Bond 22

[Tim Sibley]

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 .

 

I wouldn't look at this as a problem of the VFX house - they're not "dictating" what format the films are shot in, they are merely reflectingthe financial reality of the choice to shoot anamorphic - if the production can afford it, then pay the extra 20-40%. It does indeed cost more at many stages of production to deal with anamorphic footage (not the least of which is having to render 3d elements at much a higher resolution to allow non-lossy undistortion to match the plates, which means either more render hours booked or a higher investment in their renderfarm infrastructure). This isn't about the VFX people whining - this is a simple matter of production costs.

[John Holland]

Well sorry but if you read again what Mr Schaefer told me your theory dont work ,they did tell him couldnt get the work done in time if shot anamorphic . I know the dollar has gone down the toilet so budget may be a bit tighter but this a F-ing bond film .

[Tim Sibley]

..the same logic applies - more money is a reflection of more time spent, be it from the artists or in terms of render time. Anamorphic requires a pre-compositing stage in the pipeline before a shot goes to 3d tracking, as you won't be able to get an accurate track if there is any distortion in the source plates; it also requires for each lens used in production a custom 3d camera with appropriate overscan values; and then in the final comp stage it requires re-distortion of all 3d elements, as well as any 2d elements/stock footage that is used - and as was mentioned before, when working with anamorphic material, you also often have to deal with much more complex artifacts from lens flares and chromatic aberration. None of this extra work is overly difficult of course (and has become routine on many large productions) - but it does take extra time and necessitates more hand-offs and bottlenecks between different departments within a vfx facility.

Edited December 3, 2007 by Tim Sibley

[John Holland]

Yes i know all that crap ,its just VFX companies be lazy . Nothing else to say . You working on this film ?

[Tim Sibley]

Nope, but I do work at a VFX shop in Toronto, and I'm used to the VFX companies getting the short end of the stick in any production - whenever any other aspect of the production runs long (as it always, without fail, does), the time crunch goes to the vfx guys (who are 'lazy' enough to work 60 hour weeks during peak production time to meet impossible schedules). I'm not complaining - I love my job, but I don't like it when the vfx guys are slagged just because it's easier than trying to understand the factors that influence their work :)

 

if you get a chance, give this one a read

http://www.variety.com/article/VR111796587...d=2520&cs=1

[K Borowski]

Nope, but I do work at a VFX shop in Toronto, and I'm used to the VFX companies getting the short end of the stick in any production - whenever any other aspect of the production runs long (as it always, without fail, does), the time crunch goes to the vfx guys (who are 'lazy' enough to work 60 hour weeks during peak production time to meet impossible schedules). I'm not complaining - I love my job, but I don't like it when the vfx guys are slagged just because it's easier than trying to understand the factors that influence their work :)

 

if you get a chance, give this one a read

http://www.variety.com/article/VR111796587...d=2520&cs=1

 

Well, I for one am not implying that VFX houses are lazy; it is obvious that you work very, very hard at what you do. What I am saying is that there probably are ways to streamline a lot of the labor-intensive aspects of anamorphic compositing with programming. Sure you still lose computing time, but it would reduce the extra hours working on an anamorphic film. Your biggest gripe seems to be about extra man-hours, when there really shouldn't be any working in anamorphic. There's no more negative area than if you're working in 4-perf Super-35. I honestly think this is more of a learning curve. Since there isn't as much work done on anamorphic (due to higher costs), there isn't as much experience, which means rates are much higher.

 

IDK, but I think 20-40% extra cost is ridiculous for what should amount to automatic work. Maybe 5% more or 10% more, but not 20-40.

 

Now, at the same time, I guess if there is actual increased use of the "real estate" of anamorphic (say someone wants FX from edge to edge of the frame) then I could understand that being 20-25% more expensive, as you have to physically come up with more material to fill the frame.

[John Holland]

Karl my original post said 20/40 more time to do work not cost because they only have a 16 week post production time for everthing .

[K Borowski]

Karl my original post said 20/40 more time to do work not cost because they only have a 16 week post production time for everthing .

 

Hey John, I wasn't referring to your post, rather Tim, the VFX guy's. Now that I look at his post again, it looks like he got confused as to your post, and thought that you had meant 20-40% extra cost.

 

Tim, since John appears to be quoting the extra time involved rather than the extra cost involved, do you think you could give us a more accurate figure as to the cost increase (and time increase) associated with finishing an FX heavy anamorphic film as opposed to a spherical one?

 

Thanks,

 

~KB

[John Holland]

i think the main problem is most VFX CGi people are just computer wizards who have no understanding of shooting in anamorphic , they think hey just shoot it S35 we do our bit then its easy turn to anamorphic format in DI .

[K Borowski]

i think the main problem is most VFX CGi people are just computer wizards who have no understanding of shooting in anamorphic , they think hey just shoot it S35 we do our bit then its easy turn to anamorphic format in DI .

 

I think that we're lucky that VFX people at least accept S35 as opposed to the "Photoshop Wizards" of still photography, who deem film, even medium or large format film as "unnacepatble" or "grainy". At least VFX guys have learned how to work efficiently with grain in the digital realm, and don't try to push the film industry into going digital. I agree that there is a lot of ignorance as to how film works, let alone why filmmakers still use "that pesky, grainy, film." I think that there is a lot that VFX houses could be doing to push the limits of film, greater bit-depth to color, higher scanner resolutions, that they just aren't doing. In the days of optical effects, the PEOPLE that did the effects were the innovators (with the singular exception of motion control). Now it seems that the technology designed by computer manufacturers is the limiting factor; what a shame.

 

If they really look at the VFX involved though, anamorphic should, in some ways, be easier to deal with than 3-perf. You don't have as noticeable of grain, so you don't have to do as much work trying to make VFX blend in with plate footage, because grain is less noticeable. Further, less DOF on average means less resolution and work required for VFX that aren't supposed to be in sharp focus. It makes it easier to do supplemental VFX not in sharp focus. And again, most of the distortion, with the exception of course of lens flares, doesn't necessitate manual labor anymore, and can be done quite easily with batch actions in Photoshop or comparable video effects software.

 

I think we should give VFX professionals a lot of credit with making VFX so much more seamless, and increasing the turnaround times. I really had no idea that turnaround times are being shortened so much, until I read Tim's article. I hope that this trend doesn't continue. Working "under the gun" like that goes hand-in-hand with shoddy results. That is just the nature of the beast when you make deadlines so tight there is hardly any room for redos.

[John Holland]

Well i hope we go back to minitures on strings . :lol:

[Matthew Buick]

Well i hope we go back to minitures on strings . :lol:

 

Strings? Strings, John!? Surely not!? Stop motion, yes indeed. :lol:

 

Hyuk! It would be such a fantasy for the effects to be actually real! I personally don't like the way the fdilm industry is leaning.

Edited December 4, 2007 by Matthew Buick

[Will Earl]

I've never actually worked on anamorphic show, so I can't speak from experience here. But from what it sounds like, there are aspects which would require that little bit of extra work and computing power. In some cases the work load is no different - we already shoot grids for each lens on a show, and lens are corrected for distortion within the matchmove tools we use anyway. In other cases the work load could be a lot more - where CG elements need to be rendered in anamorphic for example, an element that needs to be rendered using square-pixels would result in a 4096x1556 frame - something that would result in a huge increase to render times compared to rendering something using non-square-pixels (2048x1556).

 

All in all, it sounds like less of a technical issue, but more of a money and time issue, where the extra cost and time - however big or small it is, isn't deemed worth it by the producers. Especially with today's shrinking schedules. That aside I'd love to work with on anamorphic film, even if it does end up hurting.

Edited December 4, 2007 by Will Earl

[Tim Sibley]

I think you nailed it there, Will. I have no idea what the added time/expensive would work out to in quantitative terms - I'm sure that varies from production to production, and would be much easier for a vfx house that has previous experience with anamorphic .. although I'd agree 40% is likely very high (I'd think this number would likely be much lower on a 3d-heavy production where the bulk of the expense lies in modeling/animation/rendering, versus a straight-ahead comp heavy show, where you're dealing with a higher volume of less tricky shots).

 

i think the main problem is most VFX CGi people are just computer wizards who have no understanding of shooting in anamorphic , they think hey just shoot it S35 we do our bit then its easy turn to anamorphic format in DI .

 

You're right - although it's not always essential for everyone in the process to have this knowledge (a texture painter, for instance, or a modeler, would likely be better served to have a strong foundation in traditional art, as opposed to a lighting artist or compositor - the best of these guys have a thorough understanding of the medium). For me personally, I did 4 years of film school (where I shot my own stuff on 16mm, did some editing, etc.), and have done a handful of on-set supervision gigs for independant productions, which helps me keep connected to the 'real' side of things ;)

To Karl's point, for me personally, I love it when you get 'gritty' source material (unless you're pulling a key) - this does make it easier to integrate CG elements in a lot of cases (shallow dof and grain can help - and locking a 3d element with a properly tracked camera in a handheld scene seems to give those elements a certain grounding in the physical reality of the shot that is harder to approximate when dealing with a perfect, locked off tripod shot).

Edited December 4, 2007 by Tim Sibley

[K Borowski]

To Karl's point, for me personally, I love it when you get 'gritty' source material (unless you're pulling a key) - this does make it easier to integrate CG elements in a lot of cases (shallow dof and grain can help - and locking a 3d element with a properly tracked camera in a handheld scene seems to give those elements a certain grounding in the physical reality of the shot that is harder to approximate when dealing with a perfect, locked off tripod shot).

 

Well, yes, I was primarily referring to mattes. That is smart thinking though, in that the smaller the resolution the easier it is to hide something.

 

I don't agree with you that models and wires are always the better answer John. I think that digital does definitely do a better job with matting, but I agree with you that models always seem more "real" to me, probably because they are actual objects being photographed. I think there is too strong an urge nowadays to do everything inside of the computer, and I think a lot of people who do or did better quality work with models are out of the job needlessly.

 

At the same time, digital opens up doors that were never possible to entirely correct in the analog-optical days. I think the tradeoff is that people are often overreliant on digital "fixes" that ending up not looking as good as getting the shot right in camera.

[Tim Sibley]

In terms of the realism of VFX work, there's a great little read here

http://effectscorner.blogspot.com/2007/11/...-in-visual.html

..it talks about certain director's proclivity to 'show off' the fx work that they're paying all of their money for, rather than let the work sit naturally in the scene (believe me, the vfx guys are not the ones that decide that a sexy "matrix like camera-move" would be perfect to use on a matte painting establishing shot for a victorian-era romantic drama)

I'd look at a movie like 'No Country for Old Men' (which has a large number of key vfx shots) or 'Children of Men' (which allowed for unprecented freedom for Emmanuel Lubezki to move his camera around) as examples of the right way to use digital vfx - in fact, I know most people would be absolutely shocked at the number of shots in the average film that have some vfx cleanup element - whether it be a digital make-up touch up, painting out flares, etc. In most cases, it's not that hard to achieve a seamless result, as long as you're willing to sacrifice the 'sexy' factor (eg. the swooping 360-degree panorama shots that no physical rig in the world could actually film).

[John Holland]

Tim " Children of Men " as you say has a fantastic use of digital vfx and i agree with you about how many are used without the punter knowing , but that wasnt my argument , take care John .

[Max Jacoby]

'Children of Men' indeed had very nice VFX, unfortunately it was offset by the director showing off his completely unmotivated long camera moves.

 

Nothing wrong with doing long shots (plan-sèquences), but please do the whole film like that, so that it becomes a creative challenge that you set yourself (as people like Angelopoulos, Tarr, Tarkovsky have done) and thereby expresses a philosophic approach to filmmaking. Because otherwise you're just doing it because you could and then we're immediately in the realm of very superficial filmmaking.

[Andy_Alderslade]

'Children of Men' indeed had very nice VFX, unfortunately it was offset by the director showing off his completely unmotivated long camera moves.

 

Nothing wrong with doing long shots (plan-sèquences), but please do the whole film like that, so that it becomes a creative challenge that you set yourself (as people like Angelopoulos, Tarr, Tarkovsky have done) and thereby expresses a philosophic approach to filmmaking. Because otherwise you're just doing it because you could and then we're immediately in the realm of very superficial filmmaking.

 

Its all very well doing long-continuos shots in a drama or in restricted circumstances, but doing long shots in a fantasy with sprawling locations and explosive action (gun shots, explosions) is an incredible achievment.

 

After all, compare Hitchock's Rope with Under Capricorn - Rope with a simple set succeeded, while the extra level of complication in Under Capricorn beat Hitchcock to abondon the technique.

 

And quite possibly the long takes in Children of Men were carefully chosen, to show the enduring lengths the protaganist goes to get through.

[Max Jacoby]

Its all very well doing long-continuos shots in a drama or in restricted circumstances, but doing long shots in a fantasy with sprawling locations and explosive action (gun shots, explosions) is an incredible achievment.

A technical achievment no doubt, but not an artistic one I find.

[Phil Rhodes]

I tend to agree.

 

There's something agreeably old-hollywood about these huge setups which must have taken enormous planning. But like Max, I watched the "making of" and heard that the director was "committed to" doing it that way. And I thought, OK, he's committed, that's obvious. But why is he committed to doing it that way? Most of the audience will actually never notice.

 

And the technical execution is frankly just a case of being financed to do it. I suspect most of the people on this forum could have figured that stuff out if they were being sufficiently bankrolled.

 

Phil

[Ruairi Robinson]

I tend to agree.

 

There's something agreeably old-hollywood about these huge setups which must have taken enormous planning. But like Max, I watched the "making of" and heard that the director was "committed to" doing it that way. And I thought, OK, he's committed, that's obvious. But why is he committed to doing it that way? Most of the audience will actually never notice.

 

And the technical execution is frankly just a case of being financed to do it. I suspect most of the people on this forum could have figured that stuff out if they were being sufficiently bankrolled.

 

Phil

 

So he shouldn't BOTHER doing stuff in the way he thinks is best to tell the story, just because some people watching might not notice understand or care why? Seems like a strange logic to me. He's supposed to be the expert, not the audience. They just have to go along for the ride and enjoy the results. Or do you mean he should explain his choices? Again, why should he?

 

re: financing, it's funny how these scenes (in the car etc) were so much better executed than the MUCH bigger budget WOTW, by some spillbung guy, I can't remember his name. 300 million budget, I heard.

 

But hey, just about ANYONE could do it JUST AS GOOD, all you need is to spray it with the money hose, right? Except Spielberg with a 300 million dollar budget. But anyone here could do it. No problemo. No talent required.

 

R.

[Lance Flores]

Its all very well doing long-continuos shots in a drama or in restricted circumstances, but doing long shots in a fantasy with sprawling locations and explosive action (gun shots, explosions) is an incredible achievment.

 

After all, compare Hitchock's Rope with Under Capricorn - Rope with a simple set succeeded, while the extra level of complication in Under Capricorn beat Hitchcock to abondon the technique.

 

And quite possibly the long takes in Children of Men were carefully chosen, to show the enduring lengths the protaganist goes to get through.

 

Excellent film, one of the best film rendered stories, and effective use of long takes I've seen lately. Probably can not be appreciated much by the amphetamine driven MTV audience, but that's what freedom of expression is all about isn't it. I think its artistic acclaim is deserved.

Edited December 6, 2007 by Lance Flores

[Max Jacoby]

But hey, just about ANYONE could do it JUST AS GOOD, all you need is to spray it with the money hose, right?

Eh yeah Ruairi, that's how Hollywood operates, spraying money at problems.

[Ruairi Robinson]

Eh yeah Ruairi, that's how Hollywood operates, spraying money at problems.

 

...and?