Could someone clarify this American Cinematographer quote, please?

[cole t parzenn]

From the article on "The Tree of Life:"

The picture was shot in standard 1.85:1, in 4-perf for maximum resolution and low grain. Lubezki explains, “Even though anamorphic has more resolution, we decided on 1.85 because the close focus was going to be extreme — we were so close to the kids, their faces, hands and feet. And we didn’t want the grain of Super 35.”

 

Being that they did a 4k DI, what was the advantage of shooting Regular 35?

 

Grazie.

Edited August 18, 2014 by cole t parzenn

[David Mullen ASC]

I think he meant that he didn't want the grain of Super-35 cropped to 2.40.

 

As for Super-35 for 1.85 versus regular 1.85, I think this decision was partially because they weren't sure when they started shooting as to whether they would do a D.I. Later in testing for the finished project, Lubezki felt that the D.I. was bringing out extra detail and resolution that a straight contact print wasn't. I saw the movie in a 4K theater and he certainly got some of the best quality I've ever seen out of 35mm. But had he known up front that he was going to do a D.I., he probably would have shot full aperture / Super-35 for 1.85 because the reasons not to use the extra soundtrack width for picture information are pretty small.

[cole t parzenn]

I figured that the Super 35-grain comment was in reference to 2.40, too, though the context makes it a bit ambiguous. (I should have left it out, probably.)

 

My understanding is that 4k DIs are quite expensive - why would they leave that decision until the end?

[David Mullen ASC]

They might have felt at the beginning of production -- or Malick might have felt -- that a straight photochemical finish would be fine, but after a long editing / post-production period, they decided to do some tests for finishing. Also at some point, there was more "b-roll" footage in the movie that came from digital cameras than ended up in the final cut, but maybe that was a factor in considering a D.I. Maybe more money showed up to finish the post, or maybe enough time had passed that it was clear that a number of screens would be showing the movie digitally. I don't know, I'm just guessing.