The Death of Celluloid

A friend wrote:

I read that the last theater in America is now getting rid of celluloid and turning to digital...I'm not sure but I think I can tell the difference.  The celluloid seems to have more depth and sharper colors, etc.  It's a different viewing experience. Can you tell the difference?  Do you have an opinion on celluloid vs. digital?   Is digital photography (not video) just as good as film?  

Jagor's reply:

I tend to think that celluloid-film movies will disappear just as celluloid-film still photography has virtually disappeared.

First of all, celluloid is far more expensive than digital. Those Arriflexes and the film stock cost colossal amounts of money, especially in the hands of perfectionist and egotistical directors who insist on dozens of takes for every scene in the film!  Many good films could never have been made without digital cameras.

Secondly is the quality of the medium.  Perhaps earlier digital cameras—both for still photographs and movies—weren't as sharp and colors weren't as good.  But I think that nowadays there isn't much difference.   I, for one, never notice a difference until I see the credits.

A  third thing is that fewer and fewer people want to drive to the multiplex and pay money for a ticket to watch movies in big cinemas, preferring either DVD or Blu-ray or dialing them up on Netflix.  All of these are television-based or computer-based, not big-screen based.  Thus, nobody really knows or cares how the thing was made.

Digital is now part of the rapid democratization of all media. First you had free websites like the now-defunct Geocities--that's how I got my start; then everybody had a blog [like the Jagoriade].  But now everybody's on social media like Twitter and Snapchat and Instagram and sites like Flickr that can store virtually unlimited numbers of digital images on the cloud.  

It seems that the next wave will be free, online video. People are now making movies with their smartphones. There is a very popular app called Vine—over 40 million downloads by August 2013—that allows you to make short, looping videos with your smartphone.  Some companies have even organized contests where Vine film-makers upload their creations for prizes and recognition.

That's the complete and ultimate democratization of the visual media: movies that cost nothing to make and cost nothing to watch.

How I Would Change Our Constitution

The time has come for us Americans to convene a new constitutional convention to replace the 18th century constitution with one that is better suited to the 21st century, while maintaining the fundamental principles elaborated in 1787 such as strict and absolute separation of church and state.  

I am certain that if James Madison, Gouverneur Morris, and the fifty or so other Founding Fathers who authored the Constitution [Thomas Jefferson was our ambassador in Paris and did not participate] were alive today, they would be joining me in clamoring for the convening of a new Constitutional Convention!

Below is a list of ten ways I would change our Constitution.

1. Add more seats to the House of Representatives to conform to the intention of the Framers of our Constituion, who stipulated that "The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand" persons. Currently it's around 800,000 persons for each Representative.
2. Retrocede the current District of Columbia back to Maryland, whence it came. Originally, Washington, DC, consisted of two parts, the Virginia part and the Maryland part. Residents of the District of Columbia culd vote for House members in Virginia and Maryland, according to which half of the District they lived in until 1801. The Virginia portion of the District of Columbia was retroceded in 1847 and the Maryland portion should also be retroceded.  Currently, citizens of Washngton, DC, pay taxes but have no  Senators and only a non-voting delegate in the House. If retrocession is too difficult, then the previous system should be reenacted and Washingtonians empowered to vote in Maryland elections.
   
3. Change Election Day from "the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November" [which isn't in the Constitution] to the Fourth of July or hold all Federal elections on Sunday, as in most other democracies, or make Election Day an official, paid holiday, so that citizens would have plenty of time to vote.  At the same time, abolish all electronic or mail-in ballots except for the military, diplomats and citizens living aborad, and require each eligible voter to appear in person at the polls just as every senator and representative must appear in person on the floor of the chamber to vote.
4. The president should be innaugurated as soon as the ballots are counted and certified, as in all other democracies, instead of waiting during a two month-long interregnum until January 20 of the year following the election.
5. Prevent any president from becoming a tyrant, a dictator or a caudillo by replacing the system of one president and one vice-president with a rotating presidency in which each cabinet member would serve a one-year term as president. This is the system used in the other great federal democracy, Switzerland.
6. To eliminate gerrymandering once and for all, abolish all congressional districts [the Constittuion does not require that states be divided up into congressional districdts], and elect all members of the House of Representatives at large.
7. Repeal the first sentence of Article One of the 14th Amendment.  The 14th Amendment was enacted specifically and unequivocally to grant citizenship to former slaves and not to grant citizenship to the offspring of illegal immigrants.
8. Repeal the 17th Amendment and return to the wishes of the Founding Fathers by empowering state legislatures to select their state's two senators.
9. Prohibit any sitting senator [or representative] from running for the office of president or vice-president.  This would have eliminated Senators Obama, Biden, McCain and Clinton and opened the playing field for more qualified candidates such as Republican Mitt Romney, Democrat Deval Patrick or Michael Bloomberg, who has been a member of both parties.
10. Follow the example of John Quincy Adams and require the president and all other elected federal officials to take the oath of office by swearing on the Constitution of the United States of America instead of the Bible, the Qoran or any other religious book.