“Unless there is serious money invested in the digitization of the European film heritage, a lack of action in eight years time will result in the disappearance of newly produced films,” warned director of photography Nigel Walters, who is president of International Cinematographers Federation IMAGO. “If we do not digitize the danger is that even film archive will be useless if the technology to preserve on film becomes obsolete.”
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Speaking Monday at the eDIT Filmmakers Festival, Walters reported that the estimated cost of digitization for the whole of Europe’s film heritage ranges between 500 million Euros (roughly $707.5 million) and 2 billion (roughly $2.8 billion).
See Also: Film Fading To Black (via Creative COW)
ARRI, Panavision and Aaton have all quietly ceased production of their film cameras to focus exclusively on the design and manufacture of digital cameras. Film? Fade to black.