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No Time To Die (2021) - spoiler free until US release


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17 hours ago, Stephen Perera said:

......back to talking about the film.

Stills photographer Greg Williams is selling prints with the 007 franchise and this one in particular is a great shot of the Arricam hahaha...sorry I meant to say Daniel Craig. Anyone know the camera operator?

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Not an Arricam. It's an Arriflex 435 ?

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1 hour ago, Uli Meyer said:

Not an Arricam. It's an Arriflex 435 ?

I stand corrected haha. Hope all is well Uli. As a fellow European.....have you had a chance to see the film yet?I think Linus Sandren did a great job as was expected. He's definitely in the premier league of film stock DPs now isn't he. Shame Roger Deakins is so set on this digital path, I would love to see him shoot celluloid again, as he is premier league of course and a fellow Man Utd supporter to boot haha

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On 10/5/2021 at 1:14 AM, Tyler Purcell said:

Exactly, very controlled light, I mean if you're gonna be somewhere for most of the day, you gotta do that honestly. 

I wanted to provide 2 photos of the 40x40 solids that we fly overhead for sunlight control. In these pictures, they are suspended by a 100 foot Champion Crane. 
 

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3 hours ago, Gregory Irwin said:

I wanted to provide 2 photos of the 40x40 solids that we fly overhead for sunlight control. In these pictures, they are suspended by a 100 foot Champion Crane. 

Yep exactly, that's the "proper" way to do it. Alas, that rig to rent for all the daylight exterior scenes, is around 1/4 of the budget for most projects I work on lol ?

We usually fly a 10x10 or 20x20 on two crank stands and use a few bounce cards for key light. That's like $250/day (3 day week) worth of gear. 

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8 hours ago, Gregory Irwin said:

I wanted to provide 2 photos of the 40x40 solids that we fly overhead for sunlight control. In these pictures, they are suspended by a 100 foot Champion Crane. 
 

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Thank you so much Gregory for this information. I didn't know such huge cranes were used for control of sunlight. At first I was surprised that this is necessary, but on further thought it makes sense as it allows the middle of the day to be used on external daytime shoots. You don't have to wait for the light.

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On 10/3/2021 at 2:15 PM, Stephen Perera said:

cinematography was great aside from a few needless anamorphic flares that’s pandering to the YouTube generation that equates flares with great camera work haha.

I know, right?

 

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https://ascmag.com/articles/no-time-to-die-007

Article on the making of. 

Last paragraph: “Inevitably, time and budget constraints weigh down on creative choices, and when I was at the point of bending to compromise... " 

300 million dollar movie and they had to compromise? 

This industry is getting out of control, it really is. 

 

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16 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

https://ascmag.com/articles/no-time-to-die-007

Article on the making of. 

Last paragraph: “Inevitably, time and budget constraints weigh down on creative choices, and when I was at the point of bending to compromise... " 

300 million dollar movie and they had to compromise? 

This industry is getting out of control, it really is. 

 

I just wrapped BLACK ADAM for Warner Bros/DC Comics and it too had around a $300M budget. My camera equipment  budget was well north of $100,000/week (just equipment rental, not including labor costs) and we were always having to make strategic decisions based on our budget limits. In the end, it’s always business management. 
 

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17 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

Amazing article! Well, I guess here is the DSLR secret:  LED projections for filming tighter car interiors with realistic lighting and reflections. "The car was surrounded by screens projecting moving-background footage that had been taken on location by a vehicle rigged with eight digital cameras capturing various angles from Bond’s point of view."

The BTS videos are mindblowing.

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On 10/8/2021 at 6:18 PM, Jon Pais said:

I know, right?

 

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Context. The occasional lens flare can well be appropriate, or such a use can even be inspired. A few sequences relying heavily on them can even be effective (first DIE HARD.) But the way flares have been chronically misused this century by The Abrams Bunch and others is visually about as imbecilic as the results you get when you give a 9 year old a zooms lens, and about as engaging. It's like some folks have decided ADD editing needed a new component, since I guess filmmaking is now often about distracting away from feeble content and/or execution.

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27 minutes ago, KH Martin said:

Context. The occasional lens flare can well be appropriate, or such a use can even be inspired. A few sequences relying heavily on them can even be effective (first DIE HARD.) But the way flares have been chronically misused this century by The Abrams Bunch and others is visually about as imbecilic as the results you get when you give a 9 year old a zooms lens, and about as engaging. It's like some folks have decided ADD editing needed a new component, since I guess filmmaking is now often about distracting away from feeble content and/or execution.

So nothing whatsoever to do with YouTube. I watch YouTube, even occasionally upload to YouTube and the films I watch don't abuse flare. You might as well blame the tooth fairy or Santa Claus.

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Just watched the movie, I really enjoyed it. I'll right a more comprehensive review tomorrow. 

I saw it in a regular theater, couldn't get into an IMAX screening. Didn't really notice the large format shots, seems like they were far in between honestly. 

Linus did a great job, the entire crew did a great job. I was really shocked by how well it was directed, especially the stunt sequences, superb stuff. I was skeptical reading some of the reviews, but honestly it just flat out worked. I understand why some people didn't like it, for sure the end of a series, rather than a typical stand alone film. However, it's really fine honestly, no problems in my eyes, especially technically. 

All I gotta say (outside of my review) is the fact the script had a few small issues. We'll save that for an actual review. But I just wanna say go watch it, well done. 

 

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On 10/9/2021 at 11:18 AM, Jon Pais said:

I know, right?

 

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If people like anamorphic flares that's fine. I don't understand the big interest in them, and people adding them in using lights at the side of the camera, except as a sort of light hearted joke perhaps -- or as a 'homage' to some famous film. I do like the slight horizontal flare when the train pulls into the station in Doctor Zhivago (1965) but that's the only example I can think of that, to me, adds a little extra zest to a shot. It could easily go without. I prefer the look of spherical lenses these days. I don't know what's come over me.

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Well I love flares, and chroma ring flares and anamorphic flares especially - it is part of the film texture, like grain and halation. To me, texture is just as important as colours, without it a film would have a flat  lifeless 80s videotape look just with more pixels. I guess it is subjective as different people have different sensitivity to texture. For instance, I have flawed eyesight, and see flares, rainbow rings and streaks everywhere in real life, every streetlight looks so beautiful - so it contributes to that sensitivity.

A flare can also be a great dramatic device, the best example found in Tess (1978) and others that come to mind are in Chinatown (1974) and Dressed to Kill (1980), and in any action film when they are used to draw attention to a weapon. Again, very subjective, but I share Sandgren's vision ?

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Yes, drawing attention to a weapon would be a great use of a flare. I love where raw sunlight does sometimes 'splash' across the lens/across the film, when filming outdoors and into or near the sun. I agree, it's part of the texture of film. Film loves sunlight, and at such moments it's like the film is absolutely doused in the magic of light. I suppose I was commenting on the regular use of the horizontal blue flare in many shots, for instance in interior shots where it wouldn't necessarily happen naturally but is artificially created, but I understand if people love that look too.

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49 minutes ago, Alissa Alexina said:

Well I love flares, and chroma ring flares and anamorphic flares especially - it is part of the film texture, like grain and halation. To me, texture is just as important as colours, without it a film would have a flat  lifeless 80s videotape look just with more pixels. I guess it is subjective as different people have different sensitivity to texture. For instance, I have flawed eyesight, and see flares, rainbow rings and streaks everywhere in real life, every streetlight looks so beautiful - so it contributes to that sensitivity.

A flare can also be a great dramatic device, the best example found in Tess (1978) and others that come to mind are in Chinatown (1974) and Dressed to Kill (1980), and in any action film when they are used to draw attention to a weapon. Again, very subjective, but I share Sandgren's vision ?

I don't like SDR. I see everything in HDR. SDR is flat and lifeless. I've read that the HDR version of the Bond film was sensational.

Edited by Jon Pais
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32 minutes ago, Jon Pais said:

I don't like SDR. I see everything in HDR. SDR is flat and lifeless. I've read that the HDR version of the Bond film was sensational.

I mean film itself is HDR. The only thing that makes it flatter is the film projection process, which simply can't pump enough light through to make it brighter. IMAX 15p has enough light to do HDR tho,  so we've been seeing HDR content for a long time. 

I think you're confusing the very flat dynamic range of modern digital imagery to be "SDR". In a lot of ways, those super flat shows, are a product of modern Rec 2020 HDR grading. Honestly I always work in Rec 2020 with full dynamic range, but being able to see it that way is hard. Even at home, getting the metadata tags right for my TV has been a pain. When I give the files to clients, they always request Rec 709 finish, because the HDR standard is not as accepted. 

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22 minutes ago, Tyler Purcell said:

I mean film itself is HDR. The only thing that makes it flatter is the film projection process, which simply can't pump enough light through to make it brighter. IMAX 15p has enough light to do HDR tho,  so we've been seeing HDR content for a long time. 

I think you're confusing the very flat dynamic range of modern digital imagery to be "SDR". In a lot of ways, those super flat shows, are a product of modern Rec 2020 HDR grading. Honestly I always work in Rec 2020 with full dynamic range, but being able to see it that way is hard. Even at home, getting the metadata tags right for my TV has been a pain. When I give the files to clients, they always request Rec 709 finish, because the HDR standard is not as accepted. 

I'm not confusing anything, Tyler.

Getting HDR to display correctly, either on my TV or phone, has never been an issue.

Over 30% of N. American homes have 4K HDR television sets and over 200 models of smartphones have OLED HDR panels. More than a quarter of devices connected to streaming giant Netflix are configured HDR.

The reason most HDR shows are flat is that they continue to be lit in an SDR environment, they're monitored in SDR, and the very first time someone sees it on an HDR display is in the grading suite.

And it doesn't end there. While colorists do have access to the tools to see HDR, that alone is no guarantee that the master file will end up preserving all the dynamic range, tonality and color envisioned by the director and the DP. For example, the decision in post-production to constrain the levels in the HDR pass to maintain consistency with the SDR version can prevent HDR from taking wing. Not infrequently, a project gets the green light for an HDR master after the fact; both the post-production house and producer preemptively rule out a version that dramatically departs from the SDR version; the result being that HDR turns out to be little more than a marketing gimmick. Another seldom discussed issue is that colorists are resorting to compromising their HDR grades in order to avoid judder artifacts.

Getting back to the topic, several reviewers have reported their extreme joy at seeing the jet blacks and bright highlights made possible by watching No Time to Die in a Dolby Cinema with projectors using dual 4K Christie lasers that emit 31ft lamberts, not to mention the incredible audio, which the director himself was thrilled with.

Edited by Jon Pais
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4 hours ago, Jon Pais said:

Getting HDR to display correctly, either on my TV or phone, has never been an issue.

I don't think you're seeing actual HDR content. I have very modern components and nothing I've seen from Netflix is HDR on any device. I've done dozens of deliveries to Netflix and never once have we been asked to deliver HDR, only SDR and mostly in 2k. I also have a LD HDR UHD BluRay player and the HDR content on UHD looks like crap. It's all setup properly, but it's nowhere near what the Rec 709 version looks like, which is more "normal". 

Also, I can make my own HDR content at home, I can also stream that directly to my TV via HDMI cable from DaVinci Resolve. It works fine that way, looks great, so I know the TV can do it. I just don't think the media companies are actually using HDR properly.
 

4 hours ago, Jon Pais said:

Over 30% of N. American homes have 4K HDR television sets and over 200 models of smartphones have OLED HDR panels. More than a quarter of devices connected to streaming giant Netflix are configured HDR.

Yep, that's correct. Doesn't mean the content is made properly. 
 

4 hours ago, Jon Pais said:

The reason most HDR shows are flat is that they continue to be lit in an SDR environment, they're monitored in SDR, and the very first time someone sees it on an HDR display is in the grading suite.

Now I'm completely confused. How would you light for HDR? I'd love to know your definition of HDR cinematography. 
 

4 hours ago, Jon Pais said:

Another seldom discussed issue is that colorists are resorting to compromising their HDR grades in order to avoid judder artifacts.

Umm, judder is mostly caused by frame interpolation issues (tv related) and high frame rate issues, which again is mostly display devices unable to display properly. There have been several research papers made on it and where I'm not an expert by any means, I don't believe colorists are compromising their 24p movies in order to reduce judder. I'd love to know more about this if you think so because I've never seen it on anything I've produced. 

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anamorphic lens flares just look like some f*uck up to me and always will hahahah.......a long blue streak across the screen.....spherical lens flares are so much more...romantic.....still....each to his/her own. Never shot with anamorphic lenses anyway so how can I possibly enrich the discussion other than as a cinephile....

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17 minutes ago, Tyler Purcell said:

I don't think you're seeing actual HDR content. I have very modern components and nothing I've seen from Netflix is HDR on any device. I've done dozens of deliveries to Netflix and never once have we been asked to deliver HDR, only SDR and mostly in 2k. I also have a LD HDR UHD BluRay player and the HDR content on UHD looks like crap. It's all setup properly, but it's nowhere near what the Rec 709 version looks like, which is more "normal". 

Also, I can make my own HDR content at home, I can also stream that directly to my TV via HDMI cable from DaVinci Resolve. It works fine that way, looks great, so I know the TV can do it. I just don't think the media companies are actually using HDR properly.
 

Yep, that's correct. Doesn't mean the content is made properly. 
 

Now I'm completely confused. How would you light for HDR? I'd love to know your definition of HDR cinematography. 
 

Umm, judder is mostly caused by frame interpolation issues (tv related) and high frame rate issues, which again is mostly display devices unable to display properly. There have been several research papers made on it and where I'm not an expert by any means, I don't believe colorists are compromising their 24p movies in order to reduce judder. I'd love to know more about this if you think so because I've never seen it on anything I've produced. 

TLDR; we're finished here, bye.

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On 10/9/2021 at 7:36 PM, Jon Pais said:

So nothing whatsoever to do with YouTube. I watch YouTube, even occasionally upload to YouTube and the films I watch don't abuse flare. You might as well blame the tooth fairy or Santa Claus.

What are you talking about? The guy referenced how a generation has grown up seeing bad use of flares, but your post cited pre-youtube exceptions (which, as tradition have it, help prove the rule.)

Man, sometimes even this site produces some weird posts.

EDIT ADDON: I just read down the rest of the thread, maybe I should change 'weird posts' to 'weird posters.'  You aren't the same guy who poisoned the well on tech discussions at Nolanfans years back are you?

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