Superman Returns

[Michael Collier]

I just got back from the midnight showing (which started at 10:00pm here, strangely enough) and wanted to see what everyones opinion

 

I'll start my opinion with a few gripes (just to get them out of the way). I noticed a bit of noise in some of the darker scenes. In the boat there was a lengthy segment of this that started to wear thin. At one point (I think near the helicopter) there was a particularly bad shot. Thankfully that shot was quite breif (under 1.5 sec). Some scenes looked a bit flat, though I think a large portion of that was the composition (superman in the sky with a tree in front, and very little background to flesh out any depth.

 

Overall I thought the look was quite good. Technically the camera performed very well. Exteriors were some of the best I have scene on video, and the interiors (Like the newsroom) worked very well. Some of the macro/XCU photography really stands out.

 

I did surprisingly like the story too. I am not a huge Superman fan, but from this one definatley stands out. I kept me entertained for the whole film.

[Matt Frank]

I thought it looked really good.

 

The noise in the dark scene on the boat was the biggest flaw that I noticed especially since it cut to a warmly lit scene with no noise.

 

I did not think that the look of the film was up to Siegel's other work and I didn't get the same sense of awe from the sky during the Kansas scenes like in the original, but overall it was great.

[Michael Nash]

My dilemma is wether to go see a film print to see how it holds up as an alternative to film acquisition, or to see DLP projection where I'm sure it will look its best. Eventually I'll do both, but I want that first impression to count!

[Michael Collier]

I saw it on a film print (we dont have DLP in alaska yet, we are still trying to get electricity to our igloos) and I think they used a relativley fine-grain print film. I didnt notice much (film) grain in the movie, so I suppose that choice is more of colors and contrast than clarity/sharpness. The only big thing I noted was a few scratches (large horizontally accross the entire frame, maybe 1/10 of the screen size, looked like it had been spliced back together) during playback. I was dissapointed because I went to see what suredly was the first screening of that particular print, unless they send all the old screener prints to alaska.

[Dan Goulder]

The only big thing I noted was a few scratches (large horizontally accross the entire frame, maybe 1/10 of the screen size, looked like it had been spliced back together) during playback.

I've noticed that quite a bit lately, the appearance of a splice in the middle of reels, even during first day (and run) showings. 'sup with that?

[James Brown]

I just got back from the midnight showing (which started at 10:00pm here, strangely enough) and wanted to see what everyones opinion

 

Hi,

 

Just got back from a viewing of "Superman"

 

It was a film print and looked quite good. It was definitely the crispest video I have seen and looked a lot sharper then say "Collateral" with much better blacks and colour rendition. All the images looked very clean with no noticeable noise (except for the previously mentioned scene). The lighting was the biggest standout visually for me. Subtle and high key at times but mostly Siegal got some good contrast in there. The actions scenes were done quite well, occasionally jarring (reminded me of Bourne Supremacy at times but not to such an extent)

 

Overall I was quite happy with the Cinematography of "Superman Returns" but the story lacked any substance. It was typical Hollywood blockbuster with constant cheesy lines that got the Audience laughing and a long lagging story that left you wanting something else (what did I expect?)

 

There was mixed emotions around me, someone behind me said "that was awesome" and the guy in front said "that was the poop"???.

[Leo Anthony Vale]

I've noticed that quite a bit lately, the appearance of a splice in the middle of reels, even during first day (and run) showings. 'sup with that?

 

---Ultrasonic splicing of the raw stock into huge rolls for highspeed loop printing.

 

---LV

[Josh Bass]

re: mixed emotions

 

I don't know how it is in Aus, but in the U.S. "the poop" is synonymous with one appreciating whatever one is calling the poop. If I say superman is the poop, then I find myself very appreciative of said movie. If instead, someone says "that was poop," then they are of course expressing displeasure with whatever it is to which they're referring. The "the" makes all the difference.

 

Just saying that if that's the case, the emotions weren't mixed after all. Unless you were being sarcastic.

[John Pytlak RIP]

I've noticed that quite a bit lately, the appearance of a splice in the middle of reels, even during first day (and run) showings. 'sup with that?

 

The big release print labs order 4000-foot or 6000-foot rolls of print film from Kodak. Since most reels are not an exact multiple within these lengths, the labs use ultrasonic splices to join the rolls and avoid having significant "short end" waste. Since these splices are made on the raw stock prior to printing, the splice may fall inside the frame. The ACVL guidelines say:

 

http://www.acvl.org/acvl_manual/release_prints3.html

 

In release printing, it is recommended that there be a maximum of two splices per 400 feet of 16mm or 1000 feet of 35mm. These two splices may be insert splices, or one of the two splices can be a raw stock splice. There should never be two raw stock splices in the same reel. It is further recommended that spliced raw stock not be used in trial prints, dailies, TV spots or recording prints. It is customary practices to charge a premium for release prints that have no raw stock splices.

[Emmanuel Lariviere]

I saw the movie yesterday, on film. I thought the movie looked awesome. This is the movie that a lot of members on this site have been waiting for, to see how the Genesis performed. I thought that it passed with flying colors. To my eyes, it looked like 35mm with a DI. To me, it had the Newton Thomas Sigel "look" to it. It had his artistic signature.

 

I know a few shots had noise but in 35mm you have some random shots that are extemely grainy, muddy or whatever. Sometimes it's a lab mistake or maybe it was a bad roll of film, but most films have a few funky shots in them. I'm jusy saying, let's cut digital some slack. Every shot in a digtal feature will not be perfect, just like film isn't always perfect.

 

Just to make it clear, I love film. I'm not one of the "film is dead" guys. I'm just giving credit where it's due.

I thought the look of Superman Returns was great.

[Guest Jim Murdoch]

I haven't seen it yet; I'll give it a couple of days, but I haven't noticed any queues around the block :P

I have team of slavering ankle-biters ready to leap into the car at a moment's notice!

 

Just keep in mind that not all of this film was shot Digitally, they did use film for some of the exterior backgrounds. So for a lot of the flying scenes you are actually seeing Brandon Routh green-screened in a studio, superimposed on a film-originated background.

 

The pictures had better be better than the trailers I'm seeing on TV!

 

The question is not: "Will they make their money back?" because I'm sure they will, but:

"Will anybody else see this film and say: 'Hey yeah! I'm gonna shoot my next feature with the Genesis!'"

That is the bottom line.

On the basis of what we saw in Scary Movie 4, I'd say the answer will be: "no".

Edited June 30, 2006 by Jim Murdoch

[Michael Collier]

I do think its funny that digital was supposed to make things cheaper (according to advocates who really dont know much about the logistics of a film) and the movie cost 260Mil!!! Jim said he is sure they will make their money back, which is probably a fair view, but when you compare returns on investment to risk taken, I am sure they could have done better. They wont make titanic money, I dont think. I think that at least 800 mil would be the least they could want, given the huge ledge they stepped out on.

[James Brown]

re: mixed emotions

 

I don't know how it is in Aus, but in the U.S. "the poop" is synonymous with one appreciating whatever one is calling the poop. If I say superman is the poop, then I find myself very appreciative of said movie. If instead, someone says "that was poop," then they are of course expressing displeasure with whatever it is to which they're referring. The "the" makes all the difference.

 

Just saying that if that's the case, the emotions weren't mixed after all. Unless you were being sarcastic.

 

I think your confusing a matter that doesn't need confusing. When someone quotes "that was poop" they are expressing a dislike to the movie, unless it's a 15 year old wearing an adidas jumpsuit jumps up saying "that was the poop" then it's different. I know where your coming from but let's not get things confused. The film, as a whole, was a bad execution of a blockbuster lacking a good story and/or good characters.

 

James.

[Evan Winter]

Just wanted to chime in,

 

I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. It felt strangely like a character study film masquerading as a superhero film which was quite nice actually. It made me care about people that could so easily come off as card board comic book cut outs.

 

I think the people who end up disliking this movie will primarily dislike it because they felt too little took place. For me, an incredible amount took place in 2 hrs and 37 minutes. The film flew by. My friend, sitting next to me, however, didn't feel the same.

 

Singer gave this movie room to breathe - he let the characters and their emotions breathe. This made the film come alive for me. Xmen 3 was the exact opposite; a lot of fun, to be sure, but awfully trite. It's the difference between a Ratner and a Singer.

 

A 'Ratner' has Magneto move a massive bridge in a blatantly unnecessary way to show off his special effects tricks and to give the audience the thrilling moments it paid 10.50 to see. A 'Singer' has Superman flying through the clouds towards the sun for 2 minutes or watching Lois Lane ride up and away in an elevator for 45 seconds; this is done, I believe, to give us an understanding and empathy for the people who populate the story we're watching, to make us truly care about what they're doing and why they're doing it.

 

Personally, I prefer the 'Singer' but I completely understand those who enjoy the 'Ratner'. In fact, in my own work (music video), I'm afraid I seem to tend more to the 'Ratner'/'Bay' approach (darn it).

 

Sorry for the long post by the way, I just saw the movie, I really liked it and after reading the above I wanted to offer my own take on the film.

 

Evan Winter

[Evan Winter]

and now for a somewhat brief post on the look of the film,

 

I thought Superman Returns looked fabulous. I very much expected to be disappointed with the quality of the image and I felt that, other than the slight lack of texture in the skin (which could be argued as a stylistic/aesthetic choice - we do this very much on purpose in music videos), the Genesis held up very well against film.

 

In my theatre the film looked very very clean, with practically no noticeable grain or noise (in fact Cinderella Man looked much worse and Xmen 3 also couldn't hold a candle to Superman Returns. Although X3 gets a bit of a bye because it had, as I recall, an extensive D.I.).

 

Again, I was very impressed with the Genesis and I feel very fortunate to live and work in film at this stage of history. It's an exciting time. I can barely wait to see how movies will be acquired in 5 years.

 

 

Will we still be shooting on 35mm film but with 5 extra years of film RnD?

 

Will we be working on 65mm film (with a lowered cost to keep up with the ever revolutionizing digital cameras)?

 

Or will we see the majority of hollywood films shot on digital motion picture cameras that will no doubt be nearly twice as good as what we have today?

 

Right now I'm glad to be on the sidelines and I hope to even be a part of the revolution; regardless of what path it takes, so long as it moves towards allowing us to tell better stories.

 

Evan Winter

 

*n.b - i saw Superman Returns projected on film.

[Tim Tyler]

Just saw a clean film print projected well. I can't say that I like the Genesis look. I mean, some scenes looked very good, like the bright Daily Planet interiors. But lower contrast scenes, especially a lot of the night stuff just looked muddy to me. I kept wanting to see more gradiation, detail or even grain in the blacks. Skin tones also looked weird to me, as if they used a lot of post detail reduction or something. I felt the same after seeing Scary Movie 3. I recall reading an article with Brian Singer where he compared the Genesis image to 70mm film so I expected a lot. Maybe I just need to see it projected digitally.

 

I liked the story and execution for the most part, but the pacing certainly could have been a little quicker. Most scenes, other than the action sequences, had a mellow feel.

[Michael Collier]

I was reading about the genisis, and its rated at 400asa, but in american cinematographer this month, they were saying they pushed this (the camera I think can do 2000asa) so I think they used that a bit too much. Like using gain on an ENG camera.

[Guest Jim Murdoch]

Jim said he is sure they will make their money back, which is probably a fair view, but when you compare returns on investment to risk taken, I am sure they could have done better. They wont make titanic money, I dont think. I think that at least 800 mil would be the least they could want, given the huge ledge they stepped out on.

Yes, well after reading a few more online news stories about the film, it seems takings for the first few days indicate that they're going to be nowhere enough to put this film in the blockbuster class. What really brings in the money is not so much people going to see a film for the first time, but people going back for a second or third look. If a film doesn't cut the mustard visually, but still has an OK story, most people tend to wait for the DVD to come out.

 

For some thing that is going to stand or fall on its visuals, using anything less than film origination seems a ludicrously risky proposition to me.

[Guest Jim Murdoch]

I was reading about the genisis, and its rated at 400asa, but in american cinematographer this month, they were saying they pushed this (the camera I think can do 2000asa) so I think they used that a bit too much. Like using gain on an ENG camera.

What exactly does "Rated at 400ASA" mean for a video camera?

 

With film, "400ASA" means that, if you give it the correct amount of exposure for 400ASA, as indicated by an exposure meter, then when the film is passed through a standardized developing process, the pictures will come out with the optimum amount of contrast.

 

If you give 400ASA twice the exposure that the meter indicated you should have, you can run it through the tank more quickly and it will still come out looking OK. It will just be a little bit more grainy than 200ASA would have, with the same exposure but run through the bath at the standard speed. This is called "Pull Processing"

 

Similarly, if by accident or design you expose 200 ASA as though it 400ASA , you can run the film more slowly through the developing bath and again it will come out looking pretty much like correctly exposed and developed 400ASA, again, just a little more grainy. This is known as "Push Processing"

 

Now while it's true that if on the same day you bought fresh rolls of 200ASA and 400 ASA film and exposed them both correctly, the 400 ASA would be grainier than the 200ASA, you'd find that today's 400ASA would have about the same or less grain than 200ASA (or less!) from ten years ago!

 

In a video camera, much of the "lack of grain" is due to clever signal processing that simply hides the low-level video noise. The problem with this is that it usually takes out a lot of the low-level detail information with it. I presume that when they say "equivalent to 400ASA" they mean that that is the point where the video noise becomes as intrusive as the grain on 400ASA film. (Or that any further attempts at noise reduction cause unacceptable picture artifacts.) But which "400ASA" film?

Edited June 30, 2006 by Jim Murdoch

[Guest Aaron_Farrugia]

going to see it in half an hour, ill look out for what people have said B)

[Max Jacoby]

I recall reading an article with Brian Singer where he compared the Genesis image to 70mm film so I expected a lot.

One has to take whatever Bryan Singer says with a pinch of salt or two. He certainly does, hence why he shut down production for a while to 'recover'.

[Blue Demon]

I watched this video in the theatre yesterday. Can't say I was happy with it. And I have no idea where the money went, the whole thing was essentially a cartoon.

 

I did NOT know it was a video or I would have waited for it to pop up on blockbastard. I knew something was wrong when I watched it and it looked fogged up and there was no real grain.

 

260 million? Where did the money go?

Edited June 30, 2006 by Blue Demon

[Michael Collier]

What exactly does "Rated at 400ASA" mean for a video camera?

 

With film, "400ASA" means that, if you give it the correct amount of exposure for 400ASA, as indicated by an exposure meter, then when the film is passed through a standardized developing process, the pictures will come out with the optimum amount of contrast.

 

Well, 400Asa in film doesnt mean it will give optimum contrast, thats a function of lighting, it simply means that a properly set up incidence meter will yeild the appeture it takes to record an 18% grey card with 1/2 the density under that light and normal proccessing.

 

Similarly thats what it means for video. (although Panavision refers to it as 'T400', I suppose as a nod to the fact they did not derive that value with the same test film uses, since thats quite impossible) They probably framed up a greycard, exposed it until it fit at 50% value (I am sure we will get away from using IRE when it comes to Digital Cinema) then adjusted the asa value on the light meter until they got to the appeture they used. Same way you rate any digital or analog cameras sensitivity.

 

If you try to use 'pull' processing with video, all you end up doing is amplifying the noise. Its a simple proccess, and this can happen before or after you shoot. If you gain up on set, then you get noise. Same as if you use your color correction to pull up the low end (where noise is most apparent)

 

I think the noise is a combination of camera tech not being where it needs to be yet, and DoPs who are used to film not having the proper knowledge to avoid artifacts like that. In time both will get better.

 

Oh, and to the budget I have heard all kinds of figures. 260 I got from IMDB, but probably includes marketing and distrabution costs. Brian Singer says the final budget was 204 from an approved 185. I sitll dont see it all up there. even if it was an 185mil movie, seems expensive. There weren't any huge multi-million dollar names other than spacey. I am at a loss to figure out where the money went (did they bankroll the panavision cam project?)

Edited June 30, 2006 by Michael Collier

[Michael Nash]

There must be some bad prints floating around, because the one I just walked out of looked squeaky clean. I don't know where all this noise and murk was people are talking about, although there was obviously a lot of darkness by design. Yes there were two or three shots that had a tiny bit of noise and/or grain, but as has been noted this can happen with film also. Remember that there's digital post involved, too (as there often is with film as well). You had to really look for the grain, and since the movie was good but not great I spent a lot of type scrutinizing the image.

 

Contrast looked great, even if the shadows "dipped" or looked a tad crushed for my tastes. But I don't think this is a fault of the camera, it's probably more just the look they wanted.

 

Sharpness and resolution-wise, it looked about on par with film gone through a 2K DI, which is still soft-ish to my eyes. Maybe similar to some optical Super 35 blowups, minus the grain. But it was definitely sharper looking than F-900 material.

 

The color depth of video is always different from film, and yields flatter or more uniform-colored faces. I think this artifact may be part of that cartoony, clean look that Singer responded to. Definitely not harsh realism, but slightly "painterly" in an electronic way. You often get the same look from film that's gone through a DI...

 

Mind you this is really scrutinizing it -- I don't think most audiences would have any clue it wasn't a "normal" film.

 

As for the "ASA" of a video camera, we've gone over this. "E.I." would perhaps be a better term, and all it means is a way to gauge the light sensitivity of the camera to determine a shooting stop. It can vary, depending on the camera setup and desired exposure (similar to film). I use it all the time when shooting video as a reference for judging light levels, although "ASA" is technically not the correct term to use.

 

For some thing that is going to stand or fall on its visuals, using anything less than film origination seems a ludicrously risky proposition to me.

 

So I guess Pixar is just completely bonkers, then... B)

[Evan Winter]

hey michael,

 

i think you're right and i'd even go so far as to bet my brand new lightmeter that there isn't a single 'average moviegoer' that would guess that this movie was shot on anything other than film.

 

in fact, i'll wager that the majority of professional filmmakers (who have been living under a rock for the past two years and so have heard nothing about superman) wouldn't know that this movie (when projected on film) didn't originate on film.

 

we're sitting here on a cinematography forum purposefully looking for issues and so of course we're going to find some...

 

however, sit a bunch of unaware directors, producers, actors, and production designers in this movie and i don't believe they will realize that it was shot digitally.

 

i was waiting to watch this film. i was waiting before i said the following:

 

in 5 years professionals shooting on 35mm film will be shooting on the inferior format. film, however, will likely last much much longer than this because the overall workflow (preproduction all the way up to exhibition) will still be 'smoother' if projects are originated on 35mm film.