Hateful Eight Experience

[David Cunningham]

If you aren't going to do a lot of cutting and want to play a dialogue scene out in fewer shots, then when and how to rack focus, when to leave something soft and for how long, whether to use faux deep-focus tricks all become an issue. There are no good answers -- I noticed in "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" a few scenes where they "ping-ponged" the focus a few too many times, i.e. rack-focus to someone in the background for their line, rack-focus to the near person for their response, rack-focus back to the farther person for their next line, they leave frame, then rack-focus back to the foreground person left in the frame. With the breathing in anamorphic, all of this becomes distracting. But you also have to ask yourself if the alternatives are any better -- chop up the shot into coverage, let one person be out-of-focus the whole time, use a split-diopter or tilt-focus lens to hold both in focus, etc.

 

There are a couple of split-diopter shots in "The Hateful Eight" for that reason. They don't bother me, I think they are saved for certain moments which makes them "mark" the scene or shot as being significant. It's not like the 70+ split-diopter shots in "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" which were used as a motif to make the movie in general seem deep-focus. Sometimes it worked well because it was so seamless and other times it stands out.

 

Here is works better because the split is hidden in the black grey wall:

 

Here is works less well because there is nothing to hide the split:

 

Since a split-dioter is such a simple piece of technology, a diopter cut in half, there is no reason why they shouldn't date back to the dawn of cinema but I can't find any examples before the late 1950's at the height of widescreen -- it seems that Nicholas Ray was one of the first to use them, as in "King of Kings":

 

 

Also, Anthony Mann used them for one or two shots in "El Cid":

 

 

 

Thanks for that David. I was not aware of these diopters so had no idea how they worked. Very cool. I still hate the effect though. It looked so odd in the Hateful Eight.

[Satsuki Murashige]

Finally caught 'Hateful 8' in 70mm at the Sundance Kabuki in San Francisco. Great flawless presentation - bright, in focus, full width of the screen with proper matting top and bottom. Played to a packed house. The Ultra Panavision experiment paid off.

 

Weird how I've gotten used to not seeing shutter flicker or gate weave in digital projection. I projected some 16mm workprints at home the night before for a friend and it reminded me that celluloid projection truly is a different physiological experience. When I saw 'Carol' two days earlier in the same theater in digital projection, the image seemed dimmer, less contrasty, and lifeless in comparison. I was less engaged by the digital image, even though the movie itself was much better. Same for 'Star Wars' last week. Something subtle but essential has truly has been lost in the translation. After the A/B comparison, I still prefer celluloid projection, warts and all.

 

The movie itself I was not so keen on. I found it profoundly ugly and dispiriting towards the end. Tarantino has a lot of Sam Peckinpah in his work, and I think he is in his 'Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia' phase. I loved 'Django', 'Inglourious', and 'Kill Bill 2" (all of them quite violent) but this one just didn't sit right with me.

 

Anyway, I truly hope more filmmakers continue to shoot on this format and project celluloid as it was a truly special viewing experience.

[Igor Trajkovski]

I generally liked the movie, and after reading good and bad

critics elsewhere and here, including praising/dissing of QT,

all i can say is like Delmar in "O, Brother...",

saying the deciding vote on leader of the outfit:

"Okay... I'm with you fellas."

:)

 

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Can somebody please remind me why film projection

has deeper blacks and digital can't do it?

Something to do with the opaqueness of film or...?

 

Best

Igor

[Rafael Rivera]

Saw the Roadshow twice and it was a fantastic event!

 

First time at the Grand Lake Theater in Oakland, a 1920's historic, neighborhood theater. Got the tickets at an actual ticket booth and stood in line outside on the side walk as the line snaked around the corner. People were very excited, eagerly reading the program, and chatting with anyone in line. It was a packed house for the 3:45pm showing. Projection was beautiful, perfectly masked; the screen was insanely wide as the seats are very close to it. The print was impeccable. There was a small amount of jitter on the image which was clear during the Overture.

 

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Second time was at a local Multiplex in a shopping center that had been shipped one of the projectors. The pre-show experience was very different since it simply feels like going to the mall, but it was none-the-less a positive one as it showed that there was an audience willing to go to the 70mm screening. The very young employees were aware of the film vs digital showings that were going on simultaneously, and that was a very positive sign. Anyway, Projection was very good, the print had a gorgeous, long, thick scratch on the top left during the first 10 seconds of the Overture. Everyone knew right then and there we were watching a real film. After that, it was a perfect print. Again, a little jitter clearly seen during the Overture. The screen was not masked at the bottom so the the image felt a bit misplaced, a minor annoyance. Overall a great experience given how rare this setting was.

 

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As for the movie itself, every opinion is as good as any. So go watch it.

[Ravi Kiran]

I didn't feel like it was as impressive in 70mm as I thought it would be. Perhaps it was the reduced height of the image (rather than extra width). But there was definitely a richness to the colors and contrast, and an overall warmth that I miss from digital projection.

[John Holland]

I have just come back from a faultless screening at the Odeon Leicester Sq, London. Correct masking all around beautiful scratch free print blacks and whites pristine loved the unmotivated lighting of Bob Richardson ASC sound was superb , the film is overlong .I think Mr Tarantino needs One a strong story editor to pare down his scripts and Second a even stronger Producer to enforce that ! Must admit it was better than I expected

[John Holland]

Sorry a P.S. to my post the Fotochem print was beautiful and a photo-chemical one at that only for the 70mm prints as far as I understand .

[Rafael Rivera]

Both prints I watched were truly beautiful as well (including the second one with the scratch over the 1st 10 seconds of the Overture). It was impressive to see how well film could withstand extreme lighting conditions, and yet return such visual complexity. Sound was superb on both prints.

[David Mullen ASC]

Black level in a projected print is determined by the D-Max of the print stock, the printer lights, and the projector brightness (and ambient light in the theater.)

 

Black level with digital projection is also affected by ambient theater lighting but mainly it depends on how black is generated by the chip -- for example, a 2K DLP chip uses micro-mirrors that flip to a black side to get black, and they generally create better blacks than the 4K Sony LCoS chip, which uses polarized light to create black. However I've heard that Texas Instruments has been struggling to get better blacks in their 4K DLP chip, just because when you have 4X as many micro-mirrors in the same space, there is more light scattering going on.

[Rafael Rivera]

Thanks David for the detailed info on black-levels for print film & digital projection. Will keep your info fresh in my mind when I go watch the digital projection show.

[Michel Hafner]

The 4K Dolby Vision projector has better blacks than any 70mm print. I wonder why "Hateful Eight" is not showing in a Dolby Vision cinema in 4K. The UHD BD will again show better blacks than any 70mm print on a high contrast home cinema projector like the latest generation JVCs.

[Tyler Purcell]

The 4K Dolby Vision projector has better blacks than any 70mm print. I wonder why "Hateful Eight" is not showing in a Dolby Vision cinema in 4K. The UHD BD will again show better blacks than any 70mm print on a high contrast home cinema projector like the latest generation JVCs.

Where it is true that lower-lumen DLP projectors in dark rooms, have better blacks then high-output theater projectors... it is NOT true that digital projection in the cinema comes even close to that of film... because it doesn't. Before you go on a rant about technical specs of the projectors, let me first start by saying that DCP's have only 12 bits worth of data per frame, where film is 32bit equivalent. Lets say the DLP mirror only moves 20 degree's between full black and full white. The black area itself would constitute around 2 - 5 degree's of movement. There is NO WAY... neh, it's IMPOSSIBLE for DLP technology to have enough detail in that little bit of movement.

 

What laser projection (Dolby Vision/IMAX) does deliver is noise-free, pitch black. However, the dynamic's necessary to produce all the tones of black from pitch black to lets say Sam Jackson's face, don't exist! What you get instead are STEPS in the blacks. You don't notice this phenomena until you see it back to back with a film print. The 12 bit source material literally doesn't have enough information, so it literally doesn't reproduce the fine details you see on the film print. To the untrained eye, you'd just assume that those black areas look really good. However, you're actually missing a substantial amount of data, not just from the 12 bit source, but also from the lack of the DLP imager being able to reproduce it.

 

UHD BD is currently only an 8 bit 4:2:0 format, so it will look like utter crap compared to the film print.

 

It's unfortunate that REAL photochemical film prints have been lost for over a decade. Most film prints from 2000 and on were DI, which means most of them were only made from 2k sources and at 12 bit color space. So comparing a standard film print that you MAY remember from a few years ago, is nearly impossible. Hateful Eight was done photochemically, so it retains all the dynamic range DI prints lack. Interstellar was done photochemically as well, but special effect shots were rendered at 24 bit and 8k, so the scan-back to 70mm prints was the highest quality ever done for a standard theatrical release. Those two films (Hateful Eight and Interstellar) are the only films done this old fashion way recently. So if you really wish to compare film to digital, you'd have to see a 70mm print of BOTH movies and watch it digital as well. I've actually done that with Interstellar and wasn't at all impressed with the 4k presentation. It didn't have NEARLY the dynamic range of the film print. Hey, what can you do with only 12 bits of data!

 

It's the old adage; just because it's new, doesn't make it better!

[Alexandros Angelopoulos Apostolos]

What would be the pros and cons and the similarities and the differences between between 65 mm film and digital cameras such as the ALEXA 65 and Sony F65?

[Jay Young]

What would be the pros and cons and the similarities and the differences between between 65 mm film and digital cameras such as the ALEXA 65 and Sony F65?

That is a topic in and of itself and should be really a new thread.

[Tyler Purcell]

What would be the pros and cons and the similarities and the differences between between 65 mm film and digital cameras such as the ALEXA 65 and Sony F65?

The Alexa 65 has a 6k imager that's more or less equivalent in size a 5 perf 65mm frame. But it's still 12 bit and there currently isn't a higher quality distribution format then 4k. So where it's awesome to have a 6k camera, nobody is going to see that resolution until we have 8k cinema projectors, which is A LONG WAY OFF, considering MOST projectors are still 2k and MOST movies are finished in 2k.

 

65mm camera negative resolves 32bit @ more than 8k resolution. Prints resolve a bit less then 6k. So it's still a FAR superior format to anything we can shoot and distribute digitally. The problem is, the moment it hits a computer, you're most likely dropping bit depth and resolution.

[Alexandros Angelopoulos Apostolos]

That is a topic in and of itself and should be really a new thread.

 

I apologize. Could a moderator split the posts into a separate thread?

 

The Alexa 65 has a 6k imager that's more or less equivalent in size a 5 perf 65mm frame. But it's still 12 bit and there currently isn't a higher quality distribution format then 4k. So where it's awesome to have a 6k camera, nobody is going to see that resolution until we have 8k cinema projectors, which is A LONG WAY OFF, considering MOST projectors are still 2k and MOST movies are finished in 2k.

 

65mm camera negative resolves 32bit @ more than 8k resolution. Prints resolve a bit less then 6k. So it's still a FAR superior format to anything we can shoot and distribute digitally. The problem is, the moment it hits a computer, you're most likely dropping bit depth and resolution.

 

That's depressing. I presume that the Japanese preparing to broadcast the Tokyo Olympics in 8K has nothing to do with this kind of digital technology coming to film sooner rather than later?

[Jay Young]

 

I apologize. Could a moderator split the posts into a separate thread?

 

No need to apologize, I was just saying the argument can get long and detailed; Tyler did a great job of summing it up.

[Tyler Purcell]

That's depressing. I presume that the Japanese preparing to broadcast the Tokyo Olympics in 8K has nothing to do with this kind of digital technology coming to film sooner rather than later?

It's actually worse then that as well. The vast majority of filmmakers just flat-out don't care! To them, the ease of shooting digital is all they care about, even if they could rent the on-site instant dailies mobile lab, it doesn't matter. Sure, MOST films are just garbage anyway, entertainment for bored people. But there are some AMAZING movies being shot on digital and the excuses for not shooting on film range from, no lab near the production location to X-Ray issues on The Revenant. Everyone has an excuse why they can't make their movie on film, yet there are still at least 20 big movies each year being shot on film.

 

Now for the worse part... There is no long-term storage program for digital media. We have a huge collection of 100+ year old films, some were destroyed in fires, but those that exist, we can still see today in many cases. Modern RGB separation prints, which are struck for MOST movies to this day, will last upwards of 300 years! At this point in time, outside of RGB separation prints, the life expectancy of a digital camera master file is roughly 10 years.

 

We made this huge leap into digital filmmaking, around 15 years ago and it's come A LONG WAY. We have these crazy 6 and 8k cameras today, we have all theaters outfitted with digital cinema projectors and we have a workflow that's downright easy. Yet, MOST films are finished in 2k resolution. The RGB separation prints would be struck off that 2k master file. So the "archive" of the film is 2k!!! Doesn't matter if you shot it on a 10k camera, it's still a 2k finish. So 50 years from now when studio's go back through catalogs and re-release things in 8k, that high resolution master file, won't exist! We will have a 12 bit 2k DCP and a 2k originated RGB separation print.

 

One could argue that theatrical prints were 4th generation and in a lot of cases, lower resolution then today's digital films. However, that's only because nobody bothered improving the technology. All the money went into faster camera stocks, digital audio and smaller/quieter cameras. Nobody bothered to sit down and make an all-new workflow for motion picture film, a format that hasn't changed much since the beginning of WWII! Imagine what our current digital projects will look like 80 years from now. They'll be like VHS to High Definition (1080p). Go watch Gone With the Wind or Wizard of Oz and tell me they don't look flat-out amazing on BluRay. Do you think any of the current digital acquisition films will look that good? No way... we'll STILL be watching restored versions of those movies saying to ourselves, why did filmmaking take such a left turn.

 

Thank god we have so many awesome filmmakers who understand this problem and are using film to it's benefit. The 70mm acquisition and distribution with photochemical finish workflow/revolution, has just started. Theaters are now realizing, hey... we can get 3D prices for screenings! Maybe FILM will put an end to 3D! Only time will tell.

[Robin R Probyn]

"It's actually worse then that as well. The vast majority of filmmakers just flat-out don't care!"

 

​I really cant believe this is true.. if they have gone through years of hassle to get a film to the actually been made stage.. they then suddenly dont give a shite.. knock out any old c r a p ..Im sure there are many reasons a film is shot digitally rather than film.. but just not caring about the image .. I doubt that is ever on the list..

Edited January 15, 2016 by Robin R Probyn

[Satsuki Murashige]

Well, Tyler has an axe to grind with digital cinema and it has clearly clouded his perception of reality. I mean, I prefer celluloid over digital as well, but I would never assume that someone who makes different choices than I would must be either incompetent, lazy, or just plain stupid.

 

Come back to reality, Tyler. If Chivo wants to shoot on an Alexa, then he clearly has a good reason for doing so and he doesn't need your permission to do it. Or are you going to claim that he's only doing it because he 'just doesn't care?'

[Robin R Probyn]

Im pretty sure Chivo will see the error in his ways.. and turn down the next Oscar he will be getting.. anyway what happened to all movies should be shot with BM pocket cam.. :)..

[Alexandros Angelopoulos Apostolos]

Has The Hateful Eight been covered in American Cinematographer?

[Mark Dunn]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/KURT-RUSSELL-HATEFUL-8-AMERICAN-CINEMATOGRAPHER-MAGAZINE-DECEMBER-2015-NO-LABEL-/321963746355

[Alexandros Angelopoulos Apostolos]

Right. :D

Edited January 15, 2016 by Alexandros Angelopoulos Apostolos

[Alexandros Angelopoulos Apostolos]

Is there anywhere that it is explained pictorially, or otherwise, how you get a 2.76 : 1 aspect ratio from a 2.20 : 1 film frame?

Edited January 15, 2016 by Alexandros Angelopoulos Apostolos