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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Is "The Hurt Locker" a case for resolution?

Rudi Herbert

Rudi Herbert

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The Hurt Locker got 9 Oscar nominations, including best picture, director and cinematography. Good for Bigelow, she definitely knows how to make entertaining movies, and she deserves praise. I was very much looking forward to seeing the film, as it got great reviews from critics whose opinions I value, including a couple who are close friends and who see "eye to eye" with me.

But alas, when I got to the theater, I quickly became disillusioned. The movie looked so horribly noisy that I could never get past the optical aspect and into the story. I remember reading that Bigelow shot on 16 mm, but hey, even that is no excuse for the EXTREMELY poor visual quality of the print I saw. I tried to find digital projection to no avail, so I caught a regular 35 mm showing with all the nagging artifacts of a projector, but this went beyond that, many of the issues were inherent to the acquisition of the piece. The night scenes were so choke full of grain as to prevent me from even following the events on screen, and after a while, I couldn't shake the feeling that I was watching a Youtube video blown up to gigantic proportions, with all that that entails. As much as I tried to get into the film, the optical quality of the projected piece never allowed me to suspend my disbelief, and I am one that easily forgets such things when presented with a good story.

I don't think the film was all that original or groundbreaking, it presented a new view of the war that is very little known, but apart from that, the characters and their actions were utterly predictable, including the soldier of fortune that knows nothing else but the thrill of disarming the ticking bomb and all the supporting characters, but still, it would have made much more of an impact on me if the canvas on which the story was painted was clear and clean enough for me to see without blinking and cursing every 5 seconds...I know that Bigelow wanted to portray a rough, coarse and granular picture of a place and situation that is far from idyllic, but when that gets elevated to a point where it prevents from clicking with the story, I would have rather had any other color palette/grade/treatment/scheme, even black and white, instead of the visual torture I had to endure. Maybe more resolution, either from 35mm film or RED, or an equivalent, would have allowed the director to infuse the piece with her vision without making it optically unbearable...
 
The grain didn't bother me at all. I doubt it bothered a lot of people or it would not have been nominated for an Oscar for Best Cinematography. 16mm is grainy as hell, no matter how you shoot it.
 
David Mullen ASC said:
I just watched it on Blu-ray and thought it looked great -- I loved the grainy texture. Seemed plenty sharp in the closer shots, lots of dirt & sweat visible on faces, etc.
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Then I really stumbled upon a real bad case of analog projection, because I saw no detail on anything, not even close ups. I will rent the Blu-Ray.
 
Rudi Herbert said:
I don't think the film was all that original or groundbreaking, it presented a new view of the war that is very little known,
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Well I'd call that original. Actually the story pace was what caused me to enjoy the movie. Hurt Locker proves that for the general audience good acting and story telling trumps all else.
 
Super 16mm is rough to deal with in a DI. I was never happy with it in past projects, mainly because of the lack of pin-registration, the depth of field, the grain size (four times worse than equivalent 35mm), and other issues. I think it can work OK for TV, but only with a lot of grain management and very careful sharpening.

Me personally, I think 3-perf 35mm is a far better option. And if that doesn't work for a given budget, no question, HD or Red is preferable.

I'm amazed more film schools aren't using the Red more in their curriculum. I know of at least one major LA school that's pushing their students towards film, and as much as I prefer film, I think it's not a real world solution for filmmakers at this budget. If you only have $50,000 to shoot a movie (or a short or whatever), shooting on film is not a good idea -- at least, not in 2010.

I do think film is preferable for certain projects. The last indie I worked on, The Kids Are Alright (which did well at Sundance), was all shot on 35mm film. They brought it in under a tight budget because they had a great DP (Igor Jadue-Lillo), top actors who rehearsed and knew their parts very well, and kept the number of takes relatively low. I think they shot under 35 hours of material for the whole thing.

Beautiful film, and the two lead actresses looked great. I don't think they would've looked as good in digital without a lot of touch-ups (soft lighting, filtering, defocus and so on). But I think a movie like Hurt Locker could've still been effective in digital, as long as they controlled the exposure.
 
Marc Wielage said:
I'm amazed more film schools aren't using the Red more in their curriculum. I know of at least one major LA school that's pushing their students towards film, and as much as I prefer film, I think it's not a real world solution for filmmakers at this budget. If you only have $50,000 to shoot a movie (or a short or whatever), shooting on film is not a good idea -- at least, not in 2010.
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I think everyone that goes to film school should learn how to shoot on film. Shooting on film MAKES you learn how to shoot. You have to know what you are doing because you can't see it. It makes you plan your shots, think about your exposures, color temperature, etc. You're in film school to learn. I took 1 class where we shot 16mm film and I learned more from that class than I did from every other class/project that I worked on combined. This made me a better at shooting everything else. Film school should also teach you the Red, but not until you've shot film.

Sorry for hijacking the thread.
 
It has become clear from the many responses pointing to the contrary of my original assessment that I got a case of bad projection, but still, I have to wonder if this film had originated on 3-perf 35mm, RED or even a properly shot Cinealta, if what I saw would have degraded so much and showed such terrible grain and lack of detail, since none of the above options would have had such problems to begin with.
 
I think 16mm was probably the most logical choice for this project. They needed light weight cameras that could withstand the harsh elements of the desert, and they wanted the dynamic range of film. I'm sure a ton of the scenes were done with a skeleton crew, especially since they shot most of it in Jordan.

Perhaps they would have liked to have shot on 35mm, but they logistics of the shoot dictated otherwise.
 
I thought that the film looked great when I saw it in theaters. Granted, some of the night scenes were pushing it in terms of grain but overall, the cinematography was very strong and perfect for the film.

Here is the link to the HD trailer, looks good to me: http://www.apple.com/trailers/summit/thehurtlocker/hd/

Often, movies have some technical issues that are a little annoying but they are easy to overcome with a strong story. I recently saw Fincher's Zodiac and there were times that the aliasing and moire were like nails in the eyeballs, like watching 7D footage with great actors, but the story totally engrossed me and I forgot all of the technical problems. Just focus on the story and you will forget the problems.
 
I loved it - there's grain all over it - blowing in the wind, getting in people's eyes, grinding and gouging - isn't that the point. It's a story about ambiguity, about a guy who loves the war we've all come to hate - there's nothing clean and noise-free about it. I think Super 16mm was a great, brave and appropriate choice, made me want to fire up my old Aaton which has been sitting rather sadly on a shelf since the Red arrived.
 
Brad Webb said:
I'm sure a ton of the scenes were done with a skeleton crew, especially since they shot most of it in Jordan.

Perhaps they would have liked to have shot on 35mm, but they logistics of the shoot dictated otherwise.
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They actually had 4 crews shooting on most scenes.

http://www.firstshowing.net/2009/06/02/interview-the-hurt-lockers-mark-boal-and-kathryn-bigelow/



You were talking about being on a limited budget. What were the biggest costs?
Mark Boal: The biggest cost was the camera department. Kathryn had four different camera units. Which is not unusual for a big production movie but it is unusual for an independent movie of this size. She also had a phenomenal cinematographer named Barry Ackroyd, who is not cheap. She also shot a million feet of footage, which is a lot of film and film costs money. But somebody said, “Hey if you making a movie the one thing you want to spend money on is film.”
Why did you decide to do it on film instead of digital if you were cash-strapped?
Kathryn Bigelow: Well, a couple things. It’s not that much more expensive. We shot it Super-16, which gave me an opportunity to be very dexterous because the camera is very small. There is also the potential for digital to be very temperature sensitive. We were shooting in the summer, in the Middle East, where it could get up to 120 degrees. I had to have something sturdy and dependable.

http://www.vanityfair.com/online/oscars/2009/07/qa-filming-a-war-of-bombs-in-the-hurt-locker.html

I loved the look of the film, and think it deserves best film and best cinematography oscars.
 
Matthew Bennett said:
I saw what seemed like a very low resolution print as well... it reminded me of what 720p video looks like blown up.

But yeah, the strong simplicity of the story and especially the sound design were so good that after five minutes, who cares.
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that's my point, I did care, I was never able to suspend my disbelief, and I was one of those who never moved around in my seat or even noticed I was wearing glasses for the whole 160 minutes of Avatar...but anyway...
 
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