Trade-off's between Film and Video for a Commercial Production

Commercial film production is a highly profitable type of production to get into. When you break it down on average more money is spent per second on a commercial than it is on a music video, TV show or movie. Because so much money is spent on commercials it's very important that they look spectacular, even better than the shows that they're interrupting. Up until recently, one of the biggest questions before a commercial was shot was, will it be on film or video?


Commercial film production is a business and one of the biggest factors in choosing film or video is the cost. The camera rentals relatively cost the same because the large cost of camera rentals is the lenses and not the bodies. However, film stock is a lot more expensive than tape stock and hard drives. 

Film stock isn't the only extra cost involved with shooting on film. You also need to pay to get the film developed and processed and then you need to pay for a Telecine session so the film can be transferred onto video for the editor to work with. Once he/she is done with the tape you then need to hire a Negative Cutter to cut the actual film you shot.

Whereas on video you can either take the tape and transfer it to the hard drive or the footage is already on a hard drive by the end of the shoot. 

The Look

You rarely see any film cameras on a commercial shoot anymore. The old argument that film looks better than video has been ended by the RED camera. The RED is a digital camera that has twice the resolution of standard HD. It creates an image that looks as good as film without the expensive costs. As camera technology becomes more and more advanced film cameras are becoming more and more of a rare site. 

However, older video cameras do not have the same quality as the RED camera and produce images that look inferior to film.