Manu Delpech

The Postman Dreams is not directed by him. 

It's going to be as delicious as always. 

On 2/10/2020 at 1:32 AM, Dom Jaeger said:

No one mentioned "The Lighthouse"?

Surprisingly not until you did :D

One of the digitally shot scenes is the one outside the night club. Would make sense for them to use them for some low light or night scenes and specialty shots (like the ones zooming in on the opal maybe, until CG takes over).

Bingo, Yedlin shoots the most boring demos. Let's imagine for example if Linus Sandgren shot American Hustle, Joy, or La La Land both on the Alexa and 35mm film. And he is always an advocate of film's superiority. He couldn"'t do it, no one could make them look the same. 

I didn't know Knives Out was digital before seeing the trailer though. Ding ding. I know some big time DPs and else can't tell the difference, I don't know what to tell you. Very few people would still shoot on film if you could really make something look completely like film. There have been attempts, The Irishman is very convincing, Indignation too. But I find that when it's most convincing most of the time, although there's still a difference (and Prieto said so, he had ILM make it look as close to the 35mm template as possible, that when he edited the film, he could feel the difference between digital and film), is when you have a film mainly shot on film, some of it digitally (usually at night) serving as the basis or template and then the colorist has to match the two as closely possible. 

You can certainly intercut night stuff shot digitally with film very well, I feel it's where it can be the most invisible, day stuff? Forget about it. But I'm such a nerd that I feel that unless you have a really good reason to shoot low light digitally, like you don't have the budget for the lighting (and yet you have the budget for an additional digital camera package, go figure ^^), then it's kind of cheating in a way. 

One thing though that I've always found weird is that Prieto doesn't match the digital low light, experimental stuff on Wolf and Silence with the 35mm film, leaves them squeaky clean and it is jarring although I adore the work. 

Knives Out looks like digital to me,  heh, and I saw it in theaters. Even the trailer I could tell, the grain structure, the way the faces are rendered, all that is different with actual film.

I saw some checked mark folks retweeting this article on Twitter and of course there were immediately nonsensical responses. It's interesting but dangerous imo. Can definitely tell on The Last Jedi the difference between 35mm film and Alexa footage as well as the two intercut. Film cannot be replicated by its very nature, how can you replicate something that is organic? 

Sure, you can get convincing results that will fool a few people but that's it. If Yedlin's theories and work were so convincing, then Spielberg, Scorsese, Nolan, PTA, Tarantino, Linus Sandgren, Van Hoytema, etc and more would just drop film?! 

You can see Yedlin's "secret sauce" LUT on display on other films like Danny Collins or San Andreas and it just looks like plain old digital, it just does, with added grain. And it's a whole lot of work to make something look like an approximation of what film is when you can just shoot on film and it's the real deal. Not to mention, who the f will have the time and money to spend in the DI suite on trying to make digital look like film?! It's so nonsensical but it will convince some people, heh. 

1 hour ago, Stuart Brereton said:

Honey Boy was a Tier One union movie. Whatever you might have heard, Tier One movies do not have a lot of money to throw around. Choosing film origination on their budget, particularly with a shooting style that I believe was fairly unstructured and improvisational, would have been difficult to afford. Everyone quotes the directors saying that wanted to shoot film but weren't allowed to, as if Film was the only thing that director was asking for. Every director tries to stretch the budget in every department. They want technocranes and cable rigs, they want huge locations and hundreds of extras. Ultimately, they have to make a decision what's important to them, and some of them decide that shooting film is not priority one. It's not some vast conspiracy to prevent people using film, it's just the reality of working within a budget.

Alma Har'el told me when I asked that they wanted film, asked for favors, went nowhere. But yeah, considering the way she shot the film, that might not have been conducive. I understand what you're saying, but many directors will say that producers sometimes don't even want to hear about it and won't make an effort. 16mm and 2 perf is super cost effective especially. 

James Ponsoldt shot The Spectacular Now on anamorphic 35mm on a $3.5 million budget, he insisted on it:

"We shot on anamorphic 35mm, and film was one thing I couldn’t let go, not on this movie. So I really stood by it. But, 25 days was a sprint. That’s the short answer."

Jess Hall who shot the film had this to say:

"“The story is an emotional study of these two teenagers and James wanted those faces to be photographed in a way that was extremely expressive,” says Hall. “We felt the digital palate just didn’t offer that. Emotionally there’s a quantitative difference of how you can capture a close-up of an actor’s face, what you read on that face and the audience’s reaction to that. Seeing it on film and seeing it on digital is quite different.”

James was a fan of Son Of Rambow, a film I’d done that was really low budget and shot in anamorphic, so I was certainly of the opinion that the scale of the film didn’t rule out that format. I think a lot of people turn away from it because they think you can’t do a low-budget anamorphic feature. And it is a challenge, but my position is always trying to make a director’s wishes come to fruition.”

So yeah, I'm sure that sometimes (and I'm currently in the whole "how high should the budget be" debate on a film of mine, but I'll pay for film stock, film equipment, processing myself so nobody can say no) you have to choose something or whether it matters to you. But if it's really an imperative, I believe you make it work. So not all the directors I mentioned have a huge budget. Coogler shot Fruitvale Station on 16mm on a $900,000 budget. 

@Max Field  That's super cynical. I guarantee you, and I'm a young filmmaker, that many don't just want to shoot on film just to impress a handful of strangers on forums LOL, it's important, it looks better, it feels better, it stands out, it transforms it. And NO, I'm not saying shooting on film guarantees a good film, anyone thinking that is delusional.

Not to go into another debate, but I can say with absolute certainty that all my favorite films, that are all shot on film, wouldn't feel the same in another format and I wouldn't have quite the same emotional attachment without film. Digital also puts a barrier between me and the film, as subconscious as it can be (that and constantly thinking "wish this was shot on film) whereas film, I'm just there immediately, I don't have to buy in. 

Well, there are several "high profile" films this year where you read on every single one (one was Honey Boy) "we wanted to shoot on film, were told no", "we wanted to shoot on film, it wasn't possible". It's a classic really. Many of the masters are shooting on film these days and some promising others too: Spielberg, Scorsese (if digital hadn't been absolutely necessary for the deaging, they would have shot The Irishman completely on film), Tarantino, O.Russell, JJ Abrams, Cianfrance (he had to shoot The Light Between The Oceans digitally because of location, his upcoming HBO show with Mark Ruffalo (I Know This Much Is True) is shot on 35mm), Snyder, PTA, Nolan, Ponsoldt, Scott Cooper, Chazelle, Safdie brothers, Baumbach, Gray, Jenkins, McKay,  Kore-eda, Lowery, Krasinski, McQuarrie, Trevorrow, Jonah Hill shot Mid90s on 16mm and hopes never to shoot digitally, and so on and so on.

Tarantino also gave an impassioned speech about film, and film projection a few days ago. 

Gorgeous work by Darius Khondji, film guys........ ^^ Available on Netflix except in the US. 

A very nice surprise, a shame audiences didn't take to it, Live By Night is a different film but still a crime drama, period piece and it tanked just like this. Very nice work by Pope, I saw it on iTunes, I wish the bitrate was higher but the quality is still solid despite the compression. I'm going to read the articles on this in detail but for what is considered to be a film noir, I'm surprised the film is so bright so to speak, it's not high key or overlit as I've seen a critic say but I would have expected it to be much lower key, more shadowy. 

I wonder why Norton went with digital on this, this demands film imo, at the very least, they should have added some grain but still looks very good.

I didn't hate it, it's entertaining and incredibly bizarre, the CGI work though (aside from human faced cockroaches and mice (that was bad) ) is not to blame, it's the design itself. Several big VFX artists actually talked about it and said the work itself is strong as well, it's the design that so many people are freaked out by. I'm used to it but I'm surprised that they forged ahead with that design. 

Life Of Pi is phenomenal yeah. About the animals, it's hard but it can be done convincingly. It's also one thing to deal with animals on a shoe string budget and quite another to have animals in a big budget film that would be required to do things that would either be dangerous for them, for the crew or just plainly not humanly feasible. 

Everyone should KNOW though that Gaghan was **(obscenity removed)**ed by Universal. 

https://www.wsj.com/articles/universal-tries-to-escape-disaster-by-patching-up-dolittle-11579195165

"The studio’s decision to tinker with a nearly finished film delayed its release by nine months as it commissioned script rewrites and hired two new directors to help with about three weeks of additional photography, according to people familiar with the production. The goal of these measures, these people said, was to craft a sillier movie more likely to appeal to younger moviegoers and overseas audiences."

"After test-screening Mr. Gaghan’s initial version of the movie, Universal worried it wasn’t lighthearted enough to connect with children and families around the globe, according to people familiar with the production. The studio decided the movie needed more computer-generated animals and more laughs, the people said, and called in filmmakers and screenwriters with more experience in the genre. They said these included directors Chris McKay of “The Lego Batman Movie” and Jonathan Liebesman of “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.”"

That's all you need to know, Gaghan has always had issues working with studios and here's another example of a director being railroaded and crushed by the studio system. Dropping 175M on a Dolittle film is incredibly misguided in the first place.

There are three big pans in the film that were painful to see in laser IMAX, everything else looks great but the judder was some of the worst I've ever seen, dat 24 fps !

Really fantastic work by Deakins, and the whole camera department, can't imagine the complexity of it, got a taste in behind the scenes videos but not enough ! It's not among his most interesting work as, as he said, he couldn't light many of the exteriors (they only shot during cloudy weather, and obviously the one take aspect precluded classic lighting), but technically, it's insane. The flare scene is a standout, and super inspired.

Saw it in IMAX too and I can't imagine seeing it in a 2.40 AR although it's Deakins' preferred aspect ratio, the 1.9 AR really works well. Like all oner movies, there's an inherent distraction to it, that calls attention to it, but I wonder if it would be as immersive and tense if shot and edited traditionally. Maybe, maybe not. The flare scene and the rapids descent all the way to the battlefield are the standouts. The Alexa LF looks pretty great, although it's no 35mm obviously ^^

159M. The main producers were really Jane Rosenthal, De Niro and Emma Tillinger Koskoff, I'm guessing the other people are part Netflix folks and part people who were involved in the project throughout the years since 2006.

JARIN JUST GOT AN OSCAR NOMINATION !!!!!! CONGRATS !

The Irishman by far.

How can you think it's shot digitally? ? Comes out on Netflix on the January 31 in many OS territories. 

Finally got to see it, astounding work Jarin. This has gotta be one of the most original, striking films that's out there. Seriously, this is like finding a relic from an unknown time and place. I'm usually not into B&W at all but this begged for it, every single shot is super interesting to look at, moody (love the contrast, the blacks), atmospheric, so authentic, so deliciously grainy. This is real B&W, the aspect ratio makes total sense as well. Stunning. P.S: Excellent work on Servant as well @Jarin Blaschke

The inexplicable thing is that the film got a Silver Frog at Camerimage for its cinematography. 

Excellent work as always on S3. I think this was mentioned before in an article on S1 but I'm not sure. David, have you guys ever discussed adding grain to the image?

9 hours ago, Jay Young said:

Well, I for one thing it’s graded too dark. 

It's just the look of it. Since it's Fraser (and Baz Idoine, works a lot of 2nd unit for Fraser) who established the look, there are definite similarities with his work on Rogue One, more underexposed, moody. 

Saw the prologue in laser IMAX, looked good but underwhelming. The trailer is much much better. There's nothing like 65mm 15 perf truly.