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This topic comprises 7 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
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Topic: A return of 35mm installs for Nolan's next project "Interstellar" ?
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Terry Lynn-Stevens
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1081
From: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Registered: Dec 2012
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posted 09-04-2013 09:55 AM
quote: Bobby Henderson
The fact remains movies shot on film typically look better than movies shot on video.
The low level/dark night scenes of Skyfall looked better than the lower level/dark night scenes of the The Dark Knight Rises.
Bobby, there are trade-offs of using both film and digital. Most of the interviews that I have seen with the leading professionals in the industry usually highlight the fact that with digital, they are usually able to take more risks and chances because they are getting to see the what they are recording right then and there.
Roger Deakins, who is arguable one of the most respected cinematographers currently working is a big fan of digital. He loves the look of and he was the one who was able to convince the director of Skyfall to shoot it with a digital camera. Skyfall was a digitally shot feature that went on to get a nomination for cinematography, it had a good number of dark scenes. I strongly urge you to watch Skyfall, the Shanghai building scene is outstanding and the climax is all filmed in low light, it looked very good in digital, 35mm and 15/70 which I was lucky enough to sample all three of.
Back to Nolan, he is a really big fan of shooting on film, he thinks it is very reliable and film is a classic way of making movies. In today's day and age, it is really nice to see a film maker appreciate what film has to offer.
From what I have seen from a 35mm and digital projector working at the same complex is that 35mm projects low quality night/dark scenes much better than a 2K digital projector.
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 09-04-2013 12:25 PM
quote: Terry Lynn-Stevens
The low level/dark night scenes of Skyfall looked better than the lower level/dark night scenes of the The Dark Knight Rises.
I absolutely disagree with that. While Skyfall did look better than a lot of video-originated movies, its weakest looking parts were the darker scenes. That especially goes for the sequences near the end of the movie. The shots of the burning building looked terrible.
The only "bad" thing, and that is bad as in subjective, about the lower light scenes in The Dark Knight Rises was the low depth of field of the IMAX footage. However, a lot of people happen to like that low DOF look, which is a huge reason why shooting video with DSLR camera bodies is so popular.
quote: Terry Lynn-Stevens
Most of the interviews that I have seen with the leading professionals in the industry usually highlight the fact that with digital, they are usually able to take more risks and chances because they are getting to see the what they are recording right then and there.
That is absolutely placing convenience ahead of image quality.
I can accept a comedy production shooting footage electronically to allow actors to improv on and on without having to worry about the capacity of a film magazine. However, hard drive space isn't limited either, especially if the production is recording the video in any sort of raw, uncompressed or lossless compressed format.
Convenience has caused big parts of the camera industry to fall backwards. The really shitty cameras in smart phones are now, by far, the most used cameras in the world for both still and video imagery. That's all because of convenience. Their use far exceeds that of point and shoot cameras, mirrorless interchangable lens cameras and DSLRs. Does that make smart phones better? Absolutely hell no.
Smart phones are squeezing the sales of traditional camera companies bad enough that they're doing all kinds of things I find illogical, such as Sony launching a "lens type" camera that mounts to a smart phone. I don't expect smart phone users to attach some lens looking gizmo to their phone to take pictures even if the pictures look a hell of a lot better and the lens thingie offers real optical zoom. Smart phone users are happy enough with fake digital zoom. Why bother attaching a real zoom lens?
I see Acer announcing a 6-inch smart phone with 4K resolution video recording. The optical effects of diffraction are a bitch when a tiny lens and tiny image sensor are involved. Add limited data storage capacity on the phone to that equation and the "4K" video is going to be compressed to new standards of severity. But customers might not care about any of those details. Hell, they might not even care about the 4K for that matter. Sony's new Xperia Z1 smart phone boasts a 20.7 megapixel camera. Not only is diffraction going to play a role in watering down the actual amount of detail recorded, the microscopic size of each pixel on the imager will make it very difficult to record good color fidelity and contrast. HTC went the opposite direction with the HTC One, going with a 5 megapixel camera with larger pixels on the sensor compared to the 8 megapixel camera on previous models.
But who cares about any of that? Snap the photo and share it to Instagram in a couple clicks.
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Mark Ogden
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 943
From: Little Falls, N.J.
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 09-04-2013 01:12 PM
quote:
Mark believes digital video has been better than film-based photography for many years,
Let’s be very very clear about what Mark believes and doesn’t believe, shall we there, Sparky?
I saw Fruitvale Station a few weeks back. Very intense, urban drama. The 16mm cinematography suited the picture very well. A low end digital camera probably would have worked just as well. What would NOT have worked is shooting in 6K on a Red, or in 70mm SuperUltraOrgazmoScope. It would have been utterly inappropriate for the subject matter.
Few days ago I saw Europa Report, a small independently produced science fiction film shot on Sony PMW series CineAltas (since this is a so-called “found footage” picture, the cameras are supposedly part of a space-ship’s equipment). Really a well done shoot, absolutely pristine images and crystal clear lowlights. You know what would have ruined it? Your magical, dancing film grain. It wouldn’t have worked for the story, or for the mood of the picture.
See where I am going with this?
Whether you want to believe it or not, what I said above is true: digital cameras now typically exceed 35mm in resolution, low light handling and chromatic response, and are very close in dynamic range, and a sharply increasing number of cinematographers and digital imaging professionals are behind me on this . I don’t have the energy, time or patience to write a lengthy technical argument, but from your posts you clearly do not understand the difference between linear, logarithmic and RAW sampling and the reasons for using either vis-à-vis digital workflows (actually, I have a feeling that you DO understand, but are deliberately withholding in front of the rest of the forum because it would mean conceding a point). The rest of your arguments come from a position far behind the current cutting edge of digital pipeline and storage, which never seems to be an issue among digital professionals.
So here is what Mark really believes: digital capture is perfectly acceptable for shooting motion pictures. But is it BETTER than film?
I dunno. What movie are we talking about? Will a picture be better served aesthetically by the appearance of grain, or any other attribute that can be described as “film-like”? It will? I guess, for that project, film is better. For others, it’s a wash. For others, digital works just fine.
****
But since I believe in leaving 'em with a smile, here is a piece of our shared cinema history, Bobby.
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 09-04-2013 01:57 PM
quote: Mike Blakesley
On the subject of real cameras vs. smartphones.....the people who really want to take good pictures will probably still buy good cameras. The fall-off is in the snapshot market. Those people mostly don't care about huge prints or amazing amounts of detail. They just want to remember the good time they had. I've found the iPhone is pretty good in low light -- but it completely falls down on concert photos, because the onstage performers who are brightly lit get washed out. iPhone is also not good for sunsets.
The cameras in the iPhone and most other smart phones suck for multiple reasons. Most lack any real manual controls, which is critical if you're wanting to take a good sunset photo. The sensors are very slow, particularly in any low light setting. That makes them unacceptable for action photography or just about anything else with movement. AFAIK none of the smart phones on the market have a true optical zoom lens. It's just fake, digital zoom that crops into the sensor and artificially up-rezzes it.
People who do care enough about image quality will buy a better quality camera, be it a point and shoot model or an even better model using interchangeable lenses. Unfortunately I believe those customers are a small minority. There's not enough of them to sustain certain affordable to mid-range segments of the camera market. Relatively speaking there's probably big concerns about DSLRs eating into the high end market normally dominated by companies like Hasselblad, PhaseOne & Mamiya.
Too many think a smart phone is good enough. They'll even be bowled over by the huge megapixel counts of some phones (Nokia's Lumina 1020 has a 41 megapixel camera) and foolishly think the devices are equal to a DSLR. Deep down they know a compromise in quality is being made, but they live with it out of convenience.
The same thing is happening in movie production. Studios are spending more money than ever on productions. But they're rushing through projects faster and faster rather than raising the quality bar any higher. Many of us have complained about bad looking CGI, fuzzy 2D/3D conversions, bad sound mixes and other stuff that smacks of rushing through something with "good enough" standards instead of taking the time to do it right/great. Let's also not forget all the damned scripts churned out according to the Save The Cat beat sheet template.
Shooting movies on video adds to that whole push for immediate convenience over pursuing best image quality. That mindset doesn't make much sense to me on a major studio project, especially if it is a big budget production that put a fortune into the sets, costumes, stunts, practical effects, etc. But it's nothing new either. I haven't been a particularly big fan of the Super35 film format (as opposed to anamorphic full frame 4/35 or 5/65), but look how much that was used in the last 25 years.
Christopher Nolan is one of very few filmmakers in Hollywood pushing things in the other direction, putting quality ahead of convenience.
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Bajsic Bojan
Expert Film Handler
Posts: 190
From: Ljubljana, Si, Eu
Registered: Aug 2008
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posted 09-04-2013 02:02 PM
Maybe this is going hand in hand ![[Wink]](wink.gif) Speculation on what it all means?
quote:
Kodak Emerges From Bankruptcy Vowing To Continue Supplying Film To Hollywood
By DAVID LIEBERMAN, Financial Editor | Tuesday September 3, 2013 @ 5:59pm
Entertainment is a small part of the overall company as it sheds the Chapter 11 protection for which it filed in January 2012: Kodak CEO Antonio Perez characterizes the photography pioneer as “a technology company serving imaging for business markets” including product goods packaging and electronic touchscreens. Still, Kodak has the lion’s share of the film market as the number of movie and TV show creators who prefer to work with film instead of digital images diminishes and rivals including Fujifilm abandon the movie film business. In June, Kodak struck an agreement to provide motion picture film to Fox’s movie and TV studios. That gave it contracts with six major studios including Disney, Warner Bros, NBCUniversal, Paramount Pictures, and Sony Pictures. Kodak Entertainment and Commercial Films President Andrew Evenski calls his operation “a stable and profitable division of the company,” adding that he remains confident in “our ongoing ability to provide value to the motion picture and television industries”. Kodak emerges from bankruptcy with more than $800M in cash, $500M in equity, and $695M in debt. That should make it “a formidable competitor” with “a strong capital structure, a healthy balance sheet, and the industry’s best technology,” Evenski says. Kodak turned its Personalized Imaging and Document Imaging business over to the pension plan that covers its UK subsidiary.
Kodak back
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 09-04-2013 03:58 PM
Intercutting CGI elements with "old school" film-in/film-out 35mm was the norm in the 1990s. The downside to that approach is possible shifts in color, resolution and contrast between the segments of film footage and CGI. A digital intermedate as well as modern node-based effects compositing tools (that marry live action footage and CGI together) prevent those jump cuts in image quality. My favorite example of such a jump cut is in Jurassic Park where the T-Rex chases Iam Malcolm towards the outhouse. I don't know if they fixed it on the Blu-ray, but you can clearly see a big color shift on 35mm and DVD when the CGI T-Rex is cut into the sequence, replacing the full size animatronic T-Rex.
quote: Mark Ogden
Whether you want to believe it or not, what I said above is true: digital cameras now typically exceed 35mm in resolution, low light handling and chromatic response, and are very close in dynamic range, and a sharply increasing number of cinematographers and digital imaging professionals are behind me on this . I don’t have the energy, time or patience to write a lengthy technical argument, but from your posts you clearly do not understand the difference between linear, logarithmic and RAW sampling and the reasons for using either vis-à-vis digital workflows (actually, I have a feeling that you DO understand, but are deliberately withholding in front of the rest of the forum because it would mean conceding a point). The rest of your arguments come from a position far behind the current cutting edge of digital pipeline and storage, which never seems to be an issue among digital professionals.
I'm just going by what I am seeing in the finished product. If all the performance claims of video vs. film were true I shouldn't be seeing any faults in video-based cinematography at all.
I can go so far to say certain state of the art video cameras can beat a motion picture camera in low light handling, chromatic response and dynamic range. However, those performance claims kind of depend on the camera's wide native RGB gamma range being left unaltered. No movie productions are shooting video and leaving the footage looking like video. They all post process the footage to make it look more like film, along with doing other color grading chores. Those additional steps can introduce a lot of problems if the original footage doesn't have enough bits of color depth to withstand all the pushing and pulling that's going to happen to the tone curve. Unless the camera manufacturers and software engineers can do some better tricks with color look up tables, not to mention boosting the performance of the image sensors themselves, movie-makers are going to have to shoot in wider, disc-hogging color bandwidths.
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