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Blade Runner 2049


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I was going to see it, but at three hours long, that falls into the Netflix category for me. That way I can pause it when I need to. It did fall short of financial expectations, but how can anyone be surprised? The current youth that see movies have no clue what a "Blade Runner" is.

 

I don't think it fell short of anyone's expectations - I don't believe even the studio felt it would make enough in the cinema to justify the ridiculous production costs, especially after the awful mess RS made out of the Alien franchise. I know several hardcore Blade Runner fans and none of them are willing to see the film. Prometheus and Covenant were too awful and even though RS isn't directing, the film's image has been tainted - especially when people hear how long it is. Good reviews don't help because people don't trust reviewers any more.

 

I think we also have to remember that the original was a box office flop - but most of all, there wasn't a coherent marketing campaign for the film. Young people do know what Blade Runner is - most of them have seen it several times - but they don't know what this film is other than very long, Scott-tainted, and a sequel. That adds to a message of "Pretentious, empty and boring".

 

..Bets seem to be split between "Studios do stupid things" and "It will pay for itself in the long run on DVD and streaming."

Edited by David Mawson
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It's funny that you say that about the original one being a box office flop David. It reminds me of the Shawshank Redemption that got limited distribution etc - complete flop but yet it's perceived as like a masterpiece nowadays. And I agree... SR is one of the film's that is long but I wish it was even longer. Hopefully the Blade Runner wil not be a disappointment ugh...

Edited by Giray Izcan
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What Deakins may not know is that the effects house generally render out everything in 2k. The cost/time for 4k renders is off the chart. I have a few VFX friends and they've told me, making 4k renders is a nightmare because there are individual pixel mistakes that show up and it's sometimes hard to fix them. So 4k isn't just more time consuming on the server side, it's far more time consuming for the artist. Since they KNEW they'd be rendering out all the VFX shots for the 3D version in... well 2k, they most likely only worked in a 2k world for ALL of the VFX shots.

 

I happen to do VFX and I can tell you that there are not pixel mistakes that start to show when you render out in 4k. The renderer is purely mathematical it will not generate mistakes no matter what resolution you render at. Potentially 2d textures could be not high enough resolution and start to get soft but I can almost guarantee you that the assets created for this movie have plenty of resolution for rendering out at 4k and beyond. I have rendered over well over 16k without an error in sight.

 

It is common practice though to render out CGI at a lower resolution than the final delivery. CGI is far sharper than the sharpest camera and lens and if you render out 2k for a 2k plate you will need to blur the CGI a bit to get it to sit into the background, As an alternative studios will often render out at a lower resolution and then upscale it to the plate. This can save a considerable mount of time.

 

As for the movie I am hoping to see it today.

Edited by David Hessel
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What Deakins may not know is that the effects house generally render out everything in 2k. The cost/time for 4k renders is off the chart. I have a few VFX friends and they've told me, making 4k renders is a nightmare because there are individual pixel mistakes that show up and it's sometimes hard to fix them. So 4k isn't just more time consuming on the server side, it's far more time consuming for the artist. Since they KNEW they'd be rendering out all the VFX shots for the 3D version in... well 2k, they most likely only worked in a 2k world for ALL of the VFX shots.

I mean, they're not working on Mickey Mouse Club House here. This is a hundred and fifty million dollar sequel to Ridley Scott's "Blade Runner" shot by one of the top cinematographers in the world.

 

But who cares what I think. One of the coolest things about Roger Deakins is he's provided a direct line to himself through his website, so go ask him if he doesn't know that the VFX houses generally render out everything in 2k then report back.

 

Edit: David answered the question.

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It's funny that you say that about the original one being a box office flop David. It reminds me of the Shawshank Redemption that got limited distribution etc - complete flop but yet it's perceived as like a masterpiece nowadays.

 

Probably the weirdest example of a film's cultural status growing years after release is this one:

 

https://www.copyrighttrademarkmatters.com/2015/12/17/when-a-quirk-of-copyright-law-creates-a-christmas-classic-its-a-wonderful-life-and-the-public-domain/

 

...Before the copyright lapsed, It's A Wonderful Life was virtually forgotten. But then TV stations found they could show it for free and it became the new Christmas Carol - through sheer familiarity.

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I happen to do VFX and I can tell you that there are not pixel mistakes that start to show when you render out in 4k. The renderer is purely mathematical it will not generate mistakes no matter what resolution you render at.

You mean that it's a procedural system like Renderman?

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixar_RenderMan_(software)

Edited by David Mawson
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Not really, all renderers use math to calculate the values for the final pixels. Most renders now are physically based raytracers, Arnold and Renderman being the two most popular for features. They use real world laws of physics to get correct behaviors for lights, cameras, reflected light, etc... The main point being that resolution has nothing to do with the quality of the final renders, pixel values are calculated per pixel. Increase the resolution and it will take longer but the quality of the render remains unchanged, if it looks good in 2K it will look good in 4K.

Edited by David Hessel
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Deakins posted this:

https://www.rogerdeakins.com/post-the-di/blade-runner-2049-4k-vfx-usage/

"The film was shot at 3.4K, which is the full resolution with the Alexa in Open Gate. The entire workflow, including all the effects work, was kept at this originating resolution of 3.4K. The DCP was then made at 4K. The only 2K elements made for 'Blade Runner 2049' are for 3D projection."

I'm not quite sure what the arguments are about this point. Standard DCPs are made at either 2k or 4k. The film and vfx elements were all captured/created at 3.4k then upressed about 16% to conform to the 4k standard.

 

Not a big upres, and not a big deal. Just the simplest path to a 4k DCP from Alexa.

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I'm not quite sure what the arguments are about this point. Standard DCPs are made at either 2k or 4k. The film and vfx elements were all captured/created at 3.4k then upressed about 16% to conform to the 4k standard.

 

Not a big upres, and not a big deal. Just the simplest path to a 4k DCP from Alexa.

The "argument" (if you can call it that, and which has been going on for well over 10 years) is basically that in the same sentence you've quoted the raw Bayer resolution of the chip ("3.4K") and the upscaled product of the actual usable de-bayered resolution (2K x 2 = "4K", as though the two terms were interchangeable!

Essentially, they've taken the 2K RGB end product of the Alexa chip, and sliced each RGB pixel into 4, and called it "4K".

OK, I know that just makes it easier to feed into the post production system, and if that was all people said, there would be no argument.

But the problem is, they're NOT saying that.....

Also, I noticed one of you is still claiming that 2K is equivalent to 35mm film.

Fine-grain 35mm film can resolve over 4,000 lines across a super-35 width. (I know, I've seen it under a microscope!)

The practical limit is about 3,000 lines, so then you have chuckleheads stating that 35mm film has a resolution of "3K".

But 3,000 lines is NOT 3K! You need at least a 6K scan to resolve 1,500 line pairs (ie 3,000 alternating black and white lines).

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Not really, all renderers use math to calculate the values for the final pixels. Most renders now are physically based raytracers, Arnold and Renderman being the two most popular for features. They use real world laws of physics to get correct behaviors for lights, cameras, reflected light, etc... The main point being that resolution has nothing to do with the quality of the final renders, pixel values are calculated per pixel. Increase the resolution and it will take longer but the quality of the render remains unchanged, if it looks good in 2K it will look good in 4K.

Ok... Then speaking as an ex-graphics programmer, I wouldn't call that "purely mathematical". All renderers "use maths" for last stage of the rendering system - there really isn't any alternative! A purely mathematical system is one that uses maths to create textures too - that way they can't be over-stretched.

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I don't think it fell short of anyone's expectations - I don't believe even the studio felt it would make enough in the cinema to justify the ridiculous production costs, especially after the awful mess RS made out of the Alien franchise. I know several hardcore Blade Runner fans and none of them are willing to see the film. Prometheus and Covenant were too awful and even though RS isn't directing, the film's image has been tainted - especially when people hear how long it is. Good reviews don't help because people don't trust reviewers any more.

 

I think we also have to remember that the original was a box office flop - but most of all, there wasn't a coherent marketing campaign for the film. Young people do know what Blade Runner is - most of them have seen it several times - but they don't know what this film is other than very long, Scott-tainted, and a sequel. That adds to a message of "Pretentious, empty and boring".

 

..Bets seem to be split between "Studios do stupid things" and "It will pay for itself in the long run on DVD and streaming."

I suspect the real problem is simply that when the original Blade Runner came out, (and Alien for that matter) there was really nothing else like it in the marketplace. Audiences these days are rapidly coming down with "CGI fatigue"; which is one reason Disney took the more recent Star Wars films back to their pre-CGI roots.

 

It's interesting to compare this to the 2009 "Astro Boy" movie which bombed.

You'd have to wonder exactly what they were thinking.

It had very little in common with any of the various (Astro Boy/Astroboy) TV versions, so it wasn't like there was going to be any nostalgia angle to lure in Adult audiences.

It was basically a fairly routine animated feature, with nothing particularly special to attract the juvenile audience either.

 

The original Blade Runner story was really nothing like the acclaimed Philip K Dick novel it was supposedly based on, which wouldn't have helped its initial box office success either. It will be interesting to see what the new story is like.

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I haven't seen the new Blade Runner yet but probably will. I do think it would have been great if they'd shot it on 35mm. It would have added to the whole package, in my opinion, and brought it closer to the original picture. Yet, some are just in love with the whole digital bandwagon, which rolls on .... 4K, 3.4K, 6K ... zzzz.

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Yet, some are just in love with the whole digital bandwagon, which rolls on .... 4K, 3.4K, 6K ... zzzz.

Well of course they are. Didn't you know? "Digital" (whatever that actually means) is the magical hammer that's going to smash through the celluloid ceiling, and make anybody, ANYBODY, no matter how untalented, no matter how ignorant, no matter how illiterate, no matter how clueless, no matter how microscopically little they actually understand about the movie-making process, no matter how little business sense they have, no matter how unaware they are of how much of an obnoxious jerk they come across to other people, doesn't matter; they are going to show the old guard a thing or two about making successful, interesting and above all, relevant films!

Sorry; I've hearing this same load of old bollocks in one form or another from barstool producers and generally imbecilic wannabes for close to 40 years now.... :rolleyes:

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I feel your pain Keith.. but digital is not really the dark side... great images can be had with digital .. and there is still the DP,s skill at work for 99% of that image.. exhibit #1 Roger Deakins.. personally I started out shooting film but with the high end s35mm cameras around now I,d much rather work with them then go back to film cameras..

 

Twat producers and bell end,s have been around long before digital sensors were used to make movies.. I think its put up with them or head to the golf course if you have enough tin in the bank..

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Twat producers and bell end,s have been around long before digital sensors were used to make movies..

True, but the relatively high cost of film at least tended to keep them confined to the barstool where they belonged. :rolleyes:

The last time I shot anything for broadcast purposes was back in the early 90s on SP Betacam. I could get great images too, and in those days you had to get it right first time; there was none of this "fix it in post" nonsense. But I also knew that nothing I shot was ever going to look as good something shot on film.

In 1997 I went to a presentation by Sony to introduce their HDW750 HD Betacam, which was, sigh, touted as the "film killer". Yeah, right we said. Then about 2 years later they announced the "F900" which George Lucas himself was going to use to shoot Star Wars Episode 2. But oddly, there no Industry evening to introduce this particular new baby. And when we finally got to see one it was like: "Isn't that just an HDW750 with "150" added to the model number?"

And the rest, and George Lucas's reputation, is history....

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True, but the relatively high cost of film at least tended to keep them confined to the barstool where they belonged. :rolleyes:

The last time I shot anything for broadcast purposes was back in the early 90s on SP Betacam. I could get great images too, and in those days you had to get it right first time; there was none of this "fix it in post" nonsense. But I also knew that nothing I shot was ever going to look as good something shot on film.

In 1997 I went to a presentation by Sony to introduce their HDW750 HD Betacam, which was, sigh, touted as the "film killer". Yeah, right we said. Then about 2 years later they announced the "F900" which George Lucas himself was going to use to shoot Star Wars Episode 2. But oddly, there no Industry evening to introduce this particular new baby. And when we finally got to see one it was like: "Isn't that just an HDW750 with "150" added to the model number?"

And the rest, and George Lucas's reputation, is history....

 

 

haha yes we must be similar ages.. my first cam was betasp ,then digibeta etc etc we all had the same ones.... but they had BW EVF (the color ones were horrible) and a 2/3 inch sensor.. compared to cameras of today.. F55/Arri Alexa/ Amira/RED (depending which one you have).. the Pana Varicams.. they are nothing like ENG cameras.. you have Log curves now.. you can work the same as film.. good enough for Deakins its good enough for me.. he also says you can be more adventurous with digital.. the cameras are lighter.. or can be rigged much lighter then film cameras.. opening up more hand held options.. there is actually no excuse really to not get a great image from any of the high end digital cameras.. with a decent lens, lighting package ,set design..etc

 

But yes you probably do shoot more.. can be a good thing too though.. I just shot 18 hrs for 60 seconds over 4 days.. no sound 90% slo mo... that would have been just about impossible budget wise on film.. let alone lugging it around and loading/tons of mags etc.. we didnt have control over the situations and alot of blasting away.. not indescrimatly .. but to get the magic moments.. worked perfectly with a digital camera..

 

Not sure the cost of film actually kept the twats out.. might have been the opposite.. the bigger bullshitter got further up the ladder..

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Whats made by Sony here..?

Sony studios or "Columbia Pictures" Both "named" production companies on the movie Blade Runner 2049 and Sony logo's all over the movie.

 

They pioneered 4k finishing and they're one of the only companies who are producing consistent 4k material, even though their 3D content is still only 2k like everyone else.

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wow... "What Deakins may not know" blah blah... And only a day after not even knowing what camera was used.. It's like some kind of satire..

I doubt highly ANY cinematographer for any movie is communicating directly with the visual effects artists themselves and making sure they are really rendering in 4k instead of render management team upresing on output.

 

I can't tell you if Blade Runner was finished in 2k or 4k, I didn't have my glasses on. But no matter what, and Keith's comments are consistent with, the issue of up-scaling deliverables today.

 

So even if Deakins is right, finishing the movie at 3.2k is NOT THE SAME as finishing it at 4k.

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Also, I noticed one of you is still claiming that 2K is equivalent to 35mm film.

Kodak did a very scientific study years ago about physical resolution on screen. They found PROJECTED prints, stuck from IP's, which was the process used until film died, are around 2k worth of horizontal resolution.

 

Original Super 35mm camera negative is around 5k... though quite a few films scan on the Arri at 6.

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I feel your pain Keith.. but digital is not really the dark side... great images can be had with digital

Ohh man good Digital looks great, but it's such a "democratic" format, there is no differentiation anymore, nothing to separate "cinema" from "television".

 

This is why the film industry spent A LOT OF MONEY developing new technology after TV came out in the 50's. We're doing the same thing now with Laser IMAX/Dolby Cinemea and 3D, but it's not working. People aren't coming back to the cinema and ticket sales are actually down over-all this year so far, even though revenues are pretty consistent.

 

SO yea... Digital is kind of the darkside. Had the "film" industry stayed "film" there would be a separation between television and the content shown in the cinema. They would have completely different "looks" and that to me, is the big deal about digital.

 

personally I started out shooting film but with the high end s35mm cameras around now I,d much rather work with them then go back to film cameras..

Sure, digital is easy to work with. When you can see your image exactly how it's going to look on set, umm... why would you ever shoot film?

 

Because it gives you a unique look that simply separates you from the world of digital. It makes your product stand out in a crowd instead of it looking like every other show. Maybe something easy to do in post, but ya know... people do notice those things.

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I went to a film festival last weekend. Sat in on 1 1/2 hours of short films. Only one short film was shot on film (16mm). It looked terrific, and the program notes said something about "glorious" film. As far as I know it was the only 'real film' at the whole festival. Perhaps they should be called 'International short tv festivals.' because a lot of the digitals (I beg your pardon?) were just like something shot for a David Attenborough or Steve Backshall show. I noted with interest that the foyer of the venue proudly featured rather large and impressive coils of 35mm cinemascope print, draped artfully over a Super 8 camera and other tid-bits of celluloid production gadgets, behind glass and under lights. No varicams or Reds or anything.

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Sony studios or "Columbia Pictures" Both "named" production companies on the movie Blade Runner 2049 and Sony logo's all over the movie.

 

They pioneered 4k finishing and they're one of the only companies who are producing consistent 4k material, even though their 3D content is still only 2k like everyone else.

 

 

Ah ok got it.. But thats just the business owners of the studio isnt it.. do they have any techie input from the suits in Tokyo..?

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"They would have completely different "looks" and that to me, is the big deal about digital."

 

​Well technology marches on.. TBH I dont really care that TV must look different from film.. what counts is the content.. people might be at last getting tried of endless tent pole flops churns out .. Astro Boy films ! endless sequels ,prequels.. lets make film about Darth Vaders high school teachers Aunt.. at $200M cost.. oh its a flop .. quel surprise..

 

​The inter web is killing cinema.. and TV for that matter.. my kids only watch anything online.. its changing.. but wow has TV drama ever been better.. its amazing whats on netflix et el these days..

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