DCP and the Mission of the BFI

[TMDaines]

These days, a new 35mm print (let alone a 70mm one) would be too much to ask for, though [Tess] is a film that should be seen on a big screen.

A proper print may be too much to expect, but it is not too much to ask for. Imho, the BFI's current predilection for DCP revivals of celluloid classics amounts to cultural vandalism.

How dare they move on with the times!!!!! Those bastards!

(I'm sure I'm not the only one who has noticed the irony of this post coming from "bdlover".)

[MichaelB]

In actual fact, the BFI's wholehearted embracing of new digital video technologies, far from constituting "cultural vandalism" has massively increased access to the UK's moving-image heritage.

Not much more than a decade ago, getting stuff out of what was then the National Film and Television Archive made the old blood-out-of-a-stone trick seem like a doddle, because preservation was (understandably) the overwhelming priority, with access ranked very much second. But now that they can create high-definition digital masters of their holdings, they can maintain their preservation priorities while making the films available on a wide range of platforms from the big screen to the BFI's YouTube channel.

Personally, I'd much rather that the BFI's ever-limited resources went into initiatives like that rather than striking fragile 35mm prints with far more limited application. Not least because, realistically, they'd mostly only get shown to comparatively tiny audiences in London.

[TMDaines]

Indeed. Done correctly, digital should be the best thing that has ever happened in terms of making cinema far more widely available.

[MichaelB]

Don't get me wrong - as someone who's worked with 35mm prints for most of his professional life, I'm obviously well aware of their inherent advantages (although I have to say that it's getting harder and harder to tell the difference between 35mm and digital projection, something that was all too obvious even five years ago) - but I'm also acutely aware of their economic and logistical drawbacks at a time of significant budget cuts.

So instead of using emotive and hyperbolic language like "cultural vandalism", you have to ask yourself what you would do if faced with the same limited resources, plus an official mandate to make the end result of your labour available to as many UK taxpayers as possible. Clearly, original 35mm materials should still be preserved in the archive (and there is obviously no question of destroying them after digitising), but for reasons wholly beyond the BFI's control, 35mm is becoming an increasingly expensive and inefficient system for distribution.

[knives]

Don't get me wrong - as someone who's worked with 35mm prints for most of his professional life, I'm obviously well aware of their inherent advantages (although I have to say that it's getting harder and harder to tell the difference between 35mm and digital projection, something that was all too obvious even five years ago) - but I'm also acutely aware of their economic and logistical drawbacks at a time of significant budget cuts.

I'd imagine no matter how good digital gets the lack of cigarette burns will always make them obvious when in use.

[Roger Ryan]

Don't get me wrong - as someone who's worked with 35mm prints for most of his professional life, I'm obviously well aware of their inherent advantages (although I have to say that it's getting harder and harder to tell the difference between 35mm and digital projection, something that was all too obvious even five years ago) - but I'm also acutely aware of their economic and logistical drawbacks at a time of significant budget cuts.

I'd imagine no matter how good digital gets the lack of cigarette burns will always make them obvious when in use.

I know it's the wrong thread for this subject, but I was so infuriated last year by a 35mm screening of MOONRISE KINGDOM where the red anti-piracy dot configurations showed up every 40 seconds or so that I wished it was digital projection!

[zedz]

So instead of using emotive and hyperbolic language like "cultural vandalism", you have to ask yourself what you would do if faced with the same limited resources, plus an official mandate to make the end result of your labour available to as many UK taxpayers as possible. Clearly, original 35mm materials should still be preserved in the archive (and there is obviously no question of destroying them after digitising), but for reasons wholly beyond the BFI's control, 35mm is becoming an increasingly expensive and inefficient system for distribution.

The other major factor to bear in mind is that in the supposed 'golden age' of film-on-film screenings (an age which never existed), you had quality compromises up the wazoo. All those screenings of world cinema classics that were taking place twenty or thirty years ago weren't of freshly struck glowing prints with a close personal relationship to the original negative. You could be watching a battered distribution print that was decades old, or a 16mm reduction, or a dupe of a dupe of a dupe, or (for screenings of more esoteric fare) even one with subtitles in a foreign language. Films circulated in incomplete prints, bastardized versions, badly dubbed or with terrible sound. A good DCP is no 35mm, but it's probably going to be much better than much of what cinephiles were thrilled to be able to see in the past.

[GaryC]

So instead of using emotive and hyperbolic language like "cultural vandalism", you have to ask yourself what you would do if faced with the same limited resources, plus an official mandate to make the end result of your labour available to as many UK taxpayers as possible. Clearly, original 35mm materials should still be preserved in the archive (and there is obviously no question of destroying them after digitising), but for reasons wholly beyond the BFI's control, 35mm is becoming an increasingly expensive and inefficient system for distribution.

The other major factor to bear in mind is that in the supposed 'golden age' of film-on-film screenings (an age which never existed), you had quality compromises up the wazoo. All those screenings of world cinema classics that were taking place twenty or thirty years ago weren't of freshly struck glowing prints with a close personal relationship to the original negative. You could be watching a battered distribution print that was decades old, or a 16mm reduction, or a dupe of a dupe of a dupe, or (for screenings of more esoteric fare) even one with subtitles in a foreign language. Films circulated in incomplete prints, bastardized versions, badly dubbed or with terrible sound. A good DCP is no 35mm, but it's probably going to be much better than much of what cinephiles were thrilled to be able to see in the past.

I was one of those people, at first watching foreign/arthouse films showed up on what were then three TV channels (the arrival of Channel 4 in 1982 was a big thing in terms of what films I could finally get to see). Then I went to University and spent a lot of time in the film society, and my first viewings of world cinema classics like The Seventh Seal, Smiles of a Summer Night and Hollywood classics like From Here to Eternity were battered 16mm prints.

It would be a shame to see 35mm projection die, outside certain venues like the BFI Southbank, the Prince Charles in London which makes a point of advertising when it's showing 35mm, or the Pictureville in Bradford. However, I'm less exercised by a good DCP projection - especially a 4K one - versus a 35mm projection, than by being asked to accept that even 4K digital is an adequate substitute for a 70mm print of a film shot in 65mm. That's why I made a point of seeing The Master in 70mm last year - fortunately before one reel got scratched!

[TMDaines]

Our student cinema still shows most stuff in 35mm and still does one or two 70mm shows a term. There's still cinemas out there that look to show film but in reality hardly no-one cares. From my experience of stewarding there and at the arthouse cinema, so few people would even consider 35mm vs digital to be an issue worth caring about and even then it is a distinct, vocal minority who would go to bat for 35mm. This is a fairly knowledgable crowd too. I'll have people immeadiately letting me know when something doesn't sound right with one of our Met Opera events straight away.

[MichaelB]

The other major factor to bear in mind is that in the supposed 'golden age' of film-on-film screenings (an age which never existed), you had quality compromises up the wazoo. All those screenings of world cinema classics that were taking place twenty or thirty years ago weren't of freshly struck glowing prints with a close personal relationship to the original negative. You could be watching a battered distribution print that was decades old, or a 16mm reduction, or a dupe of a dupe of a dupe, or (for screenings of more esoteric fare) even one with subtitles in a foreign language. Films circulated in incomplete prints, bastardized versions, badly dubbed or with terrible sound. A good DCP is no 35mm, but it's probably going to be much better than much of what cinephiles were thrilled to be able to see in the past.

Yes, absolutely. There is no way that modern audiences would put up with what I routinely watched in London rep cinemas in the 1980s and 90s - and audiences then were prepared to put up with it because there wasn't a viable alternative. Now there are loads - even a decent DVD of, say, The Seventh Seal offers a more satisfying viewing experience than the 16mm print we used to show twenty years ago, not least because its subtitles are much more readable.

Back in my own rep-management days, we used to keep a detailed record of print conditions (including what they looked like projected, as prints might be physically pristine dupes of horrendous-quality sources) to try to maintain a minimum quality threshold, but that threshold was considerably lower than I imagine anyone could get away with today.

Film is clearly the ideal in terms of ultimate quality, but it's an incredibly fragile medium - as GaryC mentioned above, he was lucky to see the 70mm print of The Master before the first reel got scratched, and although I understand it was eventually replaced, this was presumably at considerable expense. And for an organisation like the BFI, whose remit is overwhelmingly biased towards preservation (a priority that becomes all the more acute when you consider the growing dearth of 35mm printing facilities), it's easy to see why they've embraced technology that means that they don't have to subject their precious prints to the wear and tear of projection. Obviously, this doesn't mean that they're abandoning 35mm altogether - to prove this, BFI Southbank recently held a nitrate season - but it does mean a certain pragmatism.

[TMDaines]

This is one of the reasons my heart tends to sink a bit when I see a classic film is being on 35mm and not digital at our student cinema. The Hitchcocks we've shown on digital look absolutely remarkable. Simply gorgeous. The 35mm prints tend to be fairly battered and covered in scratches. Even a recent film on 35mm like Anatolia was in a dreadful state by the time we screened it. Give me a pristine digital version any day.

[bdlover]

There's no doubt that DCP, however vulgar, is the present reality of commercial cinema, but this is a very different thing from the state-sponsored preservation and presentation of some of the 20th century's greatest works of art. Visitors to the Louvre wouldn't expect to see a digital print out of the Mona Lisa. Audiences at the Royal Albert Hall wouldn't wish to hear Beethoven's 9th played over a PA. A digital copy of a film classic like Tess or Lawrence or Arabia at the BFI Southbank is no less crass. When David Lean and Freddie Young dragged their 65mm camera across Morocco, do you think they ever imagined their work would be preserved for audiences in an electronic copy 2048 pixels wide?...

In answer to your question then Michael, in times of austerity you ring fence that which is most valuable. "We're using NEW TECHNOLOGY to reach a WIDER AUDIENCE than ever before and yet we're SAVING MONEY!" - no doubt this line sounds great in the report to your Whitehall paymasters (whose long term goal, let's be honest, is the total demolition of all forms of subsidy and welfare in this country). The reality, however, is the gradual loss of the 20th century's most import medium, in compensation for which two drunks in Blackpool get to 'enjoy' a blurry pixellated abomination at 2pm on a Tuesday afternoon… No doubt the preservation of cultural mediums from centuries past is an expensive business, no doubt confined to niche audiences in London (and no doubt a 16mm dupe-of-a-dupe would look even worse than DCP, although since the NFT would never have screened such a thing the relevance of this argument escapes me). It's time to look past the real politik, face up to the facts and embrace them. "Access" is great too, if you can afford it - in the form of internet downloads and great blu-ray discs like Tess, just as museums present images of their collections online and classical music recordings can of course be purchased. But to allow this to compromise the essential theatrical experience, the primary experience of seeing these films as their makers intended, is exactly what I described it to be.

Finally then you need to consider the implication of your argument in terms of pure preservation: in downplaying the importance of celluloid screenings, in turning away from new 35mm prints, you are fueling a situation in which 35mm film stock may soon be no longer available. As of last month, Fujifilm are no longer producing motion picture film. The only remaining producer, Kodak, is in administration. In turning your back on celluloid, you may soon lose access to it all together, even for archival and preservation purposes. Eg,, if an old negative is too fragile for telecine it will be lost for all time. The long term preservation of original film elements will become impossible. The cultural cost will be too vast to calculate and this will be your legacy...

[MichaelB]

no doubt this line sounds great in the report to your Whitehall paymasters

Just to be clear, I'm not an employee of the BFI (except on an occasional freelance basis), and I'm commenting as a private individual.

But with regard to your final paragraph, I'm sure the BFI would be inordinately flattered to think that their influence on the production of 35mm film stock is vast enough to prevent Kodak from filing for bankruptcy and Fuji from ceasing the production of 35mm motion picture film, but this is of course very far from the case. And since this is so clearly very far from the case, a pragmatic approach that reflects current realities is the only sane course of action.

[bdlover]

But Michael, it isn't so very clearly far from the case at all. If the BFI, CNC and other major European agencies got together behind the message tht "FILM MATTERS" then measures could most certainly be taken to ensure that the medium survives this century and the next: a single European facility, jointly funded, perhaps in partnership with private equity, to produce film stock and meet print and processing needs for the continent if not the world. This needn't be inordinately expensive and would create jobs. It would also be a lot easier and cheaper to put together right now, whilst the expertise, machinery and infrastructure still exists within the commercial sector, than in 2 or 3 years time when Kodak folds and Hollywood and everyone else is dragged kicking and screaming into all-digital production (many of the highest-grossing and most highly acclaimed films of the last year still having been shot on film - I wonder why?). The saddest thing being that, when this happens, I do believe people will eventually stop banging their digital drum, look back and think: "....oh fuck." By which point it will be too late. You guys really really need to wake up.

As to the populist arguments coming from Cheshire, eg. the student filmgoers who don't realise what they're missing, etc, I imagine in many cases this amounts to inexperience pure and simple. Have these kids seen Lawrence of Arabia, Playtime or 2001 projected in a new 70mm print from one of the front rows in NFT1? Or Once Upon a Time in the West or The Seven Samurai in 35mm for that matter? Even if they have, it would be foolish and bizarre to defer to popular intelligence in such matters. Can the average punter-on-the-street tell the difference between a Stradivari and a cheap Chinese knock off? In which case, wouldn't the former be better off used as firewood? The subtleties of a master pianist versus an accomplished amateur, the difference between a master painting and accomplished forgery, etc... In such matters we of course defer to experts in the field to guide us down the proper path, but in the tradition of British contempt for art, and art cinema in particular, such experts are now described as "loud voices", ie. crazies by implication (btw, you'll have to throw in the likes of Christopher Nolan or Quentin Tarantino, who recently declared that cinema is "over... television in public isn't what I signed up for"). Hey, if we're going to be truly populist then who cares about this old artsy crap anyway? Why not just burn all of it and run Ridley Scott movies 24/7? Cameron and The Sun would no doubt approve.

[RossyG]

I imagine the BFI agree with a lot of that, but don't have the power to battle against the tide. It's the multi-billion dollar corporations who are behind the digital switch.

[JonasEB]

"Access" is great too, if you can afford it - in the form of internet downloads and great blu-ray discs like Tess, just as museums present images of their collections online and classical music recordings can of course be purchased. But to allow this to compromise the essential theatrical experience, the primary experience of seeing these films as their makers intended, is exactly what I described it to be.

I always love hearing the supremely condescending, "Oh, heavens, you haven't really seen the film, and you never will, never never never, unless you've actually seen a genuine, glorious, print!" This is an absolute unreality to not just myself but 99.99999% of the people of the world. No one's going to tell me that I haven't had an intimate, personal, and full experience, a true experience, with Yasujiro Ozu's films simply because I haven't seen them in a theater from 35mm.

For me, the image is the image, the format is not the image, just as the piece of music is the piece of music. Yes, that's a simplification, there are certainly cases where the format and arena are crucial (abstract expressionism, avant garde music designed for a specific setting, etc.) I'm not saying format is completely invalid but it is not the center of the universe (I would love to see Ozu in 35mm but it isn't at all likely to happen.)

Preserving film is about preserving the images of the past and allowing that photographic option to be utilized in the future (a photographic quality that is still fully apparent and different from video even when converted to digital.) The film you watch is always a copy, be it print, DCP, or home video, it's never really the "original."

[bdlover]

It was the National Lottery that subsidised the goal of these corporations to the tune of tens of millions through the creation of the UK's digital network. Much good it did too, with most of these 'independent' cinemas now swallowed up by the Cineworld chain (another disaster that could have been easily predicted - it's okay though because we still have 'twatty tuesdays', or whatever they like to call it, that precious Tuesday afternoon slot where films starring Gael Garcia Bernal may yet be honoured with a pixellated video screening, as long as the harddrive doesn't lock up that is). At the risk of being crass myself, it's like going into Iraq with no reconstruction plan, no thought or care beyond the short term goal. The inevitable by-product perhaps of a film culture that promotes career administrators and salespeople over those with a real creative investment and reputation in the medium in question (or, alternatively, one might argue, a mirror of general societal trends, taking money from the needy to subsidise the super-rich...). And yet... all is not lost. My proposal above needn't cost billions, millions perhaps, but only a fraction of what they spent on Cineworld's shiny new boxes, perfectly achievable if only the message of digital-uber-alles can be mitigated just a little. It's simply a question of separating film future from film past and making adequate provision for protection both. Right now, Kodak are essentially being subsidised by the major studios who have signed a deal to pay marked-up rates until 2015, during which time I believe the goal is to shift as many major productions onto a digital format as possible. After that, there'll be no more film stock, either for print or preservation purpose, unless public agencies step in. In anticipation, many of the large labs have already closed down, including both Deluxe and Technicolor in London.

[colinr0380]

I'm still reeling from the shock that bdlover found out that I visited a cinema in Blackpool this Tuesday afternoon!

(And for the record I wasn't drunk - I swear that I was only drinking Ribena and just so happened to only have a wine bottle wrapped in a brown paper bag from which to drink)

[peerpee]

Vote with your wallet. I avoid DCP screenings and wait for the Blu-ray.

[bdlover]

Well I barely go to the cinema anymore (the BFI's DCP of Days of Heaven was the most depressing cinematic experience of my life), but sadly I don't think this is considered to be a factor in the analysis of falling arthouse cinema attendance figures. And whilst I love blu-ray (surprise!), for myself it is no substitute for a real film screening. I grew up with the view that home video was a taster, a souvenir in a way, of the real theatrical experience. As I see it, a good film print is a window on the world, whilst DCP looks and feels like something that was farted out of the back of an i-Phone.

I wonder if perhaps the French may step in at the 11th hour... Does anyone know the present state of affairs at the Cinematheque Francais? Or perhaps a rich conglomerate of Hollywood directors who would otherwise quite reasonably lose a taste for the practice of their art? There's still a limited amount of commercial demand for stock, perhaps an enterprising startup will acquire the patents and produce on a smaller scale... Some glimmers of hope remain. And yet if supposedly major national venues like the BFI Southbank give up in their commitment to film projection then I do fear all is lost... To pretend they are simply a bystander, and powerless in this debate, is clearly false imho.

[GaryC]

I wonder if perhaps the French may step in at the 11th hour...

For what it's worth, the Max Linder Panorama in Paris has I believe the second-largest non-IMAX screen in Europe (second only to Le Grand Rex across the road, which only shows French-language and French-dubbed films). Every time I look at its programme, it's a digital (2K) screening, although the cinema is equipped for 35mm and 70mm. At the moment they're showing Samsara, a film that was shot in 65mm but which was released digital-only because of the perceived lack of venues capable of showing 70mm prints. (Clearly wrong, as the release of The Master showed. For the record, I saw the makers' previous film Baraka in 70mm.)

A month and a half ago, when To the Wonder and Lore both opened in London the same weekend, I emailed Curzon Cinemas to ask if any of their cinemas were showing either of them in 35mm. I got the reply that all new releases were shown digitally now and that's what the distributors supplied. For the record, the Curzon Soho, the Renoir, the Chelsea and the main screen at the Curzon Mayfair are all still equipped for 35mm.

I'm enough of a large-format fan to want to watch a 65mm-shot film in 70mm if at all possible, and made sure to see the partly-IMAX-shot The Dark Knight,Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol and The Dark Knight Rises in IMAX. And often IMAX is IMAX digital instead of 15/70 IMAX, though the three films I listed were shown in 15/70 - as indeed was The Hobbit at the BFI IMAX. Obviously, time, money and opportunity are factors here. But I don't see IMAX going away any time soon.

[MichaelB]

As I see it, a good film print is a window on the world, whilst DCP looks and feels like something that was farted out of the back of an i-Phone.

In which case your local cinema's digital projector must be faulty (or ancient), because even I am finding it increasingly hard to tell the difference these days - and I grew up with 35mm and must have physically handled and/or examined hundreds of prints over the last couple of decades.

And there's no point thinking wishfully when you have to make long-term decisions based on the way things are inescapably going. Even if this "limited amount of commercial stock" continues to be produced (which it probably will, although the absence of the previous economies of scale will inevitably make it far more expensive), many types of film stock will clearly no longer be available at all - in fact, when I worked on the Institute Benjamenta BD, I discovered that it's now impossible to strike black-and-white 35mm prints to the standards achieved in 1995, because the East German Orwo stock that was originally used was in extremely short supply even then, and has completely run out since. So what do you do? Wring your hands in despair, attempt to create the same effect with a different stock that lacks the same tonal range and which therefore inevitably won't reflect the filmmakers' intentions - or recognise the way things are going and collaborate with the filmmakers and cinematographer with the aim of creating the most accurate digital master possible?

And of course no 35mm stock going back over half a century can recapture the velvety "feel" of nitrate film - and that's another example of a widely-used format that was phased out for practical reasons (safety ones in that case). I daresay there was some hand-wringing back then too, and on aesthetic grounds I entirely sympathise - I've been lucky enough to see nitrate projected.

[RossyG]

I'm sorry to see the death of celluloid, certainly in the production (as opposed to distribution) of films. I'd probably still be a cinemagoer if 35mm was still used; or better still 70mm, which should have become a Hollywood standard for blockbusters in the 60's.

But on a more positive note, both digital cinematography and exhibition can only get better. Maybe in a decade's time it'll look even better than 35mm.

...whilst DCP looks and feels like something that was farted out of the back of an i-Phone.

That kind of hyperbole only weakens your point. I've seen over fifty films projected digitally and none of them were bad in terms of quality; most were above average and a couple were very good indeed (Brothers of the Head and Chico & Rita spring to mind). I prefer 35mm, but that doesn't mean digital is some kind of abomination.

But don't get me started on cinemas that leave the polarised 3D filter on for 2D screenings. That's the main reason I wait for the BD these days (with other audience members being a close second).

[Duncan Hopper]

I have to chip-in on this. As someone who sees 5-10 films a week at the cinema, and most of those being at the BFI southbank, I have mixed feelings on DCP. It's certainly not a black and white issue, and though I'm not a fan of DCP, there are plenty good reasons to show DCP, and if used correctly it can be very useful for spreading film for education and to places who wouldn't normally get to see quality films at the cinema.

As far as the BFI screening films at BFI southbank, this is a slightly different issue. Currently they have a Pasolini season, showing pretty much all his films, with an extended run of The Gospel According to Matthew. I saw Matthew first, as expected it was a DCP of the recent restoration, I then saw Oedipus Rex which was from the same restoration, however, this was screened on 35mm. So, in all likelihood, a 35mm was available for Matthew, but they chose to screen it in DCP, probably due to the many times they are screening it. It would have been nice to have been given the option of 35mm, as it seems there must be a print available. Aside from a new release or extended run, pretty much everything else is screen from 35mm, sometimes even 70mm (The Dark Crystal a few weeks ago) To put this into context, the BFI have over 300 screenings a month, of this, the vast majority are on 35mm. And they do make it very clear when the film is not being screened from 35mm.

I've not seen it yet, but I've heard the extended run of Point Blank is screening from 35mm, now this breaks with the current trend, so maybe the BFI are listening? I know for a fact that the people who work there are people who would much rather see films on 35mm than DCP. There does seem to be a small fight-back of London based film fans who want to see films in 35/70mm, rather than digital, the Prince Charles Cinema tries to screen as much from film as possible and the queues to see The Master on 70mm was heartening.

It is not a black and white issue, DCP in one form or another is here to stay, the best we can hope for is that 2K becomes extinct rather soon, as this is the problem, 4k I have much less of an issue with, but of course I would always seek-out a 35mm alternative if available. I do try to vote with my pocket, but sometimes it is just not possible. As far as I known, the BFI are still fully behind film as a medium, and still archives and shows as much from film as possible.

[MichaelB]

As far as the BFI screening films at BFI southbank, this is a slightly different issue. Currently they have a Pasolini season, showing pretty much all his films, with an extended run of The Gospel According to Matthew. I saw Matthew first, as expected it was a DCP of the recent restoration, I then saw Oedipus Rex which was from the same restoration, however, this was screened on 35mm. So, in all likelihood, a 35mm was available for Matthew, but they chose to screen it in DCP, probably due to the many times they are screening it. It would have been nice to have been given the option of 35mm, as it seems there must be a print available.

But even if a print was available, would it have been in good enough condition to compete with a high-quality DCP, especially given that this was a showcase presentation? Or would it have been exactly the same print that I used to play over twenty years ago, with all that that implies in terms of (further) deterioration?

If you have the choice between a good 35mm print or a DCP, clearly a 35mm print is preferable. But if it's between a poor 35mm print or a DCP, there's a stronger case for a DCP. After all, I suspect far more people would be distracted by print damage, especially if it's in the form of projectionist splice repairs - as is often the case with prints that have done the rep-cinema rounds.

Although BFI Southbank has the huge advantage of access to the BFI National Archive, that doesn't invariably mean high-quality prints either. The Archive has to have at least two copies before they'll grant viewing status to one of them, and for obvious preservation reasons it's the poorer-quality copy (often a former distribution print) that'll be made available for public screenings, while the better-quality one is locked away in the vaults and banned from ever being projected. So, again, if the DCP is in better condition than the 35mm viewing copy, you're faced with the same decision.