Sounds like fun. My first thought is to run screaming. Quickly.;)
Aside from that, I shoot both film and digital and choose film over digital in certain situations. Here's a few of mine:
OK, I'm done...
- Digital just has a different look to it. If you're trying to get the look of a particular film, it's at best very difficult. I'm not talking only about grain here either - which obviously digital doesn't have (it does have noise, but again it's a different look). I've never seen a B&W digital print that really blew me away compared to an expertly printed Selenium-Toned Gelatin Silver Print. Sure, it will take years to learn to be a darkroom expert and I don't plan on going that route, but there are high-quality labs that can do these prints for you. I don't believe HCB made his own prints...
- Digital has a much narrower exposure latitude. If you have to shoot outside on a bright sunny day, in a correct exposure you're likely to have both blown highlights and blocked up shadows. Color neg film has a few (or several) more stops of latitude, depending on who you believe - or better yet, what your own findings are.
- Digital can blow the highlights really quickly. Digital has a similar exposure latitude to slide film, but with the same exposure on each you're more likely to have blown highlights on the digital exposure.
- DSLR's flash exposure systems aren't usually as accurate as 35mm film SLR's. Film SLR's have been using TTL flash metering for many years and it's quite accurate. With the extra latitude of color neg film, it's almost a no-brainer in a lot of shooting situations. Digital flash systems are getting better (heard great things about but have no personal experience with Nikon's iTTL) but not quite there yet, and with the less amount of exposure latitude and more easily blown highlights, this can be quite a problem.
- Myth: Digital is a one-time investment. My reality - upgrade this, upgrade that, add more memory cards, buy another hard drive, wait for a better camera to come out... And I still only have one camera body - I'm afraid to go on a job with one DSLR (although I've done it). I could have shot a lot of film for what I've spent on digital upgrades, but if it makes life easier and image quality better, it's probably worth it.
- DSLR's are very expensive and become obselete quickly. I paid the better part of two grand for a DSLR that's built on a ~$300 Nikon N80 body about two years ago, and it's obselete (but nothing necessarily wrong with that). It has a horrible viewfinder, slow and not-too-accurate in low light AF. My Nikon F100 I've had for three and a half years, paid half as much for, has a great viewfinder and AF system. It's still made today, and was released about as long before I bought mine as the DSLR. To match the AF performance, etc I would have to get the $5k D2X. Not this month... I suppose a more fair comparison would be the D1X which when it came out was the same $5k, but now can be had used for about $1500.
Next? Before the backlash, I could argue all of my above points! Most of what I shoot is digital and I do believe that in most cases for me personally it works better. But not all cases, and it's not perfect. That's what I'm trying to get across above.