The Aviator

[Annie Wengenroth]

I felt this film was a little long but that's okay, it was very engaging and I was particularly amazed by the crash scene. (don't want to spoil it if you haven't seen it but I'm sure this scene will become infamous)

 

During the filming of Hughes' epic "Hell's Angels, they mounted a camera onto the plane and in mid-air, the mag flew off and the film shot out. I was the only one in the theater who covered my eyes and gasped aloud during this part!

 

I'm now reading about the life of Howard Hughes and trying to fill in the blanks a bit. What a story! So who else has seen this and what did you think of it?

[David Mullen ASC]

The film itself was a bit meandering but the directing, photography, art direction, editing, etc. were great. I'm in love with obsolete filmmaking processes like 2-color and 3-strip Technicolor so it was great to see it simulated (somewhat). The film isn't outright lit and shot in that archaic style but it has echoes of it throughout. Richardson's lighting is endlessly inventive.

 

If I have any complaint, it's technical -- there's something about many of Technique's D.I.'s ("Seabiscuit", "Kill Bill") that look more compressed and artifacty than other places, like heavy noise reduction is being applied. Skin tone colors and details get this "crunchy yet smeary" look that vaguely reminds me of my satellite TV reception.

[Tim Tyler]

If I have any complaint, it's technical -- there's something about many of Technique's D.I.'s ("Seabiscuit", "Kill Bill") that look more compressed and artifacty than other places, like heavy noise reduction is being applied.

 

While I was watching it, knowing the projection was in-focus, but squinting my eyes trying to figure out why nothing really looked 'sharp', I kept thinking of a Michael Nash post here (from a week or so ago) that said he always found himself leaving the theater with a headache after a DI'd picture.

[DavidSloan]

Well the other night I was contemplating whether to see this or Hotel Rwanda...I ended up choosing Hotel Rwanda because the topic interests me much more. I'll go see this this film eventually...thanks for the reviews, guys. :)

[K Borowski]

Did the whole thing go through DI? I thought the projector at the theatre was slightly out of focus or the print was just bad, because in addition to being soft, there were these weird white splotches near the end of the film. I can't think of what could have caused them. I even found myself wondering throughout the movie if they were intentional to simulate the look of the old movies. While I found this trip to the past a very refreshing and interesting departure from your typical Hollywood movie these days, I am also bothered by the color newsreel footage shown (either colorized or reenacted), the cropping of footage supposedly from that era to widescreen (although they more or less kept the clips from Jazz Singer in its original aspect ratio), and during the part when Hughes locks himself in the projection room, how the footage of Hells Angels suddenly appears in color. Come on! I feel that there is no reason to do a DI on the whole movie other than laziness of some sort. No real affect was being sought that I could see, and I was quite disappointed by the ammount of grain in some shots, the lack of sharpenss in others. WHile this is one of the best movies of 2004 in my opinion, it could have been much much better. I don't know. I'm definitely going to have to watch it again somewhere else to make sure the print wasn't out of wack and the projector was indeed in sharp focus. And lemme guess. . . 5218 throughout? Also, was the part with walking through crushed, exploded flashbulbs a little overdone? I know that the things explooded every now and then and that a careless press photographer occasionally dropped one or two onto the ground, but during the premiere of Hughes' movie, they are walking through a LOT of glass. I have to agree that the part with the magazine getting knocked off the camera is a classic moment in cinema. Glad I've never had THAT happen! Not too shabby effects either. I thought most were pretty well integrated with live action footage.

 

Regards.

~Karl Borowski

[David Mullen ASC]

Since large chunks of the movie were treated to look like 2-color and then 3-strip Technicolor, plus the whole movie was shot in Super-35 and thus needed to be blown-up to anamorphic anyway, it made a LOT of sense to do the whole movie as a D.I. rather than parts.

 

Otherwise, if you only did sections of the movie as a D.I., like the first "Lord of the Rings" initially did, you'd have to record those results out to a Super-35 IN, intercut this with the non-D.I. footage Super-35 negative, and then make a color-timed Super-35 IP, and then optically blow this up to an anamorphic IN, and then make release prints!

 

So your D.I. shots would look even softer because of both the 2K limitation PLUS the extra two generations of duping that followed. So it's not laziness to do the whole movie as a D.I. but just common sense in terms of the post workflow.

 

As for sharpness, that may have not been a particular goal of the cinematographer, who in the past would have shot the movie in anamorphic probably with no D.I. but also have used lots of diffusion. So this movie, shot clean mostly, in Super-35 with a D.I. is not really softer than his previous non-D.I. diffused work. The period setting didn't really require a super-sharp image anyway. If anything, the image was TOO SHARP to look like 1930's cinematography. My complaint wasn't about sharpness but about noise reduction artifacts. I'd have preferred more natural grain in the image if that would have removed the digital artifacts from trying to bury the grain.

 

Anyway, the 2-color and 3-strip Technicolor look would not have been possible without a D.I.

 

Also, the original "Hell's Angels" DID have color sequences, both hand-tinted & stenciled b&w (the red explosion of the zeppelin) and 2-color Technicolor scenes. Scorsese did not make this up.

[Max Jacoby]

If I have any complaint, it's technical -- there's something about many of Technique's D.I.'s ("Seabiscuit", "Kill Bill") that look more compressed and artifacty than other places, like heavy noise reduction is being applied.  Skin tone colors and details get this "crunchy yet smeary" look that vaguely reminds me of my satellite TV reception.

 

Sometimes I really ask myself why a Dop like Robert Richardson whose work I really admire seems to have total brainlock when it comes to DI. I thought 'Kill Bill' looked hideous, just like David described. Why would anyone in their right frame of mind want that look? The same goes for 'Big Fish', which looked so soft and noise-reduced it was unbearable. I mean they do see filmed-out clips of their films from time to time to judge the look.

[Justin Hayward]

?And lemme guess. . . 5218 throughout??

 

The January ?05 AC says he shot 5218, 5279, 5277, 5274, 5248, and 5293.

 

I enjoyed every minute of the film. If anything distracted me, it was how young Leonardo Dicaprio looks in some scenes. But he still did a great job.

[K Borowski]

David: you say it was treated to look like 2 and 3-strip technicolor. Why? Where exactly was this affect applied? I have seen plenty of technicolor (only on TV of course) and I don't recall seing any of the tell-tale signs such as a slightly fuzzy color alignment or colored dust specks that say "Technicolor" to me. Certainly none of the movie says 2 strip technicolor. Again, could you point out where in the movie these took place? Also, 1930s cinematography says to me 4:3, black and white (or 2 stip technicolor) and grainy. Soft and smeary does not signify that era to me. If they wanted to get the look of technicolor, then why not shoot some of it in technicolor? That would be a good way to use DI technology, to blend three strips of film together and get it onto modern stocks. Also, I don't understand why one would shoot in Super 35 on such a well-funded movie as the Aviator. I like this movie, I just don't understand the need for all of the shortcuts. And still, if they were trying to simulate the era, they shouldn't have had a full color newsreel shot from the back of a truck, which was clearly impossible at the time with the slow speed of technicolor. I went to this movie expecting to be immersed in the time period, and I was disappointed at where it fell short. As for the part about the color in Hell's Angels, I guess I stand corrected. I guess I need to see that movie for myself.

 

Regards.

~Karl Borowski

[David Mullen ASC]

The 2-color look is pretty obvious in the movie (the airfield, the Coconut Grove, etc.) so I'm not sure why you can't spot them. Everything is orangy-red and blue-green!

 

I don't think it's necessary for a movie to EXACTLY copy the style of the period. "Chinatown" has film noir elements but it is also 35mm color anamorphic. This goes farther in simulating a color look for the period but it is not trying to pass itself off as being a 1.37 Academy movie shot in the 1930's found in some vault -- the camera work and editing style are completely anachronistic for one thing. It's CLEARLY going for a hybrid approach. So you seem to be faulting it for being something it wasn't even trying to be, which is completely accurate to the period.

 

And the color documentary footage of the moving of the Spruce Goose was shot in bright sunlight and could have easily been shot in 35mm Kodachrome as were other documentaries of the day like "Memphis Belle".

 

If you didn't like the cinematography of this movie, that's fine. Personally, though, it's on my Top Five of the year despite my complaints about the grain reduction artifacts. Give me something visually interesting and I can live with some technical mistakes any day.

 

While 2.39 from spherical Super-35 is not accurate for the period, neither would anamorphic lenses. And neither would 1.85 for that matter. I think the reason to shoot spherical more has to do with the way Scorsese likes to move the camera, moving from wide to extreme close-up, etc. which are all harder to do in anamorphic.

[Mike Donis]

I just saw this film today - I have to agree with David mostly. The cinematography was definitely top notch, though the print I saw didn't seem to suffer from any major digital problems. I simply may have overlooked them.

 

The two/three strip effect was used effectively, but not with too much blatancy that it was distracting.

 

As far as the movie itself goes, I thought that it was engaging, and all the actors gave great performances. One of the top films of the year IMHO.

[Annie Wengenroth]

I noticed a little bit of the crunchy/smeary effect (you'd think we were critiquing peanut butter...!) that Mr. Mullen was describing and actually, at first I thought that I just wasn't blinking enough and my contact lenses were drying out. Also, we were pretty close to the screen (unfortunately...it was pretty crowded) so we noticed these things more than the people who were further back. But I figured maybe it was part of Richardson's style or just something they wanted, even though I personally didn't connect the softness with making the film seem older. I did wonder about the "Hell's Angels" footage being projected in color so I looked it up when I got home. Now I'm trying to remember, how many miles of footage did he shoot for that film? And 26 cameras?? Whew...

[Saul Pincus]

David,

 

The smearing artifacts you're referring to have been a unfortunate "trademark" of Technicolor's DI's since Fincher's "Panic Room" - their first DI effort. I'm sure you've kept track of this also.

 

What I can't understand is why you don't hear DPs talk about this a bit more openly. Granted the selection of lab is always more of a studio/producing decision than a DP's, but you would expect than in a town of incredible motion picture engineering capability and after some years of trail and error, Tech would get around to solving this rather consistent problem of theirs.

 

Saul

[Ignacio Aguilar]

Am I the only one who thinks that the films that Richardson has photographed for Scorsese ("Casino", "Bringing out the Dead", "The Aviator") have much better cinematography than the films photographed by Michael Ballhaus ("Goodfellas","The Age of the Innocence", "Gangs of New York", among others)?

 

I'm not a fan of Ballhaus. I generally find his work very flat, with very little contrast and pastel colors, even when he works with other directors like Wolfgang Petersen, Mike Nichols, James L. Brooks or even Barry Levinson. The only film photographed by Ballhaus that I really liked in terms of cinematography was Coppola's "Dracula".

Edited December 30, 2004 by Ignacio Aguilar

[John Sprung]

I saw it from DVD on an NTSC set. So I can't really comment on sharpness. The CGI of the XF-11 crash still looked really cheesy. And they got the physics of it all wrong. No way does the tip of an aircraft wing slice thru a stucco and plaster wall like a knife thru paper. The wall wins that contest, and would have sent the plane spinning. Mass matters a lot at those speeds.

 

The crazy unshaven naked recluse stuff didn't happen at that time. He wore a bathrobe, and wasn't really that nuts until his '60's and '70's. My father knew a machinist who worked for Hughes, and it is true that he'd get an idea in the middle of the night and call guys in to the shop to start making parts.

 

By far the worst mistake was casting Blanchette as Hepburn. They would have been much better off finding an unknown who actually looks like Hepburn. Either that, or twist the facts and time again, and let him have an affair with Barbra Streisand. They did a great job on Hughes, though. Especially in the hearings.

 

 

 

-- J.S.

[Brad Grimmett]

The CGI of the XF-11 crash still looked really cheesy.  And they got the physics of it all wrong.  No way does the tip of an aircraft wing slice thru a stucco and plaster wall like a knife thru paper.  The wall wins that contest, and would have sent the plane spinning.  Mass matters a lot at those speeds.

 

By far the worst mistake was casting Blanchette as Hepburn.  They would have been much better off finding an unknown who actually looks like Hepburn. 

-- J.S.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I thought the same thing about the crash sequence. It seemed very un-realistic to me.

As far as Cate Blanchett as Hepburn.....I couldn't disagree more. I thought she was great in the film, and she was one of the big reasons I enjoyed the film as much as I did. I'm surprised to hear that you didn't think she was the right person for the part.

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

Much as I hate to keep alluding to Top Gun, I was struck while watching it just how hopelessly unrealistic their aerial stuff is - to get three planes in shot, they're flying in formation, and still going on about how they're going for missile locks! I'm no expert on air warfare, but I've a funny feeling that Sidewinder missiles are probably more effective at ranges greater than fifty feet.

 

Phil

[Adam Frisch FSF]

Late comer.

 

I loved The Aviator. Good acting and great cinematography. I wish I had the gutsy knowledge to overexpose as great as Richardson has.

 

But. There's always a but, isn't there? I've spoken about this before - why, oh Lord, why, must ALL 3D effects people have stuff running through the camera, exploding into camera, crashing into camera, tumble into camera? They really have to get off that awful cliche real soon. The worst is when you see a plane fly towards the center of the frame and then the camera goes through the whole plane, ending on a closeup of the actors face. That s*** should be outlawed.

 

The effects in The Aviator were some of the WORST I have ever seen. And I just know Scorsese got hijacked on these. After all, this is only his second real Hollywood movie, and on Gangs there wasn't much digital work. You can just feel how the visual effects supervisor has been running the show on The Aviator's effect scenes. It's got that talentless feel to it (Sony Imageworks have never done any good work ever).

 

The aerial work on Hell's Angels at the beginning looked like s***, frankly. None of the motion was right, the camera moved all over the place ("yeah, Marty, we can have the camera go everywhere!"). Takes me right out of the film, because I know there's no way to achieve that shot unless the mounted a Technocrane on a Fokker and flew it.

 

The chrome on that experimental plane also looked like those chromed 3D balls you saw flying through the Grand Canyon on 3D software demos about 10 years ago. Absolutely awful. And don't even get me started on the crash...

 

There wasn't one single effects shot in the movie that worked. Not one! And that takes skill.

 

Such a pity, because the film is really good and deserved not to be weighed down by bad effects.

[Dan Salzmann]

Just more bad Hollywood "gloss". Seems like really showboaty effects people made the effects go out of control. Like gaming has saturated the Hollywood mindset and all the "decisionmakers" sitting around being convinced that this is going to snare the youth market.

A real disappointment. I think Scorsese should be in a position to put his foot down about this kind of pfaff by now.

[Lindsay Mann]

I thought Blanchette and Beckinsale were both quite good. Almost better than Leo. Why doesn't Scorsese just come out and admit he's in love with Leo?

 

I thought the most breathtaking shots were the first time Hughes and Hepburn played a round of golf. I only read about the Digital Technicolor afterwards, and that shot threw me so offguard. I read a little on the AC Magazine site, but anyone got any other links about the techniques they used? I know I saw it up here somewhere before.

 

As far as Ballhaus, I read that Scorsese loves him because he works really quickly and Scorsese needed a lot of setups on stuff like "Kings of Comedy" where the studio didn't trust him and didn't give him a lot of time. I haven't seen a lot of Ballhaus' stuff, but I recall there being some great lighting in "Sleepers," and "Outbreak." Imagine what "Sleepers" would have looked like with Scorsese behind the wheel.

[David Cox]

David,

 

The smearing artifacts you're referring to have been a unfortunate "trademark" of Technicolor's DI's since Fincher's "Panic Room" - their first DI effort.  I'm sure you've kept track of this also.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Thats an interesting comment. If by "smearing" you mean the same as I know the technical process to create that (a lag or motion memory over more than one frame), then actually there is no reason why a DI should increase this issue. Indeed, if you asked a DI house to ad "smearing", it would increase processing time and therefore expense.

 

So I would suggest that your critisism of "smearing" might be better directed at another process than DI, unless you have only seen films where the director / DOP asked the DI house to add smearing! Or perhaps I am misunderstanding your definition of smearing?

[David Mullen ASC]

Thats an interesting comment. If by "smearing" you mean the same as I know the technical process to create that (a lag or motion memory over more than one frame), then actually there is no reason why a DI should increase this issue. Indeed, if you asked a DI house to ad "smearing", it would increase processing time and therefore expense.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

He's referring to a DVNR-type noise reduction applied to the image to reduce graininess, which when used too much, can create a motion lag.

[Michel Hafner]

If I have any complaint, it's technical -- there's something about many of Technique's D.I.'s ("Seabiscuit", "Kill Bill") that look more compressed and artifacty than other places, like heavy noise reduction is being applied.  Skin tone colors and details get this "crunchy yet smeary" look that vaguely reminds me of my satellite TV reception.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Caught it yesterday.

Yes, David, you are right. The keyword here is digital grain reduction.

The whole film, from scene one to the last scene, looks simply... HORRIBLE.

There was not one scene, not one, that did not have severe artifacts from this processing. Daylight,

night, interiors, exteriors, wall to wall. All in glorious smearovision. Human skin in motion was a disaster area. Other complicated textures suffered too. While the software/hardware left simple lines (like stripes on a jacket) pretty much alone it had a field day with the rest, messing it up like we were watching a third grade HD transfer with heavy DNR engaged all the time. A textbook example of how NOT to do DIs.

In addition to that the CGI looked often cheesy. There was aliasing. One scene had color banding (the hospital scene), and the pictures looked fuzzy.

What was Scorsese this monitoring/approving on? A NTSC TV set?

WHY? WHY? WHY???? Someone, please!

[Michel Hafner]

David,

The smearing artifacts you're referring to have been a unfortunate "trademark" of Technicolor's DI's since Fincher's "Panic Room" - their first DI effort.  I'm sure you've kept track of this also.

What I can't understand is why you don't hear DPs talk about this a bit more openly.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Neither do I. This 'process' when used this way undermines image quality and with it the art of cinematography on the master element in a way unheard of/unseen before the advent of DIs. It is overdue that cinematographers stand up, educate themselves and speak up against such abuse of the footage they shot.

Now, this film is nominated for an Academy Award for best cinematography! But what is the Academy nominating here? How the film would look minus the digital nasties? As it looks now (not like film anymore)? What is this nomination based on? Watching a DVD on a small monitor? How can this happen? This is a slap in the face of everyone who cherishes the beauty and integrity of motion pictures shot on celluloid. It's an outrage! :(

[K Borowski]

Imagine if they had put 2001: A Space Odyssey through 2K. This is why I'll always have a problem with DI. I'll never see the resolution, colors, and image structure that were originally recorded. It's like watching a movie through nylon stockings.

 

Regards.

~Karl Borowski