Here's an interesting little anecdote for any fans of Taxi Driver out there: Martin Scorsese was so keen to get the film made that he considered shooting on black-and-white video when he had trouble raising the money to film on, er, film, as he reveals in this deleted scene from filmmaking documentary Side By Side.
It's hard to imagine the film in black-and-white now, given how far its sunk into the fabric of our collective imagination, but perhaps the result could have been a little like Scorsese's slightly later classic, Raging Bull. The only problem would be that shooting on '70s video stock might have left us with a rather grainier version of the drama that might not have survived as well.
Side By Side, of course, is the recent documentary that quizzes top directors and cinematographers on their preferences in film or digital filmmaking to examine the state of the industry in this time of flux. James Cameron, Danny Boyle, Christopher Nolan, Steven Soderbergh, George Lucas and more. Christopher Kenneally directs, with Keanu Reeves producing and interviewing some of the subjects. It's out on DVD on May 13, so keep an eye out then if you're interested in where the industry is and where it's going.