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Roger Deakins to shoot Blade Runner sequel


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I think one disadvantage of modern digital cameras (as well as modern film stocks) and modern lenses to tell this type of story is their insistence on scientific image fidelity. Precisely reproduced accurate colors and clean images free of imaging artifacts are tools that can work against you when you are trying to create a believable yet unfamiliar world for an audience that is already intimately familiar with what their world looks like.

 

Given how much sheer content audiences are seeing these days that have been shot on these modern tools, it's harder to create an image that feels unique and organic at the same time. That's why there's been so much recent experimentation with vintage lenses, weird filters, and other ways to mess with the optical imaging path. It would be nice if we also had the option of using different recording mediums, but the only place where I see that happening is in feature work where tight scheduling turnarounds might still have a little give. Everyone else's hands are pretty much tied.

 

This is one area where there is an ideological schism between cinematographers like Deakins and Cronenweth who generally want more imaging fidelity (sharp clean Master Primes, no filters beyond NDs, stock Alexa or Red camera), and those like Kaminski, Doyle, and Idziak who want to manipulate the image with custom filter packs, nets, custom film processing, weird lenses, even throwing the camera out of whack for effect. Obviously both approaches can produce amazing or mediocre work. I would just like to see more of the latter style, if only for variety's sake.

 

I just saw an ad for the current show 'Minority Report' and it made me sad because it was so milquetoast. It looks like they took a few steps toward Kaminski's established look, then stopped. No blooming highlights, no near-monochrome levels of desaturation, no crushed blacks, no grain, no cut shutter, no super-wide lens close-up look with big sweeping camera moves. Perhaps there is a story reason for this but it looks very uninspired and dull. I think that is what we are all afraid of with regard to 'Blade Runner 2.' And maybe that has less to do with the cinematography and more to do with our own expectations. What film could possibly live up to what we have built up in our collective memories as one of the greatest films ever made? And what does it say about us that even knowing all this, we still want to see it?

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Punch or Hollerith cards were still commonly in use in the mid 80's. Open reel magnetic tape was still a common temporary and backup storage media in the 90's.

 

Much as I dislike using Wikipedia links: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punched_card

 

 

There's lots of antiquated hardware still running out there.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/249951/if_it_aint_broke_dont_fix_it_ancient_computers_in_use_today.html

 

One of the many problems is, early computers didn't use microprocessors; their logic circuitry was made up of thousands of electronic circuit boards, with similar construction methods to what you find in radios and TV sets.

 

That meant it was possible for technicians and engineers to modify the circuitry to correct bugs or make certain programs run more efficiently. The problem then was that if somebody then tried to run a program that hadn't been run for a few years it might crash because it wasn't updated to operate with the modified hardware. This problem was inelegantly named "Software Rot" and was a real problem when just about computer hardware and software were custom installations. (The notion of mass-produced software was a much later development that only arrived with PCs).

 

So in lot of cases even if you can get a modern PC designed to emulate the hardware of an old computer, you can't guarantee that the system it is going to emulate hasn't been modified in some undetected way, until something suddenly falls over in a big way. Generally, it's often more practical to just pay somebody to keep the old one going.

 

There are thousands of factory installations in the US and elsewhere where it is simply not practical to replace Antiquated computer equipment (in some cases dating back to the 1950s) because it would mean shutting down the entire production line for an indeterminate length of time.

 

I know that Atlab/Deluxe in Sydney still used a punched paper tape reader to control the colour correction filters on their release print duplication chains, right up until they shut them down. They did actually have floppy disc based replacement modules available, but they never had the time to fit them, and they were also afraid if they did, something might go pear-shaped, and they wouldn't realize it until they'd sent out hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of off-colour prints! The old puncher worked, and you could still get paper for it, so if it ain't broke...

 

It's a similar story with old-fashioned Selenium rectifiers.

 

http://cougarelectronics.com/

 

Even though Silicon rectifiers are far more efficient and more reliable, there is a huge amount of equipment (Mainly electroplating and Aluminum refining equipment) with huge transformers that were optimized to use Selenium rectifiers, and simply will not work properly with Silicon devices. It's more cost-effective to simply have somebody keep making selenium rectifiers, regardless of the price.

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Punch or Hollerith cards were still commonly in use in the mid 80's. Open reel magnetic tape was still a common temporary and backup storage media in the 90's.

 

Much as I dislike using Wikipedia links: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punched_card

I flunked my first programming class in FORTRASH which required punch cards and student jobs were done after all school admin work... and usually meant days to turn a job around... only to get job control cards screwed up, and the have to redo the whole process again...

 

Only with interactive terminals did I find I actually liked computers... but at the time, one's remote access was about 110 Baud... because who could afford a 300 Baud modem... so one would go to the terminal lab room that had a more direct connection to the computer... 2400 Baud... like wow... instant access...

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I think one disadvantage of modern digital cameras (as well as modern film stocks) and modern lenses to tell this type of story is their insistence on scientific image fidelity. Precisely reproduced accurate colors and clean images free of imaging artifacts are tools that can work against you when you are trying to create a believable yet unfamiliar world for an audience that is already intimately familiar with what their world looks like.

 

But then again, would Jordan Cronenweth have gone for 5213 and Master Anamorphics if doing it in 2015 (on film)? Or even a RED system like his son? Granted, that is totally hypothetical. I guess my point is, many of these folks were working with the forefront of imaging technology at that time. Pushing many limits (just like the "Would Kubrick shoot digital" debate). I do believe film manufacturers did always aim for optimum image fidelity, but didn't technically arrive there until fairly recently. And cinematographers wanted it for the most part, too, considering how Fuji's weirder films didn't enter prominence and were always a marginally-used tool in the toolbox(Reala, Vivid Eternas, etc). I think insistence on scientific image fidelity has always been an aim, but now that we have it, the side effect is everything looks very very very similar and "real". I completely agree with your point about searching for new things to nuance a look with, such as vintage lenses etc. I also think the desire to return to less clinical images will have a large part in saving film from going away completely.

Edited by Kenny N Suleimanagich
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For that early steampunkish world view in film, I watched "Brazil"(1985) a few nights ago... I'm still amazed on how it still works for me 30 years later...

 

Such interesting sets, so much to look at. Little details that you missed the first time around. Must have been fun to be involved in the design and build process.

 

Also a film with some very interesting "behind the scenes" and "making of" footage,

Edited by JD Hartman
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Guys.. all this wringing of hands .. pixel peeking..talk of lenses from yesteryear .. maybe hand cranked would be more gritty and real.. and the most bizarre of all... will Roger Deakins do a decent job of the lighting.. I think there might be about five DP,s in the world who would have the credentials to even think that .. but Im pretty sure they never say it out loud..

It doesnt have to look the same.. it just need s to have a good script.. and a decent director.. even second rate actors look good in films with good dir,s and even better scripts .. and if we have to put up with journey man DP like Roger Deakins.. well so be it..

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Guys.. all this wringing of hands .. pixel peeking..talk of lenses from yesteryear .. maybe hand cranked would be more gritty and real.. and the most bizarre of all... will Roger Deakins do a decent job of the lighting.. I think there might be about five DP,s in the world who would have the credentials to even think that .. but Im pretty sure they never say it out loud..

It doesnt have to look the same.. it just need s to have a good script.. and a decent director.. even second rate actors look good in films with good dir,s and even better scripts .. and if we have to put up with journey man DP like Roger Deakins.. well so be it..

We're not talking about just any film, we're talking about a sequel to "Blade Runner". I'm sure we are all hoping (regardless of whether or not we're expecting) that it will live up to the original, so it shouldn't have just a good script, a decent director and a decent DP, it should have a great script, a very competent director and a great DP. I can't speak for the script right now, but I'm sure Denis Villenevue and Roger Deakins will meet those requirements.

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But then again, would Jordan Cronenweth have gone for 5213 and Master Anamorphics if doing it in 2015 (on film)? Or even a RED system like his son? Granted, that is totally hypothetical. I guess my point is, many of these folks were working with the forefront of imaging technology at that time. Pushing many limits (just like the "Would Kubrick shoot digital" debate). I do believe film manufacturers did always aim for optimum image fidelity, but didn't technically arrive there until fairly recently. And cinematographers wanted it for the most part, too, considering how Fuji's weirder films didn't enter prominence and were always a marginally-used tool in the toolbox(Reala, Vivid Eternas, etc). I think insistence on scientific image fidelity has always been an aim, but now that we have it, the side effect is everything looks very very very similar and "real".

 

I really have no clue what Jordan Cronenweth might choose to shoot on today, I don't really know enough about him or his work. But as I alluded to before, I think cinematographers today exist on a spectrum between Realism and Impressionism. The Realists want to depict the world as it really is and avoid artifice, while the Impressionists want to depict their feelings about the world and embrace artifice. The latter end of the spectrum interests me more because of the greater potential for imagination and expression of our interior life. I feel on the whole we are tipping too far in the direction of Realism. I think the mission of Realism in cinema is a fool's errand because the nature of cinema is artifice. Just the act of deciding where to place the camera, selecting one particular slice of reality in time and space rather than another, is necessarily editorial and thus unreal - it's art. So while science enables art, it also strangles it. I don't go to the movies to see science, that's what camera tests are for. And I hope the filmmakers working on 'Blade Runner 2' feel that way too.

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There are two types of "realism" in the cinema. One is adherence to some preconception of what is real, by which is typically meant the familiar (etc) - and another is adherence to what the real might be outside of one's preconceptions - outside of what is familiar (etc). This second type of realism is closely related to surrealism. And has a lot to do with the internal (or psychological) as much as the external.

 

Kubrick's "representation of reality" refers to the first type of realism. It is a particularly ugly type of realism concerned with maintaining the familiar, the ordinary, the banal, as a benchmark. Early experiments in realism discovered this quite quickly and changed tack just as quickly. Because basically it wasn't really realism. It was just a recreation of what one thought was real. Reality herself is far more interesting.

 

The second type of realism taps into this. It is about creating reality (what it might be) rather than representing what one thinks it otherwise already is. It is about questioning one's assumptions about reality. And coming up with alternatives to such assumptions.

 

C

Edited by Carl Looper
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In early computer graphics, of the "photo-realist" variety, a teapot model was used as a reference model for testing various rendering algorithms.

 

But why a teapot?

 

Because a teapot is familiar. If one used an unfamilar object as a reference object, the so called "realism" would vanish.

 

This type of realism, (= familiar) is a terrible interpretation of reality. Because all it's doing is just invoking what is already in your head (such as a teapot).

 

A better realism (but misunderstood realism) is exploring that which is outside of one's head. And of that which is outside of one's head, what is unfamilar there. But no less real.

 

The fact that we can actually apprehend, and appreciate something unfamilar, and understand it (!) is an under-utilised minor miracle.

 

C

Edited by Carl Looper
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Blade Runner is one of my top 5 movies.

 

Blade Runner's visual is basically film noir-neon, I hope they capture that style again.

 

I don't think Dennis and Roger can "beat" Blade Runner, but I do think they can make a good and even a great movie (I think the script is the bigger hassle, because Dennis and Roger are both gifted. I would like the script to be only "spiritually linked" to the first, I don't want it to be a follow up or prequel, I want it to let the original remain ambiguous).

 

Roger strikes me as one of those cinematographers that truly works for the director (and story), he can create beautiful visuals, but only does so if it enhance the story. His work on The Assassination of Jesse James showed that he can create "cool visual effects" with light streaks thru smoke (the train robbery), because I truly love the xenon lights in blade runner... He has worked with noir style-ish, not full noir, maybe "noir light" (somewhat of an oxymoron) in some Cohen movies. He hasn't done a single movie that is just like Blade Runner (but then again who has?), however he has done most of it if not all the important visual elements of that movie in his other movies.

 

So, if they want to recreate the style/atmosphere of the first movie, he should be able to reach it, and if they want to go down another road he is pretty good to have as a driver.

Edited by Karl Eklund
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I'm looking forward to it.

 

I suspect while Deakins won't totally emulate that 1980's Ridley Scott commercial look, he's going to do something similar in terms of neo-noir lighting. What may be missing is that long-lens anamorphic look of parts of "Blade Runner".

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