"Zodiac" is an $80 million movie about the series of killings that has never been solved. To re-create that time, Fincher, the director of the highly stylized "Se7en," Fight Club" and "Panic Room," is taking a more realistic approach -- filming as much as possible in the actual locations where the events took place.

Although "Zodiac" is a retro film, it will be made with cutting-edge technology. One creative choice that is allowing the crew to work faster is Fincher's decision to use the new Grass Valley Viper FilmStream system, a digital video format.

That's right -- "Zodiac" is not being shot on film. The Viper system allows Fincher's crew to use less light, set up shots more quickly and play them back instantly. To speed up the process, Fincher is filming (that's still the technical term) most of his shots with two Viper cameras, meaning Savides has to light for two different setups at once.

Fincher used the system to shoot a commercial for Hewlett-Packard, and Michael Mann used it to shoot much of "Collateral," the Tom Cruise-Jamie Foxx thriller. But "Zodiac" will be the first Hollywood feature shot entirely on the Viper system.

um.. what about all the pixar animation movies? those aren't film either.

i just read about this for the first time (the killings), it's interesting. i'm probably going to see it when it comes out...in...2008?

i meant movies with actual people, not CGI. pixar and lucasarts are both in the bay area as well anyways

collateral was only partially digital, and star wars used film too
it's coming out in september of this year, or at least that's the latest release date. it's not rated yet

Episode 2 was shot entirely in digital. I'm sure the 3rd was also

Are you 100% sure they didn't use any film for any of it, and it wasn't just transferred to digital format after filming?

According to the Making Of stuff in the movie they said it was.. filmed entirely in digital. Kind of a an awkward term to use but I can't say taped and recorded just sounds funny.

Oh well. I still want to see this movie. And there is another Zodiac movie coming out this year by a different studio, called "The Zodiac", and according to reviews it sucks pretty bad. There is also another Truman Capote movie coming out. What's with all the duplicates?

Dammit, I was wrong. I wonder what this will look like in the theater though, probably awesome, of course I'll have to find one with a digital projector instead of film. I can't wait until HD-DVDs come out, once they get over their futile attempt to prevent copyright infringement.

Trailer for Zodiac, Quicktime 18.2Mb
http://images.apple.com/movies/independent...odiac_h640w.mov

From what I've been hearing the digital projectors quality isnt that much better than film. And they're batshit expensive. I dunno, I dont think i've seen anything on digital.

That's the other zodiac killer movie, the one that sucks. There are no trailers for Zodiac yet.