“There used to be this in-place system… it was this kind of system that worked and made an artful color rendering… and it did so repeatedly and reliably… [that] locked system… basically went in the trash can and we now have a completely unlocked system [1].”
—Steve Yedlin, ASC, describing the transition from film to digital image acquisition
A year ago, I dismantled the myth that film workflows were inherently consistent and digital workflows introduced chaos.
Yedlin has now made the claim even more explicitly, describing film as a “locked system” that produced an “artful color rendering” “repeatedly and reliably.”
That is simply not an accurate description of photochemical filmmaking.
Film stocks varied. Batches varied. Labs varied. Processing varied. Printer lights varied. Color timing varied. Print stocks varied. Projection varied.
And we don’t have to rely on historical accounts to establish this. Yedlin’s own research demonstrated substantial variation caused by display preparation alone:
“So there’s no consensus even from top vendors on what the core starting point is. You get substantial variation in the look just by changing the display preparation of footage from the same camera while you get only negligible variation when using equivalent display preparations on footage from different cameras.”
– Steve Yedlin, On Color Science for Filmmakers, yedlin.net, June 20, 2016
Cullen Kelly, senior colorist and business associate of Yedlin, puts it plainly:
“There’s all kinds of stuff that comes with film systems that are not desirable. The variability that I just talked about – that’s not desirable. Who wants, who among us would sign off on ‘How would you like to have a system that gives you one result on one run of negative and print and a different result the next day?’ That’s not optimal, that’s not ideal, that’s just unavoidable with a film system.”
—Cullen Kelly, Grade School: Film & Film Emulation from a Senior Colorist, Cullen Kelly YouTube channel, Dec. 25, 2021
Roger Deakins himself described serious film-stock and infrastructure problems during Hail, Caesar! and ultimately concluded:
“Just the technical problems with film, I’m sorry, it’s over.”
Yet the romanticized version of film persists: a handful of stocks, a few processing options, a locked workflow, and consistent results.
That isn’t how film worked.
Digital didn’t replace a perfectly consistent photographic system. It replaced a highly variable one.
- “When we first started moving from film to digital image acquisition, where people got so excited that they can do anything. Like there’s all these knobs and different things you can do and you’re like, ‘Yeah, but the fact that you can do anything doesn’t mean that you know how to do the even the one thing that you’re trying to do, let alone anything else.’ Like there used to be this in-place system, you know, there were only a few camera stocks or only a few print stocks. You know, you could process normal or you could push or pull and that’s it. And it was this kind of system that worked and made an, you know, artful color rendering, not photometrically or colorimetrically correct, but an artful one. And it did it repeatedly and reliably, you know, and then that locked system didn’t just get a little more flexible. It basically went in the trash can and we now have a completely unlocked system.” Steve Yedlin, 224: “Knives Out 3” Cinematographer Steve Yedlin, ASC, Frame and Reference YouTube channel, Dec. 25, 2025
HDR, Film & Workflow Consistency Myths
The Daejeon Chronicles 