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Bond 22


John Holland

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Not sure if this the correct section to post this on ,anyway been talking to Roberto Schaefer ASC who is over here to shoot the next Bond film . He really wanted to shoot it anamorphic with Hawks , but cant because the VFX people have said it will take 20/40 per cent longer to do their effects if its anamorphic ! this has been going on for a long time now VFX people dictating the format films are shot in . I can tell he is not a happy bunny . p.s only a 16 week post on this ,which is crazy on a big movie like this .

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Not sure if this the correct section to post this on ,anyway been talking to Roberto Schaefer ASC who is over here to shoot the next Bond film . He really wanted to shoot it anamorphic with Hawks , but cant because the VFX people have said it will take 20/40 per cent longer to do their effects if its anamorphic ! this has been going on for a long time now VFX people dictating the format films are shot in . I can tell he is not a happy bunny . p.s only a 16 week post on this ,which is crazy on a big movie like this .

 

There has been a Super-35/anamorphic battle with vfx people for years. I'm just surprised that the Bond people, who have been dealing with anamorphic for decades, are so quick to drop the format after one Super-35 movie.

 

I remember an article by Peter Suschitsky where he shot some comparison tests (this was pre-D.I.) for "Mars Attacks!" to convince everyone, including Tim Burton, that anamorphic photography would yield a better release print, but the ILM efx supervisor was saying that they had to shoot in Super-35 because of all the stop motion miniature work would have to be in spherical, an objection that didn't make much sense (efx work for anamorphic movie has often been in spherical VistaVision or 65mm anyway) -- but once the decision was made by ILM to do the Martians with CGI instead of stop-motion miniatures, Suschitsky was allowed to shoot in anamorphic.

 

This is the second feature where Roberto was hoping to mix anamorphic and Super-35 photography ("The Kite Runner" was the other) and in both cases, had to settle for Super-35 only.

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Guest Tim Partridge

I am very impressed that Mr. Schaefer has gone out of his way to at least pursue anamorphic on this, even if he was overruled. It's very commendable and shows his awareness and respect for the Bond heritage- being a member of this forum perhaps he felt obliged having read one of the many terrifying know-all Bond threads around here! ;)

 

Remember that CASINO ROYALE was not super35 for reasons of visual effects, but more to do with Mr. Meheux's preference for the DI flexibility and also the old Techniscope look.

 

Ken Adam's most lavish work on the Bonds was always his sets designed for scope. Additionally by shooting super35, it makes you wonder why they bothered choosing Adam-alike visual stylist Dennis Gassner over Peter Lamont...

 

Still, let's not forget, Ted Moore's best Bond work was spherical, excluding his Roger Moore "efforts". Like Mr. Meheux, as long as Mr. Schaefer remembers FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE (and not MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN) I'm sure the film can still look characteristically "Bond".

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Bond films were never supposed to be about the visual FX. They were supposed to be about beautiful locations and beautiful women, and bad guys with cool headquarters and all that.

 

The Bond franchise hit rock bottom with the last Brosnan film (no fault of Brosnan's) with all those ludicrous CGI FX shots. Bond was never supposed to compete with Transformers and Stars Wars as a CGI FX vehicle.

 

I was pleased to see the last installment move away from CGI, so it seems odd at the FX people would dictate the format in Bond 22. Maybe a bad sign? :huh:

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Guest Tim Partridge
Bond films were never supposed to be about the visual FX. They were supposed to be about beautiful locations and beautiful women, and bad guys with cool headquarters and all that.

 

The Bond franchise hit rock bottom with the last Brosnan film (no fault of Brosnan's) with all those ludicrous CGI FX shots. Bond was never supposed to compete with Transformers and Stars Wars as a CGI FX vehicle.

 

I was pleased to see the last installment move away from CGI, so it seems odd at the FX people would dictate the format in Bond 22. Maybe a bad sign? :huh:

 

Ironic, as there were about the same amount of visual effects in CASINO ROYALE (around 580 shots) as the obvious looking DIE ANOTHER DAY.

 

Bond films have always been about the trick shots. Check this out:

http://es.geocities.com/jamesbondfiles/bondfiles.html

 

The difference compared to DIE ANOTHER DAY is that more than often the visual effects are something you don't notice in a Bond movie.

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I'm surprised that the Anamorphic versus Spherical argument is even still an issue, in this day and age the tools are there to deal with anamorphic plates. Maybe there is a cost or pipeline issue that I'm not aware of, but off the top of my head I can't think of any technical reason why anamorphic lenses would still cause a problem.

 

The issue could just be an artifact from the days when it was hard to deal with anamorphic plates in digital VFX.

Edited by Will Earl
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Ironic, as there were about the same amount of visual effects in CASINO ROYALE (around 580 shots) as the obvious looking DIE ANOTHER DAY.

 

Bond films have always been about the trick shots. Check this out:

http://es.geocities.com/jamesbondfiles/bondfiles.html

 

The difference compared to DIE ANOTHER DAY is that more than often the visual effects are something you don't notice in a Bond movie.

 

I'm not against FX in Bond films. But I'm against the kind of CGI porn the last couple of Brosnan pics turned into. My favorite Bond pics are the ones I remember seeing as a kid - For Your Eyes Only and The Spy Who Loved Me. The latter has a lot of effects, but I still love it because it has the awesome locations, beautiful babes, and a good spy story where Bond actually spies and uses his wits rather than just being another Rambo/special ops guy.

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Careful, Max, you don't know what they're being asked to do for what money. I'd rather have convincing, seamless effects on a S35 plate than feeble ones on an anamorphic plate, if the anamorphic correction is going to take up more time than they can really afford and affect the overall standard of the result.

 

But it's hard not to agree.

 

Phil

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What is it exactly that causes the delay/difficulties for FX people? I understand anamorphic plates would be squeezed, so is it just delay it getting them unsqueezed, or do they have to do additional processing to their fx to make them fit in? I guess I'm just unfamilier with the process/workflow post/fx has to go through.

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What is it exactly that causes the delay/difficulties for FX people? I understand anamorphic plates would be squeezed, so is it just delay it getting them unsqueezed, or do they have to do additional processing to their fx to make them fit in? I guess I'm just unfamilier with the process/workflow post/fx has to go through.

 

It's just that the anamorphic lens (particularly the wider-angle ones) have unique optical distortions, especially barrel distortion but also the way the image shifts focus, that have to be analyzed for each lens used so it can be modelled in the computer. It's not the end of the world though, mainly it involves shooting some grid charts, etc. And there will be more messaging in post of the comps.

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I was working on a film today that was shooting anamorphic (C and E series) and we were shooting vfx plates on spherical primos. I asked the vfx superviser from Double Negative about the issues regarding the mixture of formats and he said as long as you have grid tests from both sets of lenses it's not a major issue. Out of focus highlights can be a bit tricky though. Shooting the plates on spherical worked better just because of the aspect ratio of open gate.

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Bond films were never supposed to be about the visual FX. They were supposed to be about beautiful locations and beautiful women, and bad guys with cool headquarters and all that.

 

They often had lots of FX and they were not infrequently a bit cheesey.

The lear jet sliding down wires at the end of 'Goldfinger', not to mention the traveling matted Goldfinger flying through the interior of the Lear.

 

The Vulcan bomber and bad traveling mattes on the Disco Volante in 'Thunderball'.

 

The miniatures of the Spectre base and the space ship, again with less than optimum TMs.

&all the travelling mattes in the car shots, the miniature helicopters that explode.

 

As they abandoned the simplicity of 'Dr.No' with the miniature bauxite mine exploding, the Bond movies got more and more elaborate effects shots.

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As mentioned before the main issue is around distortion - but it can be mapped out with control shots.

 

I think the other main area of concern is that most SFX work is set to S35 and since many VFX companies reuse assets and workflows so the VFX producers would be nervous about changing the base settings.

 

Reused assets include

  • 3D assets (cars etc),
  • 3D walk, drive animation cycles,
  • Lens flare workflows,
  • Tracking systems,
  • Keying and
  • stabilization systems

the ops don't want to or don't have time to change the format or pixel ratios (even though technically it should have no adverse effects)

 

The 3D worlds, the comps, the Lens VFX would all need to be changed. I know Maya, Max, Discreet Flame, Inferno etc all support anamorphic but I haven't really tested it - I am sure most VFX people feel the same.

 

The VFX guys always drop the same problems to the producers - Our workflow is set for S35, Control shots are needed, We don't have experience in Anamorphic, Anamorphic lenses are heavier, more difficult to pull focus, less room for error, Testing time, Testing cost, etc blah blah - and we all know producers would rather go with someone who can deliver rather then something new - [and I understand this logic]

If more people put their foot down and demanded it then more VFX companies would get experience with it and it would become easier to get VFX anamorphic done.

 

I heard a good thing from a director on a shoot in India last week - "I have too many problem managers here and not enough solution managers!"

 

thanks

 

Rolfe

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Well this sounds more like a problem of someone needing to kick down the door before everyone else can flood in. I'm sure that if there is a house that goes out there and does the work (mapping lenses, figuring out how to blend FX shots into anamorphic plates) it will put that house in a very premium position in relation to its competitors. . .

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Guest Tim Partridge
They often had lots of FX and they were not infrequently a bit cheesey.

The lear jet sliding down wires at the end of 'Goldfinger', not to mention the traveling matted Goldfinger flying through the interior of the Lear.

 

The Vulcan bomber and bad traveling mattes on the Disco Volante in 'Thunderball'.

 

The miniatures of the Spectre base and the space ship, again with less than optimum TMs.

&all the travelling mattes in the car shots, the miniature helicopters that explode.

 

As they abandoned the simplicity of 'Dr.No' with the miniature bauxite mine exploding, the Bond movies got more and more elaborate effects shots.

 

This was definitely true (and your examples all support this) right up until Mr. Meddings came aboard, yes. Eon seemed to assign EVERYTHING to John Stears on the Connery/Lazenby movies (main unit physical effects to miniatures, even composite designs like in YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE). However, the matte painting work by Cliff Culley was of a consistently high standard (sadly let down by everything else). Even the great Albert Whitlock's work on DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER was comparitively crude (check this out:

), the one non-Stears, pre-Meddings Bond movie.

 

As soon as Mr. Meddings shouldered in on LIVE AND LET DIE though (with the exploding poppy field), the effects became thoroughly seamless. Yeah, there'd be the odd duff process shot (in the Moore era), but so what? From LIVE AND LET DIE through to CASINO ROYALE Bond VFX became a totally different beast. Of course this excludes DIE ANOTHER DAY, which looked like it was made in the Connery era (albeit with computers) and GOLDENEYE (which still isn't pre LIVE AND LET DIE bad, it just suffers because of Mr. Meddings cancer/death, which quality wise is totally understandable).

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As soon as Mr. Meddings shouldered in on LIVE AND LET DIE though (with the exploding poppy field), the effects became thoroughly seamless.

 

I agree with Tim, right through out the Moore and Dalton films the special effects were seamless (Moonraker pushed it a little understandably) great stunt and model work made these films as photo-realistic as special effects have ever been.

 

Who needs a DI and CGI when you can do these things so well without!

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I was working on a film today that was shooting anamorphic (C and E series) and we were shooting vfx plates on spherical primos. I asked the vfx superviser from Double Negative about the issues regarding the mixture of formats and he said as long as you have grid tests from both sets of lenses it's not a major issue. Out of focus highlights can be a bit tricky though. Shooting the plates on spherical worked better just because of the aspect ratio of open gate.

 

And he's right - it's not an issue. And even if you don't shoot a gid, it's not that big an issue. If there are any straight lines in the shot, you can use them as reference to correct the distortion. And if that shot doesn't have any, you can use another shot done with the same lens as reference. Modern trucking software have tools to correct distortion in this way.

 

Here's a shot from Punch Drunk love that shows barrel distortion:

 

lens_distortion.jpg

 

and here's the image undistorted (with photoshop lens distortion correction)

 

lens_correction.jpg

 

What they are whinging about is the extra step required to sort out the distortion in shots that need to be tracked, in addition to working with a non-square 2:1 pixel aspect ratio, in addition to the lack of headroom for re-racking in post. None of which are complex, but cumulatively means a bit more work in post, for no obvious benefit (from their point of view)

 

Other stuff like out of focus highlights... Not an issue. Not at all. Most compositing programs have tools to do this, or plugins (like frischluft for AfterFX) do a really good job of this. Plus I've personally lobbied, and succeeded, in having bokeh aspect ratio controls included in several renderers (VRAY for 3dsmax, Mikros Image's in house renderer, which uses the same Arnold core that Sony pictures Imageworks renderer uses - the now semi-Defunct ARNOLD...)

 

The other key thing is flares, and these can occasionally be tricky. These images (again from Punch Drunk Love) show some pretty intricate patterns visible in the flare, that none of the commercially available flare simulators give you the level of control needed to simulate this look. So you still need to do some pretty funky workarounds, or use real flares shot against black in the comp...

 

flare1.jpg

flare2.jpg

 

(of course a lot of the time, you don't see this stuff, and a blue horizontal streak might be enough to fake it - depends on the shot, the lighting, and the lens...)

 

R.

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