Come on, Star Wars

[Tyler Purcell]

These bad habits are not intrinsic to shooting digitally. Directors could quite easily restrict themselves to fewer, shorter takes. You may be right in that the discipline of shooting film makes one a better filmmaker, but the important word in that sentence is 'discipline' not 'film'.

That's right, I mean just look at the quality of the movies that have come out since this digital revolution. It's not just digital capture, it's also the heavy effects and computer generated images we see today. We're using "technology" and "wow" factor to sell product, vs story. This all came about thanks to "digital" technology.

[Samuel Berger]

Just watched a review that shows there's a LOT more wrong with the film than Luke out of focus. ;-)

 

http://www.cinematography.com/index.php?showtopic=76104

[Tyler Purcell]

Yeah, that is a bad AD who allows a director to film something 200 times. A schedule is a schedule, period - and regardless of format. You act as if the only cost of this is 'extra labor', which is absurd.

Landon, you just make the day longer. The AD, UPM and Line producers may scream and yell, but in the long run, if the scene isn't in the can, they've gotta extend the day.

 

A good breakdown will put critical/difficult scenes early in the day, so if they need to be extended, they can do just that. I've been on features where we've gone 18 hours on a day that was supposed to be 10 and it's the norm.

 

Almost all of the features I've worked on, have pushed schedules; extending days, adding days or deleting scenes. poop happens and if you don't get the shot, you don't have the movie.

 

Taking longer to film than allowed causes budgets to go up in every department, not just crew. You need your locations for longer, you need to add shooting days which mean extra equipment rental days, etc.

Well, equipment rental is usually ok because there is little to no penalty for being a day or two late, if you've got good rental connections like we do.

 

Location fee's are also low-cost in the grand scheme of things. Extending a stage for a day, is what another $5 - $10k? That's nothing when your total stage budget is $100K+.

 

However, a 20 person crew, that's a real expense AND a lot of people can't work extra days because they book projects back to back. So a lot of times, the biggest problem going OVER is your crew, not your equipment or location.

 

Of all the complaints I have heard about digital filmmaking, I don't think I have ever heard the easier setups being one.

Well, my "complaint" about easier setup's comes down to laziness. Ya don't need to know much if the monitor tells you everything you need to know.

[Stuart Brereton]

That's right, I mean just look at the quality of the movies that have come out since this digital revolution. It's not just digital capture, it's also the heavy effects and computer generated images we see today. We're using "technology" and "wow" factor to sell product, vs story. This all came about thanks to "digital" technology.

Again, all digital did was facilitate a natural human urge to do things in an 'easier' fashion

 

It's very easy to blame a technology for the woes of the film industry, but in reality, it's lazy people, be they writers, producers or directors, that have caused the problems you describe.

[Tyler Purcell]

It's very easy to blame a technology for the woes of the film industry, but in reality it's lazy people, be they writer, producers or directors, that have caused the problems you describe.

Yep that's absolutely correct.

 

The other issue is placing value on what you make. When you there is little to no cost associated with your production (IE: internet product), then what forces you to make it great? Why would you ever spend money on lights, lenses or even a decent cast/crew, when you can do it with your DSLR.

[Landon D. Parks]

then what forces you to make it great?

 

As someone who is working on an original web series right now, I'd say the force is the people watching it - just like with anything. If its not good - people aren't going to watch it. And if they don't watch it, whats the point? With web products, especially serial stuff, if you don't make each episode good - no one will watch the next. Same thing that drives TV.

 

Now one-off products can sometimes be made to fool people into buying a ticket, but if you do that enough - people are going to put two and two together and figure out the common denominator between the products - and avoid that common denominator.

Edited December 24, 2017 by Landon D. Parks

[Tyler Purcell]

As someone who is working on an original web series right now, I'd say the force is the people watching it - just like with anything. If its not good - people aren't going to watch it. And if they don't watch it, whats the point? With web products, especially serial stuff, if you don't make each episode good - no one will watch the next. Same thing that drives TV.

Sure and I'm not talking about web content that you produce yourself with a small crew (if any).

 

Though I will admit, I'm spending a lot of time trying to make my web content stand above the rest and it's working.

[Doug Palmer]

Much as I hesitate to reinforce any reputation I may have as an unsympathetic, malcontent curmudgeon, this sort of thing is OK on the sort of stuff I shoot because I'm shooting stuff for precisely three dollars. It is not OK on Star Wars. Well, actually, it's not OK on anything, really, is it? But it's especially not OK on something that probably cost well north of two hundred million dollars.

 

mark.jpg

 

focus (ˈfəʊkəs) noun: the state or quality of having or producing clear visual definition.

I haven't seen the movie yet, but from this still image it just looks like the eyes need something done to them, to make it acceptable. Whatever mistakes may have been made in shooting, it's surely the editor (whom I mentioned previously) that should have sorted the problem.

A. not used this shot

B. asked for a retake

C. asked for the eyes to be sharpened up either digitally or optically.

 

Merry Christmas folks :)

[Brian Drysdale]

Since this take seems to be in the trailer, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's the same one as in the film. Trailers can involve a different of people to the main production.

[David Hessel]

It was in the final movie too. I noticed it, didn't bother me that much.

[Phil Rhodes]

No, it didn't bother me much, either. I was too busy being appalled by the script, performances, directing and editing.

[Tristan Noelle]

 

Wow, an out of focus shot just ruined my Christmas! Ugh.

[Jon O'Brien]

That's actually a screen shot from the Last Jedi. Sorry to break it to you all who haven't seen it. Yep, major spoiler. Luke goes really weird on that Irish island and decorates his cave with silver and white do-dads and has a pixy helper. Sad.

[Jon O'Brien]

Not only that but George Lucas rang up Disney and asked that they change the aspect ratio to something more like 4.5-3. Times change.

[David Hessel]

Yep, and Snokes last words were "you'll shoot your eye out".

[Aapo Lettinen]

The out of focus shots did not disturb me at all, even that long Luke shot. But there were some very irritating edits on the island where the edit was in the middle of the weaving focus move which caused kind of "bump" on the edit

[Jon O'Brien]

If it helps ... there's also an out of focus important close up in David Lynch's beautiful production The Elephant Man - when the morally corrupt night shift guy tells John Merrick he's going to be a very popular attraction.

Edited December 27, 2017 by Jon O'Brien

[Doug Palmer]

I feel rather uncomfortable with my recent comments :unsure: helping spread fake news ?

I shouldn't have made them before seeing the movie.

Which I did yesterday... in digital Imax 3D at London BFI.

I'm not an ardent Star Wars watcher, in fact I've missed at least two of their outings. So I was able to study the image as well as being entertained by this movie (enjoyed immensely I have to say). And I really wasn't disturbed by this offending shot, if in fact it was in the final movie. So my apologies to Bob Ducsay for my inappropriate comment on his editing ! And everyone else. In fact generally I found the closeups quite sharp, considering the limitations of digital projection. I was sitting centrally in row F. The 3D was also very good, certainly superior to Jurassic World that I saw at the same cinema. I don't know whether the closeups were actually taken in 3D (Alexa ?) or 3D added later, but I found them very effective. The contrast and colour saturation also looked superior.

 

HOWEVER...

Having seen Dunkirk in 15/70 at this cinema, as well as other science-type films in 15/70... there's a big difference in quality.

I'm being kind now about the missing picture areas top and bottom, forget those. Despite the closeups looking very good on the digital 3D version of Last Jedi, I found the long shots and some medium shots unsharp. This is particularly noticeable in the static shots of starfields (supposed to be in focus ?). The stars appear as small blobs. In a science-type 15/70 film they appear as pin points, much like the way you see them in the night sky. I thought both of the two digitally projected images appeared unsharp, with and without 3D spectacles. How much this is due to the projection-method versus the original shooting formats' limitations I'm not sure. I'd like to know which material was Alexa, 35mm and so on.

Edited December 28, 2017 by Doug Palmer

[Doug Palmer]

Have just seen the other Jedi thread with Manu's post. Thanks, that link is interesting:

 

http://www.icgmagazine.com/web/in-the-name-of-the-father/

Edited December 28, 2017 by Doug Palmer

[Tyler Purcell]

The 3D was also very good, certainly superior to Jurassic World that I saw at the same cinema. I don't know whether the closeups were actually taken in 3D (Alexa ?) or 3D added later, but I found them very effective. The contrast and colour saturation also looked superior.

The film was shot 2D, there were no "3D" capture elements on set.

 

IMAX and Dolby have the only 4k 3D system that I'm aware of on the market. However, the 3D conversion is generally done in 2k since most cinemas can't project 4k 3D. They also do a special color pass for those systems, as they have a broader color space then standard DCP DCI-P3.

 

No matter what though, taking something shot on anamorphic 35mm, scanning it into a computer at 4k, then doing a 3d conversion, then projecting it in 2k... is going to, well.. not be very "crisp". This is why many industry people consider modern IMAX "LIMAX" because they went from a roughly 12k system to most souces being either 2k or 4k. Then they only show 3D content so they can charge more money. It's all a scam and it sucks.

 

In terms of the Alexa use, there aren't very many spherical shots in the movie, but in the 2D presentation, you can tell. Obviously one of those shots would be Alexa. I would bet most of the night stuff with the horse creatures would have been Alexa. Pretty much anything where they were shooting at night is my guess.

 

Do you recall what scenes were full-frame? I know they did shoot a few IMAX 15/70 scenes for the movie, but there isn't much data on it.

[charles g clark]

I believe the di resolution was 2k anamorphic (2048x 1716) so may look a little soft at the bfi, especially compared to Dunkirk.

 

Incidentally I’ve seen the film a few times now and when I looked out for that shot specifically I didn’t find it too distracting in the course of the scene.

[Doug Palmer]

Tyler and Charles, as far as I'm aware it was shown 4K... presumably with two 4K projectors. I could tell it looked much better than the preceding ads that were obviously 2K, and stupidly shown on the same size screen. But despite the nice closeups the Jedi resolution was a joke compared with Dunkirk 15/70.

None of the shots were shown full-frame, full width yes but not full height. I hadn't realised apparently some people had seen a 15/70 version, but presumably that was in 2D ?

Incidentally the Jedi closeup footage did show tight film grain, and this may have added something to the more 'natural' appearance.

Edited December 29, 2017 by Doug Palmer

[Tyler Purcell]

Tyler and Charles, as far as I'm aware it was shown 4K... presumably with two 4K projectors.

IMAX Laser is double 4k projectors, same with Dolby Vision.

 

The movie was finished using a 4k workflow.

 

However, 3D extrapolation is generally done in 2k because no theaters outside of IMAX and Dolby Vision, can playback 4k 3D. Part of the reason it probably looks a lot better than the trailers is simply because it's only using a small portion of the screen perhaps?

 

But despite the nice closeups the Jedi resolution was a joke compared with Dunkirk 15/70.

Totally and that's been my problem with the whole thing from day one. IMAX is a 1.44:1 aspect ratio, 15/70 film format, PERIOD! Because they couldn't figure out how to bring major motion pictures to that format, they sold out to the big theater chains and dilluted the product to be "movies" on big screens, rather then "an experience".

 

Had IMAX just focused on developing an 8 perf 70mm (vertical) or 8 perf vistavision (horizontal) camera that was quiet, there would be dozens of movies by now made in this way. However, back before the board of directors took over and sold out to the studio's, they weren't willing to dillute the product.

[Jon O'Brien]

In my humble opinion 15/70 isn't really the best medium for narrative feature movie. It just seems like visual overkill, and the aspect ratio isn't right. Surely vertical 5/70 is best for feature movies, Or cinemascope 35mm. 15/70 is more for shorter 'science' documentaries and nature films and things like Cirque de Soleil in 3D. It must be difficult to make a buck out of an expensive 15/70 print for the average feature movie.

[Doug Palmer]

IMAX Laser is double 4k projectors, same with Dolby Vision.

 

The movie was finished using a 4k workflow.

 

However, 3D extrapolation is generally done in 2k because no theaters outside of IMAX and Dolby Vision, can playback 4k 3D. Part of the reason it probably looks a lot better than the trailers is simply because it's only using a small portion of the screen perhaps?

 

 

I see yes. But the ads (not trailers, which did look better resolution) were on the same size screen as the Jedi movie...full width. Ridiculous looking ! Not only for the bad resolution. I wonder how they show them in your Imax cinemas.

 

In my humble opinion 15/70 isn't really the best medium for narrative feature movie. It just seems like visual overkill, and the aspect ratio isn't right. Surely vertical 5/70 is best for feature movies, Or cinemascope 35mm. 15/70 is more for shorter 'science' documentaries and nature films and things like Cirque de Soleil in 3D. It must be difficult to make a buck out of an expensive 15/70 print for the average feature movie.

Probably true for most features.

Although some action story like mountaineering or skydiving or anything that involves height, is always going to look better in 15/70.

I would think also a quiet camera is possible for dialogue.

Edited December 30, 2017 by Doug Palmer