Indiana Jones 4K

[Mark Phelan]

Went to see Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull this weekend at a brand new cineplex near my home. Come to find out the theater is fully 4K digital projection which was very cool and made for an enjoyable experience. I was curious because before I found out, I noticed during the movie that the titles were bitmapping and I thought that strange. Anyone else see the movie in a 4K theater and notice the same thing? It was the main titles and actor's names in the outlined serif typeface that is where I noticed the bitmapping. Just curious.

 

[Michel Hafner]

Bitmapping? You mean you saw jaggies/pixels?
They are always visible on sharp credits in 2K. The DI was 2K as far as I know so the 4K projector interpolates.

 

[Mark Phelan]

Yep, saw the jaggies/pixels which was odd and since I didn't know the theater was digital until that point, it was the give away. I thought the movie was probably not shot digitally, so at what point did the titles get inserted and at what point would they determine the resolution needed for the graphics, depending on where it was going to be projected. Again, just curious.

 

[WesVasher]

Our local cinema has DLP digital projection installed recently, looks very nice and I assume it's 2K. The credits on Indy4 were jaggy on that screen. I was shocked how jaggy they were. Have seen several other films on the same projector including Narnia and Ironman and never noticed any jaggies on anything including titles so perhaps the Indy titles just had jaggy artifacts from the DI like others have mentioned.

 

[Lexicon]

I'm gonna go see it digitally and see how it looks.

 

[Miltos Pilalitos]

I saw Indy4 at a film projected theatre and didn't notice any aliasing on the credits. strange...

 

[Daniel Browning]

I saw it in the 2K Indiana Jones and a lot of other movies, too, including Blu-ray. I wonder if the original master is anti-aliased? In your case, it may have been caused by whatever method they used to resize to 4K.

I noticed some of the effects had edge artifacts (aliases) too, such as the wall decorations in one of the tombs. Maybe they were getting too close to the deadlines and started disabling the AA filter to cut the render times.

 

[Martin Weiss]

I saw it in 35mm copy. But they superimposed commercials in 720p over the title sequence.

Did not look good

 

[Adam Levins]

I saw it yesterday.... lots of fun, I liked the new angle and if you look at SS background it is not all that surprising that he decided to go this way with the fourth incarnation.

The main thing I noticed was the heavy use of pro-mist filters and some very strange lens/filter flares. It was very odd looking (the flares) and I wondered if they did not bother with a tilt and swing mattebox.

I think the filtering is in keeping with the rest of the films, but the flares were a bit strange, did anyone else notice them?

 

[Daniel Browning]

...the flares were a bit strange, did anyone else notice them?

You mean apart from the anamorphic lens flare, right? (Blue horizontal lines, colored rings, etc.)

 

[James T Mather]

I think the filtering is in keeping with the rest of the films

? - Doug Slocombe never used heavy diffusion on any of the other movies

whereas Kaminski can't seem to lay off diffusion regardless of the subject matter/period/intention of the movie.

 

[Adam Levins]

You mean apart from the anamorphic lens flare, right? (Blue horizontal lines, colored rings, etc.)

Thats what I was seeing with one exception. the flares seemed to be on flat glass

 

[Adam Levins]

? - Doug Slocome never used heavy diffusion on any of the other movies

whereas Kaminski can't seem to lay off diffusion regardless of the subject matter/period/intention of the movie.

Yeah... I guess with the older stock of the past films they are going to look different. Film stock has come a long way since then. I do agree with you about Kaminski however.

 

[Rudi Herbert]

Agreed, Slocombe was one the cleanest, most simplistic and naturalistic DP's, and the work he did in the first three Indys was pure Hollywood golden age action. Kaminski did a poor job in trying to imitate Slocombe's style, very poor I'd say, with lots of diffusing and filters thrown in for, at least to my eyes, no apparent reason. Other than to perhaps, and erroneusly anyway, imitate the soft glow of older films, a technique to which Slocombe never subscribed. There's a streamlined and fluid feel to the look of the first three movies which is somewhat absent from this one, which is not to say that Kaminski is not a great DP.

 

[James T Mather]

Yes slocombe was a very classic lighter - not much of which technique I saw in the last Indy - instead there was lots of blasted backlight, overlit night shots and offside kinos in places they had no business being. I found it very selfconcious and kept dragging me out of the story. I also thought the matching from shot to shot and within connected scenes was pretty poor. Plus an almost random use of filtration.

 

[Adam Levins]

Yes slocombe was a very classic lighter - not much of which technique I saw in the last Indy - instead there was lots of blasted backlight, overlit night shots and offside kinos in places they had no business being. I found it very selfconcious and kept dragging me out of the story. I also thought the matching from shot to shot and within connected scenes was pretty poor. Plus an almost random use of filtration.

I agree with you Guys. but I do wonder if on these big popcorn movies DP's sometimes have to target there lighting style to a youth who are used to 3D gaming and such.

 

[James T Mather]

I don't think anyones telling Kaminski how to light. Its also not the first time he's done this style. Ie: he didn't really grab hold of Slocombe's lighting cues (classic 3 point extemporized beautifully) but did pretty much what he always does.

Similar techniques (ie: heavy diffusion, blasted halating light, soft offside key in daylight situations, liberally overcooked use of negative fill in daylight situations, flare, lack of matching from shot to shot) have been used by him in Munich, Jurassic 2, AI, Amistad, Minority Report.

IMVHO I preferred the look of Spielbergs films as shot by Allen Daviau, Vilmos Zsigmond, Douglas Slocombe, and Dean Cundey. I find them more maturely photographed films whereas films shot by Kaminski I find to be slightly immature in photographic terms - like someone learning. (All great DP's IMVHO learn to respect story, immature ones show off (Smoke, backlight, bleach bypass, cross processing, excessive filtration (esp. diffusion), excessive flare, motion artifacts, dutch angles, etc, etc).

Film school usually works out those kinks in a cameraman - ie: you get them out of your system over a few years of shooting and learn to support the script more invisibly. All, repectfully, IMVHO.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

I'll point out that two scenes (involving the Knight) in "Last Crusade" were fairly diffused by Slocombe using net filters, a technique he used in some other movies like "The Great Gatsby". But otherwise, Slocombe's style was very crisp and clean.

 

[George A.]

David, do you remember Doug Slocombe's THE SALIOR WHO FELL FROM GRACE WITH THE SEA?

Amazing photography overall. Some great use of zooms - including the very last shot. Some softening here and there - probably more than his usual.

 

[Jason Wingrove]

I saw a film print of indy on the FIRST screening of the FIRST day it came out in a not small cinema here in sydney and the print jumped around like ive never seen before. dusty scratchy and truly awful reel changes (wierd seeing as it would probably have been one big platter of film) Anyway it was really more than disappointing, im over film presentation. if cinemas want our hard earned bucks they better pull their socks up!