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Come on, Star Wars


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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.

Ya just gotta shoot it right. There have been many narrative shorts made in the format, I've been fortunate enough to see many of them. It works totally fine if you understand the dynamics of it. Remember, nearly all movies were shot square before the advent of widescreen movies and frankly, there is no reason why it can't be done today. The reason nobody does it is cost... plain and simple. 15/65 is vastly more expensive then 5/65, which is vastly more expensive then 4/35.

 

If you shoot 50D, 200T or 250D with 8/35 vistavision, you can make a more "efficient" camera system that is 1.55:1 aspect ratio (close enough) and still retain PLENTY of resolution for that big of a screen. Interstellar did it on several VFX shots and they look fine blown up to 15/70.

 

There is one shot in Dunkirk that blew my mind away... it was one of the last shots inside a house. Simple dolly move, but it was framed like a medium format portrait and something snapped in my head. If ya just shoot everthing like that... I mean what's the big deal?

 

Still... there are so many other solutions that wouldn't completely fill the screen, but would get close. 6 perf 65mm for instance, which was used on VFX and movie-ride's for a while. I believe it's pretty darn close to 1.85:1 aspect ratio and one hell of a big image. Again, IMAX could have used that format as a capture format and only had small sliver of bars top and bottom.

 

Smaller, lighter cameras that can be made sync sound, that is really what IMAX was missing.

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According to the di colourist it was finished at 2k anamorphic, 2048X1716. Definitely would have benefit from 4k screening but not quite all the way there

Hmm, that seems odd. A few post sites are reporting it had a 4k finish in 2D, but nobody directly related with the project has commented. I just assumed those sites were accurate.

 

My first screening of the movie looked like 4k to me, it was super crisp.

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Hmm, that seems odd. A few post sites are reporting it had a 4k finish in 2D, but nobody directly related with the project has commented. I just assumed those sites were accurate.

 

My first screening of the movie looked like 4k to me, it was super crisp.

And the stars ?

I think they should have put "Blob Wars" in the title. That's how they looked at BFI digital Imax.

In fact the original 1977 showing was far better for sharpness ! (70mm blow-up)

Another irony to ponder on:

Dunkirk should have had "Beach Cut-outs" somewhere in the title. The 15/70 showing was too sharp for them ! They may have worked better in the digital version maybe, I don't know.

Yet in both these movies the closeups worked well for me.

Edited by Doug Palmer
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What I find hard to understand is why the closeups looked good and sharp (even nice tight film grain, not noise) while the distant in-focus shots appeared unsharp. I should say the space vehicles looked sharp but the surroundings in space and "Earth" scenes down below didn't.

Is it some problem when they convert the film to 3D ?

Having said this I'm glad I saw the 3D version. The best I've seen for added-on 3D. And it didn't interfere with the cutting as it might have done.

Edited by Doug Palmer
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What I find hard to understand is why the closeups looked good and sharp (even nice tight film grain, not noise) while the distant in-focus shots appeared unsharp.

 

Some of that is psychological -- our eye/brain wants to see more fine detail in a wide shot than in a face, where we like to see sharp eyes but not necessarily need to see every pore and wrinkle in skin. It's easier to achieve what the eye/brain thinks of as "enough information" when looking at a face as opposed to a landscape. This is the reason why Super-16mm movies often look sharp enough for close-ups of actors in dialogue scene but wide establishing shots sometimes look a bit soft.

 

The other issue is contrast, a shot with lots of contrast and strong separations between bright and dark edges will look sharper than a shot with a lower contrast and gradual tonal transitions at edges.

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Some of that is psychological -- our eye/brain wants to see more fine detail in a wide shot than in a face, where we like to see sharp eyes but not necessarily need to see every pore and wrinkle in skin. It's easier to achieve what the eye/brain thinks of as "enough information" when looking at a face as opposed to a landscape. This is the reason why Super-16mm movies often look sharp enough for close-ups of actors in dialogue scene but wide establishing shots sometimes look a bit soft.

 

The other issue is contrast, a shot with lots of contrast and strong separations between bright and dark edges will look sharper than a shot with a lower contrast and gradual tonal transitions at edges.

That's all true of course. Although wisps of hair on beard etc were clear in Jedi. And it doesn't explain why the stars themselves look soft, as I presume they weren't intended to be. I noticed this same issue in Gravity (3D on a normal size screen) where the space station details themselves were sharp.

 

I recall Interstellar in 15/70 was totally different for stars ^_^

Happy 2018

Edited by Doug Palmer
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