Waste of Money.

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Hollywood insiders are aware of a battle that has been brewing for quite sometime now: the technology to capture the image has two camps- film and digital and each are perhaps overwhelming the other. Film is photomchemical and the method by which cinema has been created and projected for all these years (since the late 1890). Digital cameras are new on the block and because they can do everything a film camera can but with less production costs, they are vying to be the medium every director chooses. Keanu Reeves questions industry insiders from top directors and cinematographers and gets a honest non biased overview. This is a good watch for anyone interested in the technical and "behind the camera" scenes of making of film and television. The documentary is precise and educative.

In 1990 I saw a piece of footage of something called "BETA 16". In short it was high grade (super-16) 16mm film transferred to BETACAM SP 3/4 inch video. It looked passable, though not quite professional enough to replace film with a video like medium.I bring this up because way back in the 80s I knew that as a film student that video would have to replace film because film, simply put, was too bulky and didn't deliver immediate results to tweak shots. There was too much down time involved in getting canisters off to the lab for dailies the next day. It was way too much work.Fast forward 15 years and the first digital "film" cameras come out, and films like "Star Wars the Phantom Menace" and the feature film of "The Wild Wild West" hit the screens using SONY's new digital camera technology. It had to happen. Even in the 70s and 60s you knew that the electronic medium needed to replace the bulky and expensive film technology at some point, no matter how good a filmic image was (or is).Keannu Reeves explores the revolution that's taken place in the last 15 years, and still continues to take place to this day of the old tried and true 35mm camera verse the more versatile and less expensive (and less care intensive and attention needing) 35mm film cameras.Opinions from film makers young and old alike, famous and not-so- famous are interviewed for their opinions on "film" technology, and how the advent of digital technology has revamped commercial film making.The documentary is three years old as of this writing, and even when it was produced the arguments of film verse digital were already getting stale, and may seem a bit tired by the time anyone who reads my review (and who's never seen the doc). But the issues should prove interesting to anyone who's spent any time behind the camera.Reeves produces a very interesting documentary on the short comings of the evolving medium, and keeps it strictly a matter of technology and presentation of content as the focus of this documentary.To encapsulate; not only is digital technology more versatile, but it is simply better all around; the images are sharper, the medium is easier to manipulate in terms of both editing and other post work, and doesn't require that massive support apparatus that something like an Arri BLIII or Panaflex 35 require. Actual film offers a chemical representation of images, which, when projected at 24 or 25fps, deliver a moving image that closely approximates your eyes passive information intake mode. Digital cameras have finally been able to slow down their shutter speeds and record and deliver an image that approximates the same effect. As of this writing a 35mm or 65mm negative can still retain more information than a CDC, but it's only a matter of time before electronic image capture surpasses the photochemical process.Again, Reeves documentary explains all, and does so with more interest than my review can give.If you're an amateur or professional, and haven't seen it, check it out.

"Cinema is like going to church for some people".Side by Side is a documentary about film - specifically explores the history and implementation of digital and photochemical film creation.Side By Side is a documentary focusing on the evolution of film and it shows all different film directors, cinematographers and writers and they share their own thoughts on the film and if it's getting better or worse. There's loads of big name directors in this documentary that tell you all about the art of film and the different type of camera work they used and how it made they film much better.What really got my interested in this documentary is well, it's about movies and I love movies so I thought I would check it out to see what it's like and I picked a good one here, because in this documentary you get to see how there make the movies and how movies should be made according to these film makers. The whole thing is pretty much a opinion base and they give some interesting and quite unique answers that makes you look at some movies in a different way.I was interested from start to finish. I was never bored while watching it and I never know that Keanu Reeves was a good interviewer, I mean he's such a cool guy and at times when he met these director's he had that happy child face on him, full of joy and was interest on what they were going to say. Now for problems: During the documentary James Cameron talked about 3D and CGI and he pretty much talk about how it was part of a art form and how it worked in he's film, but after he said all that the documentary cut to 2 or 3 directors who said that it's the worse thing to happen to movies, and how it becomes the highlight of the movie and not the story or character's, I found it a bit funny how Jame Cameron really went on for what seems to be like a speech about 3D and CG and how it's a groundbreaking master class, and then it get's sh*t on by other directors and it's really funny. I think I would call that bad timing.I wouldn't really call this re-watchable. It's a one watch kind of documentary that I probably won't see again any time soon.If you haven't seen Side By Side then I say check it out. It's got some interesting facts and hearing the directors talk about what's wrong with movies today and how they did it better is spot on enjoyable.

Even the most ardent of movie-goers might be unaware of the extent to which seismic technological changes have swept through Hollywood in the past twenty years or so. Of course, they would likely be aware of the debate over film versus digital: the question of whether the trusty, treasured method of shooting movies on celluloid is slowly becoming a thing of the past, with digital technology improving in leaps and bounds every day. But cinema enthusiasts who aren't personally familiar with the workings of a movie set might not understand just how much the digital revolution has shaken things up in the industry, fundamentally altering the power dynamics, work flow and structure within any given director's creative team.Side By Side - a fascinating, insightful documentary facilitated and produced by Keanu Reeves - delves head-on into this knotty issue. Speaking to some of the world's top directors, from James Cameron through to Christopher Nolan and Martin Scorsese, Reeves teases out some of the untold joys and quiet tragedies of the seemingly inevitable shift from old-school film to new-fangled digital. He consults, too, some of the world's finest cinematographers - from Wally Pfister (Nolan's Director of Photography, or DP, of choice) to Anthony Dod Mantle (Danny Boyle's go-to guy) - as well as a host of other people affected by the change: editors, colourists, VFX artists, producers and camera manufacturers.For anyone who loves movies, this documentary is a delight. It's a treat to hear from the many people who have laboured in dark rooms and behind the scenes to bring us silver-screen magic (itself a term intricately tied up with the old-fashioned capturing of an image on celluloid). Boyle explains how he came around to the concept of manoeuvrable cameras; Cameron and George Lucas plump heavily down on the side of editable, instant 'immediatelies' (rather than the dailies of yore); Nolan maintains his commitment to shooting with film. Joel Schumacher, too, who hasn't made a film since 2011, has a few particularly resonant things to say about the role that technology can and must play in service of art (and vice versa).But, on top of finding out where each director stands on the issue, Side By Side also looks at how the digital revolution has affected the job of the cinematographer. Once in almost full control of the final image captured - one that had to be processed overnight and could only be viewed the next day, with minimal edits possible (barring reshoots) - the cinematographer had immense power on set. But, these days, feedback is instantaneous, and directors can tell right away if what they've shot with digital cameras is good enough. There's a lot of gentle heartache and nostalgia that can be found in the film as directors and cinematographers alike talk about cameras that can now capture more details than ever before and screens that can display images as they're being shot.If you're not a big fan of tech-speak and finding out the inner workings of Hollywood, Side By Side could prove to be a challenging watch. It's frequently quite dry, burrowing into technical details and minutiae that might puzzle or frustrate casual viewers. There are a few great tidbits sprinkled throughout - including an absolutely brilliant anecdote featuring Robert Downey Jr and his frustration at losing the downtime afforded by the changing of the magazines in film cameras - but these might not be enough to tide everyone over.Anyone who's ever been a tad confused about the film vs. digital debate will find plenty in Side By Side to think about. There are a few messages in the film: one of them, bleak though it may be, concerns the death knell that has apparently begun to ring for shooting on film. It's lamentable that this particular art form - difficult and frustrating though it may sometimes be - is slowly dying out, but it's inevitable and, as many of the directors here argue, necessary.But the core message - the one to take home with us - has to do with the power of cinema and the stories it tells us: everyone interviewed by Reeves participates precisely because they love the movies as much and as deeply as we do, and want to do right by them. In that sense, Side By Side celebrates as much as it mourns the advent of digital technology, while demonstrating that, even as the industry moves towards its future, it will always be inextricably linked to its past.