Tribeca: Film vs. Digital in 'Side by Side' Are we reaching the end of film as a format in cinema? Is it worth the fight to keep film alive? These question have been asked by film critics and debated by filmmakers in recent years as digital technology continues to transform the way movies are made. At the Tribeca Film Festival, a new documentary, "Side by Side," looks at the formats and weighs the pros and cons on both sides of the debate. Directed by Chris Kenneally and produced by Keanu Reeves, who also narrates, the film explores the technological shifts and talks with the directors David Lynch, David Fincher, George Lucas, Christopher Nolan, Martin Scorsese and Steven Soderbergh, as well as a number of cinematographers. The documentary is screening through Sunday in the festival, and Mr. Kenneally visited the Times offices to speak about the issues it covers. Below are edited excerpts from that conversation. How did you get involved with Keanu Reeves in tackling this subject for a documentary? I was post-production supervisor on a movie called "Henry's Crime," and Keanu was in it and produced it. He was at all the meetings and wanted to know how everything worked, and he and I had a lot of discussions about post-production and filmmaking. One day he said to me, why don't we make a short doc about color timing versus color correction? And then it expanded into a much larger idea. How did you get so many directors and cinematographers on board to discuss this issue? One of the first things we did was go to a place called Camerimage in Poland, which is a film festival for cinematographers. We got there and there were 40 or 50 of the world's greatest cinematographers. We set up a camera and grabbed one guy after another. In our first shoot, we had 40 interviews. So when we had that list, other people we were reaching out to thought this was the real deal. But a lot of it had to do with Keanu. I think if it was just me calling people, I don't know who would have called back. Who was the most passionate about shooting on film and who was the most passionate about digital? From the people we interviewed, I would say, on the film side, Christopher Nolan and the cinematographer Wally Pfister. They're really strong advocates for film. From the guys who love digital, I'd say George Lucas is the person who really pushed that technology forward in all aspects of filmmaking. Lucas and Robert Rodriguez were probably the biggest on that side. On what side do you fall? In the film, I try to really not take one side or another. The opinions of the people we interview are presented and hopefully the viewer can form their own opinion based on what they've seen. My personal opinion, if you'd asked me three or four years ago, would have been that film is the premiere imaging-capture format. But nowadays, the technology of digital is just growing and improving so quickly that I really think it's catching up and, in some cases, equivalent to film. The business, whether we like it or not, is heading in a digital direction. What does digital most have going for it? For me, if I'm going out and shooting an independent movie, I think digital would be less expensive, easier to use and has an immediacy to see what's being captured on set. But there's so many factors involved that it's hard to just say across the board that digital is better than film. What did you learn in the process of making the movie? I got a greater appreciation for digital and the people behind the scenes, the scientists and people in the labs who were experimenting with this technology. And the fact that they want to create beautiful images - they are continually trying to improve the aesthetics of it. Who do you see as the audience for this movie? Probably not tweens and teens necessarily. We tried to make a movie that's not completely dumbed down. Some film professionals have really enjoyed it, because it gives them a chance to see what their peers have to say. But anyone who is a movie buff and doesn't know what goes on behind the scenes, I think we explain that in a way that's clear and helps you understand the rest of the argument. We explain things without making it into an encyclopedia. What would you say has been the most significant moment in digital, something that legitimized the format? I think it was when Anthony Dod Mantle won best cinematography for "Slumdog Millionaire." Over 80 percent of that film is shot with digital cameras. To have a digital film win that prize was definitely a milestone. How do you see audiences and filmmakers reacting to digital projection in theaters? I read comments on all these boards and Web sites and a lot of times, people are sad or nostalgic that film is dying or that they can't see things projected on film anymore. But even when I talked to the [directors of photography] who wanted to shoot on film, almost across the board, they loved digital projection. Because in the past, you might have bad prints or projectors that didn't work right. But when you watch something projected digitally, it's pretty pristine and there's less room for error in the image.