The look of digital 4k vs the rest

[Mike Brennan]

Anyone care to begin to define how 4k digital will compare in "look"

vs single chip HD at 24p (genesis D20)

vs 3 chip HD 24 at 24p (f900)

vs 3 chip HD at 24p @360degree shutter. (f900 with shutter)

 

 

Now consider 4k single chip @360 degree shutter vs the above.

 

 

Miami Vice and Collateral are similar but usefull examples of 2/3 inch @360 degree shutter.

 

Having seen 4k on a digital projector it could look a little too real, a bit like a 70mm movie that to my eyes anyway occasionlly starts to look electonic due to lack of grain.

 

 

Mike Brennan

[Mitch Gross]

What flavor of 4K are we talking about? This is in RED, but what about Dalsa or Phantom 65? The look of Phantom 65 will be very different as it has a much larger sensor (51.5mm across, same as 65mm film) and it is completely uncompressed raw instead of wavelet compression.

[jan von krogh]

Anyone care to begin to define how 4k digital will compare in "look"

"If you shoot at 4K, but want a ?film look?, then you finish at 2K and add some grain. It?s easy. It looks like film. However, if you finish and screen at 4K. the result is like shooting in 65mm, like the old epics used to do. It?s pretty exciting, and will have a major impact on indie filming ? but we could see no reason why you couldn?t use these cameras for any type of movie. I?m seriously considering using RED for The Lovely Bones."

 

peter jackson.

[Stephen Williams]

"If you shoot at 4K, but want a ?film look?, then you finish at 2K and add some grain. It?s easy. It looks like film. However, if you finish and screen at 4K. the result is like shooting in 65mm, like the old epics used to do. It?s pretty exciting, and will have a major impact on indie filming ? but we could see no reason why you couldn?t use these cameras for any type of movie. I?m seriously considering using RED for The Lovely Bones."

 

peter jackson.

 

Hi Jan,

 

Perhaps PJ could explain why so many films that go through a DI no longer look like film?

 

Stephen

[Brian Drysdale]

Hi Jan,

 

Perhaps PJ could explain why so many films that go through a DI no longer look like film?

 

Stephen

 

 

I've seen a few of those.

[Keith Mottram]

am i the only person who thinks it's wierd that jan is signing his posts peter jackson?

 

steven spielberg

[Max Jacoby]

Haha

 

Yes he does seem a bit confused at times.

[Nate Downes]

"If you shoot at 4K, but want a ?film look?, then you finish at 2K and add some grain. It?s easy. It looks like film. However, if you finish and screen at 4K. the result is like shooting in 65mm, like the old epics used to do. It?s pretty exciting, and will have a major impact on indie filming ? but we could see no reason why you couldn?t use these cameras for any type of movie. I?m seriously considering using RED for The Lovely Bones."

 

peter jackson.

 

Only to demonstrate how little Jackson actually understands about film. "film look" is thrown around now like it's some kind of fashion accessory. The truth is, there is no "film look" any more than there is an "oil painting" look. Each artist utilizes their tools differently, giving you, often times, radically different results. The short trailer I just shot has a radically different look than Lord of the Rings, altho they were both shot with the same film stock. Yet, both are just as much a "film look" as the other.

 

Why can't we can the rhetoric and instead focus on results?

[Max Jacoby]

Why can't we can the rhetoric and instead focus on results?

Kinda hard to get results if one hasn't got a camera yet ;)

[Ruairi Robinson]

<<<<Only to demonstrate how little Jackson actually understands about film.>>>>

 

Peter Jackson. Pah. What does he know. You tell him Nate. Tell the multi Oscar winning director of 10 feature films. I'm sure

he's dying to learn the "truth".

Edited August 3, 2007 by Ruairi Robinson

[Nate Downes]

Peter Jackson. Pah. What does he know. You tell him Nate. Tell the multi Oscar winning director of 10 feature films. I'm sure

he's dying to learn the "truth".

 

And how many for Cinematography?

 

*checks*

Directing, Screenplay, Picture... nope, no Cinematography.

 

I would not expect an oscar winner for sound to know much about makeup, would you? Jackson is a damned good director and writer. Does not mean he knows as much about filmstocks as, say, Andrew Lesnie his DoP.

 

Ask me about sound, I could go "NAGRA to mic, point mic that way, hear things". But I do know a few things about cameras, and one thing I know is that this "Film Look" concept is incredibly misleading. I say, utilize every camera to their strengths, minimize their weakness, and let it rest. I'm tired of the format wars, can't we all just make movies?

[Eirik Tyrihjel]

And how many for Cinematography?

 

*checks*

Directing, Screenplay, Picture... nope, no Cinematography.

 

So he probably knows nothing about cinematography - not a thing, to him it´s just greek...

[Ruairi Robinson]

And how many for Cinematography?

 

*checks*

Directing, Screenplay, Picture... nope, no Cinematography.

 

I would not expect an oscar winner for sound to know much about makeup, would you? Jackson is a damned good director and writer. Does not mean he knows as much about filmstocks as, say, Andrew Lesnie his DoP.

 

Ask me about sound, I could go "NAGRA to mic, point mic that way, hear things". But I do know a few things about cameras, and one thing I know is that this "Film Look" concept is incredibly misleading. I say, utilize every camera to their strengths, minimize their weakness, and let it rest. I'm tired of the format wars, can't we all just make movies?

 

Whatever. You have no idea what he does or does not know.

 

Tell me - can you usually tell if something is shot on film or not? Ok it's getting harder now as digital cinematography is starting to get better. But usually. You can tell. Right? whatever grade has been applied, whatever stock it was shot on, it still looks like film.

[Nate Downes]

Whatever. You have no idea what he does or does not know.

 

Tell me - can you usually tell if something is shot on film or not? Ok it's getting harder now as digital cinematography is starting to get better. But usually. You can tell. Right? whatever grade has been applied, whatever stock it was shot on, it still looks like film.

Actually, if they know what they're doing, I'm too busy enjoying the movie to even notice. I was sucked so far into Crank you had to pry my fingers off of the seat in front of me, and that was about as video as you could get, and looking back on it, you could tell it was video from start to finish. But it was so damned good, who cared?

[Sam Wells]

Tell me - can you usually tell if something is shot on film or not? Ok it's getting harder now as digital cinematography is starting to get better. But usually. You can tell. Right? whatever grade has been applied, whatever stock it was shot on, it still looks like film.

 

Not addressed to me but -- Sure. I can tell. More than usually (so far).

 

But it does not follow from this that the look of (35mm) film as we call it is equivalent to 2K digital plus artificial grain. Frankly it's an offhand statement at best, 10 Oscars not withstanding.

 

-Sam

[Luke Haywood]

Not addressed at anyone in particular, but this dort of thing is precisely whayt pissed me off about Reduser.net and certain other forums.

 

 

There's nothing much more boring than an online debate wich mostly consists of hyperlinks, varuious other "appeals to (dubious) authority" and quotes from the ubiquitious "infallable but inaccessible third party".

 

While we're at it, why don't we ask Tom Cruise and Haile Berry for their opinions on the film look :P

 

As far as I'm concerned a director would be able to do exactly the same job even if there's no film in the camera!

 

And as for the "just add abit of grain and nobody will know the difference", I seem to remember hearing something very similar nearly 10 years ago from a certain small-but-perfectly-formed Sci Fi producer, just before he went on to prove that fatherhood is not such a good idea the second time round :P

[Sam Wells]

I'll discuss the film look with Halie Berry any time B)

 

To get back to the original subject, so far the only 4K capture -> 4K projection I've seen is from the Dalsa Origin, and while I have lots (probably too many) thoughts on this, all I could _state_ is that it was technically first rate (including surprisingly good highlight response). But at the same, way too technical, then, in it's nearly textureless image.... like some ideal TV...

 

 

But I don't think there's any way to quantify this stuff - especially given RAW capture - aside from the "digital developing" i.e. what you do with it in what has been called "Post" (a word I never liked) but really what is your digital film lab so to speak....

 

...In that sense, and as sensors will invariably come and go, I wonder if RED's biggest coup isn't in fact Redcode ??

 

-Sam

[Nate Downes]

Sam, you just hit upon the root of the issue. RED's biggest coup, in my opinion, has nothing to do with it's resolution, or redcode, but with the nature of the project itself. A modular, upgradable design, giving you much of the advantage that I turn to film for in my own projects. In time, it will come out, the bugs will be worked on, and we shall see where it stands.

 

But it never will be my camera of choice, for a phrase you yourself have put: texture

 

I love the texture of film. I love the grain, the origanic method of how the salt crystals merge and weave, forming a complex matrix. Even at the atomic level, it's absolutely beautiful. While digital might be "technically" correct, I'm not here for correctness, I'm here for artistry. Telling a story is fine, but why just read aloud Hamlet when you can instead have Sir Laurence Olivier giving the doomed prince life before your eyes. This living quality is what makes film magic for me, and no computerized toy can ever hope to match it.

[Sam Wells]

But it never will be my camera of choice, for a phrase you yourself have put: texture

 

I love the texture of film. I love the grain, the origanic method of how the salt crystals merge and weave, forming a complex matrix. Even at the atomic level, it's absolutely beautiful. While digital might be "technically" correct, I'm not here for correctness, I'm here for artistry. Telling a story is fine, but why just read aloud Hamlet when you can instead have Sir Laurence Olivier giving the doomed prince life before your eyes. This living quality is what makes film magic for me, and no computerized toy can ever hope to match it.

 

I'm with you in one sense but in another I see this as a challenge to do new things; as I'm no longer working in an exclusively photochemical world, I mean I'm painting with cloning brushes and layering in ways no optical printing ever could touch; the question for me is - do I continue to let the capture device (film camera) do the steering so to speak ?

 

I have full respect for anyone who wants to work with "film-as-film" but I'm just too intrigued by this stuff - which is, in many ways, in it's infancy (in the sense that it can now break away from "video" / television...

 

-Sam

[jan von krogh]

But it never will be my camera of choice, for a phrase you yourself have put: texture

 

I love the texture of film. I love the grain, the origanic method of how the salt crystals merge and weave, forming a complex matrix. Even at the atomic level, it's absolutely beautiful. While digital might be "technically" correct, I'm not here for correctness, I'm here for artistry.

 

As we often have to match 35mm/16mm/1080p/hdcam together, we

- add scanned 35mm grain to match digital material to film

or

- remove grain from 35mm to match digital,

when done correctly, both aquisition methods blend very well.

 

However, with film and sensor based shooting it can be pretty tough to get rid of the inherit artifacts: grain on high asa film, noise produced by electronic gain.

So, the texture, or grain, or noise - is a distortion of the image which i can be easily added if called for -after- the images have been shot, but can be highly problematic if shot -in- the image.

 

So i am all for shooting noise/grainfree images - and then add this layer of texture later on, when it is indeed an artistic choice, not a technical limitation.