georg lamshöft

"However I have a hard time believing that 35mm film resolves to 4k resolution even if that is the best quality transfer." 80lp/mm (which is basically 2k with Super16 and 4k with Super35) is a reasonable resolution of modern stock (<<500ASA) with the best lenses and usable contrast (in extremely high contrast film can deliver even more resolution). But more important is the fact that lower resolutions lead to grain alaising and lower contrast at lower frequencies. But "French Connection" used soft lenses, grainy stock and I have no idea where the transfer comes from (ON? IP?) so it might be really hard getting real 2k horizontal resolution out of it... Anyway, 65mm rules! Sorry, couldn't resist...

On the Berlinale, Sepp Reidinger from ARRI told the audience that their 65mm-cameras (765) cost as much to rent 35mm and they have a special deal with Kodak, they sell 65mm-film-stock for the same price as 35mm (per meter). The main budget factor on "the International" according to Reidinger and Tom Tykwer was the 4k DI for the 65mm-sequences instead of 2k for the rest... :blink: I don't know if that helpful without any price list!?

Last year winner "There will be blood" was done photochemically, not even a DI - Maybe a trend we'll see increasing in coming years... :lol: No, I'll think we should seperate technical and artistic quality very carefully, this award was given purely to it's artisitc quality - the technical execution was heavily flawed in my eyes - worse than with regular 3CCD-systems. This camera isn't even capable of true HD without color interpolation! I hope business & marketing people don't mix it up...

70mm as a presentation format might be really too expensive (=risky) for most movie theaters, but 65mm as a recording format seems to be ideal for big productions. The image quality is outstanding, we have high dynamic range, we can even increase the frame rate without too much trouble! And with DIs (it can be presented and printed in any format) and lowered stock&rental-costs even the last arguments against 65mm have fallen apart while fighting home-cinema & blu-ray has become really important for the survival of cinema, but the industry doesn't seem to realize that. John Galt seems to be a very skilled person, I've learned a lot about the details of bayer-filtering and MTFs from his presentations, but he is also a "digital man", that's his background, that's his job at Panavision. He sometimes uses "dirty tricks" to make digital look good (like comparing bad MTFs from high-speed-stock from a low-res telecine with Genesis) and I think that's also the case with his comparison of IMAX vs. 4k. To outperform a perfect 4k-projection with IMAX you only need 30lp/mm (70mm -> 4000lines picture width), I'm sure a bad print with a not perfectly calibrated projector could lead to this poor performance. I'm not sure what resolution the IMAX-sequences of "Dark Knight" had when I saw it in Berlin on a 21x28m screen, but it was definitely sharper than 4k (I'm comparing with a 2k-projection on a 14m wide screen at the same distance)! I'm really excited to see the first 4k-cameras, Panavision already presented their sensor (Dynamax: developed in NY, made in Israel - not Sony anymore!!!) but it also shows the limits of digital sensors. The photosites have to be really tiny (4096x3072x3 = 37MPixels on a 18x24mm sensor!) which results in problems with noise and DR (digital cinema cameras with 4 times bigger photosites are already quite noisy in comparison to DSLRs and have much less DR than film) and even this sensor can "only" shoot 30fps - if filmmakers want the best quality, they still should go with 35mm for the next years or better: 65mm :lol: But the most important thing is: Don't let business-men decide which technology is used!

I attended a panel discussion on the Berlinale with Tom Tykwer and Sepp Reidinger, he also mentioned using not only the Arriflex 765 but also Vistavision. The aerial/architecture sequences and the opening/closing scene are shot with larger formats. "The Perfume" is also a very interesting, great looking movie - but every Tykwer-movie (all photographed by Frank Griebe) so far was visually appealing (Heaven with Cate Blanchett was his first international one, I'm not sure if "Krieger und Kaiserin" is available in English, though?). To me one of the very few German Director/DP-combos capable of visually state-of-the-art work, reminds me of Luc Besson's unusual, poetry-like work.

But everything is available, NOW! The cameras, lenses, scanners... to capture supreme IQ, even the big projects with >>50Mio$-budgets are filmed in vast numbers! Propably digital cameras will solve parts of this problem when bigger sensors/higher resolutions become available in the future, but it doesn't cost as much to film in 65mm (in comparison to 35mm) NOW, either and they don't make it anyway because there are cheaper ways! That's what's already happening with digital productions today: many 2k DIs, using 1080p-cameras (or interpolated 4k) for cinema - Why? Not because the technology delivers superior quality but it seems "sufficient" for most viewers... 60Mio$ alone from IMAX on Dark Knight, the most succesful movie they ever presented (not in the 70s, 80s or 90s but 2008)! NOW is the time to film 65mm!!! I think that the extreme power the system has given to the big stars is the key for the artists (Director, DP...) to rule over the business-men. Instead of just complaining about the system, people could trick it (actors for example do that quite often, but it isn't done for technology, yet...). What about Christian Bale allowing Wally Pfister to shot the next Nolan 100% IMAX (you spend the additional million when you want Bale)? You know what happens if you upset him... :lol: Yeah, I'm complaining alot, I'm sorry. But I won't accept that todays movies are filmed with inferior technology and that a film from 1962 I've seen with 24 should be the last "big" cinematic experience of my life...

I've just seen "Lawrence of Arabia" for the first time (hey, I'm 24 ;-) in 70mm during the Berlinale. The colors looked a little bit artificial (well it's 47 years old) and the image stability wasn't as perfect as IMAX or digital projection but 90% of the film looked incredible! No grain, fine detail way beyond every Blu-Ray I've ever seen (and the movie itself was good, too, at least the first part... :ph34r:) and I was really wondering what happened the last decades that even more expensive (Lawrence of Arabia cost 15Mio$ which are about 100Mio$ today) blockbusters of 2009 have inferior IQ (except for colors) !?!?!?! :blink: I also attended a panel discussion with Tom Tykwer (in my eyes the best German director since Fritz Lang - he and Frank Griebe (DoP) shot about 7min of "the International" in 65mm) and Sepp Reidinger (ARRI). Basically he said that he had to fight with producers for every single 65mm-scene, even when ARRI and Kodak gave cameras and film stock at 35mm-rates, basically because the studio didn't want to pay for the >4k DI (they only used in 65mm/Vistavision-sequences) and used 2k für 35mm (this movie costs over 60Mio$ and Tykwers last movie made ~ 60Mio$ profit)! I don't get it, it seems like these producers/studios want to cut costs at any cost while throwing away millions on other things, they propably would love to see every movie to get shot with an DP-owned prosumer-HD-camera... :unsure: I fear that they will use the financial crisis as an excuse to cut costs even further, while having huge financial success with films like the "Dark Knight" (which proves to me that people still want to see real cinema!). With digital post-production they can handle to whole process (recording format != presentation format) very flexible, they can shoot 65mm and do a chape 2k-transfer to 35mm/D-cinema, if the movie becomes a success they can show 70mm-prints or do a 4k/8k-scan! Many people said that the big blockbusters (like Ben-Hur, Lawrence...) are over but what's about "Titanic", "Lord of the Rings", "Dark Knight" - is there any reason to shoot those projects (only a few per year) NOT in 65mm? Isn't it possible to use the big stars to force the studios to shoot in 65mm? I can imagine that Leonardo DiCaprio would insist on 65mm if Scorsese tells him he wants to shoot in this format, while Scorsese himself can't force the studios to do so?

He used them on most of his projects starting with "Air Force One" - I think only "the Departed" was mostly shot with Master Primes.

Was the lighting special in some way to imitate film-look with the Digital/Viper? Somehow it was the opposite of Michael Mann's approach to the Viper. But espeacially the "sepia"/"brownish"-sequences looked strange, not like the "romantic/warm"-look I'm used to but much more like a digital color correction or filter in post (it didn't look like a natural part of the image but much more like a layer over it)? Somehow it lacked "depth", they didn't play with shadows/light, it looked "flat": http://thumbs.filmstarts.de/wallpaper/Ders...on_scene_07.jpg I'm sorry, it's hard to describe, especially in English... Is this an effect of the Viper or a specific look they wanted? It reminded me of some scenes in "Zodiac". But after all, I liked the movie itself pretty much. It wasn't as cute/humourus (those movies are very easy likeable) as "Forrest Gump" but much more melancholic, it offered no insight of Pitt's-character himself but was fascinating anyway! And the scenes mentioned (lighting, rocket start...) were breathtaking! But it lacked the look (not only in a romantical way, "Revolutionary Road" was even sharper) of well-made 35mm and seemed like a low-budget-flick in comparison to the IMAX-sequences in "Dark Knight" - a pity when looking at the effort spend to make-up/special-effects, the artistic skill and the budget itself!

Within the last few days I saw "Revolutionary Road" and "Benjamin Button" on mediocre 35mm-proejection (quite sharp but not very steady and clean)on large screens (approx. 18m wide). "Benjamin Button" is a wonderful, epic film full of wonders in terms of make-up and special-effects! Many of the technical awards should be given to it, maybe even "Best Picture", "Best Director" and "Best Actor", Brad Pitt has finally proven that he is an important part in recent movie history! It was visually appealing, too, much more than Mr. Deakins work this year and the lighting was very well done but it was compromised by the technology used, micro-detail was missing in comparison to "Revolutionary Road" and while being able to hide it's digital heritage very well for most of the time (no fast moving objects/camera, low-contrast, heavy lighting - looked like a mediocre 35mm 2k telecine most of the time) it remains a 150mio$ epic made for blu-ray - I have no idea what Mr. Fincher tries to prove with this "looks almost as good as film" thing... It's a shame ignoring all these wonderful possibilites technology has given us - it's simply miles away from "Dark Knight" from a technical (cinematography) point of view, hopefully Mr. Pfister wins the Oscar.

"The point is the Dark Night was filmed in 70mm IMAX because of Nolan's love of IMAX format. and even with that huge budget he could only afford 20 minutes worth. It isn't an affordable format" From what I've heard they weren't sure about the handling and for this kind producers everything is always too expensive... From recent interviews with Wally Pfister it seems very likely that their next project will be filmed in IMAX entirely.

Sorry, but HDTV is a true milestone in TV-quality! All the older formats (PAL/SECAM/NTSC) are 40 years old electronic standards only usable for small screens. That's the point: HDTV is made for cinema-like (diameter 1-2x viewing distance) watching, not seeing a small screen from a fairly large distance (diameter 4-5x viewing distance?). Please don't tell me you see no difference on your tiny PC-monitor: http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film2/DVDReviews4...%20blu-ray2.jpg http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDReviews21...%20PDVD_008.jpg Why does the NTSC-Image look like crap? Well, Mpeg2-compressed resolution of about 0.3Megapixels...

The motion-artifacts caused by the codec are usually really minimal, the bitrates are quite high. When you prefer the more "natural" look instead of "pop-art contrast/colours" I would think of "There will be blood" (Anamorphic) or "Eastern Promises" (Super 35), many say the 4k-transfers/masters of "Blade Runner" and the "Godfather"-trilogy are great (but heavy post-production/filtering, though), but haven't seem the personally, my Blu-Ray-collection isn't that big right now, others might have more/better suggestions.

Make sure you deactivated any "image-enhancements" from your TV/player! Well, there are oversharpened, ugly-filtered, over-saturated blu-rays available, but there are some blu-rays that are incredible. DVD is crap measured by technical standards, period! 720 lines of resolution with inferior compression, creating terrible looking, unsharp images full of artifacts! Here is a nice site with full-rez screenshots, which may give you an idea when choosing another blu-ray: http://www.highdefdiscnews.com/?page_id=104

We had this topic discussed before, basically it seems to be a problem of post-production/scanning technology, not Blu-Ray or HD itself. Many/most films are still transfered with "quick&dirty" 2k telecine (no pin-registration, sensor-noise, grain-alaising, limited DR...) and to make things worse, some of these scans are further damaged by strong digital filters (noise reduction...). Your Blu-Ray was most likely made from a 15 years old transfer! An Arriscan can scan at 1fps (6k native resolution, double-exposure for full 16bit DR), so a 2h movie takes about 48h (x500$/h = 50000$ scanning costs alone?) to scan, finding and preparing the orignal negatives takes some time and converting it into a proper Blu-Ray will take some time either. But I think we're not expecting too much when demanding investing a few 100.000$ into a great Blu-Ray-Transfer of those classics like "Jurassic Park"! Do we? Wasn't the nice transfer (and expensive restoration) of "Blade Runner" a real economic (and artistic!) success, much more than a horrible Blu-Ray (from an old transfer) would have been? You have to spend money to make money... I personally think Blu-Ray is great! 52MBit/s at 1920x1080pixels resolution with today's codecs CAN deliver really great IQ, when the transfer was done properly... Make a google-picture-search on "very large"-images, by using names of popular movies - you will find pretty nice sites making blu-ray-reviews with orignal-sized-screenshots, get a better Blu-Ray, you won't be disappointed!

That's a 100% crop (JPG-conversion with max. quality in PS) from a 2008 Blu-Ray from a 35mm-film (bright daylight-interior): Maybe it's the scanner-operator, but to me the scanner (quick&dirty 2k telecine?) is crap and should only be used for dailies, not BR-transfers/DIs... Actually the ESGR-Super16-examples look better...

"Finding Neverland", "Ocean's Thirteen", "Crash"... They're not uprezzed DVD-transfers but they don't do the original justice, simply not very 35mm-like. Scanned properly with ~4000ppi and then downsampled to 1080p (to avoid grain alaising) even grain without filtering shouldn't be very obvious with slower stocks on Super35.

P.S. I'm sorry for coming up with the same story over and over again. But I go to the cinema, watch TV and everybody screams "HD", "Digital" but the results look disappointing and I start to feel that something is terribly wrong, that decisions are made right now, that we will regret in the future (like accepting plastics instead of metal, VHS instead of Betamax, Windows instead of...) :unsure: As long as we have the choice, it's fine, but I fear that won't be the case...

Can the cinematographer decide on which format he wants to shot a TV-series? Or is that given by the studio ("all our series are now filmed on...")? Super16 is a bit grainy on HD-resolution and even while the maximum resolution might be comparable to 1080p 4:4:4-cameras the sharpness perception is not (I think that's because of the lower contrast at high frequencies?) the same. I don't like it as an audience-member for theatrical releases (especially in 1:2,35). But for TV I really like it, on our "tiny" 1-2m-HD-LCDs/Plasmas it looks like "small cinema", you see the daily news (filmed on video) but when the TV-series starts you instantly see it's film - I hope you understand what I mean. I recently watched "Jekyll" (BBC) and after a few seconds I noticed how "artificial" it looked (especially hand-held camera) - sharp? Yes. Good looking? Not a bit, even other family members (which are not into photography/cinematography) noticed that. Somehow, more and more people (especially those who didn't grew up with film) start to think of film as an "old", "grainy", "dirty", "unstable" medium - shich is simply not true. They want an artificial "videoish"-documentary-look? Well, use HD, I'm absolutely fine with that - if it fits the story. But using digital and trying to imitate film "good enough" is something I propably will never understand (not at these expensive productions). Is "good enough" really what we want? Is this the direction we want to take? I think we have to be very careful how to react to these subtle changes, a little less DR here, some artifacts there - these are hard times, we have to cut costs... And one day we notice that even 100Mio-$ projects are shot on the same equipment as a sitcom... How do you think did 65/70mm vanish? It was "good enough"...

That's why I convert resolutions like 2k/4k into ppi (pixels per inch): 2k for a 24.9mm wide S35-frame -> 2090ppi 4k -> 4180ppi A 2k DI from a 35mm still-slide/negative (24x36mm) would result in a file with less than 6 megapixels! No professional would scan at these low resolutions - why should cinematography go this route when they're willing to pay for 35mm in the first place? To offer a properly scanned, "remastered" special edition in 20 years? I think the differences in BluRay-IQ are unbelieveable. Many films made with the best equipment available look like crap: unsharp, noisy (not grain but scanner noise and grain aliasing) and were most likely transfered from the dailies from a telecine (?)... that makes it quite easy for HD-cameras...

Scanning a 24.9mm wide negative with 2048 pixels means scanning @ 2090ppi! I don't think that comes even close to the information density of modern film stocks!? High resolutions also result in higher contrast at lower frequencies! From my experience, about 4000ppi are necessary for modern slide film, scanning at 6300ppi or even 8000ppi creates very large files with lots of grain (at 100% they just look horrible). But seeing the grain/film structure more precisely seems to be important for filters (noise/grain reduction). I filter them, then resize the files and sharpen the image to the given output size. Are these comparisons from ARRI unrealistic (downloadable as uncropped TIFF at their ftp-server,ARRISCAN @ 2k left (sized up to fit 4k), 4k right): ?

There are already enough "film vs. digital"-wars... But what was Mr. Finchers intention, somebody mentioned that he likes the instant control? Did he want to make it look digital? From what I've seen it has a pretty traditional/romantic look? I'm just watching "The girl with the pearl earring" and while not looking grainy or imperfect at all it simple looks marvelous, more "natural" and I can't help but thinking that Mr. Finchers work is compromised by his choice of technology? Will he regret his choice in 10+ years when seeing his work still only in 1080p? Does the audience care? I've asked all friend of mine after watching "Get Smart" and he simply replied: it looked horrible - but he wasn't able to describe why... Isn't that often the case with cinematography itself? Most don't know much about lighting & framing, but when it isn't done properly they feel it!?

I've also read that slow-motion scenes were made on film. I'm sure it looks nice, but is this ("nice", "sharp enough", "not too much higlight clipping", "almost like film"...) really the right perspective for an extremely expensive Fincher-film with marvelous production-design? When a 4k DI from 35mm would be no problem at all and even bigger formats seem reasonable? Anyay, can't wait to see this "film", most Fincher-movies were great!

The physical f-stop limit is f0.5, which is one stop faster than the famous planar used by Kubrick.

"Look great. (Video can look good.)" As strange as it sounds, that's exactly my impression. I have seen many film & video work were I wasn't sure about the technology used, but sometimes I see specific scenes that look so "great" that I know for sure that this is film (and I was never wrong)!? @Glen Alexander I don't know anything about VV-projectors on the Berlinale, but some participating cinemas have 70mm-projectors, is there any chance to make a 70mm-print from your VV-work (propably not without an expensive DI)? The German commercial-director Nico Beyer uses VV since many years, maybe he knows more than I do!?