of the single sensor digital camera. When the Red One, which we stock, the ARRI ALEXA and Sony F35 arrived they pushed S16 into the background.”

Cooper explains that crews and ad agency staff working on commercials shot in 2k digital formats like the “immediacy” of having footage transferred directly to their laptops, so they can view and work on it as the shoot continues. Because of that, he says, S16 “fell of a cliff”.

Director of photographer Florian Hoffmeister, whose TV credits include the 2007 BBC mini-series Five Days, shot on S16, says the immediacy of Pro-Res workflow is “pretty much unbeatable”, but he adds that S16 is still good if filmmakers want to jump in a car with a camera, a clapper board and a sound recorder with a three people crew to produce something with a cinematic look.

Fellow DP James Welland agrees that the immediacy of digital streams “does make a difference” to a shoot, but says it is also “almost a bad thing”. “It’s like letting the genie out of the bottle,” he explains, “because everyone can see what is being shot as it is happening.”

Welland has a great deal of experience in shooting S16 for TV, including past series of Mistresses, the 2008 drama Hancock And Joan and the 2002 version of The Hound Of The Baskervilles (all BBC). A regular TV gig for him has been Spooks, but if the already commissioned series 10 of the MI5 drama does turn out to be the last, that will be another S16 production gone.

“Spooks has continued to be shot on S16 for continuity,” explains Welland, “and the producers want to carry on doing that rather than changing for the last series. I’ve got mixed feelings about it. The great thing about S16 is that it is very forgiving, and you can get away with a lot when it comes to the grade. I haven’t used the ALEXA yet but I’ve heard that it is forgiving as well.”

Production company Kudos is moving towards digital acquisition for most of its shows, including Hustle and Outcasts, although executives there still want the creative freedom to make Spooks in S16.

“We’ve been given dispensation for Spooks, and other productions, to shoot in what the director decides,” says Kim Simon, head of post-production at Kudos. “We still see 16mm as a viable format, especially if a director is going for a specific look. We want to be able to have the artistic choice.” She adds that S16 suits Spooks because the graininess helps create the seedy world in which the spies operate.

To underline that the technological situation has changed considerably since the 2006 BBC statement, Kudos has participated in tests of new grain management systems. Among these was the Lowry Digital system installed at London facilities house iLab. Founded by Nigel Horn and Martin McGlone nearly six years ago, iLab started out in film processing and rushes, but moved into film scanning and handling raw data camera files when it was bought in January 2010 by Indian group Reliance Media Works, which also owns Lowry.

Horn sees an irony in the BBC deeming S16 not good enough for HD origination due to the fact that slow to medium 16mm stock used with good lenses produces “inherently 2k resolving-originated images”.

“The whole UK film and TV industry has found itself in an ironic situation, because of the BBC view that they wouldn’t accept 16mm-originated projects for HD transmission, which is, we understand, because of the amount of compression they need to apply to carry the channels,” he says. “The problem is that grain is not uniform from frame to frame, and the compression engines can mistake grain for other things or parts of the image for grain, leading to mistakes.”

Image Forum was set up to argue the case, while manufacturers took and practical - and commercial - decision to introduce software to deal with artefact problems. ARRI’s Relativity software suite, including Texture Control and Clean SP, and Lowry Digital are leading examples of grain reduction tools, although Horn prefers the term grain management. He says that if broadcasters approved the use of 16mm processed in this way the technique would be applied only to a finished, edited programme. “We wouldn’t think that it would be a one button push fix,” Horn says. “The idea is to do this without any artefacts being introduced or programme material being removed.”

Other grain management systems include Cintel’s imageMill data processor and Digital Vision DVO Clarity. Nigel Hadley, Digital Vision’s director of training, comments that Clarity was designed to deal with 98 percent of cases of grain in automatic mode. “For more troublesome sequences the amount of processing can be increased,” he says. “More important is whether the footage is negative or positive, which the tool can identify.”

London post house Deluxe 142 has used Clarity and other systems that Paul Collard, vice president of film and digital services, describes as “finishing tools”. Collard says these remove the blemishes that cause problems for TV systems and wonders that with these available, and the acclaimed S16 films like The Hurt Locker and Black Swan, why broadcasters have taken their current viewpoint.

However, Collard acknowledges that the final judgement on what is suitable for broadcast is up to the BBC and other TV companies. He adds that not much more can be said about the position of 16mm, and film in general, for HDTV until the Digital Production Partnership (DPP) document is published.

Headed by the BBC, ITV and Channel 4, the DPP is intended to “help producers and broadcasters maximise the potential benefits of digital production”. The DPP’s guidelines had not been published at the time this magazine went to press, despite being scheduled for release at the end of February.

The document might clear up what facilities, production companies and cinematographers see as inconsistencies in broadcasters’ attitudes to S16. Even though ITV and C4 are said to be following the BBC’s lead, both channels have transmitted S16-sourced material on their HD services. The BBC itself is regarded as breaking its own rules, with Spooks simulcast on both the SD and HD versions of BBC1.

ILab has worked with producers of mainstream TV drama, including Kudos, on tests of 16mm footage shot in the last year that has been processed through Lowry to present to the BBC as evidence of the format’s suitability for HD. Nigel Horn stresses there is “no Luddite mentality going on here”, saying while people are embracing new technologies, there is still frustration. “For many projects, although not all, S16 is an optimally ideal originating format, and we feel that there is now technology available that makes the grain issue no longer the problem it was three years ago,” he explains.

The BBC, and Andy Quested in particular, has been pressed for a response to these concerns and arguments. Initially the BBC said it would not make any further comment on its 2006 announcement, but eventually made the following statement: “The BBC’s policy follows a joint industry standard that was agreed in February 2011. All broadcasters in the UK agree that Super 16 is not suitable for high definition television productions. There is some variation in usage across Europe and the US but, in actuality, Super 16 is not universally accepted across Europe and those broadcasters who do accept it impose very strict restrictions. In the USA very few broadcasters classify Super 16 as full HD. One other point to note is many of the broadcasters that do allow restricted use of Super 16 use the 720 line rather than 1080 line HD standard.”

From in the world of amateur filmmaking, 16mm and its Super relation have played a part in documentaries, news reports, landmark TV drama, experimental shorts, independent films and big box office movies. Artists have embraced the format, among them Tacita Dean, who recently wrote in The Guardian of her shock at being told that post-production giant Deluxe, which owns Soho Film Lab, was no longer printing 16mm film.

Dean states analogue technologies like film are still a vital artistically: “Digital is not better than analogue, but different. What we are asking for is co-existence: that analogue film might be allowed to remain an option for those who want it, and for the ascendancy of one not to have to mean the extinguishing of the other.”

Florian Hoffmeister feels this says everything but, as a film and TV professional, is veering more towards digital for practical reasons. “From my point of view 16mm as a standard capturing format for TV is pretty much dead,” he says. “I do acknowledge a difference between digital and analogue and do see them as different colours on the palette. Nevertheless for TV I find myself preferring high-end digital to 16mm, due to the bigger size of the sensor. But there is a specific 16mm look - it will become more distinguishable once all TV has gone digital, then it will open a niche again and have a comeback.”

James Welland also sees times turning against 16mm, despite the success of Black Swan and The Hurt Locker. “There isn’t a comparison with the situation in TV because of the broadcast processes being used now,” he comments. “There’s a difference between projecting an image on a big screen and putting one through a lot of compression. S16 is something familiar and I like it, but unfortunately I can’t see it being more than a niche product in the future.”

If there’s a glimmer of hope for 16mm, then it could be as an archive format, an idea being put forward to the filmstock manufacturers and post houses by Joe Dunton BSC MBE. “Film is proven to last for decades, whereas data storage systems just don’t. A simple digital-to-16mm archiving service, using fine grain negative would be equivalent to HD, and seems like a sensible option to explore,” he says.

Franz Kraus at ARRI says that while Black Swan and The Hurt Locker have helped the awareness of S16, they might be just standout examples of what can be done with S16, rather than the start of a revival.

“One of the reasons why people are changing to digital is that they want different looking images,” he comments, “but that can also be achieved with modern tools in post-production. Good examples of such S16 productions have been made for both television and theatrical release; unfortunately that won’t compensate for the massive loss of TV drama as a market.”

Image Forum and other supporters of S16 have made the case, but now commercial forces appear to have made the final decision.

“The market is dictating which way to go,” concludes Jeff Allen at Panavision Europe. “The BBC decision hasn’t helped, but things seem to be going this way now. Digital is having a profound impact on the business and it’s unrealistic to say 35mm won’t be affected.”

The wisdom seems to be, however, that any 35mm preservation campaigns should begin now.