Jump to content

AC article on Silence. "Jan 2017"


David Edward Keen

Recommended Posts

The comment from Rodrigo Prieto ASC, AMC:

 

"From the beginning, Marty and I agreed we'd shoot film and anamorphic. Film negative has a color depth that no digital camera has yet to reproduce, and Silence takes place in a natural world, so color nuance was important."

 

Are there no sufficient ways to manipulate colors digitally in post like setting saturation even for parts of the frame? Or for recording the full dynamic range? Or is film stock really capturing some quality that cant be done with a digital cam?

 

I loved the film. I brought a box of candy in but then it seemed somehow repulsive to eat during this one so i finished it walking out at the end. A first in my movie-seeing history hahaha

 

Happy new year all

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Btw, just links to good online references or in the forum addressing this type of queation would be great too. I realize this is a big topic im asking about.

 

If i got a little film camera to shoot some stocks on in nyc where would i even go to develop & edit?

 

Sounds like a go to school thing

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Premium Member

It's the personal opinion of an artist regarding color, which many other film artists share, but there haven't been any scientific tests yet that show color negative film contains a wider color gamut than the best digital cameras. However, just because a test hasn't been invented yet to show this doesn't mean it isn't true. It certainly seems, for whatever reasons, movies shot on film on average tend to have a richer color look compared to digital cinematography even when both go through a digital color-correction process. 90% of the reason is just a creative choice, but that doesn't seem to account for the other 10% when it isn't.

 

The problem with tests is that either you match saturation between the cameras tested, or you don't, but there is no "inherent" saturation level. And as for depth, few real world color charts exceed much beyond Rec.709/P3 space anyway, and again, you can match them between cameras tested and if you don't try to match them, does that really tell you what they are capable of?

 

Do some Google searches under "color gamut test for color negative film" or something and you'll find some discussion on the issues in trying to break this down scientifically.

 

My gut feeling is that it is less a question of how wide a gamut that color negative records, but that different colors saturate a different points -- you may find, for example, that a certain shade of purple or cyan maybe is more saturated or differentiated / defined with a digital camera compared to film. Some of this is an issue of cross-talk between the colors, all systems have some overlap but how much you get in some channels can affect saturation and color separation.

  • Upvote 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Premium Member

CMOS digital imaging cameras also don't capture color the same way throughout the luminance range as film. So shadow color and highlight color is very different with digital. Its hard to see this stuff on your laptop, you've gotta really see tests through film projection and laser digital projection. Only then can you really tell the perceivable difference between the two formats.

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...