Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: LOTR2 compression

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Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 12-18-2002, 04:12 PM:

Anyone else notice what appears to be compression artifacting in Two Towers? I saw jaggies in stairways and various bits of compression in solid patches of the image as well as what seemed to be mild edge enhancement on a few selected shots. It had that same look that Panic Room had. This is not necessarily a bad thing as it still looked good, I just don't recall seeing that in Fellowship of the Rings.

Can anyone confirm if this film was scanned into a computer for editing and SFX, then outputted directly to film for printing? I am betting it was. Any idea what resolution?

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 12-19-2002, 07:38 AM:

Here are some links to articles about LOTR use of digital intermediate technology:

Arrilaser

"Pete Williams from Weta FX presented 16 minutes from "The Lord of the Rings - The Fellowship of the Ring”. ARRI is especially proud of "The Lord of the Rings - The Fellowship of the Rings”, since not only was about 2/3rds of the movie recorded out on an ARRILASER, but the movie was also serviced by an ARRI rental house which provided ARRIFLEX cameras, including the first of the brand new 435 Advanced cameras. By the way, the next installments of "The Lord of the Rings”, as well as the new Star Wars movies will be recorded out completely with ARRILASERs."

Millimeter Article

"The art and science of digital timing for film is new, and there are as many approaches to the work method as there are shows using the process. Peter Doyle, the president of The Posthouse — the Wellington, New Zealand facility where The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers is being mastered — explains how Towers is being timed in several passes. “We have one colorist who is really good at traditional grading for fairly straightforward dialog scenes,” says Doyle, who is also the chief colorist on the film. “Then another who does quite technical grades, replacing skies and working with shadow detail. The overall point is that we wanted to avoid having the ‘look’ of a colorist. This is really [director] Peter Jackson and [cinematographer] Andrew Lesnie's film and all the work we do here was in service of that."

5D Colossus

The PostHouse

WETAfx

The December 2002 issue of American Cinematographer has an excellent article on the production, which was shot on Kodak Color Negative films 5245, 5293, 5279 and SO-214 by cinematographer Andrew Lesnie ACS:

Andrew Lesnie ACS

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 12-19-2002, 12:01 PM:

I had read Brad's comment before I saw the film last night, so I was paying extra attention to trying to spot digital artifacts. I honestly didn't spot any artifacting at all in live-action stuff -- doesn't mean there wasn't any, I just didn't notice any. Of course the CGI and blue/green screen work is a different issue. Overall, Two Towers looked WAY sharper and more detailed to my eyes than, say, Panic Room. Better than FOTR too.

Posted by Mike Olpin (Member # 1115) on 12-22-2002, 06:59 PM:

I think I remember seeing an Apple and a PIXAR logo at the end of the credits.

Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 12-22-2002, 07:07 PM:

Brad is right, there is quite noticeable flicker for instance in stone surfaces (Helm`s Deep) but also in Treebeard`s beard or in the animated mass scenes (the Orks advancing on the bridge to the main gate).

Posted by Lionel Fouillen (Member # 1475) on 12-23-2002, 05:26 PM:

I just saw the film this afternoon and didn't notice anything, but you must be right...