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Breaking Bad was film, they decided to do Better Call Saul digital though when they couldn't see the difference on a blind test.
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Oct 23, 2015 08:30
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Looks like Elementary is primarily an Alexa (digital) show. They use 35 for some scenes though, probably just specialty sequences that make use of the film aesthetic? Never watched it, so can't really say.
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Oct 23, 2015 08:30
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I've got a few things to cover, but I'll put this at the top because it's the most fun https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CgrMsjGk7k Cemetry Gator posted:So, let's talk about Selectavision. Ah, god bless CED. A format that's forgotten about that the first time you see it you go legitimately crazy wondering wtf it is you've just found. I only have one, an Escape From NY disc, but no player. It's just fun to have. Cemetry Gator posted:Anamorphic widescreen and home video. Let's take it one step nerdier and talk about dimensions in formats nobody cares about anymore! Back in the olden days of 1999 or so, PAL and NTSC varied a great deal. We'll just stick to the most important part for this A/R discussion and that's the frame size. For DVDs in the USA and other NTSC regions, DVDs were 720x480 in dimension while the PAL world it was 720x576. But how could this be? Surely that means the picture would be stretched out on one of them, unless the TVs were differently shaped? The answer is that there are multiple aspect ratios going on every time you play a disc. First you have the Storage Aspect Ratio, which is either 720x480 or 720x576 depending on your region. Then you have the Display Aspect Ratio, which is whether you have a fullscreen or widescreen TV attached to your player. Then one final but very important one - the Pixel Aspect Ratio. It's easy to think that a pixel is a 1:1 square dot on your screen, but when it comes to video that wasn't the case. Why would it be? Video is a constant pain in the rear end of formats and standards, and nothing should be easy. Not even a loving pixel. So we know what our SAR is, and we know what our DAR is so we need the PAR to essentially be one of a few fixed values in order to take that video in its SAR and put it on your display correctly. There's generally four to consider, and they're based on whether it's PAL or NTSC, Widescreen or Full Screen. The storage aspect ratio does not change regardless of whether the movie is widescreen or fullscreen on the DVD (there's only two modes, a 4:3 standard image or a 16:9 flag which will then have black bars above/below to ensure the correct aspect ratio for the film is shown), it's all down to the shape of the pixels and the player in question knowing this. All this above essentially explains why you went to old peoples houses in the 2000s and everything would be stretched or crushed to fit their TV. "That's how I like it" they'd claim as they bitterly fought the standards that were there to preserve the sanctity of the aspect ratio regardless of where you were in the world. Luckily, these days none of this really matters. Displays are either 720p, 1080p, 2K or 4K (etc) regardless of where you are and the only thing that's still a horrible bugbear is Europe and similar regions still forcing 50hz on us like it's a good thing (it's not, it's bunk). LORD OF BUTT posted:So basically the only shows shot on film are flaming garbage, except for possibly Elementary (which is decent enough) Woah, hold your horses there sunny. The fact that you guys (Americans, presumably) shot everything on film is a wonderful, wonderful thing. 'Friends' looks fantastic in 2015, like a whole new show. In the UK, after the invention of video tape it was decided as a money saving exercise that we'd shoot pretty much all our prestige dramas and comedies on that. What do we now have? A ton of archival footage that looks garbage on large displays in 2015. Take how something like 'The Prisoner' looks that was shot in 1967 compared to 'Black Adder', one of the best sitcoms ever, that was shot in the 80s. It looks like rear end, and it will always look like rear end. Keep shooting on film, or digital formats that are really hard to distinguish from film. The UK learnt nothing, and shot a lot of dramas on HD formats that are fit for covering the news and then throwing a colour grade at them for years. They looked like rear end then, they'll always look like rear end going forward. Then you have shows like 'Mr Robot' that just look fantastic in comparison.
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Oct 23, 2015 14:17
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EL BROMANCE posted:Woah, hold your horses there sunny. The fact that you guys (Americans, presumably) shot everything on film is a wonderful, wonderful thing. 'Friends' looks fantastic in 2015, like a whole new show. In the UK, after the invention of video tape it was decided as a money saving exercise that we'd shoot pretty much all our prestige dramas and comedies on that. What do we now have? A ton of archival footage that looks garbage on large displays in 2015. Take how something like 'The Prisoner' looks that was shot in 1967 compared to 'Black Adder', one of the best sitcoms ever, that was shot in the 80s. It looks like rear end, and it will always look like rear end. Gentlemen, we are surrounded by film!
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Oct 23, 2015 15:18
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EL BROMANCE posted:Woah, hold your horses there sunny. The fact that you guys (Americans, presumably) shot everything on film is a wonderful, wonderful thing. 'Friends' looks fantastic in 2015, like a whole new show. In the UK, after the invention of video tape it was decided as a money saving exercise that we'd shoot pretty much all our prestige dramas and comedies on that. What do we now have? A ton of archival footage that looks garbage on large displays in 2015. Take how something like 'The Prisoner' looks that was shot in 1967 compared to 'Black Adder', one of the best sitcoms ever, that was shot in the 80s. It looks like rear end, and it will always look like rear end. What's worse is that a lot of British shows used film for exterior shots, so you end up with shows that look really inconsistent. So the character will be outside walking into a store, and it will be film, and then they get into the store, and then it's back to video. And of course, let's not get into wiping. You guys almost taped over Monty Python! I read somewhere that they stole the tapes and made copies to keep the BBC from destroying the show. American networks had wiping too, and a lot of it was aimed at Soap Operas, game shows, and various talk shows, so fortunately, we have most of our prime-time shows that were shot from the 60s and on. Unless it was on the Dumont network. In which case, we put it at the bottom of a river. But at least we don't have to go scouring the globe to find old episodes of M*A*S*H like you guys do for Dr. Who episodes (although, if I remember correctly, one of the original negatives for an episode is missing, and either all we have is the version with the laugh track or the version aired in syndication, but I don't care enough to find out). There's a lot of American shows that were shot on tape. But they were mostly sitcoms, soap operas, talk shows, or game shows. I can't think of any dramas that weren't shot on film. I'm sure there's a handful. But film had a lot of proponents over video tape. A notable example was Cheers. The producers insisted that the show be shot on film. During the first season, ratings were terrible, and so to save money, Paramount pushed the producers to consider switching from film to videotape. So they did a few test shots, and they looked like rear end and said "No, we're sticking with film." A lot of it apparently depended on the production company, and who produced the show, as different companies had different preferences. And now, a lot of those shows that were shot on film are able to get a second life. Would Seinfeld still air on TBS at 5 in the afternoon if it was shot on tape like Home Improvement was?
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Oct 23, 2015 15:20
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EL BROMANCE posted:Woah, hold your horses there sunny. The fact that you guys (Americans, presumably) shot everything on film is a wonderful, wonderful thing. 'Friends' looks fantastic in 2015, like a whole new show. In the UK, after the invention of video tape it was decided as a money saving exercise that we'd shoot pretty much all our prestige dramas and comedies on that. What do we now have? A ton of archival footage that looks garbage on large displays in 2015. Take how something like 'The Prisoner' looks that was shot in 1967 compared to 'Black Adder', one of the best sitcoms ever, that was shot in the 80s. It looks like rear end, and it will always look like rear end.  , I just wanted to crap on Walking Dead and AHS 
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Oct 23, 2015 18:40
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Ha, allowed 
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Oct 23, 2015 21:24
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To get back to widescreen, for a few of my friends, the special editions of star wars was the first time they became aware about pan and scan. In the Empire Strikes Back, there's a scene where a Star Destroyer gets hits by an asteroid, and you see Vader talking to a few captains from the fleet. One of then starts to fall over before his hologram just disappears. A lot of people thought that it was added to the special editions, but it was always there. Unless you watched it in pan and scan because then it was cut off. And this meant for the first time, people were seeing those films in their OAR. Another film that just suffers in pan and scan is MASH. Altman uses the whole 2.35 to 1 frame, and so the camera is constantly trying to keep up with the action, and some of the busier scenes become nonsense as all this extra motion is added to the screen, and other scenes, like Painless' suicide, are destroyed because essential elements are totally absent. It's also the first R rated film with the F word, so you can see that.
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Oct 23, 2015 22:03
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I'm watching some old tv shows and realized I really miss 4:3. Tall formats are great.
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Oct 24, 2015 00:28
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Can we talk about resolution in here? I have stories about discovering things in HD that weren't visible in SD.
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Oct 24, 2015 01:22
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Steve Yun posted:Can we talk about resolution in here? I have stories about discovering things in HD that weren't visible in SD. Is it Patrick Swayze's penis in Road House?
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Oct 24, 2015 01:24
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I've got a couple questions that will fit nicely into this thread. 1). With the advent of nice HDTVs in homes, it's a lot easier to watching things in their intended ratio, but how many theaters are around that are still capable of showing things like Hateful 8, or do what my local theater (shout out to the Music Box, which owns) does, and hold a 70mm Film Festival? 2). Where does IMAX fit into this? One of the coolest things I've ever seen w/r/t aspect ratios is the first time watching The Dark Knight, and seeing some of the scenes that were shot in IMAX fill up that entire massive screen (which was probably helped by seeing it in the biggest IMAX in the USA), it was incredible, and I love going to see movies in IMAX whenever possible, but most movies aren't shot with the cameras, so they are often just movies on a really big screen. Nolan made a point when Interstellar came out to give an early release to IMAX screens that still used the 70mm IMAX cameras, instead of the new digital ones that most places have, so I suppose my question is, is that going to be a thing with more filmmakers going forward, or is Christopher Nolan the only one advocating for film IMAX projectors? Basically I want more Big loving Movies that are shot as awesomely as possible, and IMAX is the coolest way to watch a movie, IMO. edit: After a brief look at a wikipedia list, it looks like the Infinity Wars movies will be the first to be shot entirely in IMAX digital, but the only movies that have filmed in 70mm IMAX since TDK have been Interstellar, TDKR, and BvS: DoJ, which kinda answers my question with "yeah it's just Nolan".
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Oct 24, 2015 02:25
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Yoshifan823 posted:1). With the advent of nice HDTVs in homes, it's a lot easier to watching things in their intended ratio, but how many theaters are around that are still capable of showing things like Hateful 8, or do what my local theater (shout out to the Music Box, which owns) does, and hold a 70mm Film Festival? Both of these questions fall into the same category, so I'll answer them together: As far as projection goes for motion pictures, film is dead. Studios are ending wide distribution of films on 35mm projection prints if they haven't already (for example, Paramount's last film to be widely distributed on 35mm was Anchorman 2). Even with IMAX, a lot of IMAX theaters are the digital ones just because the film prints are just so loving expensive (and the IMAX brand has been diluted). You're not going to see film projection outside of a very specific market, and it's really a specialty market. 70mm was always a specialty format, and I have to say over time, less and less of those theaters exist. Especially since a lot of smaller theaters have struggled with the switch over to digital, just due to the expenses, and I doubt many of the chains kept the film projectors around since they're not going to see any use. Really, it's going to be the specialty theaters ran by people who really care and have been able to get through the transition period alright. So Hateful Eight will likely be shown in theaters letterboxed, which would have happened anyway, since most theaters don't have screens larger than 2.35:1 around. Well, I say that. But then I remember AMC theaters. And all their screens at a local theater by me was 1.85:1. For 2.35:1 movies, before the film would start, the screen would shrink to the right proportion. The traditional film IMAX cameras are really bulky, really loud, and pretty difficult to use, so you need someone who's really dedicated to using them. And someone like Nolan, who consistently produces financially successful films, has a certain amount of leeway when it comes to production. Hell, I'm sure if he wanted to, he could do an entire film without using a digital intermediate. His editor might kill him, but hey. And adding another format to the mix adds a lot of complications. If you're shooting in IMAX, you now have to account for possibly 3 aspect rations when framing. For this, we're going to assume you're shooting 2.35:1, like Interstellar. You got the 2.35:1 normal non-IMAX version you got to compose for. You got to compose for the 1.44:1 IMAX film version, and then you got to compose for the 1.90:1 IMAX digital version (which is close enough for the 1.78:1 HDTV master you'll have to make that you can let that one slide a bit). And it's another format you're using, and you have to think about how you're going to get your shots. And it's only going to work with certain films. The 40-Year-Old-Virgin would not benefit from having scenes shot in IMAX. Unless you really want the chest waxing scene shot on 70mm film. Actually wait. That's it. I'm going to film school. I'm going to become a world class director so I can shoot a gross out comedy with the grossest scenes being shot on a 70mm IMAX camera, and I will insist that it be shown in large-format film standards before it's shown digitally. From a projection standpoint, film has a lot of drawbacks for everyone involved. For the studios, film prints are expensive. Each print of a movie costs thousands of dollars. They're expensive to ship. There's a lot that can go wrong with the projection of film, like it getting unspooled (apparently, that is a movie theater horror story). From a viewer standpoint, the prints get dirty and scratched up really quickly. Recently, I saw a 35mm print of Dr. Strangelove, and it had been shown in one previous theater before. However, because they didn't do manual reel changes, the film had gotten scratched when they were running it or something. So throughout the film, there were diagonal scratches in the middle of the print. It really wasn't that bad and it wasn't distracting, but it's just a sign of what can go wrong. So yeah. Seeing stuff like Hateful Eight and Interstellar is going to be very rare. It's a specialty thing that only a few directors will be able to do, and it's always going to be a bit of an event when they do it.
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Oct 24, 2015 03:34
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Cemetry Gator posted:Both of these questions fall into the same category, so I'll answer them together: This further increases my respect for  . So does all of this apply to *shooting* in film as well? Like, is there any benefit of shooting in film, having the film prints exist, but transferring it to digital for the wide release? I mean, I'm sure there's a lot of work to be done in the transfer, but is there any reason that a Tarantino or Nolan couldn't just say "I'm filming this poo poo the old fashioned way, deal"?I actually work at a movie theater, and I started working after a huge renovation that, among other things, replaced the film projectors with digital ones. I kinda wish I knew what they did with the old ones, but I'm pretty sure our sister theater down in the city still has at least one film projector sitting around somewhere (I should ask the guy who just transferred from there, he would know), and I'm sure there are a few other theaters in town that have them (Music Box obviously, and I'd bet some money that the Siskel Film Center has one sitting around). I actually kind of like the idea of having those sorts of things become Events, because that's the best way to get people to actually go to a theater, and unlike most people these days, I really enjoy the act of going to sit in a theater to watch a movie, and having it be that much more special makes it even more fun. I get the feeling that if I ever got really, really rich, I'd live very modestly, donate to charity, fund political campaigns, etc., but as my one sort of "splurge", build a Navy Pier IMAX-sized theater in my backyard so I can enjoy all that poo poo whenever I want. I'll learn all the tricks, it'll be dope. This is kind of tangential, but last year's Pulitzer Prize winner for drama was a play called The Flick, which is set at a very old independent theater that still has a film projector, and the change from film to digital is a kind of big point in the show. I'd highly suggest seeking out the script (and if you're in Chicago, Steppenwolf is putting it on early next year, which should be fantastic).
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Oct 24, 2015 04:40
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Yoshifan823 posted:This further increases my respect for As far as shooting, right now, a lot of movies are still shot on film. For example, Jurassic World was shot on film (65mm and 35mm, and then digital for aerial shots only). The new Star Wars film - that was shot on film. Bridge of Spies and Black Mass, which came out recently, those were shot on film. Steve Jobs was shot on 16mm, 35mm, and digital, so I don't even know how you would classify that one. There are still a lot of people out there who prefer film. Also, from a preservation standpoint, film is a known quantity. So, when they restored Jaws, they made both a digital copy and a new 35mm negative. Because here's the thing - 20 years from now, you can't be sure that you can even still use the digital file, but you know that the negative will be there. And there could be a certain aesthetic you're going for that you can get from film, or you might just like working with film. More and more is being shot digitally, and unless you were told, you wouldn't know. Like the Martian. That's a digital production, and there's no way of telling. It looks stunning because it's a well shot film. What I'm finding interesting though is how Arri has really taken over the digital world. A lot of digital productions are being shot on Arri Flex cameras. I remember when RED was making a huge push with their digital cameras, and actively advertising films that were shot on RED. And now, RED doesn't seem like the leader (the Martian was shot on RED, in case you were curious). And frankly, for a big budget release, while film isn't cheap, it also isn't going to be the biggest line item that you can find. Yeah, for smaller productions, film might not be viable from a cost perspective. But when you're dropping 150 million on your film (Jurassic World), the cost of film isn't where that money is going. But on something with a tighter budget, it might get harder and harder to justify using 35mm film when in all honesty, digital is going to get you pretty good results. As I said, if Jurassic World and Star Wars are being shot on film, then I think it's safe to say that film production is still alive and kicking. They're not small arthouse flicks. And I hope film remains a viable option. I like the idea of us always having the analog option. There's something cool about knowing that all you have to do is shine a light and run it sufficiently fast enough, and you got a movie going. All that said, I'm beginning to wonder if I lead a sad and lonely little life.
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Oct 24, 2015 05:13
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Cemetry Gator posted:
People say this, but I don't understand it completely. Even today there are means and methods to use complete software that was made 20 years ago (through emulators for example), it seems easier to preserve a specific file format or codec. Also if studios are using standardized formats wouldn't people go out of their way to make sure they still work going forward (unless some wacky studio is encoding stuff in REAL format).
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Oct 24, 2015 05:34
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It's not just the file format, it's the medium it's stored on. Remember Jaz drives? They were high capacity floppy-like disks from before flash memory was cheap. They were never common and it's not too hard to find a drive capable of reading the disks today, but in 50 years it will certainly be much harder. Digital media are also more fragile than film and in some cases have shorter lifespans. Certain CD and DVD formats, for example, start degrading in as little as 25 years under normal storage conditions and probably won't last more than a century before nothing is recoverable. Hard drive data gradually becomes corrupted after long periods of disuse, and the drives can suffer mechanical failure, resulting in total data loss. Modern film, on the other hand, will last a very, very long time if stored in a cool, dry place, and a properly cared for reel will work just as well on day 1 as on day 100,000 with no loss of quality.
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Oct 24, 2015 06:05
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Be careful. Last time we talked about Nolan using film it degenerated into how it's his personal gently caress you to poor people, and also how his using film is somehow disenfranching independent filmmakers.
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Oct 24, 2015 10:50
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If anyone is interested in digital vs film, then I implore you to watch Keanu Reeves' documentary "Side by Side". It's a fantastic film that is literally just some history, some examples and directors/DPs talking about their preferences with no filmmaker bias. Keanu rules. I've watched it too many times with people and not one person I've seen it with hasn't loved it.
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Oct 24, 2015 12:16
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zandert33 posted:People say this, but I don't understand it completely. Even today there are means and methods to use complete software that was made 20 years ago (through emulators for example), it seems easier to preserve a specific file format or codec. Also if studios are using standardized formats wouldn't people go out of their way to make sure they still work going forward (unless some wacky studio is encoding stuff in REAL format). I'm not saying that preservation is impossible or that there aren't ways to do it right when it comes to digital, it's just that there are certain factors that do work against digital. The best example we have is the music industry, since they've been doing digital recording since the early 70s. By the 80s, a lot of music was being recorded digitally. Outside of pop music, it was more common to use digital recording than not to. In terms of formats, there's a few albums that were recorded using formats that fell out of favor, and so there's only one or two tape machines left in the world that can read the data on that tape. Once those machines go, those tapes are basically useless. I know some of Rod Stewarts' mid 80s albums fall into this bucket. There's examples where stuff was recorded digitally, and they used a plug-in for an effect, like reverb, and the plug-in is either missing or is incompatible. And so when they've remastered that stuff, they had to go and recreate the effect as close as possible. There's examples where the masters they have are missing tracks. We don't have the complete master recordings for "All Star" by Smash Mouth. It's a song that came out in 1999. One of the biggest hits of the late 90s, and we're already missing the master. Here's a great article: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/file-not-found-the-record-industrys-digital-storage-crisis-20101207 Once again, it deals with the music side of things. There's other things to consider with digital. Think about a scratch on a record versus a scratch on a CD. On a record, you're more likely to get an artifact of that scratch, whether it's pops and clicks, or the record skips or gets locked in the groove. On a CD, you're more likely to play through and everything will be fine. However, once a CD gets damaged, it's far more destructive. You might not be able to listen to that track any more, or you'll have to skip ahead, or god knows. On a record, unless you've completely obliterated the fucker, you'll still be able to capture the data somehow. Especially thanks to digital technology! They've been able to put back together broken records using digital technology to get that data. Laser turntables see skips and locked grooves and laughs in their faces. If a digital file gets corrupted, it's far more likely to be more destructive than if an analog source gets corrupted. Given the state that some of these films were in before they were restored, imagine trying to do that with a digital file in a similar state. It would be impossible. As I said, it's not impossible. But it's a challenge. And things will hopefully change for the better. And this isn't even a dig against using digital. For example, when they restored Jaws, they saved both the digital files and pressed a new negative of the restoration for long-term storage. They wanted to preserve both. They knew film would be a good backup, and the digital would be good to have if they needed to go back to it. And who knows what things will be like in 20 years? Cemetry Gator fucked around with this message at 14:07 on Oct 24, 2015 |
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Oct 24, 2015 14:05
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It's worth pointing out that the Walking Dead is mostly shot on Super 16. I personally found that pretty impressive considering they are shooting for digital effects and comps in post on a TV budget. I worked on a feature recently where we were shooting on Sony F5's and during the shoot the data wrangler was coming up on set and showing the DP the rushes with the grades and the LUTs applied because there was no budget for prep work and every shot was being planned 5 minutes before we rolled. Considering the speed we were shooting and the stakes involved I could not imagine us shooting on film. I shoot all my stuff on digital, but I think every film maker will tell you: If you can afford film, then shoot on it. It slows you down, it lets you rehearse and it really makes every shot count. I also do some Digital DCP work on the side and the amount of times I have people coming in asking me what ratio their film should be astounds me. They are mostly students or small companies. But some of the discussions would make your head spin Lonos Oboe fucked around with this message at 14:13 on Oct 24, 2015 |
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Oct 24, 2015 14:08
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Lonos Oboe posted:I also do some Digital DCP work on the side and the amount of times I have people coming in asking me what ratio their film should be astounds me. They are mostly students or small companies. But some of the discussions would make your head spin Are there any fun stories worth sharing, or would they be so full of industry speak that people wouldn't get it?
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Oct 24, 2015 15:58
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EL BROMANCE posted:If anyone is interested in digital vs film, then I implore you to watch Keanu Reeves' documentary "Side by Side". It's a fantastic film that is literally just some history, some examples and directors/DPs talking about their preferences with no filmmaker bias. Watching this now on Netflix. It's fantastic. Right now Danny Boyle is talking about how when they made 28 Days later he wasn't allowed to shut down London for his shoot, only pause traffic for a few minutes at a time. He didn't have a big budget so he got 10 consumer camcorders and had them all shooting during the traffic pauses at the same time and got 10x as much footage as he would have with a single film camera.
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Oct 24, 2015 17:43
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From a film programmer's point of view, I'd never book film if digital was available. Digital is just as beautiful, less costly, and way less risky. I have colleagues who obsess over "beautiful 35mm," and personally I can't stand that kind of romanticism. That's just me, though.
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Oct 24, 2015 18:22
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Okay after having seen Side By Side, there's a definite overall impression that digital is great just based on the overwhelming number of interviewees who say so. Nolan is the lone holdout and although he makes good points about film it kinda makes him look like he's just holding onto the romance of the past, as Vegetable says. Also 90% of the documentary is about how digital sucked at first but keeps on improving, so there's an unavoidable feeling that it will keep improving, whereas film has basically improved as much as it's ever going to already.
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Oct 24, 2015 18:37
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Yeah, it's pretty great to see how the technology has changed over time and you can really see it in those older films. Up until at least a few years ago, I could generally tell if a film was shot digitally or not (not because I thought it looked worse, but because you can see giveaway signs and due to how it was shot), but it's definitely getting harder to tell. There's some fun examples of films that were shot digitally that you wouldn't immediately guess from the title, like Superbad. I bet it's a key factor in keeping that films budget down to $20m too, so it's an absolute no brainer for that kind of production. I also like that my camera got some love in Side by Side, my Sony PD-150. I've had my personal one for about 12 years now and I still think it's a phenomenal piece of kit even if I can't shoot in HD with it (I have the anamorphic lens so I can shoot 'true' 16x9). The fact that one piece of kit was used by filmmakers like Lars Von Trier to make movies while news agencies were sending them into warzones because of how small and compact they were, plus the build quality, says everything. More technical threads in CD! I tend to read here more than post because so many threads get turned into a slanging match about how people perceive a movie and that gets old. Aspect ratios never get old!
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Oct 24, 2015 18:47
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EL BROMANCE posted:Yeah, it's pretty great to see how the technology has changed over time and you can really see it in those older films. Up until at least a few years ago, I could generally tell if a film was shot digitally or not (not because I thought it looked worse, but because you can see giveaway signs and due to how it was shot), but it's definitely getting harder to tell. There's some fun examples of films that were shot digitally that you wouldn't immediately guess from the title, like Superbad. I bet it's a key factor in keeping that films budget down to $20m too, so it's an absolute no brainer for that kind of production. If I remember correctly, the cost of video for Episode II was in the realm of a couple hundred thousand, rather than millions for film.
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Oct 24, 2015 20:44
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Cemetry Gator posted:Are there any fun stories worth sharing, or would they be so full of industry speak that people wouldn't get it? Nothing major, I don't work for any big companies. I edited my post to clarify I work for smaller guys. But there are a few stories. What is amazing is people who don't understand why, when you do a DCP of a movie shot on a 1080p canon XF 300 (?!) and HEAVILY processed grade to hide the lack of any visual consistency, looks terrible at 4k. These are productions with more money than sense and are paying me a lot of money for DCP transfer with the hope of getting the film picked up at a film festival. The most common one I get is people not understanding ratios. Now I am by no means an expert on ratios, but having to explain to a director or editor that their 16:9 film will have to be cropped a little or explain that I cannot convert the film to 2.39:1 when it was composed totally differently. I just cannot understand a DP or Director who does not get that. The democratization of movie making has a lot to do with that. DCP's used to cost thousands and now you can drop a few hundred to an online company and you can have your movie shown at a theatre. A lot of companies I deal with don't even plan for a DCP unless the film enters a festival. (Including the people who understand the importance of DCP) It's all online now and if it fills up a 16:9 monitor, they are happy. I made a short last year on a DSLR style camera (C300) that I purposefully shot at 2.39:1. I composed the whole thing to take advantage of the space so my wides and dialogue were more horizontally composed. It was a ton of fun. I used to shoot 4:3 with my old video camera and I would like to try it again. It worked for Tarkovsky and many others. To be fair, most of my clients are totally on the ball and just need their short brought up to 2k for a festival and maybe some audio mastering. If you shoot well on a DSLR, you can have something that holds together really well on the big screen. These are the guys who plan well and it pays off for. I just wonder sometimes who gives these clowns money and where can I get some.
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Oct 24, 2015 22:38
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We were talking a lot in the Star Wars thread about Lucas pioneering digital film-making. When AOTC came out I saw it in digital projection, and it was so clear that you could actually see the pixel limitations of the HD resolution. Lucas gets a lot of crap about pushing digital film-making farther than it was capable of at the time, and I suppose it's true, but now 15 years later I think about how he advanced it for other film-makers by jumping in headfirst and investing in the tech. You could also say other film makers learned from his mistakes as well. I wonder how much farther behind it would have been without him. Like, I remember Pixar making pushes for digital projection around 1997 with Toy Story re-releases, but it didn't really catch on until Star Wars pushed it. I saw toy story in digital and it was 1024 wide. You could even see the aperture grille (is that the right word?) in the projection. Steve Yun fucked around with this message at 23:02 on Oct 24, 2015 |
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Oct 24, 2015 22:55
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I think/ hope we are hitting a kind of Omega point with digital where no matter how much the tech advances it won't look poo poo. I remember when 28 days later came out. It was shot on a Canon XL1S which I use in work for training people on. I always clarify that aside from the glass. Your iphone is superior in every way. The Blu-Ray release of that film is understandably garbage considering most of it was shot on the XL and the rest on 16mm film. I think it clocks in at something like 576i . But that film went a long way to opening the door for digital film too. It's like watching the old 1920's movies with their flaws as they developed the technology. I think we will get to a point where our 1.000000k cameras are the be all and end all and 100 years in the future, purists will be angry that their 1024k print of avatar is missing the artifacting of the original file.
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Oct 25, 2015 00:03
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Without actually ever seeing it, there's a few things in theory that justify the existence of 28DL being on Blu, such as lack of compression on the video, the fact it's PAL pushing it above NTSC SD quality and the audio being as having as much room for improvement on Blu as any other film. I want to mock it, and if I ever saw the actual product I probably would. I never shot the XL1 as I went Sony and got the PD150 instead, but I think the film looked great given it was made essentially on a 'barely not a consumer camcorder'. I like cellphone cameras for the convenience but that's about it, and that's unlikely to really change while the lenses/sensors are as compromised as they have to be.
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Oct 25, 2015 00:42
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Yeah one thing I've noticed going over my old DVDs is that DVD doesn't even live up to the full potential of standard definition because of how poo poo MPEG2 looks now compared to modern codecs.
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Oct 25, 2015 00:58
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When the photography is professional quality it's hard to tell the difference between the two, but on lower budget movies bad digital REALLY looks awful- all too often you run across movies where everything is just kinda washed out and they slapped a filter on top or tried to make it look hazy, and to me that generally looks worse than even really cheap shot on film flicks like, say, Robot Monster or Manos: the Hands of Fate. * I say generally because there are some truly hideous celluloid films out there, but it seems like digital is somehow easier to screw up? *I'm leaving out Ed Wood's movies because William C. Thompson generally knew what he was doing and the lighting/contrast is often pretty good in those.
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Oct 25, 2015 01:58
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EL BROMANCE posted:Without actually ever seeing it, there's a few things in theory that justify the existence of 28DL being on Blu, such as lack of compression on the video, the fact it's PAL pushing it above NTSC SD quality and the audio being as having as much room for improvement on Blu as any other film. I want to mock it, and if I ever saw the actual product I probably would. I never shot the XL1 as I went Sony and got the PD150 instead, but I think the film looked great given it was made essentially on a 'barely not a consumer camcorder'. I like cellphone cameras for the convenience but that's about it, and that's unlikely to really change while the lenses/sensors are as compromised as they have to be. Oh no doubt, 28 days later still looks good. But you can really see that "digital" feel especially if you used the XL1 you would see that kinda greasy murky yellow tinge you sometimes got with it. It looks great on the DVD but the blu ray well..... This clip played at 1080p gives a decent idea at how it looked. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCdRFMp8Xwo I was filming a piece in London last year by Westminster abbey on my 7D and it makes that clip look like cellphone footage, never mind 4K raw. All that said. I still am not down on the movie for shooting on the XL1S. The stuff like the shutter effects of the infected and how quick and cheap they were able to do it for was really groundbreaking. Back in the day the PD 150 was on the same level if not a little higher than the XL1 and it opened the door for the DSLRs and the REDs. What we need to do is future-proof our movies. Star Wars The Phantom Menace may look like poop (It already kinda does) in 50 years. But Interstellar will always look amazing because of it's depth and visual simplicity and complexity. It's a very non flashy film. But also very beautiful. (Shot on film) Lonos Oboe fucked around with this message at 02:15 on Oct 25, 2015 |
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Oct 25, 2015 02:12
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Maxwell Lord posted:say generally because there are some truly hideous celluloid films out there, but it seems like digital is somehow easier to screw up? Digital requires zero knowledge of light and how cameras work. Anyone can turn on a camera and if the light looks ok they can film it. Then when they edit, they can drop pre-made filters on it and give it any style they want. Magic Bullet looks is a great tool for grading and offers pre-made "looks" like The Band Of Brothers look, Sin City, Orange and Teal blockbuster looks, Michael Bay, Tony Scott, Paul Greengrass, Wes Anderson and more: https://www.redgiant.com/products/magic-bullet-looks/ you can stick this on iphone footage, tweak a few levels and it will mimic the style. I think it's an amazing tool. But it means people with no idea what they are doing can kinda mimic the effect they want without the work. It's akin to digitally adding film grain and scratches to your digital shots so it looks like cheap grindhouse. Lonos Oboe fucked around with this message at 02:26 on Oct 25, 2015 |
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Oct 25, 2015 02:21
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Lonos Oboe posted:Oh no doubt, 28 days later still looks good. But you can really see that "digital" feel especially if you used the XL1 you would see that kinda greasy murky yellow tinge you sometimes got with it. It looks great on the DVD but the blu ray well..... This clip played at 1080p gives a decent idea at how it looked. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCdRFMp8Xwo Weirdly I had it in my head that 28 Days Later was shot using Sony VX1000's, turn's out I was wrong, I used an XL1S at Uni and still have the Mini DV tapes floating about somewhere I'll have to dig them out and have a look I havent really done any film work since then but I do find film tech fascinating.
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Oct 25, 2015 06:06
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Like I mentioned, I still use it for training people on using cameras. Aside from it's tape limitations, it's still a very decent camera and it still sells for about $600-$800 . If you push the shutter speed (not frame rate) up to about 350, you will get the 28 days later stuttering effect. You can get it on practically any camera nowadays. But it's kinda sweet to do it as they did it. It's worth mentioning that they did use prime lenses for a lot of the movie. So you won't capture the same effect with the kit lens. What I love the most about aspect ratios and it kinda comes across in my earlier post. It how much it affects the style of the movie. Like Sergio Leone using 3 perf film stock because it was cheaper and it ended up that the resulting limitations became his biggest stylistic strengths. (I would have to dig out Sir Christopher Frayling's book on Leone to explain better) What technology a film maker chooses can be what makes their films unique. I would never say that you need to know all the technical details. But understanding why a film maker chose a certain ratio can often help you understand something about the film. (I like the theory that in 2001 the monolith has the exact same dimensions as the screen we are watching it through.)
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Oct 25, 2015 15:14
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I gather what the difference between 3 vs 4 perf film is from Wikipedia but I'm curious how that would affect a film stylistically, if you don't mind
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Oct 25, 2015 15:40
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Someone might be able to explain it better, but as far as I remember because it was basically squeezing more frames onto a reel. It meant that Leone was shooting a very wide format So for every 12 perfs of film you had 4 frames instead of 3. It meant it was cheaper, but the ratio was much tighter (2.35 : 1) Also, because of the cheapness of the stock the images were quite grainy and hi contrast. That meant that the close ups looked amazing because of the composition and quality and the wide vistas really popped. It was a mixture of limitations that really made it work. Like I said, I must try and dig out the exact quotes. But as far as I remember it's to do with that. If someone knows more, please chime in. Also, this 20 minute video on aspect ratios is pretty pro-click http://nofilmschool.com/2013/06/visual-history-of-aspect-ratio I would suggest watching more of them
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Oct 25, 2015 18:54
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Steve Yun posted:Can we talk about resolution in here? I have stories about discovering things in HD that weren't visible in SD. I was listening to Adam Savage from Mythbusters give a talk about his work building replicas of movie props and he mentioned that for the longest time people thought that the grip of the gun from Blade Runner was made out of wood and it wasn't until they got the movie in HD that they could see that it's actually made of some kind of resin.  Terrorist Fistbump posted:It's not just the file format, it's the medium it's stored on. Remember Jaz drives? They were high capacity floppy-like disks from before flash memory was cheap. They were never common and it's not too hard to find a drive capable of reading the disks today, but in 50 years it will certainly be much harder. Digital media are also more fragile than film and in some cases have shorter lifespans. Certain CD and DVD formats, for example, start degrading in as little as 25 years under normal storage conditions and probably won't last more than a century before nothing is recoverable. Hard drive data gradually becomes corrupted after long periods of disuse, and the drives can suffer mechanical failure, resulting in total data loss. Modern film, on the other hand, will last a very, very long time if stored in a cool, dry place, and a properly cared for reel will work just as well on day 1 as on day 100,000 with no loss of quality. Digital may degrade quicker but it's also infinitely easier to copy, so you can't chuck a HDD into a vault and expect it to work 100 years later but you can have it copied and backed-up to sites all over the world at the click of a mouse. And with  it's very unlikely that anything that is ever broadcast or released with truly be lost, since people are saving everything.EL BROMANCE posted:If anyone is interested in digital vs film, then I implore you to watch Keanu Reeves' documentary "Side by Side". It's a fantastic film that is literally just some history, some examples and directors/DPs talking about their preferences with no filmmaker bias. Ageed, the subject matter sounds dry but despite being a movie composed almost entirely of talking heads it's a fun watch and really accessible.
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Oct 26, 2015 03:13
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