Shawn Hart

Intro to Writing Across the Curriculum

11/20/15
Assignment 3 Draft 3
In the early 1800s, photography was just starting out and was quite a tedious process.
Cameras required long exposures to capture images due to the lack of sensitivity of the medium
on which the image was being recorded, and many images were non reproducible. With
photographs taken using the wet plate method, the photographer had to work quickly and
develop an image before the plate dried which is why they had portable labs on site. It wasnt
until the well known and long lasting Kodak, founded by George Eastman, came to be that
photography was made available to the consumer market. Kodak developed the first camera to
be marketed to the general public that was mass produced and did not require the photographer
to develop the images his or herself. The photographer simply sent the camera to Kodak who
would develop the images and place a new roll of film inside the camera. It was hardly the
instant gratification we are used to now, but it certainly helped photographys popularity take off.
Even with modern day film cameras, the images might be reproducible, but the film negatives
result in physical images. Now with digital images, so many people just rely on electronic
playback to view images. There is not nearly as much of a need anymore to print images once
they are taken because we can simply view them on a screen for free. As convenient as this is,
digital images can lead to trouble of not managed properly. The internet has opened up the
opportunity to instantly and electronically share digital media with friends or even complete
strangers through services like Facebook, Twitter, and email. Many people willingly post their
own images online without considering what they are actually doing regarding the rights to their

photographs. I would like to explore this as well as the general pros and cons of the change from
film and physical prints and negatives to digital photography and videography.
How many times have you signed up for an online service and been presented with the
infamous terms of service agreement? Did you actually read it, or did you simply skip over the
lengthy and intimidating document to click agree? Many people hit that button without
realizing the rights they are signing over to the site. Facebooks Terms of Service agreement
states, For content that is covered by intellectual property rights, like photos and videos (IP
content), you specifically give us the following permission, subject to your privacy and
application settings: you grant us non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty free,
worldwide license to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook (IP
License) (Facebook.com). This basically says that Facebook can do whatever it wants with the
photographs you upload to the site, even though you own the copyrights of your photographs. By
clicking agree, you are giving this permission to Facebook. Even with a website like Wix.com,
one in which somebody can create his or her own website the terms of use agreement states that
by agreeing you allow Wix to use in perpetuity, worldwide and free of charge, any version of
your User Website (or any part thereof) for any of Wixs marketing and promotional activities,
online and/or offline, and modify it as reasonably required for such purposes, and you waive any
claims against Wix or anyone on its behalf relating to any past , present, or future moral rights,
artists rights, or any other similar worldwide that you may have in or to your User Website with
respect to such limited permitted uses (Wix.com). With digital photography, it is easier than
ever to post photographs directly to social media sites. This could be beneficial for the user, but
could potentially work out poorly if the user is not careful.

This brings up copyrights and how they apply to photographs. Copyrights protect works
that are either published or unpublished. Unlike patents, many works are protected by copyright
as soon as they are created. This means that as soon as you take a photograph, you own the rights
to it even if it has not yet been published or printed. Photographs do not have to be registered
with the United States Copyright office in order to be protected, but they must be registered if the
owner of the photographs desires to sue for copyright infringement of their photograph. These
rights apply to both photographs shot digitally and on film.
In regards to cinema, moving to a digital format for shooting movies could be very
beneficial for large companies in the industry such as Disney and Sony. These large studios
organized the Digital Cinema Initiatives in 2002. They realized that making the switch to digital
cinema could be very helpful for them as it would allow them to save very large amounts of
money. According to the article by Lisa Dombrowski, Not if, But When and How: Digital
Comes to the American Art House, IHS Screen Digest estimates digital will produce an 80 per
cent savings on direct releasing costs (Dombrowski 236). It would also allow for improvements
on the quality of 3D movies. The Digital Cinema Initiatives set a standard format for digital
cinema to be shown in to help make the transition from film go well. It required a certain form of
projection that met this standard and by mid-January 2012, 64 per cent of the approximately
39,500 screens in the United States were DCI-compliant, led by the screens of the three major
theater chains, AMC, Regal Entertainment, and Cinemark (Dombrowski 236). However, this
transition was met with more uncertainty by art houses, but as time has progressed more art
houses have begun utilizing digital. This is especially true for the art houses on the commercial
level such as Sundance Cinemas.

A major distinction between film and digital photography and cinematography and film is
simply the convenience that digital offers to the person behind the camera. Michael Cioni stated,
You cant make film smaller. You cant make 35mm be 8kK resolution no matter what you do.
You cant have a [film] camera be four pounds. You cant fit a 400-foot magazine in a smaller
space (Mateer 3). These changes in cinematography bring into question cinematography as art.
After all these changes in production, can cinematography still be considered an art form? Well,
if one defines cinematography in the same way as Owen Roizman, they would still accept it as
art. Roizman says, cinematography is an art-form but at the same time it's a craft, and it is
definitely a combination of the two . . . You have to light, you have to compose and you have to
create movement. Those are the three elements of cinematography (Mateer 4). No matter if a
cinematographer is working with film or digital, these elements remain constant.
Whether or not the move from film to digital photography and cinematography was a
good or bad thing is hard to say. It is important to recognize each as a capable form of capturing
images, and not to completely dismiss the possibility of using one or the other. Some are partial
to film while others barely touch it. Everybody has a different workflow and preference and the
question of film or digital simply boils down to what works best for who.

Works Cited
"Copyright in General (FAQ) | U.S. Copyright Office." Copyright in General (FAQ) | U.S.
Copyright Office. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Nov. 2015.
Dombrowski, Lisa. "Not If, But When and How: Digital Comes to the American Art House."
Film History: An International Journal2012: 235. JSTOR Journals. Web. 9 Nov. 2015.
"Facebook Logo." Terms of Service. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Nov. 2015.
MATEER, JOHN1. "Digital Cinematography: Evolution Of Craft Or Revolution In
Production?." Journal Of Film & Video 66.2 (2014): 3-14. Art Full Text (H.W. Wilson).
Web. 20 Nov. 2015.
"Wix.com Terms of Use." Wix. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Nov. 2015.