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Spectre mixing film and digital


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Grain can be added in post .. how can only Skyfall look great but others crap..

Anything can be done in post. Good filmmakers don't resort to trickery in order to fool people. That's why films like interstellar are so great. Nolan did almost everything in camera and didn't resort to digital manipulation in order to sell his movie. How would you like to go to a theatre and see 3d holograms of actors on stage? The only reason that doesn't exist yet is because nobody would go!

 

unless we can have Roger Deakins shoot every single Alexa film.. sorry but I dont buy the .. it has no soul stuff.

Deakins is such a great cinematographer, he can make magic out of a pixel2000. Mind you, it still looks digital.

 

and motion blur? .. 180 degree is 180 degree.. I would question the aesthetic ,s of anyone who shoots most their material at 45 degree shutter.. TBH..

Actually they are technically entirely different. If you don't understand why, you should research how film cameras work.

 

If you are being taken out of the film.. its the script or acting or both thats doing it.. take a look at Tangerine..tell me what you think about motion blur and lack of soul..

Then all movies suck.

 

Or maybe when I pay $16 to watch a movie, I expect it not to look like television.

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Well then you could consider all post production "trickery" for film too.. have you ever seen un graded film footage shot by very good DP,s.. if often doesnt look that good.. you often see these un graded out takes on DVD,s features sections.. skys are burnt out etc.. grading/coloring is a part of the art of DP ing.. its not just to save a film,or trick audiences into thinking a film was well made.. every film is graded .. Nolan ,s are no exception.. Deakin,s is very particular about grading.. its often written into contracts for the DP to be paid for going to grading.. You think Interstellar wasn't graded ..All daylight scenes in Badlands were over exposed 2 stops the whole film and printed down.. I think your being a bit naive Tyler to think film is not manipulated in post.. its not just 1 light print and the jobs done :).. nearly everyone is pushing or pulling their image to some degree.. if you shoot RAW,or Log.. it all has to be graded to buggery to get any sort of image in post.The great Mr Deakin,s is doing zero grading on set.. just one LUT..

 

What Im saying is .. if grain is the big problem..it can be applied very simply in post..for digitally originated material.. its all just tools to get the look you want.. my reference t Tangerine.. is well its shot on an iPhone 5 !! with a $160 anamorphic adaptor and alot of post.. but its a great script and great acting and directing.. I wouldn't let all the techie stuff get in the way of enjoying a film.. dont torture yourself sir :)

 

Re shutter angle.. film camera or digital.. you say you shoot most of your material at 45 degree,s.. presumably at 24 fps..doesnt that give you a bit of an odd effect.. ? its up to you of course.. but for "normal" shooting instead of 180 you use 45.. does this not give a very staccato look.. even the 90 in Private Ryan had it.. although that was for an effect .. for a short part of the film.. so I wonder why you would prefer to shoot 45 for most of your material seemingly regardless of special effect etc..

 

Agree about the hologram thing personally.. but who knows it could be the future ? although Im very glad that 3D has seemed to have bitten the dust a second time..

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I don't consider photochemical timing "trickery" and it's not required. In today's digital age, filmmakers know they can manipulate more, so they're ok with things not being right in camera. This is what lead to material being unwatchable out of camera. There are many modern films that have little to no post manipulation shot on film and projected on film. The moment you add digital anything, you have to manipulate the image to fit the color space of the digital world. This is why when you watch raw shots from a film scanner that aren't corrected they look like crap. I've watched the work print of many 35mm films untimed. They look fantastic, they don't need anything. But that same material looks like crap on video because it doesn't match the color space of video. So the argument that film MUST be timed isn't grounded in any truth. That's just how people shoot today.

 

Adding film grain doesn't solve anything really. It's a patch for a problem that shouldn't exist. The real problem is that we're filmmakers. The word film is the mere definition of what we do. Our business wouldn't exist if it wasn't for celluloid. People are so eager to play around with alternative technologies to maybe save a few dollars and have a product that only exists through a computer screen with some ones and zeros! There is nothing physical about digital media. At least with video tape you had a physical asset. With modern digital you have nothing. You have to trust some tech wizards that your data will exist 20 years from now... Which by the way, it won't because most films won't pay to store that media. So all your camera originals? Gone. Wanna up res to whatever the next format is? Good luck, your master is whatever you could afford when you did post. I can sit here all day long and explain how utterly pathetic it is that filmmakers could care so little about their products they shoot digital and don't care about the future. We'll be watching separation prints of modern films 100 years from now or we could continue shooting film and keep the tradition alive for our future generations. It's all education and most "filmmakers" don't have that education. They trust other techies and when those guys fail, the filmmakers will he screwed.

 

Oh and by the way... 45 deg on film and digital is totally different. Why? Because digital doesn't have a shutter. the film physically moving in the gate means in every second, there is actually less image on the screen. So as a consequence when you scan film to digital it's removing those moments of black between each frame. Thus, the film camera and digital camera don't really have any similarity in how they work. So digital at 45 deg looks totally different then film at whatever your camera calls 45 deg.

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Good filmmakers don't resort to trickery in order to fool people. That's why films like interstellar are so great. Nolan did almost everything in camera and didn't resort to digital manipulation in order to sell his movie.

 

Have to disagree with you there, Tyler. The whole basis of cinema is trickery, illusion, and manipulation of the audience. Muybridge, Melies, Griffith, Hitchcock, Godard, etc. It's part of the appeal, filmmakers make films to transport a captive audience away from their reality to another time and place and people gladly watch them. It's all fair game - there's no inherent virtue in using a real location versus set, or a 'normal' lens versus an extreme wide angle, or a matte painting versus a digital composite, or the long take versus montage, or diagetic sound only versus film score. The trick is simply either convincing or it's not.

 

Do you truly believe that Christopher Nolan isn't actively manipulating his audience in a multitude of ways in "Interstellar," digitally or otherwise? I think that you just happen to prefer the older tricks over the newer ones. Which is fine, I do too. But let's not kid ourselves that one is inherently better than the other.

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Most archive is actually tape now.. and with say RAW.. you can go back to the original and make what ever changes you want..but there is no fool proof archive for film or video .. yes film doesn't have to be timed.. but you talk about it as if its the devils work.. its PART of the process.. why do you have this idea that no one cares about their work because they are shooting digital.. its just a nuts crazy idea.. I think you need to visit a proper film set one day and see how it works.. all the worlds leading DP,s since the modern age have been timing their rushes.. pushing or pulling stops by rating films differently .. or ISO on digital .. Im very sure they are caring alot about their work as is everyone else on the set..

 

Even a very respected and experienced DP would be getting a few strange looks coming out with this stuff..

 

I really dont get this evangelical thing your pushing.. about the hole filmmaker and education stuff.. what do you mean by education. .. film needs to be processed, it needs lab,s .. it needs alot more technical people around it than digital .. its entertainment .. yes films can have social messages too.. but it started as a sheet put up next to the circus tent.. its an art form yes.. but the script is far far more important than all this time worrying over grain.. oh my god its only zero,s and ones.. its not pure .. get behind me satan..

 

Have you actually shot a mid to large size feature film yourself.. or this is more of an armchair DP thing going on..

 

Yes I know how camera,s work.. still weird to shoot 45 shutter the whole time..

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Have to disagree with you there, Tyler. The whole basis of cinema is trickery, illusion, and manipulation of the audience.

My previous statement was directed at our modern vision of cinema, which is less about telling stories and more about tricking the audience through artificial means.

 

My problem isn't illusion, cinema in of itself is an illusion. My problem is taking the illusion too far and just assuming the audience doesn't care. Do you really think the general audience didn't notice that horrible helicopter green screen in Spectre? Or the flat image that wasn't very interesting to watch?

 

Ohh and Nolan... no green screen. I've studied Interstellar more then any other modern film, frame by frame in a lot of cases with the BTS on in the background. Sure, he was forced to use modern compositing techniques, that's simply because nobody developed a decent optical printer. Sure, they made a few 100% computer generated shots and punctuations on other shots. They also did some wire removal when necessary. Yet, when you see the finished product, it's so seamless only a few computer generated elements irked me, which is pretty amazing.

 

What bugs me Satsuki is that we've gone backwards. All of this new technology, hasn't made better movies, but it's made the movies closer then ever to television. As filmmakers, if we aren't striving to separate ourselves from television, cinema as we know it will eventually fade into history. Filmmakers who choose to let their "films" look like television (flat, lifted blacks, aliasing, poor FX, etc) clearly don't understand this concept and it's a real shame.

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Most archive is actually tape now

Just an FYI, my business is post production. I worked directly with Iron Mountain on their archiving solutions for 3 years during their initial development. LTO tape's don't last very long. So the data store houses charge thousands of dollars every year to duplicate those tapes. When you duplicate compressed media, you actually loose data. It only takes 10 duplications before there is irreparable data loss. This is why we use JPEG2000 (RAW) compression standards. It's the only format capable of loosing part it's structure and delivering an image. However, MOST movies can't afford this premium service for their camera originals. So their media resides on LTO tapes sitting in a vault or maybe even stacks and stacks of hard drives which will go bad. 20 years from now, there is a very good chance most of that media will be gone forever, only the final 2k export stored by the distributor will remain.

 

So the problem is, how do you make a movie shot in 4k, finished in 2k up-res to 8k in the future when you don't have the 4k original media anymore.

 

We've already lost some camera originals from the early digital films.

 

there is no fool proof archive for film

Yes there is. Modern processed camera negative sitting in a household closet will last 100 years. Put it in a vault with climate control, make RGB (B&W separation prints) you extend that to 200 - 300 years. It costs around $500/year to store original camera negative at Iron Mountain's facility, which is pretty much bomb proof. You can also store internegatives at the library of congress and in your closet.

 

Have you actually shot a mid to large size feature film yourself.. or this is more of an armchair DP thing going on..

Most of my film work is commercial.

 

Yes I know how camera,s work.. still weird to shoot 45 shutter the whole time..

Anything to get rid of that horrible "digital" television-esque motion blur.

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My previous statement was directed at our modern vision of cinema, which is less about telling stories and more about tricking the audience through artificial means.

 

My problem isn't illusion, cinema in of itself is an illusion. My problem is taking the illusion too far and just assuming the audience doesn't care.

 

What bugs me Satsuki is that we've gone backwards. All of this new technology, hasn't made better movies, but it's made the movies closer then ever to television. As filmmakers, if we aren't striving to separate ourselves from television, cinema as we know it will eventually fade into history. Filmmakers who choose to let their "films" look like television (flat, lifted blacks, aliasing, poor FX, etc) clearly don't understand this concept and it's a real shame.

Gotcha, thanks for clarifying. I do agree with you that there have been fewer great films made in the last decade that can stand alongside the masterworks of previous eras. Honestly though, I don't believe this is the fault of technology.

 

I believe that the source material chosen and scripts being developed today generally have less humanity and mostly lack a unique vision of the human condition. 'Spectre' I think is a good example. It lacks personality. You have writers and directors making these films who are probably not terribly passionate about this material. To compensate for a lack of originality, they add more 'spice' - more VFX, longer car chases, bigger explosions, etc. Instead of making better films to attract a bigger audience, they charge more per head to make a profit.

 

As an audience, if we are not connecting on an emotional level with the film then it's no wonder that all the technical flaws are so much more obvious and offensive to our eyes. These flaws were always there in films of the past - look at how many bumpy dolly shots, buzzed focus shots, sloppy operating, and unconvincing rear projection or matte shots there have been in all of our favorite films. If they move us, it doesn't matter.

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You got that right indeed. Spectre is a pure moneygrabbing affair which could make sense considering that Sony is going to lose the rights to the franchise after this one and the marketing was practically non-existent, the film is the very definition of soulless entertainment. And Sam Mendes is a great director, but I wonder how much of an input he really has on anything that's not related to story and characters, ie the action, reminds me of Marvel where they have a lot of the times the big set pieces already pre-vized before the director is even picked. Thing is, Spectre is still making a ton of money and it works.

 

I also agree with Tyler that the craft is much lazier today because of how much you can tinker with things, there's less discipline overall, it's only the masters like Scorsese, Tarantino, Nolan, PT Anderson, Spielberg, Cameron, Coen bros, etc, etc (many more to pick from) who are on top because they're storytellers foremost, using the technology to enhance, rather than relying on it and letting it take over. There are still many great movies being made though.

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Exactly.

 

Not many of our modern films can hold a candle to those made 20 years ago. I re-watch the movies of my childhood and their so amazing. It was the beginning of a great era of filmmaking where people had figured out technology and all they were doing was telling interesting stories using the visual medium.

 

 

Personally I can connect to good looking film that tells an ok story. But I can't connect to a bad looking film with a great story. I get bored because it's a visual medium and if it's not interesting visually, there is no point. All digital technology has done is make most movies look bad (like bad TV) and uninteresting to watch visually. Now some television looks amazing. Since its 1080i, you can't really tell what the camera original looks like and it's not being projected on a big screen. Plus nobody really cares about up-resing in later years. Ohh and don't get me wrong, when done right digital can look very cinematic. However, in my eyes, to do it right is far more challenging and more complex.

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Exactly, to put it simply, I just think that the ease of use of digital, the fact that it's so immediate, that the Alexa is so amazing in low-light, that you can use less lights has led to lesser quality work, guys like Deakins do wonderful things with it, but I think there's less discipline (and no, I'm not saying that there's no hard work involved or anything), and it being easier and more accessible leads to that.

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I wouldn't judge the value of something artistic by the level of difficulty in making the art. Nestor Almendros and Terrence Malick created art in "Days of Heaven" by NOT dragging out the arc lights that the crew insisted was necessary to shoot "good" day exteriors. Sure, fellow filmmakers are always impressed by difficult-to-execute set-ups, for good reason, but that's not to say that such shots have greater value, let's say, than static close-up lit with a single light.

 

As someone once said, 90% of everything is crap -- and the 10% of what's good often has little to do with the tools involved, often they are the same tools that the other 90% used.

 

I would disagree that something released in 1080P on blu-ray, for example, lacks enough resolution to judge whether the cinematography is any good. Many older 35mm 1.85 films from the 50's and 60's would barely qualify as containing 2K worth of detail in them. Certainly watching a blu-ray of "Casablanca" or "Citizen Kane" we are able to judge whether the cinematography is any good or not. Besides, there is the issue of viewing distance, there isn't much difference in image size if you sit from the center towards the back of an average theater compared to watching a movie on a 50" screen at home sitting a few feet away. I certainly can spot minor focus mistakes on movies that I watch on blu-ray.

 

Sure, there are BIG movie experiences, ala "2001" or "Lawrence of Arabia" (or "Interstellar") which are best experienced on large screens in a theater, but there are plenty of artistic movies like "The Godfather" where a moderately-sized image is enough to judge the movie.

 

To me, digital is just another type of paint and paint brush and one can do artistic work with it. I don't think film is "superior" (except maybe currently in very large formats) but I do feel that it has lovely properties that would be a shame to lose.

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Oh yeah, I mean, Blu Rays are fine, no problem on that. I think that saying that film is superior really has to do with your personal taste, guys like Pfister and Nolan clearly say that it is I think in the sense that it looks better, I think it'd be hard to argue otherwise, unless you really don't like grain or the texture of a film image for some reason. And quite a few DPs like Pfister simply also feel that film is more reliable, allows them to execute their vision exactly as they see fit (which is what Wally said in the AC article on Transcendence). It's a matter of taste and we can't force that on anyone but it is very clear by how many movies are being shot on film lately and guys like Michael Mann of all people who's a digital afficionado, saying that he's going to go back to film on his Enzo Ferrari project that film holds an emotional place that digital does not. But then again, hundreds of years of celluloid means that's what we're used to, some directors don't care about that, but it's hard not to care.

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Far less discipline and now with the union costs being crazy, production of big movies is more then it's ever been. So people want to shoot less on set, which means movies are being made in post. You either have a lot of money or you make it in post.

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Why is it that at least once a week, I have read to some anti-union post on this site??? If I wanted to experience the joys of union bashing, I'd just turn on Fox News or listen to the Republican presidential candidates. Scott Walker would love hanging around on Cinematography.Com...

 

It's not the cost of union workers that has been rising, salaries have been fairly flat compared to inflation just like the rest of the world, it's the above the line costs that are so high... Or the cost of doing CGI-heavy movies with huge staffs of visual effects artists (many of whom are not union either, but there are a lot of them!) Blaming the cost of making a big Hollywood movie on some grip or electric's salary is just plain unfair, not when you've got above the line people living like kings these days.

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Because David it costs 400,000 for a few grip trucks and honey wagons for a 20 day shoot. Four hundred thousand dollars!!! And if you try to circumvent the union, you'll get bullied. How about the $5000/wk DIT? Do you really think that's acceptable? How about the carpenters Union? They want 156,000 dollars to build us a small fake facade that would take them 7 days. Yes seven days of work and 8 guys = 156k!!!

 

You're right David, the camera, sound, gaf and grip departments are all normal. You're also right that above the line is outrageous and is HALF the problem. But the other half are the unions. The kind of pay rates my Union post friends make is ridiculous. 250/hr for online. 450/hr for color. 3800/wk for assistant editing. Really? The guy who copies and pastes poop makes almost 10 grand a month?!! Does that make sense?

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Because David it costs 400,000 for a few grip trucks and honey wagons for a 20 day shoot. Four hundred thousand dollars!!!

 

Curious where this number comes from, and what's in those trucks that are costing $100,000 per week? Concede that the 100k number includes camera, wardrobe/HMU, grip, electric, dessing rooms and ??

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In a world where more and more people are admitting that wage disparity is a real problem, it makes no sense to drive down the wages of union workers and to take away their benefits. How would the world be a better place if a bunch of middle-class workers are pushed down closer towards the wages of the working poor? Wouldn't it be better to lift more people up than to knock some people down?

 

And for all you know, that experienced crew person who makes $5000 a week only works ten weeks in the year and spends the other forty weeks looking for his next job. We live in a freelance business; the question is whether you believe that a skilled worker deserves to have a middle-class lifestyle if he works what would be an average number of days for his industry. Maybe some of you think that an experienced camera operator or DIT should be living in his parents' basement and never dream of raising a family and sending his kids to college.

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The guy... makes almost 10 grand a month?!! Does that make sense?

Tyler, what doesn't make sense is condemning someone who makes only $120,000/year. That's the best case scenario using your example in a freelance industry. That's not that much of an annual income for someone who may have a family including children. By today's standard and depending where one lives, that's barely middle class. Those of us who do make a handsome living in this business, like David and myself, have only accomplished this by hard, dedicated work and sacrifice. I'm tired of reading posts that are disgruntled and exploit those who are willing to work hard in order to achieve a higher level of expertise and talent. This shouldn't be about the Haves and the Have Nots. Create your own opportunities like we had to. No one hands this stuff out for free.

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Go try to rent a truck anywhere without a union driver. The trucks are affordable. The workers are not. It makes production outrageously expensive. Those guys work every day of the week, probably 8 months out of the year. They really don't need to be making 45/hr and double time on most days.

 

I have the union rate sheets for all the departments and as I said in my previous post, the standard shooting crew rates aren't anything crazy. My point is, there are many ancillary things that drive up cost and in the digital age we have even more: DIT, DI, 3D conversion and visual effects.

 

Did you know, the most expensive part of post production is color on normal no vfx films. It's obscenely expensive and there isn't really any reason besides demand. Everyone needs their digital projects colored and a single LUT doesn't work.

 

So yes, making our modern digital films is more costly then film and a traditional photochemical finish. For ulta low budget projects, I understand digital if you can do all the work at home. However for anything that's going to a theater, what do you gain from spending all that extra money? Some of the best looking cinema in film history is done photochemically.

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Tyler, what doesn't make sense is condemning someone who makes only $120,000/year. That's the best case scenario using your example in a freelance industry. That's not that much of an annual income for someone who may have a family including children.

Really? 120k is not enough for working a few times a year? You make it seem like it's impossible to live off that much money, yet most of our population lives off less than half that and works 5 days a week every week of the year. Heck I've never made anywhere near that and I hustle my ass off.

 

Perspective man

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Go try to rent a truck anywhere without a union driver. The trucks are affordable. The workers are not. It makes production outrageously expensive. Those guys work every day of the week, probably 8 months out of the year. They really don't need to be making 45/hr and double time on most days.

I have the union rate sheets for all the departments and as I said in my previous post, the standard shooting crew rates aren't anything crazy. My point is, there are many ancillary things that drive up cost and in the digital age we have even more: DIT, DI, 3D conversion and visual effects.

Did you know, the most expensive part of post production is color on normal no vfx films. It's obscenely expensive and there isn't really any reason besides demand. Everyone needs their digital projects colored and a single LUT doesn't work.

So yes, making our modern digital films is more costly then film and a traditional photochemical finish. For ulta low budget projects, I understand digital if you can do all the work at home. However for anything that's going to a theater, what do you gain from spending all that extra money? Some of the best looking cinema in film history is done photochemically.

You'll get no argument from me by preferring film over digital. I had to do a cost analysis a couple of years ago for a producer just for camera equipment rental. Digital was about 40% more expensive than film. That was just for the gear - no labor! But who's to say that $45/hour is too much? Why shouldn't an employee be compensated for working over 12 consecutive hours? That's up to the free market values, labor laws, collective bargaining and not anything else. These opposing comments really sound like sour grapes.

 

G

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Tyler.. why am I not surprised.. so its the unions fault you are not being able to save the worlds film industry from a pit of digital non caring infidels ..

 

Ps I know a lawyer who makes $400,000 plus a year.. in his 30,s .. charge $1,000 an hour sitting on his arse in a nice office.. talks and taps a few keys on a computer.. and he's considered poor by the partners .. they buy him drinks.. and pay for his golf.. A DIT working 14 hr days who has alot of responsibility is being very poorly paid in comparison ..

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