The Lost City of Z (2016)

[Alexandros Angelopoulos Apostolos]

I have no idea how long this trailer will be online, because it seems the studio has been taking it down, so be quick to watch it.

 

Obviously, this being a film with cinematography by Darius Khondji, I was dying to know what it will look like.

 

I must say I’m not disappointed.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQ0fdnKK02w

Edited April 20, 2016 by Alexandros Angelopoulos Apostolos

[Tyler Purcell]

Ohh Khondji's back shooting 35 again! WOOT :)

 

Looks like they're going to be striking prints as well.

[Alexandros Angelopoulos Apostolos]

Wait. Hasn’t he also shot the last three of his collaborations with Woody Allen on film as well? :blink: The only digital thing he shot is a project for an artist and a commercial for Mercedes, I believe.

 

What did you think of the colour scheme above?

 

He’s now shooting Okja. I wonder on what medium.

Edited April 21, 2016 by Alexandros Angelopoulos Apostolos

[Alexandros Angelopoulos Apostolos]

IMDb tells me that Okja will be, probably in major part, shot on Alexa 65, among other cameras. Could’ve guessed it. However, I have no idea how accurate IMDb info is, especially at this stage of the production.

[Tyler Purcell]

I haven't been keeping up with his stuff evidently.

 

After I saw him shoot Amour digitally, I thought that was the end of that. I totally forgot he had been shooting Allen's movies!

 

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1602620/technical?ref_=tt_dt_spec

[Shawn Sagady]

Everything looks great except for the really heavy yellows imo. Makes all the actors look jaundiced.

[Alexandros Angelopoulos Apostolos]

It is very reminiscent of Magic in the Moonlight, in my view. With bits of Irrational Man thrown in.

 

There are those yellowish green tones, most notably in Sun-soaked grass.

 

And then there’s this sort of peachiness or strawberry blondeness or whatever thrown in, which at times seems equally yellowish green. I can’t really define it well. The skies sometimes look gold, but it’s as if sometimes there’s a bit of this peachiness or strawberry tones pumped in.

 

 

The soil and sand look a tiny bit purplish-brown… I don’t know how to put it.

 

Strawberry gold together with yellowish green is sometimes seen in shots like this, too:

 

http://static1.squarespace.com/static/53323bb4e4b0cebc6a28ffa2/t/5702884259827e84008e40fe/1459783758055/

 

I think the influence of Storaro’s work on Apocalypse Now is evident.

 

[Alexandros Angelopoulos Apostolos]

[Alexandros Angelopoulos Apostolos]

Some behind-the-scenes photos:

 

[Alexandros Angelopoulos Apostolos]

Adam posted the official trailer in another thread – here it is:

Trailer for a film Khondji shot with director James Gray. Looks gorgeous.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsWX7-no6MI

A colourist at another message board said this when he saw the first, leaked, trailer: “Khondji always goes all out on his grades.”

It’s one of those things you notice, but somehow hits you in a “How come I didn’t put it that way?! Because it’s true!” way once you see it.

[Alexandros Angelopoulos Apostolos]

This is a slightly different trailer and a little longer: look here.

The poster is gorgeous.

Edited February 4, 2017 by Alexandros Angelopoulos Apostolos

[Tyler Purcell]

It just looks better and better. He's such a great cinematographer, that trailer is almost like a demo reel it's so pretty.

 

It says online there are going to be prints made... I hope one of them works its way around los angeles.

[Alexandros Angelopoulos Apostolos]

Ditto.

 

The only thing left for me to say is that I co-sign everything that you just said: it really does look better and better with every new trailer.

 

To think that when I first saw that leaked trailer last year, I thought “Oh, dear: I don’t like the look of this. :blink: ” to now really being all “I can’t wait”.

 

Khondji really is a master. I loved spotting what seemed to me to be the remains of film in the scan, that particular graininess which now I wonder whether it is a kind of trademark of Khondji’s, since I’ve spotted it before in Allen’s films.

 

I presume that you’re superexcited that this was shot on film. I hope you manage to hunt down that print.

 

It seems that this was only a 2K scan, the unreliable IMDb says. Perhaps they’ll attempt a 4K scan for some kind of future release. I’m trying to remember which film Darius was talking about when saying that the main release was 2K, but that he also did supervise a higher-resolution scan, and that it did look prettier. Perhaps Magic in the Moonlight. I'll have to check.

 

If there’s anything supertricky to shoot, in my view at this time, it is a lush green forest. A jungle. It’s easy to make an autumnal forest look gorgeous and filmic, but what to do with all that greenery and all those blue and grey shadows. :ph34r: This is not a documentary about wildlife in Africa to make everything gorgeously supersaturated with vividness and vibrance pumped to the max.

[John Holland]

Shot on film processed by Cinelab London .

[Manu Delpech]

To make sure people see the latest trailer in good quality instead of the usual horrendous YT one:

 

http://www.hd-trailers.net/movie/the-lost-city-of-z/

 

Absolutely stunning. Also, @Alexandros, the leaked trailer was not even in 480p quality, it was an ugly sales trailer of some kind, I can't believe they actually put it online. Now, we have the real deal, even with a highly compressed 1080p QT file. Gray insisted in a Q&A at NYFF after showing the film projected in 35mm that the film couldn't look that way on digital, and it's obvious, I still don't understand people who say they shoot film next to digital on a project (for the producers obviously) and say that the difference is not big enough to justify it. You see that latest trailer, there's no way in hell you can mistake the beautiful softness and texture for digital, it also feels more legit & serious imo, especially with the subject matter. Gray actually mentioned they tested Alexa vs Red vs F65 (he said Sony, but I guess he meant that one) vs film (anamorphic), and that film looked much superior and that 35mm just looks better, "it's a fact", the producers were bummed about it :D

 

He said it cost an additional 750 K on a 30 million budget, which is peanuts really, they did have trouble though with film being stuck in customs in Bolivia (sending it to London), and 2 days worth of dailies being badly damaged, but he said it's worth it. That color grading is something else too.

Edited February 5, 2017 by Manu Delpech

[Tyler Purcell]

Ya know, when people complain about shooting on film in remote places and choose to shoot digital, stories like this must be brought up. How your movie looks is more important in the long run then cheeping out.

 

They had similar problems on Revenant which prompted them dumping 65mm photography and going all digital.

 

I hope that film print makes the rounds!

[David Mullen ASC]

It's not "cheaping out" to take logistics and ergonomics into account when planning a production. And there are plenty of digital productions which do not look cheap -- "The Revenant" being one of them. For some filmmakers, the particular constraints of working with film are worth it, and for others, they are not. Beyond the issue of which looks better, the filmmaking style itself can be affected by the choice of format, and though film cameras can do a lot of things and go a lot of places, doing those things within the time & budget constraints of the production may cause the filmmakers to consider their options carefully. Even "La La Land" had to restructure their budget to accommodate 4-perf 35mm anamorphic when it had been budgeted for 3-perf 35mm.

[Tyler Purcell]

There is also no reason to shoot a 200:1 ratio... If you're careful with your shooting ratio, the cost difference between film and digital is nothing on a multi-million dollar production.

 

I've done all the math and made a spreadsheet with variable shooting ratio and photochemical vs digital options. It's pretty interesting when you start putting in numbers, what you get out is not very expensive, if you keep that ratio low. I think most movies can shoot 50:1 and be totally fine.

[David Mullen ASC]

50:1 for film???

 

I've shot almost 30 features in film and the majority were 10:1, a few of the more expensive ones were almost 20:1. Or are you saying that you can shoot a 50:1 ratio on 35mm film (about a 1/2 million feet of 35mm, about $250,000 in stock alone) before you cross over the costs of shooting on digital? Because a lot of line producers would question my math the next time I told them I wanted to shoot/process/telecine a half-million feet of film -- and then scan selects for a D.I. finish -- and would it still break even with an all-digital production.

 

Film is a valid choice but it is not without budgetary consequences.

[Tyler Purcell]

Just saying even at a crazy ratio like 50:1, the cost of film isn't so great on a big multi-million dollar movie.

 

These guys on Lost City of Z claimed film cost them 750k, which is unbelievable. At a 10:1 ratio, you can shoot an entire movie with panavision 5 perf 65mm cameras for 1.5M! So when someone says 750K for 35mm, I have to guess the ratio was super high. I just budgeted a 110 minute feature on 3 perf S35mm @ 10:1 and the "film" aspect is costing around $80k.

[Dan Finlayson]

Tyler, I think you need to redo your math/spreadsheet. I would guess $750,000 for stock also includes shipping costs. Production shot in Columbia so the film probably had to be shipped again to process. Daily international film shipment isn't cheap.

[Tyler Purcell]

Tyler, I think you need to redo your math/spreadsheet. I would guess $750,000 for stock also includes shipping costs. Production shot in Columbia so the film probably had to be shipped again to process. Daily international film shipment isn't cheap.

Here is the catch, what the budget doesn't say is the cost SAVINGS from not having a DIT. From not renting digital cameras (film cameras are far less money to rent) and all the time-savings you have during production with not shlepping around a crazy video village.

 

So when they say it cost 750,000 for "film" I think they're only tacking onto the budget, rather then doing a direct comparison.

[Jay Young]

I'm glad I came to watch the trailer.

I glad its not another zombie film.

 

Also, $750,000 is over 900 rolls of stock. More if they didn't pay list price. Was this quoted price inclusive of lab fees as well?

[Alexandros Angelopoulos Apostolos]

He said it cost an additional 750 K on a 30 million budget, ...

 

So wait: it cost an additional $750,000? Meaning, we don’t know the absolute price, just that shooting it on film was not that much more expensive than shooting the whole picture digitally?

[Alexandros Angelopoulos Apostolos]

American Cinematographer will have a piece about the film in May.

 

http://www.theasc.com/magazine_includes/index.php

Edited March 12, 2017 by Alexandros Angelopoulos Apostolos