Manu Delpech

AH ah ah, that's a good one ? 

17 hours ago, Chris Burke said:

Season Three teaser looks interesting!

Looks a completely different show which is awesome. The crane move following Aaron Paul on the bridge though, the motion felt like digital there?! Which is surprising considering the show has been 35mm film, I hope they somehow didn't switch to digital or maybe for some shots? The Youtube quality is too mediocre to be able to tell for sure.

On 4/24/2019 at 11:25 PM, Tyler Purcell said:

Ohh and don't forget, Cloverfield Paradox is Netflix produced, 35mm isn't even on their list of appropriate cameras. ?

That's because they made the movie with Paramount, Paramount sold it to Netflix. However, Scorsese got to shoot The Irishman on film (50/50 it seems as the first half featuring deaging required digital, the rest is film). 

8 hours ago, Max Field / Macks Fiiod said:

Kids out here are watching every movie on their phone and laptop through multiple degrees of digital compression. You'd be surprised how little people care. I'll be like "ew look at that digital noise" and physically point it out and they'll be like "huh? what? oh I guess but whatever it's just a movie". Getting up to adjust the contrast so I can see the shadows better and everyone else will say "stop toying with it it doesn't matter I can see the faces its fine".

Yup, it's depressing but I'll also be depressed if my film looks like a glossy, flavorless, bland thing, it's our job to care really. How people consume things is not our problem. And there'll be a community of die hard film fans who will care and notice and appreciate.

I personally loathe watching films with anyone else, it's a personal, sacred thing. Theaters have too many distractions, like people for example ? Most folks have no idea that they're watching something that's badly projected or that the image sucks though, that's the problem, so theaters don't care in return, it's a vicious circle. 

After being burned on Shazam ! (IMAX released cancelled here last second) and having to watch it in 2D in super dim, shitty, with darker scenes being completely mushy, I swore off seeing any movies at my local multiplex that aren't in laser IMAX. I've had it, it's frustrating to have to wait, but I'd rather wait, rent it on Itunes and I swear to God, that even with a highly compressed 3.5-5 gb file, it looks vastly better on my setup than it would at the movie theater. 

Well, what Cameron did on Alita Battle Angel (even though he didn't direct it) was to forbid theaters under 4.5 FL to show the film in 3D. That's one way to do it, then again, you'll rarely see instructions like these for films showing in 2D, even Tarantino and Nolan would only ensure that special presentations in IMAX or on film would be just right.

But it's a crap shoot really, there's so many theaters all around, there's no earthly way to send someone for QC for every film, and check regularly to make sure the picture is up to snuff. 

2 hours ago, Bruce Greene said:

There are also many cinemas that leave the polarizing filters on the projector (for 3D) even when screening 2D and this results in a quite dim image.  I've asked the theater manager about this and they said that there was nothing that they could do about it.  AMC Burbank, I'm talking about you!

The biggest problem but no one gives a poop, ugh. 

I vastly prefer watching films on my videoprojector than on my TV, obviously, the quality and size is vastly superior on the former for me, but the feel and look of it feels so much better. And the projection in cinemas is certainly NOT supposed to be dim. You'd have to know if your movie theater is actually showing movies the way they should be seen, too many theaters want to save a buck on the bulb and it just looks dim, completely faded, no contrast, no pop. 

5 hours ago, Simon Wyss said:

Film projection has lost its magic. Most theatre owners wouldn’t care about a snow-white screen, good lenses, and enough light. To see a fourth-generation continuously exposed print in the dull light of xenon lamps is quite different from the experience of a step contact positive off the original brought to life by the fiery light from high-intensity carbon arcs. Film projection offers the inviting subtractive imagery. Cell phone, tablet, monitor displays, and LASER projection work after the additive principle, more exactly, with better illumination evenness. But also more abstract, sterile. Architecture has failed to be uplifting, too.

Why make a film when it will end on liquid crystal displays?

 

 

Oh you are speaking the truth. I've been complaining several times to my local multiplex (which is a big chain here), the digital projection quality is UNACCEPTABLE, their laser IMAX theater is impeccable but everything else is DIM as hell, faded, washed out, I told myself I would never go back there to see a film that's not in IMAX, I bit the bullet for Shazam ! as there was no other choice and I was heartbroken at how lifeless the image, and kept thinking how furious the director and DP would be if they saw that crap.

Unless it's a Dolby Cinema theater, or laser IMAX, there's just no QC, it appears no one gives a poop and most people don't know or care. Ugh. 

8 hours ago, Christopher Santucci said:

If I had the budgets top tier A-list directors had, I might shoot on film too. Or, I would put that extra expense into something an audience would actually appreciate, like production design. I wasn't referring to them, obviously. And I'd be willing to bet if movie goers were polled, most if not all wouldn't know and wouldn't care what the movies they watch are shot on.

Content is king.

No excuse, even super low budget films shoot on film. I believe Ryan Coogler spoke of super 16 on Fruitvale Station as being his special effect and I couldn't put it any better. Film is more production value imo, it makes you stand out as well and it will definitely give you more notice (unless the film sucks) than if you are the ten thousandth movie shot on the Alexa. 

It's clear though that you don't have a point here and are left with your "content is king" bit. I don't give a **** if moviegoers know something was shot on film or not. What I know is what I'm looking at and what I want and I can't count how often, always really, I cringe at how clean 99% of the films and TV shows out there look. There are some rare examples where one film will look a certain way, even if shot digitally, and I'll love the look, but there's not one digitally shot film or TV show out there where I don't think, every time, "this looks great but I wish they'd shot on film". 

1 hour ago, Robin R Probyn said:

But Manu.. digital can look like film and film can look like Digital .. there isnt one generic film look .. that all those Directors want..  film can be very sharp ,digital can be very soft looking.. again this idea that if you shoot on film there is some mystical ,magical quality .. and it must be good because famous directors like film.. alot of those people in your list have made some really bad movies .. guess what.. shot on film..

 

Top DoP,s can work with digital and make it look great.. just as they can with film.. Barry Ackroyd has shot digital .. although a film fan..and it looks exactly like his work on film.. and anyway shooting film doesn't fix a crap movie ..

 Even greatly manipulated digital footage does NOT look like film, it just doesn't. There are extremely rare films shot on film that are so squeaky clean that they possibly could be misconstrued for digital, but honestly, I can't think of any off the top of my head. Film is obviously not just grain, it's the way faces, colors are rendered, it's the life in the frame.

Prashantt talks about Benoit Debie, Debie himself said on The Beach Bum that he CANNOT achieve the colors he wants to achieve with anything else but film. There are so many films that would gain something if shot on film, so many films that need the grit, but are too goddam squeaky clean and it works against the film, I'm sorry but  it does. It made me smile when Rodrigo Prieto said in a video that he thought Sicario should have been shot on film because it needed that grit, Sicario is gorgeously shot but I agree. 

Linus Sandgren has professed his love for film, and continues to do so every single time and is adamant he can do so many things with film that he can't with digital, and many others say the same thing. Deakins not seeing the difference anymore is his problem really, but hey, as much as his work with the Alexa is gorgeous, I still think it doesn't come close to his best work on film (independent of the fact that every movie is different) and something is missing. That's just my two cents.

We fundamentally disagree here, there IS a magical quality to film, and if you're not willing to take the word of tons of highly respected directors and DPs on this, I don't know what to tell you. I tell you what I see, story is story sure, shooting on film doesn"t mean you're going to make a good movie, only a clown would think this. But it MATTERS, do you understand? 

I always see the difference and I've spent years training my eye for it, scrutinizing footage, sometimes up close, and it's also what the format evokes, and I said what film evokes for me. 

Also, keep in mind that I see most films on a 90 inch plus screen with a great JVC videoprojector, I'm lucky enough to do so. Now, if you're watching something on a TV and you're sitting far away, or same in the movie theater, you're obviously not going to see the grain or the texture of film much, unless it's super 16 or it was push processed, that's common sense. Even then, you still have all the advantages and qualities of film, but I don't see the point of sitting far away, I want to see and FEEL the texture of the film. 

And here we go into another film vs digital "debate" despite my  best intentions. Sorry OP. 

16 hours ago, Christopher Santucci said:

What possible advantage could there be at this point to originate on film? Even IF it cost the same as digital? People are shooting popular features and commercials on iPhones & cameras you can pick up at Best Buy now. Audiences don't care about film. People watch more video/motion picture work daily now than they used to watch in a year, and are really only interested in content.

I see work shot on film (stills or motion picture) these days by tech hipsters and for the life of me, I can't see anything different in terms of look from any other modern digital imagery. Film is more time consuming, offers more possible ways to ruin it (fog, dust, tears, scratches, crinkles, lab damage, etc.), and film is a one time use medium as opposed to thousands. 

I started out with film and I for one don't miss it. Clients don't ask for it and consumers/audiences don't either. 

Go tell that to Spielberg, Nolan, Scorsese, Tarantino, PT Anderson, Snyder, Chazelle, JJ Abrams, Ponsoldt, Coen Brothers, Scott Cooper, Adam McKay, and so many others. This is ridiculous. It MATTERS, who cares if audiences know the difference (but they'll feel it), it's your intention, you, the filmmaker, and the DP,  you want your film to look and feel a certain way. You might not miss it but plenty LOVE it because it looks and feels better, there is emotion with film, something happens, it's a quicker way to empathy than digital is imo, plenty will tell you the same, it can't be rationalized, it just is. It also looks more interesting and stands out. 

All my favorite films are shot on film, all of them, it's not a coincidence, it's not an internal trick, it just makes me feel in a way digital doesn't, independent of the emotion of the movie itself. 

Go ahead and call those master directors, or DPs like Linus Sandgren, or Masanobu Takayanagi, or Rodrigo Prieto and so many others that they're "tech hipsters". If you truly can't see the difference, I don't know what to tell you, it's blatant, it's obvious. 

The abundant grain, especially on the Pro Res file, is brilliant. 

Taxi Driver, The King Of Comedy, some sweet references. I just love everything about the trailer, it's going to be a new obsession ? The way the camera moves, the feel, the mood, the look, Joaquin, it's a great cut too. The trailer has been seen 21 million times already on Youtube Greg, this plus the buzz on Twitter and Cinema Con, this is going to set the world on fire. 

13 hours ago, Simon Docherty said:

"Joker" trailer in 4K. This looks quite sublime ~ 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJuOjQCVkYw 

?

.

Youtube compression and quality is dreadful though. You're far better off watching the 1080p QT version on Apple Trailers

3 hours ago, Daniel D. Teoli Jr. said:

Yes, film has a nice look.

Over time, the less people that shoot film, the less film knowledgeable DP's will be available. If they can ever get digital grain treatments to look organic, like film, then they may have something. 

It's not just that though, you can't just throw a layer of film grain on or even use something like LiveGrain (which is more elaborate, but ends up looking not any different) and expect it to look like film. There's just a fundamental nature to film that is random, and the way faces are rendered, look and feel is so different. 

I don't think many DPs like the digital look overall, so many articles in AC or British Cinematographer or whatever you can find where anamorphic lenses are super in demand for digital shows to break the image apart a little, or grain is added in post or the ASA setting is pushed in order to get some kind of texture. And digital just isn't special, that's the thing, so many things shot on the Alexa or Red and it just becomes this shapeless, homogenized blob, nothing or very few things stand out. And those who shoot on film stand out and it is special. 

But the labs coming back is just a great thing, and more and more things (still a tiny number) films, indie films and TV shows are being shot on film these days. 

I just know that the digital equipment is far more expensive than a super 16 or 2 perf package, and then it depends on how much you shoot. If you're disciplined, film becomes less expensive. There are several indie films out there in the 1-10 million range that shot on film and were clear it worked out cheaper than digital. Fruitvale Station is in the 500 K range and is super 16, James Ponsoldt shot The Spectacular Now on ana 35mm on a 3.5 M budget, he had to give up one position I think on the crew but it worked out beautifully. 

IT'S HERE, at last, the first teaser trailer for Todd Phillips' Joker, starring Joaquin Phoenix as Arthur Fleck, who becomes The Joker, yes, it is a DC film, a sort of Elseworlds tale, meaning it's separate, supposedly, from the continuity of the DCEU and is a what if kinda film, similar to The Killing Joke, those sorts of one off comics runs. $55 million budget, Robert De Niro, Zazie Beetz, Frances Conroy, Shea Whigham, Marc Maron and more join Phoenix. Martin Scorsese was attached as exec producer at some point, Emma Tillinger Koskoff, one of his usual producers, is on board though. 

The film will be a character study, a tragedy of sorts. 

Gregory Irwin worked on the film and gave me some technical details on the film, I don't know if I can share yet but I can at least say (as the info is on the official Alexa 65 website) that the film was shot on the Alexa 65 by Lawrence Sher, a Todd Phillips regular who shot The Hangover Trilogy, War Dogs and recently, Godzilla: King Of Monsters, another Alexa 65 show, which looks gorgeous too. 

Anyway, the film looks really special and gorgeous. 

https://trailers.apple.com/trailers/wb/joker/

I'm not including the YT link, it's just too compressed, doesn't do it justice. 

 

 

Exactly what I said way back.. and got shot down in flames straight away by the devout followers .. read and weep ..

Once again, Olivares was announced a long time ago but it turns out it was probably a misunderstanding as Olivares worked on the film as a camera operator and cinematography collaborator, which is a title I've never seen before but it's clear he was an important presence on the film but I'm not surprised that some are immediately doubting that Cuaron had anything to do with it, it's not as if he worked as a cinematographer early in his career...

I heard that Samsung and Oppo were discontinuing making blu-ray players, which is disturbing!

UHD BD players for sure but BD players completely?

Zodiac has ONE shot if I'm not mistaken which is when Graysmith goes to see Paul Avery on his boat. It's a pan left to right, day time, smeary, then again, it was the Viper. There might be others but this one stuck with me. Otherwise, I haven't seen Gone Girl, TSN in a while but I don't think there was in those.

We're not talking limitations of the sensors, either they didn't have enough light or it was another technical consideration. But trust me, it's there but most films I see that are shot digitally rarely have it. And there is, it's usually isolated to a handful of shots

No, it's not the way I'm viewing a trailer, the examples I've cited are real, in theaters and on Blu Ray. You can check it out yourself or maybe you somehow don't notice it.

As above.. there is just no way in this day and age that anyone is doing 360 degree shutter @.. normal speed .. due to poor lighting.. presumably meaning not enough and having to resort to shutter off.. I mean thats just nuts that a feature film would do this.. unless its an effect they want... even on the lowest budget corp shoot you only do this as a last resort.. and only a shot with no to minimal movement in the frame.. the idea that Ben is Back .. a full blown feature film staring Julia Roberts and shot by Stuart Dryburgh...you know who this is right.. Oscar nom for the Piano..shot the pilot for Broadwalk Empire etc.. would not have budgeted for adequate lighting for night scenes and then the DP turns to the director and says.. oh damn.. I forgot night is dark.. No problem we'll just turn off the shutter.. looks like shite but well too bad everyone is doing it .. really Manu.. you think that conversation happened .. personally I really doubt it.. ..there is some irony that you guys are calling out as incompetent .. the work of some of the best DP,s on the planet ..

Not necessarily poor lighting, Ben Is Back has a 13 million budget, maybe they couldn't afford as much equipment as they needed for some of the night stuff, I don't know?! Or it's a weird stylistic choice. There are quite a few times on modern movies (happens more on TV though, whether it's Red or Alexa) where that ugliness is present and I wonder why "were they lazy?", "stylistic choice?", "they didn't have time to light it?".

Who knows. I NEVER called anyone incompetent. Also, yeah, Dryburgh is a great DP, doesn't mean everything he does is going to be great either.

I'm thinking of examples and there are probably reasons for all of it: Life Of Pi exhibits that motion blur several times in daytime and night time situations, probably requirements because of 3D or certain technical aspects of the film. Mr Robot on TV has a handful of moments in the first episode if I remember correctly, daytime interior. (Red Dragon on that one), Birdman has it (night time exterior on the roof, Ed Norton and Emma Stone chatting), X-Men: Days Of Future Past has quite a bit of it, in daytime situations especially, Captain America: The First Avenger has it from time to time (but most of it is shot on the Genesis, so that makes sense), there are more examples everywhere but I'm too lazy to keep looking :D

Several films this year should have been nominated for Best Cinematography. I wish ASIB had taken it on this one.

Blackhat is shot on the Alexa and has the same type of smeary motion blur that Collateral and Miami Vice (and Public Enemies) have. But as Stuart says, it was obviously more of a limitation at the time. Maybe Mann likes it? Although he said he was probably coming back to film for his Enzo Ferrari film before he left the project (James Mangold directed instead).

Ben Is Back is another example lately, I've just seen the trailer but the night stuff in the trailer looks horrendous and it's filled with it. Logan also has it when Charles is having his seizures, they used a 358 degree shutter angle for those scenes.