"Polished" look of finished films ....

[Eric Black]

I was watching a quick segment on some entertainment show about Jim Carrey's new film "Yes Man", and in the program they were showing clips from the film, some of which looked quite raw, still had the timecode etc, and then other clips from other scenes that were more"polished", brighter, smoother, just overall much better looking, I am wondering what goes on to make such a dramatic difference?

 

Is it just a best light print vs. one light? Color correction? How is so much of the grain and 'roughness' removed?

[K Borowski]

I was watching a quick segment on some entertainment show about Jim Carrey's new film "Yes Man", and in the program they were showing clips from the film, some of which looked quite raw, still had the timecode etc, and then other clips from other scenes that were more"polished", brighter, smoother, just overall much better looking, I am wondering what goes on to make such a dramatic difference?

 

Is it just a best light print vs. one light? Color correction? How is so much of the grain and 'roughness' removed?

 

Well, grain and roughness, no probably not. Most [35mm] films that are doing DIs don't really de-grain, there's no need, unless there is a big exposure problem. Some would still reshoot in that case.

 

It is mostly density and color timing corrections that you are seeing. With a DI, there may also be contrast and selective density correction too.

[David Mullen ASC]

Generally you are seeing a 4x3 letterboxed transfer of the 35mm footage to standard def interlaced-scan video for ingestion into the editing system, which in turn may compress it into something even more degraded.

[K Borowski]

[. . .] some of which looked quite raw, still had the timecode etc, and then other clips from other scenes that were more"polished"[. . .]

 

Frankly, I'm surprised they'd be showing any clips that still had timecode. Usually the only time I see these is for bloopers or footage that isn't' actually used in the movie.

 

He was on TV plugging this movie on an entertainment show, like Letterman or Leno?

[Eric Black]

I believe it was just an "Entertainment Tonight" type show, that had a interview with Carrey, and some behind the scenes video footage, and then some clips from the film, some of which weren't 'finished' looking.

[Charles MacDonald]

I believe it was just an "Entertainment Tonight" type show, that had a interview with Carrey, and some behind the scenes video footage, and then some clips from the film, some of which weren't 'finished' looking.

often when the studios provide a scene to a contractor in order to allow the contractor to do some work such as sound effects and so on, they will only distribute a low res, timecoded, version with "property of foobar productions" and so on to ensure that the contractor does not distribute the material. (there may be a serial number tracable to the contractor that would also show.)

 

even doing an edit may be done with a serveral generation down copy.

 

I have seen some of these sort of things showing on the monitors in some of these "entertainment tonight" style of documentaries

[Scott Bryant]

I've seen this too, and i've seen it even more with my film (16mm) that I shoot. Not to hijack the thread, but is this because I'm not having it telecined at a high enough resolution or what? Is it something a timer or colorist (depending on workflow) would clean up and give it that "polished" look?