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cinematography of 08


Daniel Carruthers

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I'm predicting that Benjamin Button is definitely going to win the Oscar, but I haven't seen Slumdog and I've heard some good things about it. Though, Benjamin Button was just so amazingly shot, it's just so much better than anything I have seen this year. I'm quite surprised that Mr. Deakins didn't get a nomination for either Doubt or Revolutionary Road, but I guess he did get a shared nomination for Reader. I think that the Dark Knight was very well shot as is most of Pfister's films are, but I just don't think it will have much of a chance against Benjamin Button. Anyway, I'm putting my money on Benjamin Button, but who knows, the Oscars have a tendency forget about rating for "how good" something is and instead they will sometime pick the film that would be a better political choice.

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Finally saw The Reader. It is really a brutally gorgeous film. Menges and Deakins should be very proud of their work. It's clean, appropriate, always well-composed, the movement's pitch perfect, and there's some dusk stuff that's just remarkable. I do believe it deserved the nominations and accolades it has received. I'd recommend a viewing.

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Within the last few days I saw "Revolutionary Road" and "Benjamin Button" on mediocre 35mm-proejection (quite sharp but not very steady and clean)on large screens (approx. 18m wide).

"Benjamin Button" is a wonderful, epic film full of wonders in terms of make-up and special-effects! Many of the technical awards should be given to it, maybe even "Best Picture", "Best Director" and "Best Actor", Brad Pitt has finally proven that he is an important part in recent movie history!

 

It was visually appealing, too, much more than Mr. Deakins work this year and the lighting was very well done but it was compromised by the technology used, micro-detail was missing in comparison to "Revolutionary Road" and while being able to hide it's digital heritage very well for most of the time (no fast moving objects/camera, low-contrast, heavy lighting - looked like a mediocre 35mm 2k telecine most of the time) it remains a 150mio$ epic made for blu-ray - I have no idea what Mr. Fincher tries to prove with this "looks almost as good as film" thing... It's a shame ignoring all these wonderful possibilites technology has given us - it's simply miles away from "Dark Knight" from a technical (cinematography) point of view, hopefully Mr. Pfister wins the Oscar.

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"Slumdog Millionaire" was both brilliantly shot and edited and I think it was the best of all the nominees. "Benjamin Buttons" was nice too, but I think "Slumdog" was just stunning visually.

 

It was shot on film, but all Fuji film!

 

I like the look of the "Viper FilmStream™" as it has its own look and doesn't look like anything else which was evident on both "Buttons" and "Zodiac".

 

-Scott

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Hi Gus,

 

Are you sure it was 60-70% shot HD?

 

I recognized the scenes that were shot in HD do to the noise in the blacks and muddy blacks looking more blue, plus highlight problems, but I would say the majority of that feature was shot on film by the looks of it...

 

-Scott

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Ok Gus,

 

I knew the film was partially shot in HD format and I just read the article from the 2k Mini from Silicon Imaging site on the feature and they don't mention the percentage at which the film was shot with the camera, they just mention that they started to use it more and more throughout the film in place of the larger 35mm cameras on which they shooting Super 35mm 3 perf.

 

They also shot digital stills as well and used them for motion effects, so the film was a mix of formats and superbly shot on all ends, I just did not like how bad the 2k mini took to the blacks, it was obvious to me which scenes those were.

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Thanks John.

 

That is partially where I read the info along with an article in the Fuji Motion picture film magazine that I receive free at home. Whatever the case, I really enjoyed the mix of formats and it worked well and I think visually it is a really an excellent feature

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Thanks Daniel.

 

Yes, I read that article too, but it still doesn't mention the percentage of what was shot on film and what was shot with the Silicon Imaging 2k camera and they used 5 different speed Fuji stocks, so they had to have shot a lot of film.

 

I got the gist that both Boyle and Mantle decided to use the Silicon Imaging camera more and more in the slums as they shot the film as Silicon Imaging helped create a light weight model of the camera with a gyroscope to allow the operator (many times Mantle himself) have a flexible alternative to the 35mm cameras that they were also using and it worked well for them.

 

I think where the films suffers the most from the use of this camera tends to be the blacks which were often muddy or blue and not black as well as noisy and even the final shot of Latika as she looks at Jamal as he walks through the open train car, that shot is really grainy as is the wide shot of them embracing and then the other shots are clean again! I am not sure if they intended that, but it seemed odd to me that the other shots prior to that shot were clean, and you can tell that that was not film because the noise would not have had the same characteristics as the noise which appeared in this frame. Very strange, but may be an aesthetic choice.

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The ASC recently had an artical on slum dogg millionaire

Anthony dodd mantle said he used si 2k camera for alot of daytime work in the street and allyways

 

Do you happen to know which month that was? I'd really like to read it. Thanks. :)

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I've just seen "Benjamin Button" (the Oscar favorite's always start very late in Germany) and I thought the cinematography was brillant. I like low - key - lighting a lot so maybe this is one reason why I liked the movie, but also because some shots really look like paintings. Especially the scene where Benjamin is watching Daisy's dancing. It's too beautiful!

Can't wait to see "The Reader" and "Slumdog Millionaire" as well.

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  • 3 weeks later...

How about Che, the most overlooked film of this year. It was completely shot on Red One. I think Steven Soderbergh should be apreciated for the work he did in this film, plus having the stones to break ground on a new technology that Hollywood seems to be afraid to get into, although other mediums seem to be embracing (musci videos, commercials).

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How about Che, the most overlooked film of this year. It was completely shot on Red One. I think Steven Soderbergh should be apreciated for the work he did in this film, plus having the stones to break ground on a new technology that Hollywood seems to be afraid to get into, although other mediums seem to be embracing (musci videos, commercials).

 

Oh yeah, I really want to see that film.

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