Classroom Challenge

Probably one of the most foolhardy things I did while teaching at a university is challenge a student to prove me wrong.

But, as they say, there were "extenuating circumstances."

I had stated that, technically speaking, video could deliver sharper images in television than film -- and I had explained why.

This particular student (who had family in the film business) politely told me I was crazy and suggested that any fool could see that film was superior. Things then came to a standstill in the class as he continued to argue his point.

To shut him up and move things along I said, "If you can prove to me that the best film image is technically superior to the best video image in television I will give you an automatic "A" in this course.

My course was not considered easy and he was not a strong student. He smiled and did what I hoped -- shut up and started panning how he was going to conclusively prove his point.

Since he apparently had connections in the film industry, I assumed he would soon reappear armed with resources to try to prove me wrong.

He never mentioned the wager again.

That was a long time ago and since that time this argument has been clearly settled -- on technical, but not necessarily on artistic grounds. The email to this site that previously had challenged my film vs. video comments has also dropped to zero.

Even so, many people still hold to film as a preferred medium, especially for dramatic television. But as this article shows, even those "holdouts" are now finding the ground rapidly shifting under their feet.

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