Mark Collins
Well-known member
Ok, so after much discussion with a lot of other people in the circle of people I know in the industry, I feel I have heard enough opinions on the look of Pirates 4 to openly discuss it on here and hear more opinions about it.
Note, any of you who have seen my previous posts, this is again not a Red friendly post....(film fan right here)
Anyway, I've seen Pirates 4 in both 2D and 3D at this point, on digital projectors, and after a lot of discussion I am very disappointed with the look of the film. The aspects I am most disappointed with are the 3D and the texture/feel. Resolution and colour rendition are fine.
3D
This is the film that convinced me that 3D is pointless. The only 2 films I have seen that have had passable 3D are Avatar and Drive Angry 3D strangely enough. My Bloody Valentine, though not in 3D, had a 3D look to it on the 2D version that convinced me the 3D would be pretty decent on that film as well. But I digress, I'm not sure if the issue is stereographers not shooting with a wide enough I/O, or if they're setting their parallaxes wrong, but Pirates had very little depth to it. Anything that did stand out looked like a cardboard cutout. No matter what went wrong, in the end the 3D did not work at all. It did nothing for the film and kind of took me out of the story (what little there was). As cheesy as it may be to throw stuff at the camera, it works. If gives you that feeling of depth that is needed with 3D. It worked amazingly for Drive Angry (as cheesy and entertaining as that film was). Avater didn't throw anything at the camera, but the parallax was set on just the right plane to provide an even balance between positive and negative parallax, which really helped the illusion along.
Texture/Feel
And this is the reason why I strongly dislike digital. Dariusz is a very, very talented DP, so don't take this as me saying he isn't. He is very accomplished and in terms of composition and lighting for his films. That being said, when I watched this film the screen seemed to scream RED at me like a drunk man shouting in the streets. It's in your face that this was shot digital, and no matter how you colour correct it, digital will never replicate the look of film properly. My personal opinion is that it was a massive mistake to shoot digital. The first three films had this amazing, rich texture to them that made the art come alive. The grain of the wood on the ships, the feel of the sea, and the rough texture of the stones and rocks. All of it was smoothed out way to much with digital, wiped from existence. This is not something you can throw a number at and say that "format x is better at it than format y and here are the stats to prove it." This is the look that you get when you shoot film. That natural grain that comes with a film stock adds so much more life to the image. From a directing side, it makes the story feel more engaging. It gives it a depth that I feel digital will never capture. So in closing with this, digital felt, to me, like the wrong format for this film. It's a film that takes place in the past, and as such that texture and feel would have added so much more to this film.
(Note: I'm not 100% against digital, but if I have to shoot it my camera of choice is the Alexa)
Let the angry words begin....
Note, any of you who have seen my previous posts, this is again not a Red friendly post....(film fan right here)
Anyway, I've seen Pirates 4 in both 2D and 3D at this point, on digital projectors, and after a lot of discussion I am very disappointed with the look of the film. The aspects I am most disappointed with are the 3D and the texture/feel. Resolution and colour rendition are fine.
3D
This is the film that convinced me that 3D is pointless. The only 2 films I have seen that have had passable 3D are Avatar and Drive Angry 3D strangely enough. My Bloody Valentine, though not in 3D, had a 3D look to it on the 2D version that convinced me the 3D would be pretty decent on that film as well. But I digress, I'm not sure if the issue is stereographers not shooting with a wide enough I/O, or if they're setting their parallaxes wrong, but Pirates had very little depth to it. Anything that did stand out looked like a cardboard cutout. No matter what went wrong, in the end the 3D did not work at all. It did nothing for the film and kind of took me out of the story (what little there was). As cheesy as it may be to throw stuff at the camera, it works. If gives you that feeling of depth that is needed with 3D. It worked amazingly for Drive Angry (as cheesy and entertaining as that film was). Avater didn't throw anything at the camera, but the parallax was set on just the right plane to provide an even balance between positive and negative parallax, which really helped the illusion along.
Texture/Feel
And this is the reason why I strongly dislike digital. Dariusz is a very, very talented DP, so don't take this as me saying he isn't. He is very accomplished and in terms of composition and lighting for his films. That being said, when I watched this film the screen seemed to scream RED at me like a drunk man shouting in the streets. It's in your face that this was shot digital, and no matter how you colour correct it, digital will never replicate the look of film properly. My personal opinion is that it was a massive mistake to shoot digital. The first three films had this amazing, rich texture to them that made the art come alive. The grain of the wood on the ships, the feel of the sea, and the rough texture of the stones and rocks. All of it was smoothed out way to much with digital, wiped from existence. This is not something you can throw a number at and say that "format x is better at it than format y and here are the stats to prove it." This is the look that you get when you shoot film. That natural grain that comes with a film stock adds so much more life to the image. From a directing side, it makes the story feel more engaging. It gives it a depth that I feel digital will never capture. So in closing with this, digital felt, to me, like the wrong format for this film. It's a film that takes place in the past, and as such that texture and feel would have added so much more to this film.
(Note: I'm not 100% against digital, but if I have to shoot it my camera of choice is the Alexa)
Let the angry words begin....
