Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Once Upon A Time In Mexico Image Quality

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Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 09-12-2003, 08:13 AM:

I just read the many very negative comments about the bad image quality in the review forum. I haven`t seen a 35mm print yet, but I screened the movie on our digital projectors (Barco) - it looked awesome. I am not exaggerating. It will be very interesting to see the prints in comparison.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 09-12-2003, 08:24 AM:

Movies shot on film always look better when exhibited on film. Movies shot on video always look better when exhibited on video. I think you will be overly unimpressed with the 35mm prints.

Posted by Aaron Garman (Member # 1653) on 09-12-2003, 12:16 PM:

Like I said in a previous thread, I felt as if this print looked terrific. The colors seemed to pop out of the screen, with very deep blacks. Again, the whole picture had a very warm feel to it, just like being in Mexico. We watched the film on one of our largest screens, and I did not see any noise or grain. Again, I think this was the look that Rodriguez intended. I remember Episode II having tons of noise in the image, especially in the dark areas. This print was immaculate by comparison. Am I the only one who felt the 35mm print looked this good? Am I delusional?? [Eek!]

AJG

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 09-12-2003, 02:02 PM:

Brad, I attended a digital demonstration at the National Film Theatre last year. all four possible combinations of originating and exhibiting, on film and digital were shown. All looked different, and I think I would be able to tell which I was watching. I would say the shot on digital, shown on film combination was the least satisfactory.

What format was 'Once Upon A Time In Mexico' shot on?

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 09-12-2003, 04:10 PM:

Often, your impression of "sharpness" is a function of your viewing distance. 24P HDCAM can look pretty sharp when viewed from more than about 3 or 4 image heights away from the screen, often due to use of edge-enhancement. But if you sit toward the front of the theatre (1 to 3 screen heights), the lack of real image detail is obvious. The other usual telltale clues to video production are clipping of the highlights and aliasing artifacts.

http://www.kodak.com/US/en/corp/researchDevelopment/productFeatures/dCinema.shtml

http://www.kodak.com/country/US/en/motion/students/filmtech/35hd24p.shtml

In other words, if you look at some of these "films" from the booth or back of the theatre, they can look pretty good. But sit toward the front of the theatre, and they quickly fall apart for image quality.

Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 09-12-2003, 08:16 PM:

Of course the trained eye can see those "watermarks" of the digital process, but film also has its own little imperfections even under the best conditions. But the general impression was amazingly good watching from a distance of approx. 2 screen heights.

Posted by Tim Turner (Member # 1109) on 09-12-2003, 08:23 PM:

The image quality looked alright, but some parts did look kinda degrated...I'm not sure if thats the right word for it.
But what bothers me most is the sound quality ! [thumbsdown]

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 09-13-2003, 10:22 AM:

There really is NO valid point to "Once Upon A Time in Mexico" being videotaped (I will not say "filmed" or "digital-filmed" or any of that garbage in the case of this feature). It is a mainstream Hollywood feature with a mainstream Hollywood budget. Robert Rodriguez just has some George Lucas-like fascination and over-glorification of all things digital. The videotaping method would only be justified if this was a low-budget production or something meant for broadcast TV.

Yes, many "trained eyes" can tell this was shot on video. Granted, digital post-processing techniques have come a long way in the last few years to mimic the film look. But you can still tell something is amiss.

Here's the thing I think is really stupid. They're using the same Sony/Panavision 24P HDCAM setup used on "Episode II", correct? That system doesn't even support full blown 1080i HDTV! Talk about hamstringing the marketability of a movie for the long term! Prices have fallen on D-Theater D-VHS decks and HD-DVD will be here in another couple years. People will expect the image quality to at least address those formats.

Digital video storage and playback systems are certain to improve in various aspects over the coming years and decades. Perhaps in as little as 10 years, the 1080i and 720p formats most common for HDTV may seem pretty crude when stacked up to what digital technology has to offer then. But guess what? Movies shot on 35mm will gracefully translate over to any video storage format developed in the next couple decades. If someone had the balls to shoot a movie in the 65mm/70mm process, that film would effectively be "future-proofed" perhaps for the rest of this century.

If you have a major league movie budget, it is better to film in analog.

Posted by Steve Kraus (Member # 476) on 09-13-2003, 10:35 AM:

I agree with Bobby. This is not a matter of budget, a huge shooting ratio, super long takes, gonzo location shooting, small cameras, the desired look, abbreviated post production schedule or any of a myriad of good reasons to use video. This is because Rodriguez decided that HD is easier than film and is choosing to pretend that the results are just as good or better. Well, the emperor has no clothes and neither does Robert Rodriguez.

John said:

quote:
24P HDCAM can look pretty sharp when viewed from more than about 3 or 4 image heights away from the screen...

That reminds me of the line in "Tootsie" where the director asks one of the camera operators how far back from her he can get. The operator suggests, How about Ohio?

Posted by Aaron Garman (Member # 1653) on 09-13-2003, 07:07 PM:

So what if this is big budget "Hollywood" movie? So what if it isn't designed for TV? So what if it isn't George Lucas? I like film just as much as anyone, but I can say as a student film maker, video is amazing to work with. Having instant playback of takes, easier editing, and quicker filmmaking in general is a great advantage. This is a case of the director just liking the flexibility digital offers. This reminds me of the use of color film in early Hollywood. Many felt that color should be reserved for only big budget, epic films. Eventually, this all changed and now people would complain if a film was not made in color. Episode II did worry me that shooting on video would leave the film looking like [bs]

, but Mexico changed my mind because to me, it looked tremendous. For the record, I was sitting in the direct center of a 297 seat stadium theatre as well.

AJG

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 09-13-2003, 07:17 PM:

quote:
Am I the only one who felt the 35mm print looked this good? Am I delusional??

Yes, you are delusional. [Big Grin]

Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 09-13-2003, 07:22 PM:

Just because it is easier doesn't make it better so far I have heard nothing but a liteny of image quality complaints from one location due to poor focus. (they have blue serries ISCO and never had a focus issue with any other title) so be it
Video is cheap looks cheap
sorry but the whole industry does itself a diservice when the standards of quality get lowered. By the way I have never heard of any complaints about a movie shot in Black and White

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 09-13-2003, 08:21 PM:

quote:
I like film just as much as anyone, but I can say as a student film maker, video is amazing to work with. Having instant playback of takes, easier editing, and quicker filmmaking in general is a great advantage.

Have you ever heard of "Video Assist"?

Most any major film production will have instant video playback to the film work they are doing. They are able to see how the take went without waiting for a day or two to view dailies. Most movies these days, even the low budget ones shot on film, are actually edited on video using an Avid or similar system and then the "final cut" is delivered to the lab for the acutal cutting of the O-neg.

Maybe I should stress the point like this: let's say I am an investor who is looking to sink millions into a film as part of a multi-national partnership. I'm saavy with how video sales work. If this is a major release production with a budget in excess of $30 million or so, I'm damned sure gonna want the product to look good and play good in any form for decades to come.

Most people I know who are into DVD will not buy a movie if it doesn't sport a 5.1 track. Give these "digital films" a few years into the HD-plugged-in market and consumers are going to be avoiding those movies because they look like shit on their plasma screens. Shooting in "analog" 35mm is far more forward looking for those marketing purposes if the budget is there to afford it. Basically, if you can afford to hire an A-list actor who isn't there working for scale out of charity, then there should be room in your budget to shoot the flick on film.

Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 09-14-2003, 04:14 AM:

I still haven`t had time to look closely at a print, but I believe you all. That is why I created that topic.

OK, poll:
Who has actually seen this movie screened digitally? Tim doesn`t count since he confessed to me last night that he hadn`t actually watched the whole movie other than briefly from the porthole.
I screened it twice on different screens and continue to be impressed with the image quality, especially the fine detail, like the wood structures on the guitars or the skin texture of peoples` faces.

Posted by Richard Fowler (Member # 893) on 09-14-2003, 04:35 AM:

The Friday Calender section of the Los Angeles Times had an article with the film's director and the two key Sony principals who designed the HD camera system in use. The director was over the top positive while the Sony people are promoting that it is another type of brush to paint the image.

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 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

Posted by Hillary Charles (Member # 769) on 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.

Posted by Robert D. LaValley (Member # 1867) on 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??

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 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.

Posted by Elena N. Solovyova (Member # 1636) on 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.

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 09-15-2003, 07:36 AM:

Comments on some of the issues on Cinematographer.com:

Cinematographer.com Thread

Posted by Frank Bruno (Member # 1871) on 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.

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 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

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 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