Film is dead.

After a journey that lasted 36.4 years and covered 17 continents, Oxford Scientists today announced startling results to their studies; film is dead.

Photographers around the world are in mourning, wandering with wide and bleary eyes to the windows of their favourite photo shops and having to be moved on by the police as they mumble ‘zone techinique’ and ‘shadow detail’.

‘When we started the studies all that time ago’ says Chief Scientist Gerald ‘Bunsen Burner’ Williamson, ‘we had no preconceived ideas as to what the outcome would be. Some of us had personal opinions but first and foremost we were scientists and opinions had to sit on the back shelf with the Sodium Glycerolhydride. There was no other photographic medium at the time so results were coming back the same all the time which became tedious but when digital cameras were invented, it was like the laboratory had been picked up by some kind of large creature and shaken like a snow globe. I remember the day digital photography was announced on the news; Ted came running into the lab still dripping wet from when he had leaped out of his bath, literally shaking with excitement at the possible test results. And Ted was always the one who sat in the corner during office parties and quietly drank himself to sleep as everyone else had a good time. Sadly I had to reprimand him for not wearing his white lab coat, as any kind of dangerous substance could have accidentally been splashed onto his bare skin resulting in hideous burns that would take months to properly heal. We have some wicked chemicals just lying around all the over the place, so lab coats are compulsory and without a lab coat how would anyone know that we were scientists? We would just look like normal people! I mean, when have you ever seen a scientist without a lab coat? That’s right, you’ve not because no lab coat equals no scientist. As I say, we were excited about digital showing its face on the photographic scene but, as usual, excitement had to take a back seat with the Tetrychrolide Phenylalanine because, as I have mentioned, we were scientists and things had to be done by the book.
When the data was compiled and triple checked and everything thrown out and all the experiments repeated for the third time and the results became clear we were simultaneously overjoyed and disappointed. Overjoyed due to the long arduous study being over. Disappointed as I only had four more years to pay off my mortgage and with the ball of results scoring a goal I was potentially out of work. But the goal was scored and the fans were celebrating.
Our results are thus - digital cameras work with electricity, the image is captured by electronic components and, as we all know, life needs electricity to function. No electricity, no life. Simple as that. Film, as the conclusive figures show, doesn’t use electricity and as such is dead, it is lifeless in every sense of the word. As limp and as void of life as an old rag that sits in the gutter. It does contain gelatin which at one point has been part of a living being but that is not quite good enough for scientific purposes and, as I have mentioned, we were scientists, so only had eyes for scientific purposes.’

Dr Williamson continued for some time but we couldn’t be bothered to type up all the nonsense he was spewing forth. The point is this - Film is Dead.

/Ginger Snap.