Tyler Purcell

Yea, Jurassic World was very much over the top in it's coloring as well. Though I had very little complaints about the cinematography. It worked for that kind of film.

Happy Holidays! Looking to 2016! :)

Yea, I'd love to know more about the production. Always love learning! :)

Next year should be good! I'm very happy to be back shooting film again.

I liked quite a bunch of studio films from 2014/2015 actually: Interstellar Inherent Vice Grand Budapest Hotel Birdman Whiplash Nightcrawler Imitation Game How to Train Your Dragon II Edge of Tomorrow Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation Sicario The Force Awakens Ex Machina Inside Out The Revenant Bridge of Spies I'll reluctantly put Hateful Eight on this list as well. I clearly like it or I wouldn't be listening to the soundtrack over and over again. :shrug: Mind you, I still have yet to see a few films from 2015.

They shot ONE sequence using 15/70 IMAX cameras. So yes, there is some actual good'ol horizontal IMAX material somewhere in the film. The rest of the film was shot on 35mm anamorphic. So those scenes would have big bars at the top and the bottom of the screen. The reason filmmakers don't shoot entire films using IMAX 15/70 cameras isn't cost, it's really because the cameras are so big, unwieldy, loud and temperamental, it causes shoots to be a lot longer then they should be. Christopher Nolan has experimented with mixing IMAX and 35mm more then any other filmmaker and on Interstellar, the final film has 90 minutes of 15/70 material in it. However, it just makes the 35mm stuff look bad. Jurassic World took a different approach. They shot the VFX scenes in 65mm and the dialog scenes in 35mm, but full frame. Since the new digital IMAX format is 1.9:1 aspect ratio, it was very easy for them to make the 35mm material full screen on digital IMAX screens. Thus, an IMAX presentation that looked pretty darn good, without the bars at the top and the bottom.

Not a single shot was believable in any stretch of the word. The moment the whale came on for the first shot, it was an animated film with live action characters. Well, nothing of the background was real, not even the fence which was moving in the opposite direction of the camera in some shots. I mean really? You put a master tracker on the effect and it auto tracks with the camera move, yet those post guys somehow didn't catch the fence moving the opposite direction of the camera! The film was plagued with the same issues throughout. It was a mistake because nobody is going to see the film! So even if the filmmakers agreed on the look, it's still a mistake. They clearly wanted it to look like an oil painting, but they failed to understand if that look is what the audience wants to see. In my eyes, it looked like a bad TV movie. People don't want to see a bad TV movie at the theaters, they just don't. In my eyes, the filmmakers are disrespecting the audience. They just assume we're so dumb, we won't notice how poorly the film was made. This is a visual medium and if the visuals are so mushed together into unfollowable nonsense with multiple layers of CG on top of each other, all fighting for the same real estate, it's simply not watchable. Reminds me of the Marvel films, only done far worse. My respect for the filmmakers ended the moment I saw the whale for the first time. I saw 'Rush' in it's early, pre-released form and it didn't look bad. I worked on the BTS and trailers for the film and rather enjoyed it without the VFX. What ruined 'Rush' was the incessant use of VFX to cover up wonderful live-action shots in the final. For Howard, it was more important to see the eyes of the actors in the helmets, rather then show the audience an actual live-action event taking place that looked great and realistic. So he resorted to horrible visual effects, so unrealistic, so pandering to the lowest common denominator, it was sickening. Again, it's a visual medium and the moment you take beautiful realistic scenes and mix them with something clearly fake, it pulls people right out of the movie. That tactic is fine for horror, fantasy or sci-fi, but when you're trying to tell a biography of someone's life, it's extremely disheartening to see modern and unbelievable effects. You may notice, I didn't complain about the FX in 'Force Awakens' OR 'Revenant', because they don't pander to the lowest common denominator. Have you seen 'The Knick' at all? Period TV show, made in a very modern way and it looks fantastic. Like an oil painting. The book-end's didn't bother me really, I could live with that look, even though it's completely left field. The night stuff wasn't even really an issue throughout the film. It was the day stuff, it was the harsh lighting you mentioned earlier. It looked like a TV show, or as you put it a "hero" look. I also insist the composition was very strange as well, it was like watching a 2.35:1 movie with the sides cropped off to make it 1.85:1. It's one thing to tweak an image over-all, it's another thing to take specific sections of an image and tweak them incessantly until you've made it all fake, so it holds true to a certain "look", that wasn't on set. See, that's the problem. You think they were trying to avoid prettiness, I know for fact they were attempting to build something pretty from nothing. They wanted the film to look like a beautiful old oil painting. That's what they sought and that's why I call it a complete failure. It was a failed experiment and as you point out, not a worthwhile story either. There have been many films about that time period, all of which used practical effects and different looks. 'Sweeney Todd' being one that stands out, mostly because of how wonderful it was shot.

'Fruitvale Station' wasn't really a low budget, self-funded, art movie. It was a main-stream, decent budget film funded by Forest Whitaker's production company. You don't close a BART station (I assume shot at night) for weeks to shoot a film unless you've got a lot of money.

Yep and sure there are many examples of people breaking into the industry with great films, but not of recent, not taking their investment and getting anything back for it.

Yep, I got talked into seeing 'In the Heart of the Sea'. The film is a very interesting concept. The story of the Essex, the whaling ship which was attacked by an indestructible white whale in the mid 1800's. This is the true story which spawned the fictional novel Moby Dick. The story itself isn't that bad actually, but the film winds up more like 'Life of Pi' then Moby Dick. Stranded sailors on long-boats try to make it home after their ship was attacked and destroyed, full of visual effects to the point of having difficulty finding anything real within the frame. From the very first shot, the music, the poor VFX and lighting, the poor characters and dialog, it reminded me of a made for TV movie, rather then a big budget hollywood film. Initially I was concerned this wasn't the actual movie because it was so bad and didn't have Hemsworth right away, I thought it was a mistake. I waited and eventually realized this was actually the movie. The first big scene with Hemsworth is him on a farm with his wife. The whole scene is green screen. They clearly built a house on a sound stage and the rest of the environment from the background to the picket fence, was all computer generated. Then add in horrible lighting that doesn't look natural at all (they were suppose to be outside in the sun) and you get a recipe for disaster. The moment we start to see ships, it gets far worse. The look of the film is very glossy and reflective with hard colors, blue and green in places they don't belong. I think the colorist was having a field day messing with things to make it more interesting maybe? Never the less, nothing could cover up for the poor script, uninteresting and highly stylized vfx shots and just plain poor filmmaking. Now Ron Howard hasn't really made anything great for years. His last film 'Rush' was a story I know very well (being a fan of F1), but it really fell apart in my eyes, even though Daniel Brühl was fantastic as Niki Lauda. In my eyes, what made 'Rush' such a failure was his use of VFX to build suspense/action, instead of using the replica car's and racing them. I gather he had never seen 'Grand Prix' which did everything right outside of the story. Brühl saved 'Rush' in my view, but NOTHING is going to save 'In the Heart of the Sea'. What bothers me the most is the fact I think Anthony Dod Mantle is a pretty darn good DP. Yet, this film looks horrible. Everything from the composition to the lighting is just unnatural and it sticks out like a sore thumb. Maybe this is the first big green screen film he did. I know time was an issue, maybe there was just too many setups and not enough time? It makes you wonder why it was so messed up because it's very unlike him. It didn't help the movie was made in a computer and the vast majority of VFX work was piss poor. In the end, 'In the Heart of the Sea' is a forget and move on movie. It's been a critical and box office failure, for good reason too. I'm still in amazement Ron Howard watched his final product and said "ok that's it, lets let the world see this" because honestly, it's a huge an embarrassment for such a great filmmaker AND the very capable award winning Anthony Dod Mantle.

I'm not a hater, I actually enjoy Quentin's films. That's because I understand where he comes from. Sure, he goes over the top at least once in his movies. In the Hateful Eight, it's a dick sucking scene, which could have been told and not shown. In fact, it was completely unnecessary to the story and it shows how Quentin does what he wants to do and the Weinstein's go along with it. I thought Django was brilliant, but it had this horrible scene with a dog hunting down and eating a black man. I know why it's there, it's all about symbolism and how bad-ass the antagonist is. However, it's not clever in any way, it's actually not necessary to the story. Most filmmakers would cut those scenes out (I wouldn't have even written them), but Quentin gets final cut on his films and good on him. That is his vision and he's going to show you exactly what he wants. It makes his films more edgy and it targets a very specific audience that honestly, enjoys those things. Whether they get high from seeing them or what, I don't know. To me, those little moments kinda ruin his movies because in my eyes, necessity is the key to storytelling. If something isn't necessary, don't show it! Had Hateful Eight been shot digitally, I would have waited for video. I'm not bashing the film by saying that, my home theater is far better then most movie theaters. I have seen Hateful Eight three times now in 70mm, I'll probably see it a 4th before to long. I think it's worth seeing for the the music, performances and cinematic value.

Well, that maybe the big difference here. I'm a full-time filmmaker and until you actually try to make a living doing what you love, its hard to judge. You learn very quickly to be pessimistic and pragmatic, rather then passion taking everything over. Also, I'm not a journeyman going from job to job performing a particular task. I do a wide gamut of tasks during a given week, everything from story development to coloring and everything in between. Now, I love telling stories, who doesn't. However, it's experience that pushes me to say what I say. Do you continue making products that nobody cares about, that very few people will ever see, which pulls cash and time away from your non-industry job? OR, do you compromise and make a product that is suitable for a wider audience, one that potentially could make money, one that may allow you to make films for the rest of your life? You get to a certain point in your path as a filmmaker where you have to sit down and have that discussion. I had it a few years ago after I had spent three years producing a feature documentary that was an instant hit at film festivals around the world, winning awards and being seen by some top people. What did we get from it? NOTHING! We told a wonderful story that had never been told before, we had an all-star cast and it's a great little movie. Yet, nobody cares because it's not main stream enough. So here I am five years later, having invested three years of my life making the thing and never seeing a dime back. That story is very typical and if you have a full-time job doing something outside of the entertainment industry, it's truly impossible to know what it feels like for your film to be a failure. When you have job/financial security, these things matter much less. When you're so broke from making a film, you're literally begging for a gig just to put some money in your coffers. That's when passion kinda goes out the window because no matter how much passion you have, it can't put food on the table. So when people talk to me about being passionate... it kinda grinds my gears. Nobody would go through the experiences I went through, they would have given up years ago. Yet here I am, still passionate to a fault, prepping two short films and a feature, as if nothing ever happened. I just want people who haven't had this experience to realize there is far more to filmmaking then being passionate.

I'm pessimistic about pretty much everything because honestly, I'm tired of getting beat down for being overly naive and optimistic. Teaching people the technical side of filmmaking on celluloid, seems like a lot more fun then beating my head in the sand constantly trying to get productions off the ground.

Well, my point is that the film industry is about entertainment and if something isn't entertaining, it won't make money. If it doesn't make money, then it most likely won't allow the filmmaker to produce more products like it.

Actually, those lists prove my point. Francis Ford Coppola had already been a successful filmmaker before he made Apocalypse now. Alfred Hitchcock had already made millions for the studio's before he made Vertigo. Paul Thomas Anderson had already made a blockbuster and proved himself in hollywood, before making The Master. Orson Wells was already a well-known figure in the theatre and radio, making plenty of money, prior to making Citizen Kane. Beasts of the Southern Wild did well because there was a fantastic little girl in it. If that character was a bitter old man, nobody would have cared. The new Fantastic Four movie was a disaster; switching directors, rewriting scripts, what a mess. It was only finished because there was so much money wrapped up in it, they had no choice. Everyone in hollywood knew it was going to be a disaster. Yes, investors take risks... but it's getting to the point where there are fewer and fewer investors willing to risk it all for the sake of art.

This is show BUSINESS and in the long run, it's just a business. Box office is really the only measure of a filmmakers success. You could win every single award from the Golden Bear to the Palme d'Or, but if your film doesn't make money, you won't get money to make more of them. Young filmmakers struggle to understand how the system works because it's the only business that doesn't reward for a better product. Nobody cares about breaking even, it's all about profit. Nobody will invest in a filmmaker who barely returns their money, it's too risky. Again, this is show business, art is not even relevant. You wanna make art films, get a job in France working as a waiter and apply to the government for a grants to make something that nobody will ever see. And most of the time, you'll find those filmmakers already had success of one kind or another and are making their "art" film for fun. Yep, why else would someone let you borrow millions of dollars? Just because they're a nice guy? Studios make "safe" (lower risk) movies, one's they know will make money. If you let someone borrow millions of dollars, you too would want the risk to be lower. My favorite cinematographer Roger Deakins, said something in a recent interview I find so true. He actually doesn't like going to the movies. Here is a guy who is deathly passionate about filmmaking, to the point of having his own forum where people can ask him questions about his projects. Yet, he has no interest in wasting his time going to see movies at the theater. I find this to be straight up true when it comes to living in the hub of filmmaking in the US. Most of my industry friends, don't go to the movies and were never really big fans of cinema. Yet, they're filmmakers themselves, they watch content on their television at home, but getting them out of the house to the cinema, is like asking them to change a flat tire. They'll just look at you cross eyed and forget you even asked. Sure, there is a small minority of film buff's who visit the theater on a regular basis. I met one such person in all my travels and he basically lives at the theater. He doesn't pay though, he's friends with the general managers of many theaters, so he gets a free ride. Ohh, I care greatly about the art and argue it to a fault. However, I know that it doesn't matter what I say, what matters is if your product is successful financially, that's all that matters. You can paint all you want, but if you can't sell the paintings to pay your bills, you're still a broke painter. This isn't the 60's and 70's either. I can't think of a modern director that just broke into the industry, who's made theatrically run art films that have been critically and financially successful.

Well, I guess we didn't see the same movie. The one I saw (for the 3rd time on sat) was an over-the-top unbelievable stage play set in the old west. It's a complete work of fiction, designed specifically to entertain and a lot of it is built around absurdity to the point of the audience forcing the laughs, due to it being so over-the-top. We laugh because it's revolting, like all the N words, like a naked man sucking the dick of a black man and grotesque bloody violence. Does the audience really need to see those things in order to tell a story? No... Quentin showed us those things because they are humorous to him AND his fans. If it were realistic, it would have been over the moment they entered the haberdashery. Actually the mere definition of cinema is to entertain, that's why it exists. If you look at box office receipts, the movies that do the best, are the one's that are pure entertainment. Some people call them "popcorn movies", but in the end, the point is to watch, be entertained and go home. Look at 'Mad Max Fury Road', it's one of the top movies this year and it has almost no dialog, it's all visual story telling. There are absolutely groups of people who attend screenings of dramatic pieces like 'Carol' or 'Suffragette' for the emotional aspect. That is a very specific genera of cinema, but it's not the popular kind. Both of those wonderful pieces of art, did poorly in the box office. Man, I'm so glad you feel that way. However, it's an unrealistic point of view in the grand scheme of things. This is why the mindless drivel entertainment movies are so popular and have huge financial rewards, yet the intelligent works of art, tend to barely break even. How can anyone relate to a belligerent butt who keeps everything to himself? He also doesn't grow or change during the film, he's the same butt from the open to the close. Why would anyone talk to him ever? Well, because in reality he wasn't that bad and he had more good moments then bad ones. 'Steve Jobs' showed only ONE SIDE of a very multidimensional person. Plus, everyone around him seemed to somehow accept his behavior, which is just ridiculous. It's so fabricated and over the top, it was hard to swallow and it's a real shame. Ohh no doubt that SOME cinema can be highly influential, but the majority of it is mindless entertainment. Look at the action, horror and comedy genera's as a whole, they are the top three box-office genera's. Do you really think 'Jurassic World', 'Dumb and Dumber II' or 'Crimson Peak' are influential in any way? Do you think people go to those films because they are looking for character development?

Please, the whole premise is completely foolish and lacks any common sense. Even Tarantino admitted the whole idea is a film full of "guest stars" and if you don't get his "HUMOR" you won't get the film. It is a down-right funny film because everything that happens is just plain silly. In reality, the story would have ended the moment the carriage arrived at the haberdashery. But no, we spend the next 2 hours going in circles, which is fine and all, but completely unnecessary. I saw Steve Jobs last night... it was very one sided. Knowing the Steve Jobs story very well myself, it's a real shame they made him out to be such a bully. It was well made though, Sorkin's screenplay was really fun and I really enjoyed the performances, but they were ALL over the top. The only reason why it works is because the audience has no time to sit and contemplate until after the fact. It is a visual medium. If you wish to watch people talk at one another constantly, go to the theatre. 'The Revenant' doesn't really have much of a screenplay, but like 'Gravity' it a wonderful piece of adventure entertainment. It uses the visual medium in a way that not very many filmmakers have, which is why it will win a lot of awards. I agree, he is a wizard of story structure and dialog. He also knows how to make dialog entertaining, something that a lot of filmmakers don't really know how to do. Their main focus is entertainment, like a good showman from the vaudeville days. They are going to take you for a ride and that's what makes their movies so powerful. Cinema is in the end, just entertainment after all. So where it's awesome that guys like Quentin and Sorkin exist, it does take several viewings of their films to get the nuances that make those stories so interesting. You have to be devoted to translating what's being heard, process it and of course, pay attention to the visuals at the same time. The vast majority of people are only looking for entertainment to drag them away from their every day life. He landed in a tree and was so effed up, he could barely move.

Right, but my point is... digital projection SHOULD BE FLAWLESS!!! There is absolutely zero reason for it to be anything else but perfection. Why? Because my little home theater projector, which uses similar DLP technology, works great! I understand the technology is apples and oranges, however there is really no excuse. Theaters today are absolutely no better then what I can see at home on BluRay, so why should I spend 4hrs of my life trekking to the theater, waiting in lines, sitting around people who are stinky AND paying for all of it? At least with film, you're getting an image that can't be presented at home. It's a special experience that can't be replicated/duplicated in any other environment then the cinema. Digital theater systems are pretty much the same content, whether it's seen at home or at the theater. Today with 4k BluRay and 4k laser-based home theater projectors going for reasonable prices, what's the point of even going to the cinema? Yes, at this very second the content libraries haven't yet made that push for 4k content at home, but it will happen very quickly. Considering I just learned that 'Force Awakens' was released in 2k for 2D presentations... and more than 50% of the theater projectors in this country are still 2k, no wonder the quality at the cinema looks like crap. We went from around 3k resolution in 35mm prints, to 2k being the "standard" for most films today. So.. it's not that I'm really a huge film advocate, it's that.. technology is suppose to make things better. Digital technology has changed everything and even the very early CD's, were a HUGE/GIANT leap better then anything else on the market, to the point where the masters weren't good enough. Computer technology is the same thing, every iteration is FAR superior to the previous and even though the average user may not see these changes, our current computers are vastly faster then ones of only a few years ago. Yet here we are... film technology when done right, still looks better then digital. Digital projection technology has been the same since its inception 20 years ago! We still use DLP imagers, we still use xenon lamp sources (now slowly migrating to laser) and our source material is STILL mostly 2k, which is lower resolution then the technology it replaced. So my beef with "digital" filmmaking is the fact it hasn't made cinema any better. It's just turned cinema into television and people have caught onto that, which is why most people simply don't go anymore. You can't drag them back with laser projection and 3D (both offered at home), but you can drag them back with an experience they can't get at home EVER!

I just spent a day watching 70mm prints that were out of focus, you may have read that post in the Hateful Eight section. Anyway, I asked Quentin Tarantino afterwards if he saw any problems and he said it looked great. There were a bunch of filmmakers there, hanging around Quentin and none of them noticed. Even the projectionist really didn't see the problem. Yet, I have the still image of the test pattern showing how badly out of focus it was. If the filmmakers and my very picky friends didn't notice... umm, I just don't think people really notice much! It's not film vs digital because I went right to the projection room on that Hateful Eight screening to see what was up and it was a FILM screening. It's just, we don't get very many film screenings anymore and there is no excuse for them to be bad. Now, I spent years in the broadcast industry, building facilities all over the country. I've also done display installations of various types and even the fellow broadcast engineers I've worked with, they couldn't tell the problems I saw. Once I pointed them out, they saw them too, but it actually took me using a laser pointer and circling the problems on the screen, for them to see it. So I'm not saying my eyes are better then someone else's, I'm merely saying I've been through the ringer a lot more when it comes to installations like theater systems. I know how digital cinema projectors work intimately because I've had to service them and honestly, I can tell pretty quickly if a projector is calibrated properly or not.

No theaters! IMAX has pulled all the film projectors out of LA and NY. The only theater in LA capable of playing 15/70 is the science museum. My guess is, they will get a print eventually. But they aren't really capable of showing first-run films. I went there for 'Interstellar' and it was a mess.

Well, Hateful Eight is MOSTLY dialog, even more then his other films, mostly because the location doesn't change much. Yes, it's even more dialog driven then his other films. Yes, MOST filmmakers can't stand his stuff. I actually like his stuff because I get it. He makes the movies HE wants to see and ya know what, good on him. There are only a few modern filmmakers who's entire career and success is based on personal films, he is one of the few. I'm a visual story teller, but I can appreciate his sometimes long-winded dialog scenes because they're cleverly written and generally hold my attention. Hateful Eight is no different, it has a great little story, a wonderful cast, it's very silly, shot extremely well, music is awesome and best of all, it's in Ultra Panavision 70mm. Honestly, it's a win-win, even though I don't think it's up to the caliber of Pulp Fiction, Inglorious Bastards or Django. Just go for the ride, go for the mystery and laughs. Don't pre-judge based on it being dialog driven, think of it as being a stage play shot on film.

Ohh I know... I was just saying, it's the type of lighting I like and wish to see more in movies.

Well, I bet ya just don't notice. I've been to theaters all over the country, including in NYC to watch movies and honestly, seen problems everywhere. Heck, I was just in Boston to watch 'Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation' in the biggest theater the town has which is IMAX (AMC Boylston) and it looked like poop. I mean if I hadn't gone with my dad, I would have walked out. It was blurry, it had inconsistent colors from the left to the right of the screen, the double 2k projectors were clearly out of alignment and it wasn't bright or vibrant. The credits at the end had aliasing edges on every character. I don't mind seeing issues on my $910 DLP projector and BluRay source, but I do mind seeing issues when I pay money and take the time to watch something in the theater. Film is a flawed format to begin with, so "perfection" doesn't exist. It's far easier to over-look minor things like a scratch or piece of dirt in the gate, then it is to ignore any issues with digital projection considering my measly setup at home LOOKS BETTER then 90% of the theaters I've been to. It has better contrast ratio because it doesn't have a stupid bright lamp, it has more color separation because it has a 7 seg wheel/single chip instead of only using RGB like cinema projectors. I sit 8 feet away from the 6 foot wide screen and it looks great with zero of the issues I see at almost every theater I go to. Mind you, I saw Jurassic World at the Chinese with the new IMAX 4k laser projectors and they were FLAWLESS!!! I studied the image very carefully and I was MORE than impressed. So IT CAN BE DONE!!! It's just, theaters can't afford to spend 1.5M per projector and until laser projection costs decrease, it's going to be that kind of money. So far, the Hateful Eight 70mm projection at the DGA is probably the best projection I've ever seen. Prior to that, it was Interstellar in 70mm at the Cinerama Dome. Just flawless in every single detail, perfect presentation and the way it should always be!!!!

Nobody said "better"... and I understand the reason why things are done a certain way. Lighting is a necessity of all visual mediums, but clever lighting, that looks "realistic" is far better in my eyes, then over the top unrealistic lighting, which is something you see a lot in movies of all generations.