Are Films and Shows Lit Too Well Now?

[David Mullen ASC]

It takes a lifetime to learn the art of storytelling -- photographic tricks take considerably less time to learn. But I don't think they are mutually exclusive, the brain usually can handle deciding whether to use grain on the image plus where the put the camera, how to move it and why, etc. Textural decisions like grain, type of optical texture from lenses and filters, tend to mostly be decided in preproduction so don't take up a lot of mental space while working on the set day to day.

 

[H Dewey]

It takes a lifetime to learn the art of storytelling -- photographic tricks take considerably less time to learn. But I don't think they are mutually exclusive, the brain usually can handle deciding whether to use grain on the image plus where the put the camera, how to move it and why, etc. Textural decisions like grain, type of optical texture from lenses and filters, tend to mostly be decided in preproduction so don't take up a lot of mental space while working on the set day to day.

I'm just trying to imagine how new tech like the .4v from the Hydrogen One is going to play out in regard to storytelling/camera placement decisions. I can't see many of the current conventional players adopting the new tech right away so I guess the ones who do adopt it will operate under different rules that are made up as things go along.

But maybe storytelling is just storytelling and not much will change in that?

 

[Sergio Perez]

I’m a firm believer that lighting is an artistic layer that can help the storytelling. I’m a fan of photography and lighting being “expressionistic”: to reflect emotion, to reflect characters and to create an extra layer of narrative to films. Obviously this works better in a “Moulin Rouge” or “Blade Runner” kind of storytelling and film vs a conventional “4 Billboards” kind of movie narrative, but I do feel and agree some of the more artistic aspects of film lighting are being neglected in a way. Probably due to the need to explore HDR and other technologies.

Wong Kar Wai and Christopher Doyle’s fantastic colaborations in many Hong Kong Masterpieces are a big reference for my admitedly still very limited filmography!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ez4MQ9lr65Y

 

[Marc Wielage]

I never heard anyone complain about the quality of 65mm. FWIW. Mind you, I never heard anyone complain about the quality of 16mm either.

I did not care for 16mm when we first started scanning it to HD in 1999, but it got better over time. Walking Dead is a good example of a Super 16mm show that is pretty much indistinguishable from digital at this point.

Yup. I can absolutely agree that many including me want to replicate the color handling of film, but I really don't understand the grain. It just feels like a sign of many being out of their comfort zone (grain). I can understand why you would add grain in some projects, I do it to. Like when trying to mix together CGI with shot elements or if you want to replicate a certain historical era pushing the grain to gain a feel of authenticity. But when I watch a show about modern times on Netflix, I really want it super clean. It's harmony for the eyes to watch a well-exposed, high resolution clean image. You pay attention to the atmosphere and environments more than the feeling of watching a moving photograph.

On the other hand, my understanding is that all of the Marvel Netflix shows add film grain in post, and some of them go for a very gritty, high-contrast style, particularly for the night scenes. You can argue with the aesthetic, but sometimes an aggressive look can work very well, particularly in 4K HDR. Clearly the shows have found a huge audience; I'm a big fan of most of what they do and look forward to Jessica Jones, which starts up in a week or so.

Those are good examples of shows that are the polar opposite of "shows lit too clean," but I would say they are very, very well-lit for television. They know how to create the impression of night without making it muddy and crushed. I think the Marvel TV crew has got that look down to a fine art.

 

[Phil Holland]

I did not care for 16mm when we first started scanning it to HD in 1999, but it got better over time. Walking Dead is a good example of a Super 16mm show that is pretty much indistinguishable from digital at this point.

I'll back Marc here and a lot of weird 16mm was the quality of that scanning. If you look at films like Hurt Locker or 28 Weeks Later, you're seeing 16mm done well for cinema release.

Outside of this, some of the major advancements in the last 3 decades came from the major improvements in film stock itself. By the time Kodak Vision 2 and 3 pretty set the bar of what could be done and this of course applied to all major motion picture formats.

Remember some of these larger format were initially inspired to improve the visual quality as grain was rather visible on older stocks.

 

[Sergio Perez]

i don't know if this is derailing this thread or not, but one thing I saw , taking the work of Christopher Doyle, for example, is that now some films can be butchered in post to the original vision of the cinematographer. Can a DP actually sign "Alan Smithee" to a film they are involved with? I say this because if you look at "Lady In The Water", the film looks uncharacteristic to Doyle's use of color, for example, yet you see the Behind the Scenes or Deleted scenes of that movie and you see a completely different tone from the ungraded footage.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RLQAW2zixU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEVbLBagHaU

After grading (mute the video )

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWyr0cDDLh0

 

[Karim D. Ghantous]

I have watched a few shows shot on 16mm. Poirot (presumably 16mm), Inspector Morse, Sex & the City, and probably others. I liked the image quality of all of them, particularly SATC and Poirot. But all of those have been on DVD.

It's true that the recent Vision stocks are quite something. You can push 7219 by a stop and your image quality is still going to be terrific, which is amazing considering how small the frame is. Super 8 will be the new 16mm, by the looks of things.

 

[Christoffer Glans]

It takes a lifetime to learn the art of storytelling -- .

It sure does, but my main problem is that most people don't even start to cover the art of storytelling, spending a lifetime looking into technical aspects and irrelevant perspectives on storytelling before realising far into their career that their focus was wrong all along. Far to few think about what they leave behind when their dead, darkly speaking.

 

[Aaron michaels]

16mm to look like that for us would cost an arm and a leg. I always thought it look like crap compared to 35mm and digital it has that cheap looking Spike Lee film look to me.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

Regarding Chris Doyle, the look of his movies changes from project to project (as you would expect). Some of his 90's movies like "Fallen Angels" have push-processed look (modified by the use of ProMist-type filtration) while some of his later movies were actually shot the opposite way, overexposed and pull-processed for a muted look.

 

[Marc Wielage]

16mm to look like that for us would cost an arm and a leg. I always thought it look like crap compared to 35mm and digital it has that cheap looking Spike Lee film look to me.

You'd be surprised. Kodak has been very aggressive in terms of making raw film affordable, and the various labs that survive worldwide are pretty competitive. 16mm is less than 1/3 of the cost of 35mm (assuming a full-frame image), and the camera rental is actually cheaper than digital in LA and NY. As one of the Panavision rental guys told me, the last time I asked what the rates are for 35mm camera rental, "hey, we've got 300 of them on hand -- tell me how many you need."

The real expense is the everything else: grip gear, lighting, electric, video assist, lenses, and so on. Those costs don't change between film and digital.

 

[David Peterson]

I think it's pretty simple: if you're seeing the lighting, you're not watching the movie or show, you're studying it.

Yup, though got to remember we're NOT like the average cinema goer!

We notice and observe things which just fly right over the heads' of others, that they only notice on a very sub conscious level.

So while we might feel something is "too perfect" such that it distracts us, to the average viewer this thought might never ever ever enter their head for even a moment.