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Everybody raves about the advantages of filmmaking using video. It's lighter, easier, cheaper but there are also lots of downsides. Aside from the obvious differences of resolution there are many other things you have to contend with when making movies with camcorders.

Contrast Ratio

Video has a limited ability to handle extreme contrast. It depends on the camera but it is always less than what a film camera can render. It's the reason why night scenes never quite look right with digital video-shot movies. Complete black and bright white in the same shot will not come out looking as great as it would on film.

Weak Depth Of Field

Using a film camera you get really shallow depth of field to where you can focus on the face of an actor and have the immediate background be a blur. It's a very filmic look that many people want in their movies that just isn't possible without major additions to most camcorders. There are add-ons to change the focal length and get shallower depth of field, but they aren't a perfect solution.

Magnetism

With film you have to worry about accidentally exposing it to light. With video tape or memory cards you have to worry about magnetism. It's not like there are huge magnets laying all about making it perilous to lay your tapes or memory cards anywhere, but if you put them near speakers or magnetized screwdrivers you might incur some data loss.

Backup Copies

When you shoot on film you create the best and cleanest copy of the footage you will ever know. Every copy made from it will be inferior. Just keep it from the light until developed and all will be fine. Digital camcorders record images with data so that each and every copy will be the same as any other. The problem is that no single copy is enough to ensure data integrity. Magnets aside, not every data capture or storage unit is flawless and errors can occur. When recording images digitally there is no single good copy, you need many duplicate copies in the hopes that worst comes to worse you can cobble together something usable.

Backup Camera

Film cameras are industrial equipment, they are made not to break. Most camcorders are consumer grade and made to break so you buy a new one. Whereas you can be pretty sure that a film camera will not give you too much trouble, a video camera could have any number of things go wrong to keep you from shooting optimal footage. This is why you always need to have at least one backup camcorder. Most major problems that arise are something you can't fix, it's usually cheaper to simply replace camcorders rather than repair them anyhow. Save yourself the trouble and have a replacement on-hand so production can continue unabated.

Dainty Equipment

A reason for the breaking issue is the fact that camcorders have many tiny parts that are weak at best. It's full of plastic and flimsy metals and have many more moving parts than a film camera. These cameras are made to consumer specifications and that doesn't include heavy use. Don't be surprised if your digital camcorder can't keep up as you'd like it to. They are made to be light and small and with that comes some shortcomings.

Each Cam Is Different

Though most film cameras are pretty similar in function and the location of those functions, digital camcorders are not always so straightforward. Once you know how to work one movie camera, you can pretty quickly get up and running with any other. The focus is on the lens as is the aperture settings. The exposure is somewhere and there is no white balance to worry about. Camcorders don't have to put their controls where analog cameras do and some of them don't even have all the same controls. To complicate things even further all these functions may be hidden in a proprietary menu system that makes the whole thing unwieldy to learn in the first place.

Video will be superior to film someday, but not yet. Film is still the best way to capture footage that you will project on a big screen, unfortunately it's also out of reach for most productions. With the negatives of shooting on video in mind, do some deep thinking as to whether it's right for your production.