Superman Returns

[Boone Hudgins]

The film print I saw was not that great, but that aside it looked fairly good, I thought. I noticed the noise in some of the shadows, but it wasn't really that bothersome. Only a few things made it look noticably like video, like one shot had some digital-looking posterized clouds, and there were quite a few strange-looking vertical flares. I thought only lower-end video cameras had that vertical flare, but it seems to be a common mark of video chips.

[Max Jacoby]

I thought only lower-end video cameras had that vertical flare, but it seems to be a common mark of video chips.

Of all the high-end digital cameras (D-20, Dalsa, Viper) ONLY the Genesis has that problem...

[Boone Hudgins]

Of all the high-end digital cameras (D-20, Dalsa, Viper) ONLY the Genesis has that problem...

That's interesting (and good) to hear. I thought a couple of times during the movie that I'd be more excited about seeing something shot with the D-20 on the big screen...maybe with anamorphic lenses.

 

I'm hoping somebody's going to be working on that here soon...

[Guest Jim Murdoch]

Or were you so anxious to finally get a look at it after you've been bashing the Genesis for so long that you took the little wifey on a trip to the US?

I wish.

 

As it happens, of late I've been freeloading off various family members in Australia. I never realized it hadn't been shown everywhere yet, that probably explains the lack of vigorous discussion.

 

I haven't been "bashing" the Genesis so much as asking pointedly what the hell is so special about it, compared to Sony's earlier efforts. The pictures look pretty much the way I always expected they'd look, that is to say, pretty damn ordinary.

 

I get somewhat bored with all the inane "Come the revolution" crap you read in these sorts of forums, particularly when the "revolutionaries" turn out to be armed with slingshots and popguns.

[Max Jacoby]

That's interesting (and good) to hear. I thought a couple of times during the movie that I'd be more excited about seeing something shot with the D-20 on the big screen...maybe with anamorphic lenses.

Same here. Now that we have seen what the Genesis looks like on the big screen, it would be interesting to finally get a look at the Dalsa and the D-20. But on the other hand Arri have always told me that they view the D-20 as a television camera and not designed for the big screen. Obviously that will not prevent people from using it for theatrical projects, but at least Arri are not trying to market their product as a replacement for film, which Panavision clearly does, although both are merely HD cameras.

[Keith Mottram]

Arri have always told me that they view the D-20 as a television camera and not designed for the big screen. Obviously that will not prevent people from using it for theatrical projects, but at least Arri are not trying to market their product as a replacement for film, which Panavision clearly does, although both are merely HD cameras.

 

Not what I got from Arri, it is a digital camera- not 'hd', tv, or film. i was told that they are not pushing it into film productions (or indeed anything for that matter) but it is now being used on a couple of features and also how many shows can you think of that would shoot on anamorphics at 3K?

 

keith

[David Mullen ASC]

Trouble is that the rental prices of the Genesis and D20 don't really lend themselves to television except for commercial work.

[Ignacio Aguilar]

I've just seen it in 35mm.

 

I wasn't expecting too much from the film itself, but I never thought that I would dislike it so much. Most of the film played like some kind of fast-cut remake of the first film lacking the epic tone of the Krypton scenes and any character development or real drama, which were IMO some of the strenghs Donner brought to his film. You can't even make a comparison between the (poor) production design of the new version and John Barry's sets for the 1978 film (Krypton again, Luthor's house, the Daily Planet, etc). The Singer film doesn't show every dollar sunk in its production.

 

But this is a cinematography forum: the Genesis (as it has been used in "Superman Returns") looks to my eye a bit like Kodak 5229 (500 ASA) looks when gone through a 2K DI in Super-35: low-con, pastel and and soft, without a real punch. Some scenes were better than others (things improved dramatically when Sigel used a more contrasty lighting), but the overall film looks bland in my opinion and the lack of grain from the digital capture plus its softness doesn't help either in achieving texture.

 

Some scenes looked very cinema-like while others had a strong digital look (especially when CGIs were involved), so I suspect that this look was completely conscious and intended by the filmakers and it would have looked more or less the same if it had been filmed in Super 35 and finished with a DI. That way it may had had better skintones (some close-ups were particularly bad in that regard), but it wouldn't have look radically different.

 

Though I wasn't expecting either that Sigel would surpass what Geoffrey Unsworth did in the 1978 film I don't think that I should blame the Genesis camera; it has more to do with modern tendencies of shooting complete sequences in front of greenscreens (take a look at the very fake missile-launch scene on the boat) than shooting formats. And that applies also to Peter Jackson's "King Kong" (among others), which suffered the same problem though it was shot on film. That way, why bother shooting 65mm or 35mm anamorphic if the images will end up outputted at 2K?

[Michael Collier]

I personally was excited by the look. Not because it blew me away but because I wasn't greatly offended by it like other digital movies(except certain shots, which were noted earlier) In my mind it says that digital is viable, and getting better. If I had 200million to make a film, I don't think it would be my first choice though. I think also there is a real lack of understanding with the DoPs who use these cameras. They use them like film cameras. I believe that in the future, even with no changes made to the camera the looks could be improved just with DoPs getting greater experience shooting digitally. Perfect example is Mann on collateral and the new miami vice, who had his dp pull the gain up and increase the shutter length. He claims it was for a certain look, but to me the artifacts were more objectionable than the advantages he got in the look.

 

In the end digital is a long way from replacing film, but it is quickly getting to the point where its acceptable for certain productions, and hopefully it will work side by side and we can drop this debate, and get back to what film should be about (like some new stories perhaps? I haven't seen many movies with original ideas for some time now.)

[Brad Grimmett]

Many good points have already been made, so I'll keep this short....

I saw a film print at the Grove in Los Angeles.

My biggest problem with the film was mainly one particular shot. At the end of the movie when Superman flies away his skin looks very plasticky. It looks almost as if the whole shot was CGI and the actor wasn't even in it. It was awful. It looked like a cartoon. But that's mainly just that shot and maybe one or two others to a lesser extent. Other than that I thought it looked pretty good. It looks different than film, but really, what movie with that many effects really looks like film anymore? As a matter of fact, a friend of mine shot a bunch of effects shots for the movie on 35mm, so there is certainly some film in there, although I'd be hard pressed to point out where it was used.

I saw the movie with a female director friend of mine, and her biggest complaint was Lois Lane's hair. She said it was a horrible wig. Strangely, I didn't even notice a problem. I thought it looked fine...but hey, I'm a guy, what do I know? Her other complaint was that the dedication came after the cast credits instead of before them.

I'm only writing this to point out that there are a lot of things people are paying attention to when watching a movie. The format the film is shot in only matters if it doesn't work for the story and if it stands out horribly. I love film, and want to keep working with it, but it's nice to see digital making a noticeable improvement.

[Guest Jim Murdoch]

Many good points have already been made, so I'll keep this short....

I saw the movie with a female director friend of mine, and her biggest complaint was Lois Lane's hair. She said it was a horrible wig.

 

I thought her hair was quite lovely; it never even ocurred to me that it was a wig!

I've just had a second viewing (not my idea but I wasn't paying:-), and I saw a few things I missed first time round. There was definitely vertical streaking on some of the night scenes, but it only extended a short way above and below the light source! I know full well what causes that phenomenon, and there is no conceivable mechanism that will automatically suppress it for part of the way like that, so it must have been manually painted out in post.

 

I don't know if this was some sort of in-joke but another thing I didn't pick up on first time round was that the new space shuttle was called "Genesis" and when it was on all the newsroom screens the caption was: "Genesis in trouble" :)

 

My Australian son-in-law pointed out that the radio on the Kents' farm clearly has Australian AM radio callsigns on it!

 

I never really appreciated Parker Posey's performance the first time round; she really was quite good.

 

And I hate the way they insisted on mutilating the original DC comics storyline. In that, Lex Luthor was a mad criminal genius who was permanently pissed-off at Superman because he blamed him for losing his hair in an accident. A bit over-the-top, but in a world shared with the likes of Osama Bin Laden, at least plausible.

 

Kevin Spacey just came across as a cheap thug with an obviously shaven head. It's not his fault; obviously he was doing the best he could with the script he was given. And I really don't think a probate court would be likely to accept a will changed just before someone died like that!

 

On the same session I saw the trailers for "Miami Vice" and I can't say I was terribly impressed with what I saw there.

[David Mullen ASC]

What I liked about the movie was that obviously Singer had a lot of affection for the Donner version. When you read what the other previous directors were planning on doing to Superman's suit (like making it armoured, ala Batman) etc. you should feel glad that Singer ended up with the project.

 

And I liked Tom Sigel's painterly approach. As far as sharpness goes, Unsworth's original photography wasn't crisp either, not with a #2 Fog over everything -- this movie is actually sharper than the original. In some ways, Sigel seems more inspired by the look of the original Fleischer cartoons than the 1978 movie. I agree that the moodier, contrastier scenes look better technically.

 

That said, the look of the Krypton, Smallville, and Fortress of Solitude in the 1978 version was more compelling and evocative. It's partly just a directorial and script thing, obviously the original had more powerful events going on in those scenes (death of Krypton & parents, death of Pa Kent, etc.) But nothing in the new film has the feeling of that crane (Louma?) shot as Ma Kent and Clark hug and the camera slowly sweeps around and over them against a stormy sky in the wheat fields, dissolving to the glacier.

 

Like a lot of Superman stories, it hits its peak when Superman first appears and does his biggest stunt, like the Helicopter rescue in the Donner version and the space shuttle / 747 rescue here. Then the PLOT kicks in and for some reason, coming up with a decent problem for Superman to solve always seems a problem. There was a lot I liked about this new version, but when it got to the end, I felt like it fell short of knocking the ball out of the park. However, at least it wasn't a heartless exercise like "Pirates 2". Singer was reverential to what Donner did, but he didn't bring the same level of energy to the project that Donner did. For one thing, Christopher Reeve as Clark Kent in the Daily Planet scenes is very funny and those scenes have a Howard Hawks kind of energy to them that Singer doesn't quite capture.

[Stephen Williams]

There was definitely vertical streaking on some of the night scenes, but it only extended a short way above and below the light source! I know full well what causes that phenomenon, and there is no conceivable mechanism that will automatically suppress it for part of the way like that, so it must have been manually painted out in post.

 

I

 

Hi,

 

I heard yesterday that there was a lot of retouching paid for by PV. I think you will hear more in the next few days when the NDA's run out!

 

Stephen

[David Mullen ASC]

My feeling is just that if it had been directed as originally planned by McG, Brett Ratner, Kevin Smith, or even Tim Burton, then you'd REALLY be complaining now, Tim...

 

And if you thought Singer's Metropolis was stylized (and I didn't think it came close to the cartoony world of Schumaker's Batman movies) then imagine Tim Burton's Metropolis...

 

You're a bigger fan of Paynter than I am -- the only thing he shot that I kinda liked (more for the direction) was "Little Shop of Horrors". Although he didn't ruin Superman or anything, just made it look slightly cheaper than Unsworth; I'm sure Lester was partially to blame, with his fondness for multiple cameras with long lenses and zooms -- couldn't have been easy for Paynter, not that Donner's complex camera choreography would have been easy for Unsworth. But I don't think Paynter was working at the same technical level as Unsworth or had the same aesthetic skills. The key word to describe Unsworth's work was "elegence". I think he was a real artist with a painter's eye, same goes for David Watkin, Ossie Morris -- whereas Paynter was more of the high-level craftsman type that the U.K. seemed to have a lot of at the time, like Alan Hume. Just my opinion.

 

I agree that all the Superman films have some serious failings as far as screenwriting goes. While I'm one of those people who prefer Superman 1 to Superman 2, I can understand people who prefer the plot of the second one more -- the execution was more of the problem on that one for me, sloppy things like Superman having big sweatstains under his armpits at the end of the movie when he picks up Zod, or all the dumb cutaways to slapstick business when the villians are blowing things around. But as a general plot, it had the potential to be a richer movie than the first one.

 

Looking at those trailers/clips for Superman III and IV, one problem I see, especially with IV, is the lack of iconic framing of Superman compared to what Donner (and Singer) did. In those clips from IV, Superman just stands around in normal over-the-shoulder shots as if he were Joe Blow in the room, but wearing blue tights. It's on the level of the 1950's Superman TV show in terms of visual sophistication.

 

As a side note, I saw "Superman Returns" again in 2K digital projection today and thought it looked a little better that way compared to the 35mm prints. Goes back to the idea that perhaps digital photography (and animated movies) benefits from digital projection, whereas film seems to go with film projection. The lighting was actually more contrasty than I remembered, soft, yes, but with a lot of fall-off in scenes. Again, the highlight of the movie for me was the rescue of the plane / space shuttle. Someday I'd love to see the original opening of Superman's crystal spaceship visiting the remnants of Krypton.

[Guest Jim Murdoch]

Hi,

 

I heard yesterday that there was a lot of retouching paid for by PV. I think you will hear more in the next few days when the NDA's run out!

 

Stephen

I don't know about that. The problems is, even when the NDAs are no longer in force, a lot of people are hoping for repeat work, particularly in Australia where they're doing it pretty hard at the moment.

 

I have heard rumours of random column dropouts in the Genesi which come up looking like a severe mag scratch, and that they had to write special software to substitute the adjacent columns.

 

Somehow I don't think we're ever going to hear the whole story.

Edited July 15, 2006 by Jim Murdoch

[David Mullen ASC]

I've chatted with Tom Sigel twice about the production and he's a very open, honest guy. And often self-deprecating in a funny way.

 

The pixel column dropout problem was so slight, the vertical line so fine, that it wasn't caught when viewing HD dailies projected on the big screen during production -- it was caught by the efx people reviewing the footage, at which point they went back and looked at the earlier footage and found some lines there too now & then. It was a fault mostly in one of the cameras they were using. Yes, software was developed by each efx house to get rid of it. When I brought it up to him, he seemed surprised that people were making such a big deal about it. It's one of those rumors that has gotten exaggerated with each telling. Warner Bros. is not soured on the Genesis because of these fixes, and the vertical pixel column drop-out problem seems to now be fixed in the cameras.

 

Far from "hiding" this problem, it was described in the American Cinematographer article on the film! I'm not sure why you're always trying to insinuate something regarding Panavision and the Genesis. I mean, we've had three features now released in theaters shot on the darn thing; you can see for yourself what the camera does. It's all out in the open now, for better or worse, flaws and all. If you want to rent the thing and shoot with it yourself, go ahead. It's about as "secretive" as the F900...

 

Other items about the production:

 

He mentioned the underwater shots being done on something else, like a F950, because of the lack of an underwater housing for the Genesis at the time.

 

He has talked about how he probably underexposed the early scenes at Ma Kent's house a little too much and after that started being more conservative with the exposures.

 

He said that he doesn't really like blue moonlight and played that fairly monochromatic in timing. He also mentioned to me that the earlier lighting / timing was warmer for many scenes but Singer decided he wanted it more neutral by the end. Originally there was going to be more digital diffusion added too but they backed away from that.

 

Some of the problems they had were basically because the cameras were so new that some of the bugs hadn't been worked out yet. I think Panavision was a little caught by surprise that Superman was going to use them so quickly. As for the vertical flaring around car headlights, you can see them in the movie -- they didn't go around erasing all of them. From what I've heard, it's a similar problem as when anamorphic lenses get that horizontal line flare; partially depends on the brightness of the point of light, etc.

[Max Jacoby]

As for the vertical flaring around car headlights, you can see them in the movie -- they didn't go around erasing all of them. From what I've heard, it's a similar problem as when anamorphic lenses get that horizontal line flare; partially depends on the brightness of the point of light, etc.

I can hear it right now: the vertical smear is becoming the 'new' anamorphic flare...

[Arni Heimir]

Yesterday I saw Superman Returns. It was projected digitally. I found that like all HD cameras, the Genesis didn't handle the sun/daylight scenes very well. I remember a shot when Kitty is sitting on the beach and it didn't look as majestic as the studio work.

 

I feel that the film would have benefitted from mixing film for daylight scenes and the genesis for interior work and night scenes.

 

The theatre projected the pirates trailer digitally before the presentation and I must say that I was impressed with the super 35 to 2k projection.

 

Overall, I found the digital presentation is enjoyable then its rudimentary counterpart.

 

As for the vertial flares, I liked it.

[Max Jacoby]

Overall, I found the digital presentation is enjoyable then its rudimentary counterpart.

rudimentary?

 

I would hardly call film projection 'rudimentary' since it delivers an experience that digital projeciton still doesn't match as far as resolution, color depth, contrast and black level are concerned.

[Arni Heimir]

I found the digital projection yesterday to be perfect. Absolutely perfect!

 

I think that digital projection is going to make going to the movies and more enjoyable experiance.

[Max Jacoby]

I found the digital projection yesterday to be perfect. Absolutely perfect!

Boy am I glad that you don't sit in the DCI!

[Guest Kai.w]

rudimentary?

 

I would hardly call film projection 'rudimentary' since it delivers an experience that digital projeciton still doesn't match as far as resolution, color depth, contrast and black level are concerned.

I don't know where all you people seem to watch those great film projections. If aliased end titles are your measurement for comparing resolutions... more than 2k in an average film projection? I seriously doubt it. I'd guess even less at least for what I get to see here usually.

Almost all the digital projections I`ve seen so far looked sharper then what I get to see off film in a normal cinema (this might be just a subjective impression due to lack of artifacts).

And lets not even talk about less grain, dirt, scratches and for once a stable image. Ah... I hear the esoterics chiming in calling that "lifeless"...

I agree with the color/contrast aspects though.

 

-k

[Andy_Alderslade]

If anyone is curious I found several of the old Dave Fleischer Superman cartoons on the Internet Archive

 

http://www.archive.org/details/superman_th...anical_monsters

 

The lighting in them is beautiful, I can really understand why Fleischer was considered Disney's only competitor.

 

Personally I never really understand the popularity of Superman, the whole thing of being the ultimate superhero makes it naturally undramatic - afterall there is no challenge or strugle for him to overcome, the stories of the movies/comic books are infact usually how the villians are trying to create worthy challenges for him. I always thought how the best Greek Myths were always about the mortals that the Gods used to tease and challenge, not about the Gods themselves. Even his more humane qualities of 'being the mild mannered reporter' fail to give him any redeaming qualities, as he's instigating and pretending these limitations rather than undermined by them.

Edited July 16, 2006 by Andy_Alderslade

[Max Jacoby]

I don't know where all you people seem to watch those great film projections.

I on the other hand have no idea where people see all these horrible film projections that they always complain about. Some provincial mom&pop cinemas?

 

I just got back from the Picturehouse in Greenwich where I watched 'Il Gattopardo' by Visconti. The projection was top notch, the print quality was good, considering that it was an old print and best of all the seats were huge and you had a footrest.

 

In general I've found the quality of projection in London to be very good. Only once in all my years here did I walk out of a screening because the projection was jittery. In Luxembourg the projection at the biggest multiplex is even better. They have huge screens and incredibly sharp projection. I have seen both anamorphic and 2K digital projeciton on the same screen and there is no doubt in my mind that good film projection is sharper than current digital 2K projection. Obviously prints struck from a 2K DI do not look as sharp as they could, but both 4K DIs and films that went the photochemical route, especially anamorphic ones, do look very crisp.

[David Mullen ASC]

When I'm in Los Angeles, I have no problem seeing great 35mm projection and first-rate release prints. But when I was in Santa Fe, NM last fall, I dispaired ever seeing anything sharp or not washed out, and it wasn't a whole lot better when I was in New Orleans.

 

People in the major metropolitan areas get spoiled.

 

Of course, there is no guarantee that these bad cinemas out in the hinterlands are going to do any better of a job showing movies digitally, but at least they won't get the reject release prints that don't make QC for the big cities...

 

I swore off digital projection for a year or so because it really had problems with dark photography and bright areas as well. But having just seen the 35mm print and the 2K digital projected version of "Superman Returns" within a short period, I was surprised at how similar 2K projection has gotten these days. I didn't see the compression problems or crushed shadow details, etc. that I used to see. Of course, this was something shot and posted in HD...

 

Some of the early digital releases were 35mm productions posted in film and then transferred for the digital projection version, and thus the grading was not even the same. Now we have movies that have gone through a single color-correction for a D.I. and then a digital projection version and a film-out are made from the same correction (with some tweaking for DLP, I know).