Yasujiro Ozu Films, Fincher, etc.

[Aaron Rabin]

Has anyone seen a Yasujiro Ozu film entitled Good Morning? It has an almost painted quality?is there any way to emulate that on digital? Hitchcock films can look similar, and, without getting too particular, this look is taken to its extreme in David Fincher?s The Game during flashback sequences. I imagine it would all be done in post, but what are the tenets of this particular look? Is it Technicolor? What differed in the emulsion back then, and how can that information be incorporated into modern post-filters? Or, for that matter, what could aid such a look during shooting? I?m not sure if Technicolor is precisely what I?m talking about, but if there are any insights, please let me know. I know Scorsese and Robert Richardson tried to recreate the Technicolor look for ?The Aviator??but the change wasn't extreme enough for me to glean enough information.

 

Aaron

[David Mullen ASC]

A lot of that 1950's look is production design and lighting, otherwise you're talking about early Eastmancolor negative for those late 1950's Ozu & Hitchcock films, which is not all THAT far removed than the look of modern color negative. In other words, the style of the filmmaking makes a bigger difference in achieving that look. "Far From Heaven" replicated that look using regular Kodak stocks. Production design and lighting.

 

The flashbacks in "The Game" don't look anything like that, though -- they are meant to look more like grainy Kodachrome home movies, the look of an older color reversal stock.

[Jason Maeda]

i wouldn't say "replicated" exactly...how about "approximated"?

 

aaron check out "julien donkey-boy" by harmony korine you're gonna love it. also check out "farenhiet 451" by truffaut. these films look nothing like each other but they both are lovely and could also both be described by some of the words you're using.

jk :ph34r:

[David Mullen ASC]

Well, it's always going to be an approximation because when recreating the look of an older film, the question always comes up as to what you are using as a frame of reference? A pristine dye transfer print stored in some vault and projected? A new Eastmancolor print struck off of the old negative? Struck off of an IN? Made from b&w separations? Are you judging the image based on a video transfer?

 

I see old color movies all the time from the 1950's in various venues and there is no consistent look to them because they all differ in printing methods, storage methods, aging problems, etc. I've even been to screenings where some reels are original dye transfer prints on nitrate stock and other reels are made on modern Eastmancolor print stock from an IN that was made from a restoration of the original b&w seps. So when someone says "I want my movie to look like something shot in the 1950's" I have to ask them exactly WHAT they are matching to. Everyone's perceptions and memories are different -- one person will say the movies were highly saturated yet when you find a decent print of the movie, the saturation is normal. Often people confuse a saturated image with one that was art-directed with saturated colors even though the film stock itself seems to be of normal saturation or even is pastel in rendition.

 

Not to mention many films of the 1950's were shot in larger formats than 35mm, like Hitchcock's VistaVision films, which are going to be sharper and finer-grained than 4-perf 35mm movies of the decade.

 

Ultimately you just have to decide for yourself what you want your image to look like in terms of graininess, color saturation, contrast, sharpness, etc. and then combine that with matching the AESTHETICS of the period, which is what "Far From Heaven" did. You have to think like a cinematographer, art director, editor, director, etc. of the period. That matters more than matching the technical look of the stocks of the day. I bet if I found some original color negative from the mid 1950's and shot a modern scene on it, most people would not think it looked period or from the 1950's -- they'd probably just say "that stock was kinda soft & grainy, was it Fuji F-400T?"