Manu Delpech
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Posts posted by Manu Delpech
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14 hours ago, Satsuki Murashige said:
I don’t agree with your conclusion. Mr. Yedlin has basically already done that with ‘The Last Jedi.’ I know personally that in the theater I didn’t notice a big shift in format, scene to scene. Of course, everybody is different but I like to think that my eye is pretty sensitive to that sort of thing.
I think the reason his method works is that he doesn’t push either format beyond what it can capture. By keeping them ‘within bounds’ and capturing all the highlights and shadows, he’s able to make them match later.
But with the two examples above, Mr. Hoytema is pushing the Alexa beyond what a film emulsion can capture in the shadows. That’s what makes it ‘look digital.’ Still beautiful, just not as film-like as Mr. Yedlin would probably post-process to.
On the other hand, Mr. Sandgren is pushing the film emulsion fairly hard into underexposure territory here, perhaps not to the limit but close to it. Of course, he’s shooting on slower anamorphic lenses and LA at night is much darker than Tokyo. And he is going for a more punchy look to begin with. But if you lifted the shadows in most of those shots, I suspect that there won’t be much more detail there, just film grain. That’s a guess based on shooting 5219 somewhat recently and grading the 5K log scans.
Except that you can tell on The Last Jedi, I'm not going to go into a spiral again but I've seen his special sauce on Danny Collins, San Andreas, etc and they just look like plain old digital as does Knives Out. Agreed otherwise on Her. It's one of those rare films where I'll sort of agree that, yes film would have looked better, it was right for the film and as him and Spike said, it was the only way they could capture those interiors in Theodore's apartment with the city lights outside.
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49 minutes ago, Jon O'Brien said:
On the big screen, at the movies, I've never yet been fooled by digital cinematography into thinking it was shot on film. I can always tell. Pretty quickly.
I'd say the only time knowledgeable folks could be deceived is really if they're sitting way back in the theater. I always make sure to sit in the third or fourth row to really get a sense of the texture.
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On 7/21/2020 at 7:21 AM, Satsuki Murashige said:
I would say these sample frames from Evan Richard's collection of movie frame grabs (https://www.evanerichards.com) really highlight the difference in formats. Both gorgeous, but very different in terms of shadow detail and texture. It should be obvious which is film and which is digital.
'Her' DP. Hoyte Van Hoytema
'La La Land' DP. Linus Sandgren
Sorry for the quote ? (although two GORGEOUS films) but yeah, it's obvious, of course it is. I'm not sure why Yedlin's flawed thinking and methodology has been brought back when there was already a thread about it but it'd be fun if he submitted himself to the test of shooting an entire film on film and digital at the same time. Guarantee they'd look completely different.
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Gorgeous film and beautifully shot. Alma Har'el told me they wanted to shoot on film but alas, nobody was willing to help them out budget wise, so they had to go digital. They did a pretty good job introducing texture by adding grain, playing with colors, the Xtal lenses, etc.
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WAM BAM, first big film resuming mid July, Jurassic World Dominion at Pinewood Studios:
Choice quotes:
"The studio is understood to be spending around $5M on its protocols, which will see the production carry out thousands of tests during the remainder of filming. All cast and crew will be tested before returning to set and then again multiple times during filming.
The safety measures will include the commission of a private medical facility called Your Doctor to manage the entire production’s medical needs; Covid training for all cast and crew; on-site doctors, nurses and isolation booths; 150 hand sanitizer stations; nightly anti-viral ‘fogs’; more than 1,800 safety signs put up around Pinewood; and ‘Green Zones’ for shooting cast and crew. Masks will be obligatory other than for actors while performing.
Jurassic World: Dominion has been one of a handful of major studio productions on hold in the UK. The government gave the film and TV industries the go-ahead for production to re-start last month but there remain safety, practical and insurance issues to iron out as the UK slowly comes out of lockdown (schools, cinemas, pubs, restaurants remain closed).
Other UK-based blockbusters waiting for their green-light include Warner Bros’ The Batman and Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them 3, and Disney’s The Little Mermaid. James Cameron arrived back in New Zealand earlier this month to get back underway on the Avatar sequels and Netflix is underway on multiple TV productions (and one film) in the Nordics.
All the studios have been working best they can on non-contact elements of their movies during the hiatus, including VFX work, storyboarding and planning for re-starts. We hear that construction crews are gearing back up now on a number of productions so don’t be surprised if this is the first of a string of announcements about movie re-starts.
Universal’s protocols for Jurassic World: Dominion will include:
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- The commission of a private medical facility called Your Doctor to manage the entire production’s medical requirements. This will include Covid-19, fever and antibody testing but they will also review all hand sanitizer, social distancing measures, updates to government and best practice guidelines. Your Doctor will continually update the production’s safety measures as the science and environment changes and will be available for cast consultations to review health and safety concerns.
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- The studio has commissioned Your Doctor to test all crew before they start on the production. They will then test the crew at times throughout production. The whole crew will also be antibody tested. Thousands of tests are expected to be carried out over the shoot period.
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- All crew will be temperature tested every day and not allowed on site until complete. Two walk-through temperature testing stations are being built at each end of Pinewood Studios with capacity of 1,000 crew over 2 hours. Each test station will have a compliment of doctors, nurses and isolation booths. Crew will be verified that they have been tested by a bespoke RFID system that registers when a crew member has been temperature tested. Crew will also be given a paper wristband for identification by security as a fall back. Additional temperature test stations will be set up on location as required.
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- The studio is putting up around 1,800 signs across Pinewood and more on location. These will include reminders that crew numbers will be limited in various locations, the need for social distancing (six feet of separation) and one-way systems in operation.
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- The studio is rolling out a full COVID training program to be undertaken by all staff before starting. Universal will also do specific training for specialist groups (e.g. costume and makeup).
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- The studio is manufacturing 150 hand sanitizer stations to be positioned at points around Pinewood Studios. They are also putting in an extra 60 sinks. All crew members will also be given an individual hand sanitizer bottle when they start.
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- Production will double the cleaning recommendations and employ a large cleaning team who will continually clean all the touch points across the site in addition to all common areas, toilets, welfare and kitchens. They will clean with specialized antiviral sprays appropriate to the situation. In the evenings all toilets, communal areas, welfare areas, kitchens, trucks and sets will be antiviral fogged. Props, grip, SFX and camera will use specialized antistatic cleaning systems.
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- The studio is setting up a ‘Greenzone’ for the shooting cast and crew which will have an enhanced testing environment. The ‘Greenzone’ will be policed to stop any untested crew from coming in as a further measure to prevent any spread of COVID.
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- Universal will have additional security detail maintaining the temperature testing centers and a further team who will check crew are eligible to go into the protected greenzones. Security team will be trained in COVID measures to ensure that the required operations are followed."
Sounds pretty darn thorough, regular testing, antibody testing, temperature checks, will probably be one of the safest sets anywhere.
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One wonders if that will hold with the inevitable peaks coming in two weeks.
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Yup ! I believe the UK government had already given the go ahead a week or two ago, but basically, Fantastic Beasts 3 can start whenever WB wants, The Batman can resume when they want, and other big productions can start again. Doesn't mean the studios will any time soon though. I'm guessing fast and reliable testing needs to be in place along with quarantining the cast and crew for the whole shoot to be able to have actors interact normally. As long as you test your leads regularly, they can do even intimate scenes (Sex Education is one show that's going to resume shortly)
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Thank you ! Yes !
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Watching in Pro Res, there's really nothing like 5 perf and 15 perf 65mm film, glorious. I bet the trailer doesn't come close to doing the film justice.
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They covered for this by just saying "coming to theaters"' on the trailer and keeping July 17 on their Twitter cover. Looks really cool, beautiful work by Hoyte as expected.
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The bigger obstacle seems to be insurance as the trades say. A big roadblock for now, less so for big productions but yeah. Several insiders saying that the government (in the US especially) might have to step in there. I wonder how many big films (like Fantastic Beasts 3, The Batman, Matrix 4, etc) might wait longer for that reason. I doubt they'd hold out until a vaccine (which could come this year, although it'd be a miracle, some interesting possibilities with the monoclonal antibody treatment thing too) but considering the increase in budgets all around, maybe.
If anyone here has any connection to Martin Scorsese by the way, please tell him and De Niro to wait till a vaccine is ready for Killers Of The Flower Moon please ?
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"One other related similarity: for Outsiders and for season two of Bloodline, Reynoso shot with Vantage One T1 lenses. These unique lenses deliver a distinctive visual fingerprint affected by uncorrected spherical aberrations, the kind of personality cinematographers desire given today’s nearly flawless digital imagery."
I heard someone say, ‘With these lenses, it’s no longer ‘which eye do you want in focus?’ It’s now ‘which eyelash?’ And I was intrigued. I went to Keslow Camera, and I put up two lenses. I fell in love with them right off the bat.
“I had been looking for a lens that was imperfect, with optical artifacts, but also sharp,” he says. “I had been using older lenses, but then you lose on the sharpness. The Vantage Ones are the best of both worlds. They’re sharp when you need them to be, and you can soften them up when you open the iris. If you’re at a 1.4, they’re less soft, and the edges fall off really interestingly. When things go out of focus, they blend very nicely. If you need something more crisp, you can close to a 2.8, and they gain sharpness. Sometimes I’ll play with the irises, even in the same shot, to modulate the flavor of the Vantage Ones.”
The Vantage One glass offers excellent close-focus capability, which comes in handy, according to Reynoso. The depth of field characteristics fit with his fresh approach to coverage and focal length. “What it does is give you a long lens feel on a wide lens,” he says. “By being wide open on the iris, you can isolate the characters from the background, even at a 17.5. And the way that everything falls out of focus so quickly allows you to use wider lenses. It seems to add some mystery and dreaminess to the image.”
I would generally take one of the cameras on my own shoulder, bring small monitors for the director and the focus puller and we’d just go and drive,” said Reynoso. “Because John drives a pick-up, we were able to put an electrician tied to the back with a broomstick with two different color fluorescent tubes. And he would sweep the exterior of the car, alternating colors, trying to augment what naturally happens out there. I found that very easy to do, very quick to set up and very effective. I could get very tight with a 25mm lens and pull out.”
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I said it for a while about quarantining cast and crew for the duration of the shoot. Blumhouse is getting ready to shoot a 6.5 million film on the Universal lot and that's exactly what they're going to do. I can't think of another way to have actors being able to interact normally in a scene without being limited. That and of course, as planned by studios, having EVERYONE tested regularly, whether daily (that swab test looks mighty uncomfortable ?) or several times weekly.
"Therapeutics company Sorrento has made what it believes could be a breakthrough in potential treatment of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that leads to COVID-19. The company released details of its preclinical research on Friday, announcing that it has found an antibody that provides “100% inhibition of SARS-CoV-2 virus infection of healthy cells after four days incubation.” The results are from a preclinical study that still has to undergo peer review. It was an in vitro laboratory study (meaning not in an actual human being), but it’s still a promising development as the company continues to work on production of an antibody “cocktail” that could provide protection against SARS-CoV-2 even in case of mutations in the virus."
Something different than a vaccine but that might stop contamination and wouldn't need months to get there, scale up is harder though.
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"The 16mm film to digital transition on The Eddy kinda takes you out of it. I was digging that raw gritty handheld look on the early episodes."
"The work of Eric Gautier with the 16mm in The Eddy is kind of impressive, the guy finds each shot in the middle of zoom, camera in hand, pretty cool. Too bad that in the third episode someone on Netflix decided to switch to digital, it is very discrepant" (this one is a translation)
"The visual transition from 16mm to digital after the first 2 episodes of The Eddy is so apparent smh; it kinda ruins the rhythm ‘cause the desaturated look works so much better under the former format — looks like a VSCO filter lol. Still nice Netflix let him do so I guess"
This one needs to be linked to see the brilliant Whiplash inspired GIF:
"https://twitter.com/davidviramontes/status/1255163526512955393?s=20"
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Thank goodness indeed, although most probably won't realize it ?
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Well, I looked on Twitter and it was hilarious to see multiple comments saying the same thing, "ah wtf is this digital crap on episode 3, so jarring". At least it's reassuring that some people still have eyes and can easily tell the difference.
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Adapted from Wally Lamb's masterpiece, started airing on Sunday. It's an epic about two brothers, both played by Ruffalo (who shot all his Dominick portions, then put on 30 pounds for six weeks to shoot all the Thomas portions, some CG trickery here and there), Thomas is schizophrenic, Dominick does his best to take care of him.
The amazing Derek Cianfrance directs and writes all six episodes. Shot on gorgeous 2 perf 35mm by Jody Lee Lipes and blown up for the 2:1 ratio (which is as far as HBO was willing to go) which gives it an awesome texture, with the grain closer to 16mm at times (be warned, compression on cable has some issues with it ^^). It has a beautiful low con look to it (which I'm not big on usually but works beautifully here), a lot of long lens work with some zoom in there (Cianfrance and Lipes decided never or practically never to zoom OUT), long takes.
It looks and feels like a movie like, honestly, no show I've seen so far. Cianfrance refers to the show as a movie and I definitely see it. Being shot on film really helps a TON in making it feel that way too aside from the lushness on display. Between this and The Plot Against America, HBO is putting out amazingly cinematic TV.
The material, for those who read the book, is pretty dark and moody though, definitely not for everyone, so be warned. The pilot is exactly how I expected it to feel and be like, beautiful stuff, Ruffalo is on fire and Cianfrance's voice is there from the first shot, so raw and gorgeous.
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To be fair, the Red CAN look fantastic. The Irishman, Mr Robot, anything Fincher directs, The Aeronauts, You, Sorry For Your Loss, Mindhunter, The Boys, Homecoming, Maniac and a ton of other stuff shot on the DXL or DXL2 as well. I prefer the Alexa and the Venice as far as digital cameras go though.
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On 5/8/2020 at 8:38 PM, Stephen Perera said:
Just watched the first two episodes and they were superb.....am loving it.....the look is fantastic....and shot with a similar camera to mine.... the Aaton XTR Prod....I have the XTR XC.....then started watching the third episode.....wow what a visual difference......they are on acid if they think the RED matches 16mm film....ridiculous.....really? They could not afford 16mm film? Would only allow Damian Chazelle to shoot it? Em.....just keep the same cinematographer and camera operator, the same focus puller etc etc.....this is ridiculous.....What am I missing.........regardless of the decision...the first two episodes were superb.....as a jazz lover....even better.....so refreshing after having sat through the......overrated....Better Call Saul....
I worship Chazelle but the whole setting, locales are so unappealing to me that I won't check it out but it did seem from the trailer that there was zero effort made to match the Red to the 16mm in any way. Puzzling. It seems most of the other directors on the show are complete unknowns and Netflix, until Scorsese, had been strict about not shooting on film. So I guess he used his clout to shoot on film but it is a major diss to not allow the rest of it to be shot on film.
Not dissimilar to HBO though. They would have allowed Scorsese and Prieto to shoot the Vinyl pilot on 16mm but the rest of it would have had to be digital, go figure.
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Yeah, Panavision NY has one for example, I inquired about it. I love 2 perf so much, totally worth the small price difference with 16mm.
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17 hours ago, Jon O'Brien said:
How does 35mm look on Netflix compared with 16mm? Any preference for either look?
Both look great, 16mm is obviously a tad trickier but I've always been surprised how well the grain is retained when super compression usually wipes it away. Preference on Netflix itself I guess is what you mean or overall?
I love 16mm but 2 perf wipes the floor with it with only a small price increase. There's such a world of difference between 16mm and 35mm I find.
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On 5/1/2020 at 11:43 AM, Phil Connolly said:
I'm surprised they went with 16mm at all on the Eddy, the Netflix codec is a bit hit and miss when it comes to preserving grain.
Maybe 2 perf 1.85:1 would have captured a lot of the look but with slightly tighter grain to make a nice 4K stream.
I can't imagine a Helium cropped to 4K is the best digital option either
Cropping the 2 perf neg to 1:85 would have been a massive waste. Honestly, Netflix handles grain remarkably well imo. I'm projecting on a 90 inch screen, via ethernet and Netflix looks fantastic, far from a good Blu Ray of course but on films like The Irishman, regular 16, 35mm shot films and shows, the grain is really well resolved.
@Jon O'Brien I think Marty and Rodrigo insisting on shooting The Irishman on 35mm film (as much of it as they could considering the deaging) did it. They had the clout to do it, Rodrigo said there was a bit of pushback at first but that really they were fine with it. They do require 4K scans though. Then Spike Jonze shot his Aziz Ansari Netflix special on 16mm. Tigertail partly shot on 16mm. Antonio Campos' The Devil All The Time (coming this year) is 35mm.
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On 5/1/2020 at 9:38 AM, Stephen Perera said:
Exactly.....it's like the visual difference between Better Call Saul in seasons 1 to 4 and Breaking Bad....No visual congruity.....the former looks terrible in the highlights and thin....they used Reds and Panasonics.....totally uninspiring look to my tastes....no match for the fantastic look of Breaking Bad with their Arricams and Arriflex 35mm using Vision2 stocks......
Oh god Better Call Saul, Gilligan literally said that he saw NO difference between 35mm and the Red Dragon. BCS pales in comparison to Breaking Bad, so clean it almost looks cheap at times.
If - Directed by Steve Kenny
in On Screen / Reviews & Observations
Posted
Beautiful work, a nice sense of texture for digital.