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Author Topic: Once Upon A Time In Mexico Image Quality John Pytlak Film God Posts: 9987 From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922 Registered: Jan 2000 posted 09-14-2003 07:35 AM                        quote: ...the Sony people are promoting that it is another type of brush to paint the image. I agree that it is "another brush", but when it comes to seeing fine detail in the image, it is a broad one. Anti-alias filtering and HDCAM compression significantly reduce the limiting resolution from the 1920 horizontal pixels on the CCDs: http://www.kodak.com/US/en/corp/researchDevelopment/productFeatures/dCinema.shtml  |  IP: Logged Hillary Charles Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 748 From: York, PA, USA Registered: Feb 2001 posted 09-14-2003 07:37 AM                     It's ironic that Rodriguez insisted on filming "El Mariachi" on 16mm FILM, even though his budget was far less than many current DV moviemakers have. Back then, he wanted his image to have the artifacts of film, to differentiate it from the Mexican shot-on-video soap-opera type movies he assumed his movie would be competing with. He complicated his working process considerably by doing this with the equipment he had on hand (read his book "Rebel Without A Crew" for the details), yet felt the film look was worth it. But now, he's so in love with video, presumably because it's HD digital, and has more flexibility than NTSC. What I don't get is that he's now overlooking some of those still apparent (film vs. video) differences in favor of an easier shoot...? BTW, his book is a fun read for anybody interested in moviemaking, especially film students, and microbudget producers.  |  IP: Logged Robert D. LaValley Film Handler Posts: 58 From: Florida Registered: Aug 2003 posted 09-14-2003 02:40 PM                     I noticed when I screened the 35mm film that the colors seemed different. Any time the was a fireball explosion it looked like something out of A-team, or some 80's TV series.. I do see how you mean the closer you get to the screen the image quality goes down, but doesn't that happen with all prints except 70 mm??  |  IP: Logged John Pytlak Film God Posts: 9987 From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922 Registered: Jan 2000 posted 09-14-2003 08:34 PM                        Yes, ANY image requires more resolution to support closer viewing, since you now need finer detail. That's why 70mm prints are used for "special venue" theatres like IMAX theatres, so the audience can sit closer than one screen height. But 35mm negative can capture much more fine detail than HDCAM, and NO ONE has disputed that. Likewise, film's ability to capture much more highlight detail than CCDs is undisputed.  |  IP: Logged Elena N. Solovyova Film Handler Posts: 44 From: Voronezh, Russia Registered: Feb 2003 posted 09-15-2003 01:24 AM                     This feature was shot in 2001 (yes, two years ago) but was pushed back by studio executives. It was shot way under $30,000,000. One can be sure that most of this sum went straight to actors' pockets. Robert Rodriguez loves to experiment. He operated the camera himself in most of principal shots. One may say that he is much more interested in shooting proces rather then the result. But if even Rogert Ebert praised the image quality... Maybe it is something not so wrong in here.  |  IP: Logged John Pytlak Film God Posts: 9987 From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922 Registered: Jan 2000 posted 09-15-2003 07:36 AM                        Comments on some of the issues on Cinematographer.com: Cinematographer.com Thread  |  IP: Logged Frank Bruno Film Handler Posts: 50 From: houston, tx Registered: Aug 2003 posted 09-16-2003 12:50 AM                     In what might be a step off topic, I saw the film with a "layman" so to speak who noticed red dots that were "not the "cigarette burn" (Fight Club being the extent of this guys knowledge) appearing at various points in the center right side of the screen. He was referring the anti-piracy markings that caused so much controversy on these boards in other features. I had to explain this was not a film defect but merely a bad idea on the studios behalf. Just found it amusing that of all the problems I had with "once Upon...'s" image quality, John Q Moviegoer thought it "looked great" but noticed and was bothered by those damn dots.  |  IP: Logged Frank Angel Film God Posts: 5305 From: Brooklyn NY USA Registered: Dec 1999 posted 09-26-2003 07:42 AM                        quote: The videotaping method would only be justified if this was a low-budget production or something meant for broadcast TV. Actually, TV people themselves shun the look of video for their own productions; it isn't an accident that EVERY major TV drama is shot on FILM, even though the final display system is video. That is a purely aesthetic-driven decision. Film simply commands emotional impact and involvement more than do video generated images. There probably would be a Ph.D. in there for the person who can explain why this is, but it's an undisputed fact, whether it can be easily explained or not. The film "look" is associated with important drama and the TV producers and directors know it. There is a reason they are shooting on film for an image that will only be displayed on a video imaging systems -- all the so-called advantages of shooting videotape not withstanding. I believe that there even was a proprietary Canadian system that was touted as being able to take videotaped original material and "process" it so it wound up looking like film instead of video. I think a few syndicated programs used it but I haven't heard much of it lately. Frank  |  IP: Logged John Pytlak Film God Posts: 9987 From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922 Registered: Jan 2000 posted 09-26-2003 07:51 AM                        The "film look": http://www.kodak.com/country/US/en/motion/newsletters/inCamera/july2001/wallis.shtml http://www.kodak.com/country/US/en/motion/news/wallis.shtml  |  IP: Logged

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