George Ebersole

I bought a set of blurays for the original COSMOS TV series with Carl Sagan. I'm really blown away by the image quality. The old DVD set showed a relatively grainy 16mm image, but this almost looks like super 16 (even though it isn't). You can see lots of detail in the opening live action sequence where Sagan is discussing science and us as a species on the cliff face. The texture of his skin, the transparency of the water, the fabric of his coat, individual strands of his hair, blades of grass and everything else. Moving into the special effects sequence, the image is far more detailed, showing the limitations of the budget and astronomical photography technology, but also showing the footage of how the editors and production saw it before it went to air. If you're a fan of science, are old enough, and remember this show, then have a look at it. Really amazing stuff.

I really don't have any. I met a few indy film makers growing up who were into the whole experimental and shooting film for the sake of shooting film type of people. They were just into capturing images and rearranging them for public display, which was cool. But nothing they did ever grabbed me as such. For me film making is about telling cool stories, and nothing more. For commercial industry there's a social mantra that's kind of inflated these days, so much that experimental types are probably seen as more artistic fringe than ever before. Hopefully we'll see some good stuff coming our way in the years to come because of that alienation.

Ansel Adams nature photography was something I wanted to duplicate in projects. Having spent a lot of time in the Sierras and Rockies as a boy, I see mountains and forests the way he does, though I certainly don't have anywhere his skill to capture those images.

Admittedly that makes me laugh. Years back I was working at Home Depot and I had a customer complain that her tub was a funny color. She had done something like using steel wool to get rid of some stains, and had "sanded" off the tubs protective coating down to the base material and wanted to now how to get rid of it. I told her she would have to repaint or repair, but then she repeated her question. My response ----> :) I then recommended she see our plumbing guy. Oh well.

When I was a teen I got a lot of it, and some of it was pretty mean spirited. Some guy asked me what the power distrubtion on the studio grid was, and I got it confused with a different number and told him the wrong value. I was pretty nervous at the time being a "noob", but I actually knew the answer he wanted. I'm just wondering if that's still industry standard, because as a middle aged man I REALLY DON'T appreciate it. As a teen starting out while still in college, I guess you got to suffer through that kind of bullsh_t.

Well, there've been Well, do you ever call something .... say a C-stand by a different name to see if the guy who wants to work with you corrects you and knows the name, or is pretending. Do you ask him if he knows what an "automatic hammer" is, that kind of thing. How far do you take it.

So, ages ago I used to see (and when I was young experience) some "hazing" or little jabs from new crew members in an attempt to test my temperament. I'm wondering if anyone here does that, and if you do, why do you think it's necessary. Thanks for any replies.

Yeah, most cards (even low end ones) have a customization control panels. On the older Macs, say mid 90s, there was an actual TV/film setting that you could access from the pulldown menu. I guess you're saying it's not like that anymore. Oh well.

Phil; I think on older Macs you could adjust the frame rate to any frequency you wanted, and had a special "TV" or "film" setting if you wanted to shoot a monitor.

True.

I bought a new Aptiva earlier this year just for casual viewing, and it actually displays the refresh and frame rate of every bluray I pop into the player. With DVDs it displays the refresh rate only because most of that media was specifically designed for 3:2.

No Ansel Adams?

When I saw Captain Eo down at Disneyland back in the 80s the 3D was kind of interesting, and much improved over the old blue and red glasses or green and red paper glasses technology. It was interesting and impressive for the kind of film that it was. And when I saw Avatar I thought the technology was again impressive. But you really don't need it to enjoy a good film. An old scifi animated film that I enjoy is "Starchaser the Legend of Orin", which was released in 3D in the theatres. But the film holds up on its own as a simple scifi "Star Wars" adventure clone. It's not the greatest animated film in the world, and 3D might add something to that specific film, but I'm happy just to see it in regular 2D format. I'm not sure that something like "The English Patient" or some other drama would benefit from 3D. And the same goes for any other film of any other genre.

I think the question you have to ask yourself is this; "Do I really enjoy 3D films?" People here familiar with me have read my previous rants on 3D technology, but for those not in the know you go to films to see things and stories that you normally don't. If you're viewing the world in 3D everyday, then how does 3D technology enhance the movie going experience?

Ah, thank you.

On a popup ad for Valerian I'm seeing it's in both 3D and Real D 3D. What is D 3D or whatever it's called? I've never heard of this.

Maybe. I mean all tech, products and other progress is market driven, but it's like the major film companies improved their products because they wanted to, and this doesn't feel like it was done in that vein. Just my cynical side. But yeah, it could slim down tech. Yet it seems like digital image gathering tech is slimmed down enough for practical purposes. Still, it's interesting.

So it's essentially marketing to draw more buyers to a product, and not really an improvement on existing industry grade tech. Go figure.

The first thing that comes to mind is better miniature effects' shots, but since everyone uses CGI these days ...

I've not been on a set in ages, but I've heard similar complaints and criticisms. And to be extremely and brutally honest, it shows in the final product. You can see where a director and crew took the time and care to set up a shot, and those who just let the cameras roll and shoved all the work of sorting it out to editors. Most interesting.

fatih yikar; one thing I have noticed in the last fifteen years or so, is that there's more post manipulation of color than there ever was during during the 70s, or even before the 2000s. My personal opinion is that commercial foreign (mostly European) films still have a kind of artistic presentation to them, where American commercial films tend to be a bit more dynamic. It depends on the genre, but to me it feels like what you're observing is the amount of post-production work that's gone into American films (maybe Australian and some UK films as well) verse actual technical differences in terms of camera technology. Indy films are still made, and to me they don't feel much different from indy films made in the 90s. Studio films are different in that there's a lot more market research that's gone into them in order to tailor them to the right audience. This is to make sure they get the biggest chunk of the target audience to come pay and see the film. Unfortunately this truncates cross audience appeal. So you don't get artistic action films anymore, but action films that have very clear images. If you compare Mad Max or Mad Max 2 (The Road Warrior here in the US) against the Fast and the Furious series, you'll note a distinct difference in not just film stock, but the actual shooting style and color timing. It's why I brought up the Superman example some posts back. Donner treated the film like a serious project. The recent superhero movies are treated like big budget teenage b-films. Two other contrasts, "What's your Number" verse "9 to 5", both female films, but "9 to 5" has a very plain look to it, whereas "What's your Number" has a lot of subtle color timing and manipulation to it. If you look at some of the TV shows, say Castle or one of the CSI franchises, and compare it to something like Miami Vice from the 80s, you'll note the same thing. Miami Vice has a very 80's take on a classic niore look, and the older stock softens the image some. That verse today's detective or police shows that again seem to have lots of detailed images with a lot of color manipulation, regardless of whether it's film or digital. In short, there's more tools in post, so people use them. Having said that there does seem to be a tendency to use more contrast in today's shooting styles than in previous generations.

I was confusing Mack's Fiiod's pic of a CRT with the OP's issue. Otherwise, yeah, LCD's work differently.

If it's an Apple there's actually some kind of "cinematic" setting for the display that allows the user to change the frequency specifically to film the monitor. PC's allow you to change the frequency on the display, but for different reasons. Advanced third party video cards will have a "force refresh" frequency setting that should clear up your screen effect (it'll also eliminate the scan line).

The thought had occurred to me.

Sorry, I should have been clearer. I meant replacing pads and disks, not really trouble shooting the cable or hydraulics. Thanks for the replies.