Come on, Star Wars

[Robin R Probyn]

Alot of people stay with film as anyone stays with what they know.. your under pressure.. you know film.. stay with it.. some other DP,s .. even well known ones, with much to lose.. have chosen to embrace the newer technology .. and learn something new.. and can achieve results just as good as they could on film.. this worries the film camp when they see the tide won't stop and their boots are getting wet.. and so they come out with illogical proclamations .. ie you are not a film maker unless you sleep with a wind up Bolex under your pillow..and sprinkle sprocket holes on your cornflakes.. total Bolex of course :)

[Doug Palmer]

. ie you are not a film maker unless you sleep with a wind up Bolex under your pillow..and sprinkle sprocket holes on your cornflakes.. total Bolex of course :)

 

No, then breathing is hard. It has its own pillow.

[Aapo Lettinen]

That may well be true, but to be entirely honest with you, I don't think it would have mattered much what camera Lucas shot the prequels on... 90-99% of each frame was digital CGI anyway, so film would probably have been overkill for such a production, and I question rather it would have improved the way it looked. Though to be honest, I didn't think they 'looked' all that bad - they where just bad films.

 

I'd highly question if anyone other than other filmmakers and pixel-peepers could really tell any difference between a film shot and digital shot prequel. There just wasn't enough of the frame used to really make a difference.

 

I think it was mostly just bad directing and screenwriting and over-confident use of mediocre CGI and too-much-greenscreen sets which seemed to confuse the actors as well.

 

the movies got immediately better, I think, when they hired other directors for these newest films. Also remembering that Lucas did not even direct the "original Star Wars movies" except the first one and some bits of the third ^_^

 

these newest ones are not "great great" but they are quite OK for modern blockbuster films I think. Definitely better Disney stuff than those Pirates of Caribbean films or most of their animated films ;)

[Justin Hayward]

As someone who edits when they aren't shooting, I can attest to performances being built in post. It's very easy to slug in lines under a different performance that isn't so perfect.

 

Its true. Who needs marinara sauce when ketchup taste fine? Its all tomatoes. ?

[Michael Rodin]

I would tend to agree, Tyler - However, 'Filmmaking' as an art has little to nothing to do with your camera. While I'm sure there is some nostalgia about learning to shoot on celluloid film, I don't see how that directly plays into someone learning the skills required to be a filmmaker. The digital realm has caused some side effects that I don't like, such as the 'constantly running camera' and endless takes. However, you could easily remedy that by teaching the students, even on digital, that more is not better in all cases.

 

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that I can't see how the simple act of shooting on film could have such a huge impact on ones ability to learn to be a filmmaker. It's neat to shoot on the format, but HOW does it make one a better filmmaker in general?

Celluloid teaches previsualization, which's probably the single most important practical skill in cinematography. You measure the light, note the colors and, knowing the basic theory (photo- and sensitometery) and having tested your camera/stock, previsualize how it'll look on screen. And the more you do it, the less measurements and tests you need, as you're developing a knowledge of how things - and capture media - react to light. You work faster, you can better collaborate with the art and costume depts, not to mention discussing stylistics and references with the director... when you scout a location, you get the idea of the mood and color it'll have in the movie - without setting up the camera and bringing the G&E along!

Sure, one can learn it on video, but one won't :)

[Samuel Berger]

Alot of people stay with film as anyone stays with what they know.. your under pressure.. you know film.. stay with it.. some other DP,s .. even well known ones, with much to lose.. have chosen to embrace the newer technology .. and learn something new.. and can achieve results just as good as they could on film.. this worries the film camp when they see the tide won't stop and their boots are getting wet.. and so they come out with illogical proclamations .. ie you are not a film maker unless you sleep with a wind up Bolex under your pillow..and sprinkle sprocket holes on your cornflakes.. total Bolex of course :)

 

Nonsense. Nobody is learning digital out of fear. They are learning it because it's being encouraged to spread. Which in itself is a stupid idea because in the end it will make the filmmaking process more expensive, not less, for major studios.

 

Which they don't care about because they want to lose money. It's the numbers game, again the famed "Hollywood accounting" system.

 

I swear, in all my years in Hollywood I've never met more uncreative garbage than studio execs at different levels. They don't like movies. They like golf or football or whatever, but film is just a job to them. They can't tell you the difference between Denzel Washington and Wesley Snipes, or STAR WARS and STAR TREK and so on.They know the titles of classic movies because their hallways and offices are full of posters for them. But they've never watched a single one of them.

 

Those guys' job is to think about money all day so it's not surprising they don't care if digital movies look green.

[Bruce Greene]

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.

Phil, as a curmudgeon, in person, you are anything but :)

 

Now that that's out of the way... It's often difficult to see subtle focus in a dark film camera viewfinder, especially when the camera is rolling. So let's give the focus puller and camera operator a little break here.

 

But a little digital focus on the eyes might have helped here...

[Michael Rodin]

Alot of people stay with film as anyone stays with what they know.. your under pressure.. you know film.. stay with it.. some other DP,s .. even well known ones, with much to lose.. have chosen to embrace the newer technology .. and learn something new.. and can achieve results just as good as they could on film.. this worries the film camp when they see the tide won't stop and their boots are getting wet.. and so they come out with illogical proclamations .. ie you are not a film maker unless you sleep with a wind up Bolex under your pillow..and sprinkle sprocket holes on your cornflakes.. total Bolex of course :)

Every DoP with a film background I know has tested, shot and pushed Alexas and F35s to their limits, each and every posseses in-depth knowledge about d-cinema. (Yet no one of the "film's dead" crowd knows a thing about film - to the point it's just laughable when they start going on about "problems" and "complications" of the workflow.) The reason the majority prefer color negative is the image, most often the color reproduction, not that they think digital is risky. Alexa can be exposed just like the old lower-latitude/lower-saturation color neg that these men have shot for decades - and if they managed to tame crappy Svema and Tasma films, they'd have no problems learning the Alexa.

[Robin R Probyn]

Yes Im not saying film is a lesser medium .. as that would be as stupid as saying digital is fundamentally a lesser format and will render any movie whats so ever as "crap"

[Robin R Probyn]

 

Nonsense. Nobody is learning digital out of fear. They are learning it because it's being encouraged to spread. Which in itself is a stupid idea because in the end it will make the filmmaking process more expensive, not less, for major studios.

 

Which they don't care about because they want to lose money. It's the numbers game, again the famed "Hollywood accounting" system.

 

I swear, in all my years in Hollywood I've never met more uncreative garbage than studio execs at different levels. They don't like movies. They like golf or football or whatever, but film is just a job to them. They can't tell you the difference between Denzel Washington and Wesley Snipes, or STAR WARS and STAR TREK and so on.They know the titles of classic movies because their hallways and offices are full of posters for them. But they've never watched a single one of them.

 

Those guys' job is to think about money all day so it's not surprising they don't care if digital movies look green.

I was saying the opposite sir.. people are resistant to learn from fear.. those who learnt were the ones without fear..

[Samuel Berger]

Yes Im not saying film is a lesser medium .. as that would be as stupid as saying digital is fundamentally a lesser format and will render any movie whats so ever as "crap"

 

Digital IS fundamentally a lesser format. What you don't seem to get is that there is a difference between a movie looking like crap, and actually being crap.

Criticising the LOOK of a film is not always tied to criticising the movie itself.

 

 

I was saying the opposite sir.. people are resistant to learn from fear.. those who learnt were the ones without fear..

 

 

Some days...or mornings...or nights...I just don't know how to read. :P

Edited December 19, 2017 by Samuel Berger

[Tyler Purcell]

Alot of people stay with film as anyone stays with what they know.. your under pressure.. you know film.. stay with it.. some other DP,s .. even well known ones, with much to lose.. have chosen to embrace the newer technology .. and learn something new.. and can achieve results just as good as they could on film.. this worries the film camp when they see the tide won't stop and their boots are getting wet.. and so they come out with illogical proclamations .. ie you are not a film maker unless you sleep with a wind up Bolex under your pillow..and sprinkle sprocket holes on your cornflakes.. total Bolex of course :)

First off, shooting digitally is easier than shooting on film, especially with real digital cinema cameras that shoot RAW and use the proper post workflow. The days of filmmakers being scared of new technology is over. There is little to no difference on those shows between shooting on film and digital. Yes, there are less top/pro film loaders out there, but loading a film camera and learning how to take care of it, is the dream of many young people these days.

 

Second, there really isn't a "film camp". Some directors choose film over digital because it's more aesthetically pleasing to them. I've seen all-digital directors move to film and I've seen a lot of people do one project on film and the next on digital. In fact, I'd say in 2017 we had quite a few more random/smaller movies shot on film then we've had in a long time. We also had the longest string of 70mm releases in the last 20 years!

 

Third, you can't make digital look like film produced in a photochemical process and projected on film. Filmmakers are starting to learn this and we're seeing more and more of them do special film runs. This is differenciating digital from film a bit more then it has in the past.

 

Fourth, I don't keep my bolex under my pillow, but it's pretty damn close. :D

[Manu Delpech]

Gorgeously shot & incredible film

[Manu Delpech]

By the way, here's a QT 1080p quality screencap of what OP used, something else than a blurry, crappy screencap.

 

https://ibb.co/nNxFjm

 

(image extensions dont work)

[Tyler Purcell]

Gorgeously shot & incredible film

I felt the same thing. IDK why people don't think it was shot well. I had the opportunity to see a great deal of it again as I waited for another movie on sunday and I really have no complaints about the cinematography outside of those focus mistakes.

[Alexandros Angelopoulos Apostolos]

Thank you, Phil, for using the vocative comma. It is one of my pet peeves when people don’t use it when it’s needed. Vocative → comma. So simple. Don’t know what’s the problem.

 

 

I have seen this twice now first time Imax 15/70 film print only print in Europe usually my favorite way to watch .In this case oh a dear a very grainy odd looking print not good at all. Second time a 4K DCP on a very large screen looked so much better . Wasn't impressed with the Cinematography run of the mill ordinary stuff. As for the film it was ok lots of silly story lines way to long came away feeling a bit let down.

Gorgeously shot & incredible film

So what's it gonna be: run of the mill or gorgeous? Somehow from the trailers, I think I shouldn't keep my hopes up.

[Manu Delpech]

Pretty much every review out there has praised the cinematography, I don't know what some of you want. It's the best looking SW film so far imo, next to TFA & ESB, they took some pointers from ESB but ultimately Rian wanted to make what he felt was Star Wars-y to him. Production design is fantastic as well. So many memorable moments, compositions & scenery, whether on Ahch-To (Skellig Island), Crait (shot in Bolivia), etc. To qualify this as run of the mill ordinary stuff is mindblowing.

[Keith Walters]

Here we are; problem solved:

 

[Phil Rhodes]

Mmm... no, still looks pretty bad!

[Keith Walters]

Mmm... no, still looks pretty bad!

George wouldn't have thought so.....

[Mark Kenfield]

What he's done to the "film" industry is a travesty and now, many of the students from those schools are coming to me because they have no other option in order to learn "real" filmmaking.

 

I don't think that's a particularly fair argument Tyler. I copped the shortest possible end of the stick (timing-wise) of the digital revolution. As I spent three years learning exclusively on film, and came out of school in 2008 to the shiny new world of the Red One and 5DMkII. Film was instantly rendered unattainable for newbies like myself, and digital was a completely unknown quantity.

 

The GFC didn't help either... it wasn't a great time to be young and starting out.

 

However, film was already prohibitively expensive for students/newcomers to learn on back in 2005-2007. Which meant that the actual hands-on cinematographic experience you could readily gain access to, was severely limited.

 

Shoot forward to today, and this digital age that Lucas owns so much credit for ushering in. And kids at uni have Alexas, Reds and FS7s to learn on, and even highschool students have HD/4k S35mm cameras to work with. The access to appropriate equipment to learn on has improved profoundly. And I can't see how that's a bad thing.

 

 

[Stuart Brereton]

many of the students from those schools are coming to me because they have no other option in order to learn "real" filmmaking.

And what is 'real' filmmaking? Are you suggesting that a film cannot be authentic unless shot on celluloid? The vast majority of people who work in the film industry, all of whom are 'filmmakers', in their own way, work in occupations that have nothing to do with the medium in which the film is made. Hair, make-up, wardrobe, production design, props, stunts etc, etc. All of these people do the same job regardless of whether it's film or data running through the camera. To suggest that 'real' filmmaking is innately tied to the format on which you shoot is immensely blinkered, and does a huge disservice to the efforts of other crew members.

[Samuel Berger]

 

The access to appropriate equipment to learn on has improved profoundly. And I can't see how that's a bad thing.

 

 

 

Because it's the wrong equipment for actual film. And it's video gear that will be obsolete by the time they finish school. I still remember all the people thinking they were now real filmmakers because of the XL1, the VX1000, the AG???, the HVX200, etc...the last time I witnessed it personally was some young kids thinking the heavens bestowed upon them the Canon T2i, which was obsolete quickly with the launch of the T3i shortly thereafter.

Who knows what's coming up? People invested in the Blackmagic Cinema which was followed by the Ursa which was followed by the Ursa Mini 4K, the Mini 4.6K and the Mini Pro, and if you had one of the older ones, the resale value got screwed over due to the loyalty program. No pun intended but this is really chasing the digital Dragon. ;-)

In the meantime filmstocks got better, the way to use a Bolex hasn't changed, Super 8 still exists, even Single 8 is still strong thanks to Retro8, there's 16mm, Super 16, Ultra 16 and if you want it hard enough, even 9.5mm.

So you really don't learn on film if you don't want to learn actual film.

 

And what is 'real' filmmaking? Are you suggesting that a film cannot be authentic unless shot on celluloid? The vast majority of people who work in the film industry, all of whom are 'filmmakers', in their own way, work in occupations that have nothing to do with the medium in which the film is made. Hair, make-up, wardrobe, production design, props, stunts etc, etc. All of these people do the same job regardless of whether it's film or data running through the camera. To suggest that 'real' filmmaking is innately tied to the format on which you shoot is immensely blinkered, and does a huge disservice to the efforts of other crew members.

 

I might need to work on my reading comprehension but, I think he was talking about filmmaking as in creating an end product which is actual film.

 

If that is what he meant, I can understand it. You can make videos with those digital cameras, but those are not literally film.

 

Does the audience care? I don't know. I think they should care, because when you lower your standards you get something like, oh, I don't know....the world we are living in today. ;-)

[Stuart Brereton]

I might need to work on my reading comprehension but, I think he was talking about filmmaking as in creating an end product which is actual film.

Maybe he was, but in my mind, a film is far more than just the format it was shot on, particularly if you are going to use the term 'film' as a qualitative term.

 

In those terms, 'The Room' is a 'real' movie, but 'Blade Runner 2049' is not. I'd love to see anyone argue that point.

[Samuel Berger]

Maybe he was, but in my mind, a film is far more than just the format it was shot on, particularly if you are going to use the term 'film' as a qualitative term.

 

In those terms, 'The Room' is a 'real' movie, but 'Blade Runner 2049' is not. I'd love to see anyone argue that point.

 

Now you're using the term "movie" which is simply short for moving pictures. This would apply to both.

 

But it's funny you picked "The Room". Because it was shot on film AND video at the same time, since Wiseau didn't know what look he wanted.

I'm not sure if the end product was film, video or a mix of both, but I still remember the odd billboard for it on La Brea. Man, how I miss home.