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Topic: Die Hard 5

Jim Henk
Master Film Handler

Posts: 364
From: San Diego, CA
Registered: Feb 2006

posted 02-19-2013 01:45 AM

It's 2 hours I'll never get back.

Awful.

Just awful.

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Brad Miller
Administrator

Posts: 17775
From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall)
Registered: May 99

posted 02-19-2013 01:49 AM

quote: Bobby Henderson
AFAIK the current d-cinema spec doesn't allow for an anamorphic lens treatment of 'scope to at least use all 1080 vertical pixels on the DLP chips.

Yes it does. Properly designed big screen auditoriums use them and it looks quite good. Next time you're in town I'll show you.

For that matter I use an anamorphic in my screening room and it blows away zooming (as expected).

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Monte L Fullmer
Film God

Posts: 8367
From: Nampa, Idaho, USA
Registered: Nov 2004

posted 02-19-2013 03:05 AM

...since the entire chip is used, not just some pixels turned off to make a 'scope picture claimed to be presented in HD.

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Marcel Birgelen
Film God

Posts: 3357
From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands
Registered: Feb 2012

posted 02-19-2013 03:32 AM

quote: Brad Miller
Yes it does. Properly designed big screen auditoriums use them and it looks quite good. Next time you're in town I'll show you.

Although it works, it's still something of a hack. You're first scaling/stretching the image across the full height of your DMDs and then stretch it back into proportion with your anamorphic lens.

It would be great if the DCPs themselves could be anamorphic too, because then you could just skip the digital scaling/stretching and still use the full pixel count of your DMDs. In that case, scope wouldn't have a lower resolution than flat.

Because like Bobby already mentioned, it's kind of shitty right now... You're not only losing light (without anamorphic lenses), but also a lot of pixels on a format that's supposed to be bigger than flat on an appropriate screen.

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Lyle Romer
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1400
From: Davie, FL, USA
Registered: May 2002

posted 02-19-2013 06:14 AM

Knowing the movie would probably suck I saw it anyway at AMC Downtown Disney just to see a movie in Atmos. The movie sucked. This wasn't a Die Hard movie. It was a plotless action movie and Bruce Willis happened to be in it and named John McClane.

As for Atmos, the surround field was awesome and to me a huge improvement of the standard 5.1 or 7.1 setups. The problem is that I'm not sure that non sound buffs will notice. I explained it to my wife after the movie and she said that she didn't really notice a difference. She also said she didn't like the Atmos trailer because it didn't have any "cool sounds".

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 02-19-2013 08:26 AM

quote: Marcel Birgelen
Although it works, it's still something of a hack. You're first scaling/stretching the image across the full height of your DMDs and then stretch it back into proportion with your anamorphic lens.

There in lies the problem. The DCP doesn't have an anamorphic image using the entire chip, like 2048 x 1080. They could do that, but only if all the stops along the production chain are also doing it. If the image is getting cropped down to only 852 pixels tall at any point during the way then the end result is compromised. Worse yet, some movies shot on video are shot at mere 1080p HD resolution and simply blown up to that 2048 pixel width.

This is reminiscent of the anamorphic versus non-anamorphic DVDs from way back. I have old special edition DVD of The Abyss. I haven't watched it in a very long time since it is flat out unwatchable on any HDTV set. It's non anamorphic. It has to be zoomed both horizontally and vertically to fill the width of a HD screen. Once zoomed, it looks awful.

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Manny Knowles
"What are these things and WHY are they BLUE???"

Posts: 4247
From: Bloomington, IN, USA
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 02-19-2013 01:22 PM

Now that we've gone digital, Flat is suddenly the more light-efficient format. Could that be the reason this is Flat?

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 02-19-2013 03:37 PM

Light efficiency could be a factor. In general I think it has more to do with Lie-MAX screens being common width. A flat image is going to be larger than 'scope on that kind of screen. If the other ultra-mega-XDETXRPX-whatever screens are doing common width (along with charging a premium fee on top of the normal ticket price) then it's only going to make it more enticing for studios to shoot movies in 1.85:1 format, or even 1.77:1 the native aspect ratio for HD video cameras.

Scope was arguably the best format for 35mm release film prints. It used the entire 4-perf frame. Scope tended to look better in that regard. The situation is reversed in d-cinema.

If the movie studios have any desire to do 'scope correctly in this new era of videography-based movies and d-cinema equipped theaters a few things must change.

A proper 'scope movie in 2K should have a native rendered image of 2582 X 1080. No blow up up-rezzing bullshit to get there either. Since no video cameras support that resolution natively a lot of videography would need to be done at 3K or 4K and cropped/down-sampled to that 2582 X 1080 setting. The DCP would have a 2048 X 1080 image with the image squeezed to 79.3% of its normal width. A proper anamorphic lens on the digital projector would unsqueeze it back to proper 'scope proportions.

I seriously doubt anything like that is going to happen to fix how 'scope is treated. After all since all this stuff is "digital" already it's "perfect" already too. Never mind any specific details that point out serious flaws.

Instead, we're probably going to see a lot more in the way of 1.85:1 and 1.77:1 ratio movies. As viewers get more and more used to that I think more and more of the RGB video look will creep into the picture. In the long term all movies could end up looking like afternoon soap operas.
[Razz]

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Marcel Birgelen
Film God

Posts: 3357
From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands
Registered: Feb 2012

posted 02-19-2013 07:29 PM

quote: Bobby Henderson
Since no video cameras support that resolution natively a lot of videography would need to be done at 3K or 4K and cropped/down-sampled to that 2582 X 1080 setting. The DCP would have a 2048 X 1080 image with the image squeezed to 79.3% of its normal width. A proper anamorphic lens on the digital projector would unsqueeze it back to proper 'scope proportions.

There is actually no real technical reason why you couldn't shoot a digitally acquired movie with anamorphic lenses, besides some lens compatibility/availability issues for certain kind of digital cameras. Most professional digital movie cameras even have some kind of support for it. It would also bring back the anamorphic look (including the well known bluish lens flares) to those kind of productions.

The people in post production will probably hate you for it, because their whole process is probably still optimized for square pixels, but if this would become popular, it would only be a temporary problem.

The good thing is, you could still create a non-anamorphic DCP from this for all the theaters that don't have anamorphic lenses on their digital gear, without compromising the quality of those, because you're now scaling the image down instead of scaling it up.

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Carsten Kurz
Film God

Posts: 4340
From: Cologne, NRW, Germany
Registered: Aug 2009

posted 02-19-2013 07:35 PM

quote: Phil Ranucci
WTF is it with the horizontal blue lens flares? I think this started with JJ Abrams on Star Trek, but it's annoying as the daty is long. Who thinks this looks good?

It's the current state of-the-art trick to make boring shots look interesting. Like having steam plumes in colored lights during the 80's.

- Carsten

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Joe Redifer
You need a beating today

Posts: 12859
From: Denver, Colorado
Registered: May 99

posted 02-19-2013 08:11 PM

quote: Marcel Birgelen
There is actually no real technical reason why you couldn't shoot a digitally acquired movie with anamorphic lenses

I'd really like to see this done. Use the full area of the chip.

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 02-19-2013 09:27 PM

quote: Marcel Birgelen
There is actually no real technical reason why you couldn't shoot a digitally acquired movie with anamorphic lenses, besides some lens compatibility/availability issues for certain kind of digital cameras.

A different line of lenses would be required to squeeze a 2582 X 1080 image onto a 2048 X 1080 chip. On top of that, how many video cameras actually record a 2K image 2048 pixels wide? I know of a few that simply shoot "2K" as 1920 X 1080. Then that image is blown up slightly to 2048 pixels in width.

Anamorphic lenses originally made for motion picture film cameras typically have a 2:1 squeeze. That's too much for what I'm talking about. There are various kinds of adapters and attachments that can be used with some video cameras and D-SLR cameras, but AFAIK they yield 2X or 1.5X squeeze ratios. A proper d-cinema 'scope treatment would need a series of lenses with a milder squeeze ratio.

I don't know all that much about "cine" quality anamorphic lenses, but am under the impression the really good ones cost considerably more than spherical lenses. They're bigger and heavier too. "Cine" quality spherical lenses are pricey enough as it is. Has anyone here checked out the cine lenses for Canon's new EOS-C cameras? The prices on those lenses are absolutely insane. I'd hate to see how much more a top quality lens made specifically for 1.77:1 to 2.39:1 anamorphic squeeze would cost.

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Shawn M. Martin
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 175
From: Arlington, VA, USA
Registered: Feb 2012

posted 02-24-2013 08:36 AM

It really is terrible, save for some parts of the car chase, and the part in the taxi. Short, flat, and totally forgettable. Not a Die Hard movie, at all.

The biggest laugh actually came before the movie even started. When the lights went down and the Fox fanfare ended, some guy in the back said in a really soft voice, "Happy Valentine's Day!" and the whole place exploded.

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Mark J. Marshall
Film God

Posts: 3188
From: New Castle, DE, USA
Registered: Aug 2002

posted 02-24-2013 12:51 PM

quote: Jim Henk
It's 2 hours I'll never get back.

Where the hell did you see it? Isn't it a running time of 1:40?

I thought this movie was fun. It's Die Hard. I didn't expect a hugely complicated plot. For those that are going in looking for a plot and coming out disappointed --- I don't understand that.

We saw this in IMAX for two reasons. 1) I was curious to see what the brand new digital IMAX install looked and sounded like, and more importantly, 2) It worked for my schedule better.

First I'll say that the sound in this new theater is FANTASTIC. Probably the best I have heard in a very long time.

As far as the picture goes, Hollywood doesn't understand how to frame a movie in IMAX. I think Chris and Wally may be the only people who understand it. And by the way, DO NOT SHAKE THE DAMN CAMERA when you're planning to release in IMAX! What the hell? Seizure-cam sucks anyway, but for the love of Pete, my neck hurts trying to follow the only guy in frame when he's standing still. Hold the damn camera still. Learn to light. Learn to direct. Learn to frame. Learn to do all of the things that you're trying to make up for not doing by shaking the camera and making me dizzy... or at least do us all a favor and don't release in the big boy format.

Other than that, I actually did enjoy the movie. Despite my sore neck. I will probably enjoy it more on a much smaller screen.

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Joseph L. Kleiman
Master Film Handler

Posts: 380
From: Sacramento, CA
Registered: Apr 2005

posted 02-26-2013 01:41 PM

Saw this in IMAX digital in a "legacy" IMAX theater. For such a big screen in close proximity, there was way too much shaky cam in the first half of the movie - especially when not needed. The film came across as a weak Die Hard movie when compared to the others in the series. The father-son dynamic was awkward. It felt like someone at FOX had bought a Mission: IMPOSSIBLE type screenplay and another said "Let's stick John McClane in it." (prob to take advantage of the publicity over GI Joe). Overall, though, it was a fun 90-minutes featuring the hottest Russian psycho chick to die in a helicopter related incident since Xenia Onatopp (played by Famke Jannsen)in Goldeneye. [Big Grin]

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