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This topic comprises 9 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
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Author
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Topic: 82nd Academy Award Nominations
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Julio Roberto
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 938
From: Madrid, Madrid, Spain
Registered: Oct 2008
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posted 03-08-2010 05:25 PM
I also find interesting that over here we have often talked about "digital vs 35mm film".
Last year's winner of best picture and best cinematography, Slumdog Millonaire, was shot on 2K digital cameras.
This year's best picture, Hurt Locker, was shot in video and 16mm cameras.
This year's best foreign film winner, El secreto de sus ojos, was shot with a 4K digital camera.
This year's best cinematography winner, Avatar, was "shot" with computers and digital 2K cameras.
I guess shooting 35mm film doesn't matter that much anymore for a movie to be considered "among the best if not the best".
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 03-08-2010 05:50 PM
I don't have as much of a problem with Avatar winning the cinematography Oscar this year as much as I did with last year's "winner," Slumdog Millionaire. That really was bullshit. Slumdog Millionaire wasn't even the best executed "digital" movie (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button looked far better). Slumdog Millionaire was rife with an amateur video look.
Still, out of this year's nominees I would have picked Inglourious Basterds or Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince for the cinematography award.
quote: Julio Roberto
Even the cinematrography is doubtful in a movie that is mostly CGI, but I agree it was good, just not "real cinematography". I mean you want perfect lighting? Push a buttom. Sunset? Push another. No shadow in the face of object #3? Push a button and have it ignored by the ray tracer, something impossible in real life as you can't stop light mid-air.
To be fair, the situation is not quite that simple. CGI can be tweaked to where everything is perfect. Unfortunately 3D animation also tends to be very time consuming. Any new visual tricks (via custom software, etc.) has to be tested. The work from dozens of different animators, colorists, digital matte painters, etc. must edit together consistently. Lots of things have to be done and redone and then redone again all before the scene can go to final render. Of course, you still have to have enough time to do final render with that pesky release date approaching.
Computers don't necessarily make everything faster. They can just make certain things more precise. I can usually draw or paint an image of something by hand quite a bit faster than I can manage with a computer. Many illustrators will start with hand-drawn sketches they scan into a computer to further embellish.
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Julio Roberto
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 938
From: Madrid, Madrid, Spain
Registered: Oct 2008
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posted 03-08-2010 06:53 PM
quote: Bobby Henderson
Computers don't necessarily make everything faster.
Having done my share of CGI since Targa times ... I totally agree.
I wasn't referring to how CGI cinematography can be "push button" fast. Or even easy. It's just that CGI cinematography is virtually limitless.
With CGI, it takes about the same amount of effort to shoot from a "helicopter at dawn" than from a "sky rocket at night under a blue moon". With CGi you can have 100.000 point light sources or "the sun at perfect height for 22 hours", which is virtually impossible in real-life cinematography. As I said, you can control shadows on a per-object basis, deciding with EASE AND SPEED one-by-one which object reflects or refracts light, which casts a shadow and which has an annoying reflection and turning it off. You can't really do that in real life at all.
While there is always a trade off between budget/time and "perfection" in both, CGI and real-life lighting and cinematography, I honestly think they need separated categories as they are not comparable.
With CGI, money and time is the limit. Without CGI, you have the same limits, probably with even more difficulty, PLUS PHYSICS!!!! You can't really build an artificial sun to light a scene. In CGI, you could easily and cheaply have 2 or 3 suns if you wanted. And in exactly the position you want. Plus a moon or two. Plus mist. Plus red-light reflecting water. Plus flourescent touch-sensitive plants. Plus ....
Some of those things could perhaps be done in real-life given far more talent and money than in CGI. Except the suns. All the money and talent in the world can't build you a couple of extra suns and moons or have some objects refract light but not reflect it or cast (annoying) shadows or viceversa ... ![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
Once the economic decission has been made to do something CGI ... then you have near complete freedom to light anyway you want with about the same cost, put the camera anywhere in space you want, with basically the same cost if you put it 100m up in the air or the lens at exactly 0.001" from the ground. It costs the same to use a "virtual" 50mm ultra-fast lens or a 500.000mm ultra-sharp lens with exactly the amount of depth of field you want. And no matter how you light, you can get the near exact blow-outs or shadow detail you want w/o worrying about 100 ASA or 1.000.000.000 ASA film grain, etc, etc.
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Julio Roberto
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 938
From: Madrid, Madrid, Spain
Registered: Oct 2008
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posted 03-08-2010 07:18 PM
quote: Justin Hamaker
One of the things that hasn't been discussed about Avatar's Cinematography nom/win is that Cameron had to invent and use brand new cameras to capture the live action 3D shots according to his vision.
See. It's part of the myth and marketing hype the notion that Cameron "invented" some "brand new cameras" in order to "realize his vision" when shooting Avatar.
Most of the film was CGI, and thus, no cameras whatsoever. The device he used in those cases, akin of a virtual camera, was none of his invention and actually used before in films like Monsters vs Aliens, i.e.
The "camera" that he "suppossly invented" is the Fusion camera, used TOGETHER IN THE SAME SHOTS (as you can see in the making off videos) with MANY OTHER CAMERA RIGS, was actually "invented by him" for the film Ghost of the Abyss many-many-many years ago. BTW, it's just 2 Sony HD cameras put together ... so it's not like he "invented" anything really, just paid Sony $5m to separate parts of the main body from two sets of their F23 cameras' and had Pace stick them together with motorized convergence control.
Similar stuff (sticking two cameras together) had been done plenty in the past.
A LOT of what you heard about Avatar "revolutionary stuff" is PURE BS MARKETING. It's not the "first 3D CGI realistic film" (that would be Beowulf). It's not the "best 3D you have ever seen" (plenty of similar 3D films).
Honestly, take it from someone who knows this stuff quite well, the only thing Avatar did was bring forward CGI character performance a bit, but not a lot. Look at stuff like this that has been around for years (and which is the base that Avatar used):
Emily on Image Metrics video from 2008
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwAV2fXoy6E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBgURIUQ700
Spoiler Alert - Click to Toggle
Except for the last 5 seconds, all the time the face of the actress in that video is CGI. And remember that doing a real person is always much harder than a blue cat-like "distorted" cartoonish alien creature
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