First HD feature that passed as film

[Tom Lowe]

It occurs to me that most HD features up until this point - Star Wars, Miami Vice, Apocalypto, Superman Returns, even Zodiac - have actually consciously been known to the public as features shot on digital/HD. In other words, at least a certain percentage of the public knew these were digital HD shoots.

 

I keep up with American Cinematographer mag and all the HD forums online, but the first feature I actually watched at at the theater without knowing in advance it was shot HD (Genesis) was Superbad. I watched it, laughed my ass off, and had no idea it was shot in HD. I think this is a landmark for digital cinema = when you are clueless that it was shot HD.

Edited April 24, 2008 by Tom Lowe

[Michael Nash]

Did you see The Lookout? Any of The Company miniseries (TV)? I got about 1/3 of the way through I Know Who Killed Me (on DVD) before I noticed something different about the color that tipped me off. But then, that's about 1/3 farther than anyone got with that movie... :P

[Christopher Arata]

Before The Devil Knows You're Dead...I had no Idea that it was shot HD until I started watching the, The making of. Ron Fortunato ASC, I think did a great job in achieving the look that Sidney Lumet wanted.

[Tim O'Connor]

"Seeing Other People" got me. Then again, with Julianne Nicholson in the movie I didn't even see the other characters.

[Guest]

I can always tell HD, not just by the lack of colour and "film look", but the "grimlies" of film are missing. No scratches or neg dirt on HD shot movies. Although this some times gets picked up on the 35mm projection print of course.

 

Now I will say for an indie person like me digital projection would be nice in all theaters, no more huge costs for prints. I'd rather stay with 35mm projection of course, but it is quite pricey for the low budget crowd.

 

R,

[John Sprung]

.... No scratches or neg dirt on HD shot movies.

OK, so we'll add just a little bit of white dirt in post...... ;-)

 

 

 

 

-- J.S.

[Guest Nik Samal]

haha it was like when i was in college and everyone put the scratched film filter over all their video to give it that 1905 gloss to it. ahhh those were the days

[Max Jacoby]

Superbad struck me as obviously shot on HD. I only saw part of the film, but some of the night scenes (especially the ones where the Cops take McLovin for a ride) really look like video.

[Guest]

OK, so we'll add just a little bit of white dirt in post...... ;-)

-- J.S.

 

Why did they add all that stuff to the Grindhouse movie? Too make it look like it came out of a vault from the 1970s?

 

I saw a lot of movies in the 70s, they didn't have all that crap on the picture. I didn't get that part :blink:

 

R,

[Ayz Waraich]

Superbad struck me as obviously shot on HD. I only saw part of the film, but some of the night scenes (especially the ones where the Cops take McLovin for a ride) really look like video.

 

I agree with Max here. I could tell Superbad was HD, even though I had no prior knowledge going in. Night scenes in particular. The Lookout got by me for the most part, but even there it wasn't perfect. The Kingdom also. I actually didn't notice it on Before the Devil though, so curious to revisit it now.

 

For me it's really the motion artifacts that tip the hand the most.

[Jim Keller]

Why did they add all that stuff to the Grindhouse movie? Too make it look like it came out of a vault from the 1970s?

 

I saw a lot of movies in the 70s, they didn't have all that crap on the picture. I didn't get that part :blink:

 

R,

 

The same reason every time I do something set in the 1940's, the director objects if the 1940s style furniture looks new.

[John Sprung]

For me it's really the motion artifacts that tip the hand the most.

What motion artifacts? If you shoot Genesis at 24p with a 180 degree shutter, what temporal difference is there between that and film?

 

 

 

-- J.S.

[Dan Goulder]

What motion artifacts? If you shoot Genesis at 24p with a 180 degree shutter, what temporal difference is there between that and film?

-- J.S.

The Genesis can appear to stutter during pans. At least that seemed to be the case in "Apocalypto", which I thought was otherwise one of the best looking of the Genesis features. It would be interesting to analyze and compare still frames of subjects in motion from both digital and film capture. I would be quite surprised if the appearance of motion was identical.

[Michael Nash]

Why did they add all that stuff to the Grindhouse movie? Too make it look like it came out of a vault from the 1970s?

 

I saw a lot of movies in the 70s, they didn't have all that crap on the picture. I didn't get that part :blink:

 

R,

 

Uh, you mean the title didn't tip you off? Grindhouse = inner city theater that runs poorly maintained prints of exploitation films...

[Ruairi Robinson]

The Genesis can appear to stutter during pans. At least that seemed to be the case in "Apocalypto", which I thought was otherwise one of the best looking of the Genesis features. It would be interesting to analyze and compare still frames of subjects in motion from both digital and film capture. I would be quite surprised if the appearance of motion was identical.

 

Stutter during pans? Film does that too with a 180 degree shutter angle. The issue is when they try and shoot stuff in low light and open it up to 360 degrees to get an extra stop, and the motion suddenly looks like video. See every 7th shot in Apocalypto. Or that nighttime scene in Forbidden Kingdom.

 

R.

[Stuart Brereton]

the public knew these were digital HD shoots.

 

I'd be amazed if the general public actually knew or cared.

[John Sprung]

The Genesis can appear to stutter during pans.

As does film if you pan too fast for your shutter angle. All too often for my taste, it's done deliberately. The fad started (this time) with "Private Ryan".

 

 

 

 

-- J.S.

[Dan Goulder]

As does film if you pan too fast for your shutter angle. All too often for my taste, it's done deliberately. The fad started (this time) with "Private Ryan".

-- J.S.

I agree. I probably should have pointed out, however, that in the case of the Genesis, the stutter seemed to be conspicuous during slower pans that would normally look smooth on film.

[Ayz Waraich]

What motion artifacts? If you shoot Genesis at 24p with a 180 degree shutter, what temporal difference is there between that and film?

 

 

 

-- J.S.

 

Who knows sir. I'm talking about what I see. Sometimes even when the shutter is at 180degrees, I perceive a softness to the motion in HD. It's slight, but it's there. Most recent example was Zodiac for me.

 

Btw -- I dig HD/Digital. So that's not my point. Just curious what is causing this softness.

[Max Jacoby]

Night scenes in particular. The Lookout got by me for the most part, but even there it wasn't perfect. The Kingdom also.

The Kingdom is a mix of HD and Super35 as far as I recall. Day scenes were shot on film. You could tell on some of the night scenes that they were shot on HD, vertical streaking and also some smearing.

 

The one thing I don't understand is why people think that with HD they can get away with shooting with 360 degree or even 270 degree shutter. It always smears and looks completely unnatural. My editor was complaining about just today in regards to 21.

[Michael Nash]

The one thing I don't understand is why people think that with HD they can get away with shooting with 360 degree or even 270 degree shutter. It always smears and looks completely unnatural.

 

Not just that it looks "unnatural," but that it makes it look like video. I'm all for doing new things with new technology for expressive purposes, but in this case the "video look" of a slow shutter distracts from whatever effect they were trying to create. Just my opinion.

[John Sprung]

The one thing I don't understand is why people think that with HD they can get away with shooting with 360 degree or even 270 degree shutter. It always smears and looks completely unnatural.

It's certainly not for everything, but it is a neat new tool to have in our bag of tricks for special purposes. Dave Stump used it to do the circular dolly shot in "What Love Is". He held the actor in the center of the circle, and made the BG swirl around him without skipping.

 

 

 

-- J.S.

[Guest]

The same reason every time I do something set in the 1940's, the director objects if the 1940s style furniture looks new.

 

 

Uh, you mean the title didn't tip you off? Grindhouse = inner city theater that runs poorly maintained prints of exploitation films...

 

I must have missed that experience, all of the prints I saw at the drive ins looked pretty good in the 70s.

 

R,