Ravi Kiran

Omnimax domes are great for IMAX documentaries, but terrible for regular movies.

I wonder if remaking Ben-Hur is a financially wise idea. Surely to do it right they'd have to spend at least $100 to $150 million, and it would have to make at least three or four times the budget to be profitable. Maybe after the surprise success of Passion of the Christ studios are chasing the next Blblical blockbuster. But POTC only had a $30 million budget, and it's success hasn't been replicated, probably because the controversy around it attracted people who normally might not have seen it.

Sometimes I watch these old deep focus films shot in an age of slower film stocks and I wonder how the actors weren't drenched in sweat, considering how much light must have been pouring onto them.

It seems shortsighted to do a 2K DI today, especially for a big studio, who is presumably interested in selling their films to consumer again in a new 4K format one day. When Breaking Bad and the new Wet Hot American Summer show are available in 4K on Netflix, a major studio film being finished in 2K doesn't make sense.

How much does a production like this save by doing the VFX and DI at 2K instead of 4K? I can understand the 2K DIs in the early days of DIs, but 4K is not a new thing. Seems like it would be cheaper in the long run to do the 4K DI now than to go back go the negatives and redo the films in 4K. Or are they just planning on upscaling these 2K movies for 4K broadcast and home video formats?

What kind of post path did they go through on this film? Is the DCP from a 4K DI or a scan of a timed IP? Did they do something similar to The Master, which was optically graded for the 70mm prints and went through a DI for the DCP?

Does Filmworkers do much film processing these days?

I received this book a few days ago. I've only flipped through it a little, but it looks phenomenal. I hope to start reading it tonight.

I'd put it a slightly different way than that guy. I'd say that audiences are more accepting of a range of styles/qualities in the visuals than they are in the audio. You can have blown highlights, flares, grain, etc. in an image throughout a movie (i.e. things that are "mistakes" or anomalies often used for stylistic effect), but a soundtrack with clipped levels, inconsistent room tone, unwanted noise, etc. will put people off pretty quickly.

Was the lack of 'scope projector lenses one of the visual advantages of watching a 35mm anamorphic film blown up to 70mm? In my theater hopping days in the 90s, I remember sometimes seeing a 35mm anamorphic film and a Super-35 2.40:1 film back-to-back and noticing that the anamorphic films were usually sharper and less grainier than the Super-35 films. Digital intermediates flattened that difference to my eye, whether the movies were projected on film or digitally. I think even during the time of DIs and 35mm projection, the DIs made Super-35 2.40:1 films look better than when they were optically converted to 'scope, but they dumbed down anamorphic quality somewhat. I've seen some nice 35mm presentations, but I've also recently seen a few 35mm prints of older films where I wished I was watching a nice DCP instead.

You'd have to make sure not to have shadows or bright/clipped highlights in the frame that likely wouldn't be in such a dark scene, and might give away that the it was "over-lit" and darkened later.

Plenty of filmmakers WANT to shoot on film, but, as David pointed out, budgetary concerns often make digital the smarter choice. Also, for comedies in which the actors may be doing long, improvisatory takes, digital makes more sense. I suspect that the beginning of the end for shooting on film was the takeover of digital projection. Surely the demand for exhibition film stock was largely keeping film producers and film processors running to such a degree that once that went away, the demand for negative stock alone couldn't make film profitable. While I love the look of film, the best digital cinema cameras in use today are pretty damn good, and it's not such a huge compromise to use them if you have to. The Walking Dead has been around for, what, five seasons? Perhaps people are tiring of the show because it's been around for a while, rather than because the show switched from film to digital.

Can't wait to see it. Is it showing on 35mm anywhere? I know there are some 70mm screenings.

This is what the Arrow Blu-Ray booklet says about the transfer: http://www.criterionforum.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=48&t=12846 The HD master for The Long Goodbye was made available from MGM via Hollywood Classics. The film was transferred from the original 35mm Interpositive held by MGM. Colour grading was performed by Paul Schramm at Todd-AO Video in Hollywood, CA. Director of Photography Vilmos Zsigmond provided detailed colour notes so the master could better match the original look intended look from 1973, resulting in an overall emphasis on muted, desaturated colours with very low contrast. This look, which is maintained on Arrow’s Blu-ray edition, is correct and true to the film’s original theatrical release. Yvonne Medrano managed the process for MGM Technical Services. Additional picture restoration was supervised by James White and completed at Deluxe Digital Cinema - EMEA, London. Digital Restoration Artists: Tom Barrett, Clayton Baker, Dana O’Reilly Deluxe Management: Mark Bonnici, Graham Jones

Is there an advantage to seeing this in non-IMAX 70mm, compared to a 35mm print? I'd imagine that the IMAX scenes hold up better. But would the 35mm scenes benefit?

On TDK Blu-Ray the 35mm scenes have edge enhancement and noise reduction. I guess they just transferred the 35mm scenes from a version with the IMAX DMR process applied, rather than taking them from a cleaner source. This is another reason for the quality difference between the 35mm and IMAX footage. I've read that the 35mm scenes on the Blu-Ray of The Dark Knight Rises look better, though I haven't seen the disc myself. I'm sure the IMAX scenes still look better due to oversampling.

I saw The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises in IMAX. While the IMAX portions looked phenomenal, the IMAX screen stretched 35mm anamorphic past its limits. I wished that those portions were shot on 65mm 5-perf, so it would hold up better on such a large screen.

My company has some filters that I'd like to test out, to see what they do. I was thinking of getting a friend to be a model, and do a basic three-point-lighting setup with a few different lenses (maybe my 16mm, 35mm, and 85mm lenses), and do some tests by shining a light into the camera to see what they do to flares and lights. Any suggestions on what kind of setups I should shoot, what to look for, and general tips? I'm sure I could find these tests online, but I want to play with the filters myself and see the effects.

Ah, yes, the ever-present backlight :-) Night driving scenes are often lit so that the characters' faces are visible, but in reality you'd barely be able to see them, if at all. Most dashboard lights aren't THAT bright. Depending on the style of the film you can get away with fudging the lighting motivation if it lends the images a certain mood. Look at this shot from Bigger than Life: I doubt anyone's living room in real life would ever be lit to create such hard shadows from a low angle. But it works because it heightens the mood of the scene and projects the inner monster of James Mason's character.

I think you're better off renting cameras like the Alexa, Red Epic, etc., rather than buying them. This way you aren't married to using your camera on every project because you own it. Plus, you can always rent the latest camera, rather than having to sell your camera every couple of years or use your camera that you've had a long time. Purchasing an ENG camera might make sense, since those have more longevity than digital cinema cameras. And buying a camera like a C300 wouldn't set you back too much.

Could they have been using a slower shutter angle than 180 degrees? It's odd that a big production would do that on an entire film. I think 48fps was an early rumor that turned out not to be true.

If you really don't want to shoot on your own camera at 16fps, I bet you are only one or two degrees of separation away from someone who'll let you borrow their DSLR. Team up with other aspiring writers and directors and be their DP. They may have some ideas that aren't "Batman meets Oldboy" that you could work on. Intern, PA, do whatever to get on a set, even if it's a low-budget/no-budget project. There's no dearth of options and opportunities. I'm in Dallas too, so PM me and I'll see if I can point you in the right direction. There are as many paths to a career as there are people in the industry, and you just have to find/create the opportunities when you can.

What are some period films that have unconventional cinematography not typically associated with films set in those periods? For example, most Victorian era films have a certain staid, painterly look to them. It seems to me that handheld camerawork isn't often used in films set in a pre-cinema era, but it doesn't seem to be particularly common for films set in the 20th century before the 70s, either.

Article about Bruno Delbonnel's work on Inside Llewyn Davis

Is that an option anywhere? I thought the only options were 2D 24fps, 3D 24fps, and 3D HFR.