Manu Delpech
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Everything posted by Manu Delpech
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Kodak NY film lab scanning, HD or 2K? Quality difference
Manu Delpech replied to Manu Delpech's topic in Post Production
Thanks for the answers, I assumed HD is telecine, but they don't do telecine and Kodak works with Metropolitan in NY for the scan. So yeah, a bit odd. Was just told the 2K is slightly higher resolution which is obvious. I guess the best option is to simply go with 2K scanning for all rather than do an HD for all dailies (going for a 5 to 6:1 ratio) and then scan the selects at a higher resolution which would be dumb and waste money. It's a shame they don't offer telecine but their rates (0.22/ft for scanning for 2 perf) seem pretty good. -
Hey there, I got the rates from the Kodak NY lab, and there's a small but still significant price difference, 4 additional cents between a HD scan and a 2K scan. Now, they only do scanning, so the HD one is not a telecine (which I would have assumed) but simply labeled at HD. Does anyone know how significant the quality difference would be? I've looked at HD telecine or 2K scan threads here before, but I've never seen an HD scan and wonder what the difference could be? They use a BlackMagic scanner, I'm guessing the Cintel?
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Tyler hit it on the head multiple times here.
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A prestige issue? Nah, Fruitvale Station shot on 16mm with a 500K something budget, The Spectacular Now shot on anamorphic 35mm on a 3 million budget, plenty of films (not necessarily high profile features, or shorts, etc) shoot on film on small budgets. Sometimes, there are real reasons as to why digital is the only way, but I often believe (and some DPs say as much) that if you REALLY want it, you'll find a way to make it happen. It's always a bummer to see top notch DPs going "well I wanted to shoot on film but the producers wouldn't let me". And many of those producers don't seem to get how much of a plus shooting on film can make (if the film is actually well made) and how much it will stand out.
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Promised Land? Sandgren shot anamorphically on film for a 1.85 ratio, ended up with a bigger negative.
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Telling that mostly everyone picks film without a moment's hesitation, hem hem. ^^
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Getting Skin-tones this.. plastic?
Manu Delpech replied to Max Field's topic in Visual Effects Cinematography
Let's not forget that we're basing this off a YouTube video where the compression is going to be ridiculous in the first place and wreak havoc on the grain. -
I find some of it is due to compression. FRIENDS for example looks far noisier (not grainier) on Netflix than it does on Blu Ray obviously.
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Sacrilegious Greg ! ^^ At least maybe watch Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Civil War, that'll give you a good idea before starting Falcon & The Winter Soldier. Really, I find that Scorsese is totally right. Granted, if you learn as much as you can about him, it's clear his definition of what is cinema is very different from most people's. I like the MCU but most of them are entertaining, forgotten about a couple of hours later films, competently made but with no soul, heart or any personality. It's said Feige is essentially the showrunner of a giant TV series and there's truth to that, apparently many of the set pieces are also prevized before the director even steps in. I hope the Disney + shows will feel different, at least visually, it's said the budgets on those 6, 7, 8 episode seasons are super high, so there's that. The problem with the films is that I don't feel the director behind it, it just all feels like assembly line stuff although I find that the first two IM by Favreau, along with anything the Russos directed and Coogler on BP, are really the outliers. They're all so visually bland and flat, making the switch to digital after Thor was a mistake. Anyway, I hope the Disney + shows are much more interesting visually and daring.
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Is it really cheaper to shoot in digital ?
Manu Delpech replied to panagiotis agapitou's topic in General Discussion
@Phil I don't know if it's much cheaper in the UK or something but I swear to God, 2 perf camera package at Panavision: $3,800 for a one week rental including lenses of course, etc, etc. I haven't really seen any rental site in the US offering an Alexa at £300 a day. A 400 feet 35mm film fresh from Kodak works out to $220 with the discount. -
Oh man, this is really cool to read, I'm a huge David O.Russell nut too (I sure hope he officially announces his next one soon, he mentioned he was writing something for Jennifer Lawrence earlier this year, I'm bummed his Amazon series was scrapped) and LOVE the style and energy. Phenomenal job from everyone involved, the look and feel stand out.
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Is it really cheaper to shoot in digital ?
Manu Delpech replied to panagiotis agapitou's topic in General Discussion
I know that on a 30 min short film, running the numbers, 2 perf is cheaper than shooting on an Alexa would be. The cost of the camera package alone with digital is quite a bit. A 2 perf package from an estimate I got works out about $8,000 less than digital. Adding stock, processing, scanning and it still ends up cheaper. -
Phew, just magnificent. Did not disappoint, I feel a lot of the controversy is clearly, as expected, overblown. This FEELS like a film straight from the 70s, 80s, just feels right. It looked gorgeous on the giant laser IMAX screen, there's really something to seeing a 1.85 image blown up this big combined with the super shallow DOF and the resolution of the Alexa 65. It felt also more "filmic" on such a giant surface than it does in the trailers obviously. I find that the Alexa 65 takes on an even more interesting dimension on a giant canvas, I'm still team film of course but the added grain here made it feel right and had it been shot on film, it wouldn't be the same philosophy. I would have gone even heavier on the grain though but that's just me ^^ The focus pulling is impeccable Greg ^^ must have been challenging but the free flow nature of it with Joaquin (did he have marks?) going where the inspiration takes him is really special. There's just something about the way the film is shot in addition to the look that makes it even more mesmerizing. He's superb, and I'd say the only film where he's even "better" (if there's such a thing at this level) is Her. It's a provocative, mesmerizing (once again), hypnotic film, the violence is so visceral and real, it's probably what causes this wave of hysteria among the media (and it's crazy to see so many of them manufacturing fake drama on the film these days). I just felt for Arthur all the way, and that's where you know that Phillips and Phoenix (and everyone else) did such a great job, having the nervous laughter be a condition is a stroke of genius, he's in so much pain when trying to contain it, and seeing what happens next and where the film goes, it's virtuoso filmmaking.
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Heh, it looks gorgeous but even with the added grain, you can easily tell it's digital from the trailers.
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Good explanations yeah, it makes sense from what Larry says in the podcast of course. Doesn't sound at all like Todd forced Larry to go film though. Greg explained it to me before and the film wouldn't be the way it is on film obviously. But isn't the Alexa 65 rental rate + the workflow pipeline kind of equally as expensive as 65mm film would be? That's the kind of thing I wonder about, other films shot on Alexa 65 and it's gotta end up being more expensive than 35mm, unless it's a necessity too, although I don't think so for certain of those films.
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Interesting to hear, as Greg said, that they were set on shooting 65mm film at first, Sher said it was too expensive among other things (the film has a 55 million budget though, is it THAT expensive?) and that they were on 35mm film for a while until some requirements of the film (the way the film is shot, Joaquin needing that freedom, very low light levels, focus pulling, not having to wait for dailies) pushed them towards the Alexa 65. I remember Phillips saying after War Dogs (that was shot on the Alexa, he'd only shot film with Sher before) that he'd never shot digitally again and didn't like it, so this is a surprise. He apparently warmed up to the idea in tests. The film, from trailers, is gorgeously shot, and they added a ton of grain in post but I still feel it would have looked better on 35mm, no doubt, although it probably wouldn't be the way it is obviously in terms of design, and for what the film required. It's interesting to see because Ben Affleck was also kinda coaxed into shooting on the Alexa 65 on Live By Night when he's a die hard celluloid fan, I wonder why.
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https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/behind-screen/joker-dp-lawrence-sher-influences-controversy-antihero-movie-1244755 Convo with Lawrence Sher !
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Rodrigo talked about the process a bit more, briefly, at the NYFF talk. Super interesting, he mentions the rig they had, that he calls the three headed monster, had two Alexa Mini as witness cameras (to capture the depth, and track the facial information in infrared) and a Red Helium camera. Which surprised me considering Prieto used the Alexa previously on Wolf and Silence. So it seems they used that rig for all deaged portions and he says 40-50% of the film is 35mm film, they shot as much of it as possible. The intention for the look was film throughout, and there was a lot of massaging that had to be done at times to make the digital look like film. I gotta say the trailer fooled me on certain shots, although it's obviously still compressed, such as De Niro speaking to Romano in his office at the beginning, a few other scenes in the trailer showing Pesci and De Niro deaged. He does say though that there IS a difference in the last portion of the film with the 35mm. Photo of the rig below !
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New trailer. The film just premiered at NYFF to absolute RAVES from mostly everyone, similarities obviously with Goodfellas, Casino but then becomes very much its own thing with comparisons drawn to Silence in the final 30 minutes. Pacino singled out by many, De Niro and Pesci also superb apparently, no surprise there ! Do watch the trailer on Netflix itself you can, looks so much better. It looks to me like most of what's seen in the trailer is shot on film but Scorsese mentioned they used 9 cameras most of the time (for the deaged portions I imagine) as they had that insane rig with several digital cameras to capture the information I guess for the VFX guys. It seemed from interviews that only digital was used for the deaged portions, but this trailer clearly shows a lot of film being used in those sections too. Is it possible that they captured all the deaged scenes on film AND digital and basically used the Alexa rig solely for facial capture information AND then did a sort of composite with the 35mm image? And of course, they probably used digital for low light situations just like on Wolf and Silence. Prieto (whose work looks gorgeous here as always) has done a little segment on Film Comment about the film: https://www.filmcomment.com/article/killing-for-a-living/ A little taste: "There were a few notions that Scorsese mentioned as we were starting to prep the movie. One of them very early on was about wanting to have a feeling of the photographic memory of the past. He mentioned Super 8 or 16mm home movies, and just asked me in the general sense how I thought we could achieve that feeling without literally shooting with grainy, handheld film. So I got more into emulating the still photography look of the different decades, in particular the ’50s, and then the ’60s, and then of course a lot of the story happens in the ’70s. I decided to separate those decades with those looks, emulating those emulsions: Kodachrome in the ’50s, and toward the ’60s we transition to Ektachrome (also saturated in color, but more a blue-green tendency, and the shadow)." "Then for the ’70s, I transitioned into a whole different look, which is not still photography: ENR, a process that was developed in Technicolor by Vittorio Storaro, in which the silver is retained on the print of film for motion pictures, and the result is high contrast and desaturation of color. I started applying levels of this ENR look, so that basically the film starts getting drained of color in the later decades. That gives a feel of nostalgia, maybe, for the past, even though the events that are happening are not necessarily the prettiest." He's also doing a masterclass of sorts at the NYFF, I guess he might talk some more about that and I assume there will be coverage in American Cinematographer too.
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Bringing this thread back because I'm still wondering about this, I doubt anyone will see this anyway. John Holland said that they were set to shoot on film (for this one) until a few weeks before principal photography began. I asked him a while later if he knew why but he didn't have an answer. Considering there's a lab in London, why would they shoot digitally? Also interesting to see then Rousselot saying in Definition Mag that him, Yates and the producers decided to shoot digitally early on?! On another note, this and The Crimes Of Grindelwald are really gorgeously shot films, the Alexa 65 looks quite beautiful on TCOG even though I'm so bummed they switched to digital, I somehow foolishly hope they can switch to film on the third one. FBAWTFT is a really interesting study case though, I usually don't care for digital but Rousselot and Yates with the aid of course of Stuart Craig's production design, Colleen Atwood's costumes and everyone else managed to do something pretty unique on this film (in the digital realm). I don't know what it is but they've really achieved an actual textured look with this, the G-series definitely play a part in it as the fuzziness on the top and the bottom of the frame, in addition to the lovely barrel distortion, and the glass itself add a lot of that texture but man, it looks far more "filmic" than most digitally shot films out there. There was only one, alas, article on the film on Definition Magazine where Rousselot talked about his work and he didn't mention any special treatment in post, I figured maybe they added some grain, because there IS some kind of gauzy, thin grain like veil on the image. He said they pushed it to 1280 ASA in night situations, but it's also there during some of the day stuff. It was surprising to read Rousselot swear off anamorphic on TCOG (after shooting anamorphic for a while) and saying they wanted to go spherical and bigger format on TCOG, I think they lost some of that texture in there (though TCOG still has texture of some kind, looks cleaner though). Anyone interested in discussing this? ?
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I see what you mean, it really seems like it's a US thing mainly and this shouldn't stop anyone from creating really. It's a slippery slope.
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The debate has already started and is tiring imo. Phillips said that obviously, it all depends on the lens you see it through. Fact is, there are many films with similar violent subjects and they've never been subject to the scrutiny Joker is under. Imagine if Taxi Driver (which along with King Of Comedy are big influences on this, Emma Tillinger Koskoff (Scorsese's producer) is producing this and Scorsese was once thinking of producing this) was released today. Outrage would be rampant. If it's uncomfortable, it should be. The crazies out there don't need one film to make them crazier or to somehow spur them into action. Anything could do that, it's not a reason for anyone to stop making art UNLESS you are deliberately endorsing the character's actions. And from what I've seen, Phillips never does that. How people take the film is their own problem. It's funny to see this film being cherrypicked when other super violent films get a pass. I guess it's just today's climate in the US (some have said that overseas critics don't have that politically correct issue with the film that US critics do) that makes some see it that way.
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Heh, 4K on YT is still immensely compressed. I'm pretty sure a 1080p QT trailer blows it out of the water.
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YouTube quality is horrendous, absolutely horrendous. Vimeo is the best it gets out there. @Bruce: Heh, if on YouTube, then yes. But I've seen plenty of stuff shot on film on Vimeo that held up in streaming, although of course, you want to download the original file itself. I often watch stuff on Netflix in ethernet, and the grain definitely holds up on films shot on film.
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Irony right?
