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Panavision and the resurrecting of dinosaur technology


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. . . and it’s ‘reek,’ not ‘wreak’.

 

Only if you are Theon Greyjoy, is it Reek.

 

But such things give grammarians occasion to wreak their rules upon others, which often reeks of unstated envy.

Edited by John E Clark
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Theres much useful information on this forum, but, like Sam, I find the bad spelling and poor syntax used by many contributors a needless distraction. That many posts are made hurriedly and without much attention to the rules of grammar is clear, but I have to wonder if theyd be written correctly even if those posting werent in a hurry.

 

Most of us are cinematographers and film technicians, not professional writers and editors. We're not getting paid to write articles for you, we are simply sharing our knowledge, experience, and ideas with each other in an informal venue. If you like that, then welcome. If not, then go hang out somewhere else.

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... I think you're on the right track with lower contrast plus a larger negative. I actually find it's easy to make 35mm look too soft by today's standards, so I'm not sure you need to worry too much about that. You should shoot some tests. You can use old uncoated lenses shot wide open, soft frontal lighting, avoid edge lights and eye lights, diffusion, haze, underexposure or pull processing, and flashing to lower contrast. Though I would personally try to add more contrast, not less if already using old lenses. Otherwise you'll just end up with mush

 

I actually totally forgot the effect of the larger negative but now that you mentioned it, it's obvious it has a considerable role in achieving that look by ensuring a good resolution and clarity with the older softer optics. In the first post I only meant that the usage of film and not digital already helped in achieving a more natural look.

 

Btw, does anyone know how fast those old anamorphic lenses are?

 

 

Valter

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It's only in the recent decade that reading tech articles (which I've dearly loved all my life so far) has become awkward and horrid to me, by their current poor attention to grammar, syntax, and spelling, and the actual encouragement for tolerance toward such substandard communication.

Persons who actually can write and spell, and expect that of others are called "grammar nazi" and worse by...well, boobs.

Before that, poorly-written articles would have been criticized and removed, or at least Edited by some professional Editor or Moderator somewhere, one with actual language skills, and a solid interest in communicating clearly and well.

I recognize the sentiment, that I don't belong here any more. I understand it completely. In fact, I agree with it. Rome has fallen. I'm just another annoyance to the Vandals.

This particular discussion of a topic with which I'm quite familiar (65mm / 70mm film, and Anamorphic Lenses), with its lame writing and inattention to style, would have been unheard-of twenty years ago, because Cinematographers had then a great pride in their ability to communicate - both in pictures and the written word.

Pride, indeed. I am sincere, gentlemen. I felt it was a special club, with special persons, who were educated and articulate. I really liked it, because of the level it represented.

Don't believe me? Pore over some old _American Cinematographer_ or _Industrial Photographic_ magazines. My collection goes back to the 1940s, and those guys could write, as well as frame a shot, focus a lens, or release a shutter.

To be entirely honest, I wrote my Post because this piece was a "last straw" for me, I just don't want to wade through poorly written articles about my own beloved Art Form any more.

Having done so. I hit "Post," to release those feelings and leave here, because there are now just too many pieces like that.

...Then I read other pieces Tyler wrote.

I can see he's quite impassioned by the Visual Arts, and sincere. I thought better of my Post. I didn't really have to say anything about how I thought about how he wrote it - I could just leave.

I admit I tried to delete it, and the software wouldn't let me. Ha ha! Trapped by my own hand. And yes, when you write a letter of correction, obviously and ironically, you leave a few errors of your own. I assure you, those don't feel great.

I apologize if I hurt Tyler's feelings, or made him feel uncomfortable. Didn't want that. I just want articles to be clearly written, because it's a pain to read substandard anything.

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I think the standards for a print publication have to be much higher than for an internet post or a blog -- in this case, the level of Tyler's writing was fine for a forum post, if not a bit more complex and elaborate than usual, and I understood everything he wrote, which is usually my standard for a forum post. Keep in mind when reading those old magazine articles that they had editors, proofreaders, etc.

 

What I dislike online are arguments that break out simply because the poor writing of the original post has confused everyone. It's also annoying when a question cannot even be understood well enough to answer it. The point of language is to communicate ideas, so the main criteria for judgement should be whether those ideas were clearly expressed. If bad spelling and punctuation get in the way of understanding the meaning of the text, then it is a real problem, but for a forum post that uses "there" when they meant "they're" or "their", I'm a bit less critical.

 

On the other hand, I also don't get bent out of shape when someone points out a spelling error in something I wrote... It's all information and it's all something we can learn from.

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Thanks, Satsuki!

 

And to Sam: I can understand how one can be irritated by grammatical errors and typos and is itched to note about them as I tend to be a bit similar in that way. And it is indeed a good thing to have a high standard for grammar and verbal communication as it's the only way of communicating in a very detailed way. Other types of communication don't quite cover that the same way. But the thing here, as you know, was the very unpolite and almost hostile way of criticizing the grammar as it was out of proportion compared to what was the amount of errors: Tyler's post sure had its share but it was still very understandable. I've seen a LOT worse around the internet (which is a bit sad, I guess). But I might be able to somewhat understand your sadness about the degradation of standards of written language even though english isn't my mother tongue. But if newspapers here would start to have more and more grammar errors, it would indeed make me a bit sad. But then, this isn't a newspaper or a magazine, but an internet forum. Though that doesn't mean good language couldn't be used here as well.

 

I think it's a great thing people write here and communicate with fellow cinematographers. I myself would have had no chance of going to the screening so it's great to be able to read about it here!

 

 

Valter

 

P.S. I think what Tyler means with the "too sharp out-of-focus areas" is either maybe the too technically perfect bokeh or then "bokeh outlining", also known as nisen bokeh. What he refers to as "artistic bokeh" is probably the "distortion" of out-of-focus areas caused by the anamorphics; the oval shape of the "discs".

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Yes, technically accurate nisen bokeh is a good way to explain it. You see that A LOT with digital cinematography and decent glass, it stands out like a sore thumb. These beautiful pieces of glass distort the colors in the nisen bokeh, so it looks imperfect without offsetting the bokeh what so ever. I dislike glass that offsets the bokeh a great deal, it's just distracting. I'm not a huge fan of anamorphic lens flares myself, so the oval flares and distortion were kind of distracting to me. However, everything else about the glass was simply divine. As Richardson pointed out in another article I recently read, he doesn't like the standard blue lens flares what so ever. Maybe great for a sci-fi film, works fantastic in Close Encounters, but for a western you need something a lot warmer.

 

I stumbled upon an article written in the Kodak motion publication about Jurassic World shooting in 65mm. They shot 150,000 feet of 5 perf 65mm, which to put in perspective, "Bakara" and "Samsara" used quite a bit less. So it appears a great deal of Jurassic World is 65mm, which includes all of the special effect shots. I find it hilarious when ILM said they didn't want the production to shoot digital, they wanted the dynamic range and color gamut of film. FotoKem did an outstanding job on the production with one day turn-arounds on the 65mm negative for projection. John Schwartzman did a fantastic job on the film, which was clearly very technically challenging.

 

http://motion.kodak.com/motion/Publications/InCamera/Jurassic_World_Calls_for_65_mm_Film.htm

 

​The film was shot with IMAX presentation in mind. They used a 2:1 aspect ratio, which was cropped slightly down to the IMAX digital format of I believe 1.9:1, something like that. I watched the film last night at the Chinese theater, the only theater in So Cal with the new IMAX laser projectors. Unfortunately, the film was in 3D so it was nearly impossible to get a good sense of quality. The system uses dual 4k projectors to produce an over--sampled 8k image on the screen. It was clear the film wasn't shot for IMAX, Schwartzman used standard framing, which made for a lot of head movement on the count of the viewers. Still, the blow-up looked pretty darn good. The interiors were 5219 and the grain looked like MPEG noise in the background. The exteriors were 5213 or 5203 and they looked a lot better. You could tell the moment they switched from 35mm to 65mm, the wide shots and special effect shots were like glass, no perceivable grain what so ever. I wasn't too distracted by the grain switch, forgot all about it until the very end during the night photography where things went a bit crazy special effects wise and you were more engaged in what was happening, rather then looking at the background.

 

Outside of the horrible 3D conversion, I really enjoyed the film. It was a departure from the flying people doing amazing thing's movies which occupy most of our big-budget releases. Dinosaur's going amuck in my eyes, is much more realistic and grounded in some sense of realism. Sure the story was stupid, but who goes to see a film about dinosaurs and expects a story? I went to be entertained and ya know what, I was really entertained. The guys at ILM did a great job with the all CG dinosaurs, they looked really clean and outside of the 3D conversion artifacts, I was very impressed. During the credit scroll, I realized this is what youth of today want's to see. They want an in-your-face experience and I don't know if there are enough eyes out there, willing to pay for a more classical experience even if it's better quality.

 

​Finally, the laser projection was pretty darn good. Wasn't quite up to 15/70 but it was the closest I've ever seen.

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Looks like you lucky people get an exclusive 2-week roadshow of 'Hateful 8' in 70mm UP. Wow. No mention of the UK.Too bad.

Enjoy it, I expect it'll be the last.

Heck, it's the first for about 50 years! What a show.

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Am I the only one disappointed that there have been no actual dinosaurs in this thread? I feel like if you put 'dinosaur' in the thread title, there should be at least one dino pic.

 

We're watching the Jurassic Park series, and will probably see the recent film next week... so no... I've not missed having a dino pic in this thread.

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Am I the only one disappointed that there have been no actual dinosaurs in this thread? I feel like if you put 'dinosaur' in the thread title, there should be at least one dino pic.

 

 

 

Just for you, Satsuki. ^_^

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  • 3 weeks later...

While I think the information in Tim's article is awesome, I don't mind Sam's critique. I'm not an editor or writer, but I don't mind being reminded that we all can write better in this lazy dumbed down digital age once in a while.

 

Best

 

Tim

 

It's only in the recent decade that reading tech articles (which I've dearly loved all my life so far) has become awkward and horrid to me, by their current poor attention to grammar, syntax, and spelling, and the actual encouragement for tolerance toward such substandard communication.

Persons who actually can write and spell, and expect that of others are called "grammar nazi" and worse by...well, boobs.

Before that, poorly-written articles would have been criticized and removed, or at least Edited by some professional Editor or Moderator somewhere, one with actual language skills, and a solid interest in communicating clearly and well.

I recognize the sentiment, that I don't belong here any more. I understand it completely. In fact, I agree with it. Rome has fallen. I'm just another annoyance to the Vandals.

This particular discussion of a topic with which I'm quite familiar (65mm / 70mm film, and Anamorphic Lenses), with its lame writing and inattention to style, would have been unheard-of twenty years ago, because Cinematographers had then a great pride in their ability to communicate - both in pictures and the written word.

Pride, indeed. I am sincere, gentlemen. I felt it was a special club, with special persons, who were educated and articulate. I really liked it, because of the level it represented.

Don't believe me? Pore over some old _American Cinematographer_ or _Industrial Photographic_ magazines. My collection goes back to the 1940s, and those guys could write, as well as frame a shot, focus a lens, or release a shutter.

To be entirely honest, I wrote my Post because this piece was a "last straw" for me, I just don't want to wade through poorly written articles about my own beloved Art Form any more.

Having done so. I hit "Post," to release those feelings and leave here, because there are now just too many pieces like that.

...Then I read other pieces Tyler wrote.

I can see he's quite impassioned by the Visual Arts, and sincere. I thought better of my Post. I didn't really have to say anything about how I thought about how he wrote it - I could just leave.

I admit I tried to delete it, and the software wouldn't let me. Ha ha! Trapped by my own hand. And yes, when you write a letter of correction, obviously and ironically, you leave a few errors of your own. I assure you, those don't feel great.

I apologize if I hurt Tyler's feelings, or made him feel uncomfortable. Didn't want that. I just want articles to be clearly written, because it's a pain to read substandard anything.

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  • 1 month later...

What kind of post path did they go through on this film? Is the DCP from a 4K DI or a scan of a timed IP? Did they do something similar to The Master, which was optically graded for the 70mm prints and went through a DI for the DCP?

Edited by Ravi Kiran
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