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The Hurt Locker


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According to American Cinematographer:

 

It was shot on Super16mm with Aaton XTR-Prods and A-Minimas and Canon zoom lenses, with Fuji 250D 8663 and 500T 8673 film and the Phantom HD camera for the great high-speed material.

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  • 4 weeks later...
According to American Cinematographer:

 

It was shot on Super16mm with Aaton XTR-Prods and A-Minimas and Canon zoom lenses, with Fuji 250D 8663 and 500T 8673 film and the Phantom HD camera for the great high-speed material.

 

This beautifully shot film is a great example of using the right tools for a director's vision:besides their world-wide use in documentary (and narrative)-style filmmaking, the Aaton cameras create an umatched level of registration and 'micro-registration', which ads a further level of image definition, or 'crispness' - and THE HURT LOCKER's imagery really demonstrates this. In fact the switches between digital-originated images from the Phantom, which are usually completely 'grain free' (noise free) and the sometimes very grainy S16mm filmstock again show how seamless and beautifully the Aaton cameras capture images.

For those of you not famliar with the cameras, check out the Aaton or Abel Cine sites; of really special note is the fact that the A-Minima desn't even have a rear pressure-plaate, and yet still captures and delivers such perfectly registered footage!

THE HURT LOCKER is an excellent opportunity to see a finely-made war movie and some really beautiful cinematography.

 

http://www.aaton.com/

http://www.abelcine.com/store/home.php

 

Disclaimer: I don't work for Aaton, just admire the excellence of their cameras! : )

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Saw it, and enjoyed the camera work very much. My only comment is regarding the Phantom high speed footage. Was it just me, or was there a hint of chromatic aberration in the image? The shot of the ground shaking during an explosion seemed to have that purplish-blue tinge around the edge detail of the shadows, also making it appear quite soft. Noticed the same in the other shot of the bullet shell hitting the floor, only it wasn't nearly as bad.

 

I suppose it might have been caused by the blowup to 35, but I was curious what you guys thought.

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The shot of the ground shaking during an explosion seemed to have that purplish-blue tinge around the edge detail of the shadows, also making it appear quite soft. Noticed the same in the other shot of the bullet shell hitting the floor, only it wasn't nearly as bad.

 

Hi Jonathan,

 

did you see a purple edge only? No corresponding yellow edge not he opposite side of the detail? And did occur on edges with large differences in brightness? If it was blue only and on highlight edges only it could have been purple fringing, a type of CA known as axial chromatic aberration. Wiki on purple fringing. This stuff drove me crazy when I shot with DSLR with CCDs. It is very much better with CMOS chips. Read the wiki entry to learn why people think so.

 

Cheers, Dave

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did you see a purple edge only? No corresponding yellow edge not he opposite side of the detail? And did occur on edges with large differences in brightness? If it was blue only and on highlight edges only it could have been purple fringing, a type of CA known as axial chromatic aberration.

 

There may have been yellow as well, I only had 3 to 4 seconds to analyze the shot. Check it out for yourself, I'd like to know what you think :)

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ishot-93.jpg

 

Look at the edges of the sand on the ground. There is some green/orangish edges. I noticed this in the theater as well.

 

ishot-94.jpg

Same thing on the top right, where the rust is being shooken off the car.

 

ishot-95.jpg

 

Same shot, more apparent. This was noticeable in the theater.

 

ishot-96.jpg

 

This shoot looked much cleaner, but a lot higher in terms of contrast. Could the contrast be hiding the aforementioned problems?

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This would not be in the original RAW files. It is possible that it is an issue with the debayering process, as there are any number of ways to do this work incorrectly. They may have even taken the HD-SDI right out of the camera and recorded this to a deck. Usually fine for video finish, but not for a DI.

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  • 4 months later...
ishot-93.jpg

 

Look at the edges of the sand on the ground. There is some green/orangish edges. I noticed this in the theater as well.

 

ishot-94.jpg

Same thing on the top right, where the rust is being shooken off the car.

 

ishot-95.jpg

 

Same shot, more apparent. This was noticeable in the theater.

 

ishot-96.jpg

 

This shoot looked much cleaner, but a lot higher in terms of contrast. Could the contrast be hiding the aforementioned problems?

 

I am not Sure how you grabbed your stills

Here is the right images without any of the above comments ... and by the way the High Speed scenes were NOT shot by the PHANTOM camera!

Believe me ;)

post-45034-1266865417.jpg

post-45034-1266865613.jpg

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I thought the film was OK but nine oscar nominations?! To me it was a typical Hollywood story shot in a verité style that gave it a little edge but ofcourse is very trendy nowadays, maybe more in Europe than anywhere else. Personally I like that style a lot so I didn't have any problems with it. I especially admired some of the very dark scenes, but as far as story goes this film left a lot to be desired.

To me the film seemed to be in conflict with itself, trying to show the soldiers who serve in Iraq (and the Iraqi people as well) as ordinary people, but it somehow couldn't resist some of the heavy stereotyping you would expect in a typical blockbuster war movie. I think the last scene was exemplary, where the main character walks alone to the horizon like some kind of Lucky Luke cowboy, with heavy rock music in the score. Most of the scenes left me with a typical feeling that there was something missing, that it could have been a lot better if it weren't for all the bombast.

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To me it was a typical Hollywood story shot in a verité style...

 

I thought the structure of the film was quite interesting and far from typical. Or am I the only one who thought that it was more a series of short vignettes rather than one all encompassing arc?

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I thought the structure of the film was quite interesting and far from typical. Or am I the only one who thought that it was more a series of short vignettes rather than one all encompassing arc?

 

I agree, for me the series of vignettes structure was very effective in creating the feeling of being a cog in a machine, only witnessing your part in the whole without ever understanding what's going on in a holistic sense. It felt more realistic than movies that tie the characters into 'the mission' that will end the war or whatever.

 

But more cinematographically relevant:

 

Dory Aoun, Mr 'high speed camera' on the hurt locker (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3056874/) are you really going to just tantalize us with vague nuggets of information or illuminate us with the truth?

 

What camera did you use if not the Phantom? Photosonics? something else?

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  • 2 weeks later...

I did not care for the cinematography in this film at all. Very, very clichéd, almost to the point of being a parody of "shaky-cam" action cinematography, complete with ENG-style zooms. I thought the film was quite bad in every way.

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I agree with Alex and Tom. I watched this film the other night after all the hype and must say I failed to be impressed.

 

I just realized the biggest major pictures out of America that are all up for awards are about war.

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Very, very clichéd, almost to the point of being a parody

 

Didn’t you really like Avatar?

 

The Hurt Locker did have a ring of Hollywood in the writing, but I really liked the actors and I really liked what the director did with them and I’m happy she won all around. She deserved it.

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Didn’t you really like Avatar?

 

The Hurt Locker did have a ring of Hollywood in the writing, but I really liked the actors and I really liked what the director did with them and I’m happy she won all around. She deserved it.

 

This 'ring of Hollywood' is enough to ruin it for me everytime, especially when it's about war. In war all idealizing or romanticizing is perverse, and personally I want war movies to reflect just that. I'm not saying the Hurt Locker was all bad, I'm saying it was just bad enough.

As far as acting goes I more or less just saw a couple of stereotypes interacting, no real psychology to it. I was especially let down by the last scenes where he's in the supermarket surrounded by cereal boxes to show his level of alienation from American society. Yeah we all know US supermarkets can be quite surreal, thanks for telling me for the millionth time.

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I was especially let down by the last scenes where he's in the supermarket surrounded by cereal boxes to show his level of alienation from American society. Yeah we all know US supermarkets can be quite surreal, thanks for telling me for the millionth time.

 

Or more so to show that we grew into a fat consuming culture that has a lot more than what it actually needs to survive.

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