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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 :)

Digital Cinema in 10 years time?

Ten years from now we will probably have 50k or maybe even 100k, but what for?
Human eye has a resolution of 120 pixels per 1 degree. If the maximum screen size is about 60 degrees that gives us 7,2k (screen must be within this angle to see it with both eyes if you don’t want to move your head).
If you double that for editing purposes that is “only” 14k. And if you quadruple it, it’s Mysterium Monstro 617. :)
Of course, this applies only on classic cinematography (rectangular moving pictures).
So, I think future is in sensors that produce flawless images even in super low light conditions and with much higher dynamic range.
I suppose that is not something it could ever be possible to achieve with existing CMOS sensors.
I expect post from Jim one day: “Everything changes – we have new sensor and it's not CMOS… “ :)


Roko Kosta
 
We will still be telling the same stories, just to a new audience.

What I find interesting: what will be the technical limits? E.g. with all the new gadgets you name here: will the batteries have evolved accordingly?
 
My thesis is: Emulating the look and feel of film on digital capturing devices. It's not too great though; rushed it a bit. It's mainly to do with creating depth of field adapter's.

will the batteries have evolved accordingly?
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Will we even need batteries ;)
 
Don't forget the lenses. We will see miniaturized lenses with liquide nano technology insted of glas. The human eyes uses the same technology. The size of a cinema cam can come down to the size of our eyes.

Rolf
 
Roko said:
Ten years from now we will probably have 50k or maybe even 100k, but what for?
Click to expand...

Scalability. Think about it, if you had a camera that shot in HD in the 80's, and yet there were no HD TV's, would you still use it?

I mean, ignoring the obvious workflow difficulties and everything, just pretend that you have a camera that can shoot a modern digital picture back then, and pretend that you have a workflow organized so you can actually edit the footage.

I would obviously want to work with the best image possible, even if there wasn't currently displays that could show it.

A 50K image is simply a superior image to work with, and when you have little to no processor or storage limitations, why not?

Not to mention, like I said, a 50K image could easily be scaled from everything to SD displays, to being broadcast on a 100ft. display at a Football game, so there is simply no constraints to where your image can be shown.

Not to mention a great deal of control over what you want to show in the image. With a 50K image, you could easily film something happening in a wide shot handheld, then zoom in and stabilize it, and create a close-up shot, and still have far more resolution available than is necessary to fill out a 16K display.
 
In 10 years we might live in a post apocalyptic world, where there is no more cinema, there is only supermutants and radiation sickness. :head_explode:
 
I think that we cant forget one thing: Our Human Eyes. They wont improve in Megapixels throughout the decades.. so i think that once we reach the point where we dont really notice the diference, why make more K's of resolution? Once we reach 'cant tell anymore' zone we should concentrate on smaller, lighter and more frames per second cameras.. or just transplant SUPERMEGAHIGHDEF human eye transplants lol

Personally I hope cinemas and video cameras will have something like 100 frames per second projections so we can have seemless Tilts and Pans without weird blurs etc.. Completely Life-Like motions.. thats where i think the future lies

Oh, and of course.. a sensor SOOOO sensitive to light that you can shoot in natural light even indoors without lighting.. (with NO GRAIN, like it was photo equivalent of 50ASA or something)
Once we can show what things look like without faking it with lights.. itll be a very very good day.. Making films without needing lighting hehehe
 
cinemano said:
I think that we cant forget one thing: Our Human Eyes.
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I think in 50 years this will be a thing of the past.* (Eyes and brains that is.)
 
cinemano said:
I think that we cant forget one thing: Our Human Eyes. They wont improve in Megapixels throughout the decades.. so i think that once we reach the point where we dont really notice the diference, why make more K's of resolution?
Click to expand...

Like I said, for control.

Scalability is the most obvious answer, being able to have your image look good on a tiny SD display, or a 100 foot digital display at a football game.

Also, for zooming. With a 50K camera, you can film a person in a super wideshot, and zoom and crop and get a close-up of the persons face and not be able to tell that there was a resolution drop on a 16K screen. So you can have far more control in post, easily turning wideshots into close-ups without having to go back and do a reshoot.

Something shot in 50K handheld, you can go in and zoom and crop and stabilize it with software, and no one would ever be able to even tell you were shooting it handheld.

Not to mention, simply preparing for the future. There will be a time in the future where we'll be able to enhance our eyes. Maybe we can't process all of that detail now, but who knows, in another century of so, we'll most likely have at least the option of better eyes.

If you can easily store thousands and thousands of hours of 50K footage on your future harddrive, then why worry about why you "need" that much resolution?

Scalability, more control over composition and stabilization, and preparation for the future. There are plenty of reasons to have that much resolution.
 
WesScog said:
Like I said, for control.

Scalability is the most obvious answer, being able to have your image look good on a tiny SD display, or a 100 foot digital display at a football game.

Also, for zooming. With a 50K camera, you can film a person in a super wideshot, and zoom and crop and get a close-up of the persons face and not be able to tell that there was a resolution drop on a 16K screen. So you can have far more control in post, easily turning wideshots into close-ups without having to go back and do a reshoot.

Something shot in 50K handheld, you can go in and zoom and crop and stabilize it with software, and no one would ever be able to even tell you were shooting it handheld.
Click to expand...

Sounds like a recipe for a lot of lame directing. People learn to direct -- learn their craft -- by making hard choices and living with the consequences, particularly learning from the mistakes they make. Creating close-ups from wide shots is not only particularly lazy, but it means that the lighting on the face will be the wide-shot lighting with no ability to go in and "clean up" the lighting to make it more flattering, to add eye lights, etc. It also means that you aren't physically moving the camera closer to the subject, so all your tight shots become telephoto shots.
 
David Mullen ASC said:
Sounds like a recipe for a lot of lame directing. People learn to direct -- learn their craft -- by making hard choices and living with the consequences, particularly learning from the mistakes they make. Creating close-ups from wide shots is not only particularly lazy, but it means that the lighting on the face will be the wide-shot lighting with no ability to go in and "clean up" the lighting to make it more flattering, to add eye lights, etc. It also means that you aren't physically moving the camera closer to the subject, so all your tight shots become telephoto shots.
Click to expand...

I don't really see why that is lazy, I mean it's still taking a lot of work, you're just doing it in post instead of on the set.

I mean technology is going to offer us far more flexibility in the future, I don't know why filmmaking being harder and less flexible is really a "good" thing. If you have self-discipline and you know what you're doing, you're going to make good stuff, if you don't know what you're doing, then you're still going to be making stuff that is going to be lacking. Sure it might have really high resolution, but no amount of technology is going to be able to make your story good.

Also, I mean, with a 50K image, in a future editing station, you could use an advanced version of some of the depth mapping and modeling software i've seen in prototype, where it can create a 3D model from a 2D image, and it allows you to adjust the lighting dynamically.

So if you film something in wideshot, you can zoom in in post, process the footage through some depth processing software, create 3D models from everything, skin them with the very high resolution footage, then relight them dynamically.

I see it as giving the artist more flexibility, and for documentary filmmakers it'll be a godsend. I mean when you're in the field filming stuff that you can't simply refilm, being able to take that footage and create close-ups from your run and gun footage?

That seems pretty amazing to me, and I think will offer up so many possibilities. Operating with a very very high resolution lenticular array, means you can take all sorts of footage you shot in the field, and edit it in totally new ways.

I just think it shouldn't be a matter of what is "lazy" or "nonlazy" but what makes things easier, and offers more possibilities to the filmmaker.

Or really, when do we even switch to digital in the first place? A lot of people claim that shooting digital is lazy and that film requires more discipline out of you as an artist and makes you be a "real filmmaker".

I think giving the filmmaker greater control and greater flexibility is NEVER a bad thing, and would be very beneficial to a lot of filmmakers, even if some people would try to utilize the technology to cover up insufficient shooting technique.

EDIT:
Some examples of some of the software I was talking about, i'm sure you've seen it before, but some people may not have seen any of these yet:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nice6NYb_WA - Making 3D facial models from 2D images.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vda2RAEuW_g - Making 3D models from video.
http://www.vimeo.com/1513129 - Depth Mapping from video / Enhancing video with 2D images.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuoljANz4EA - A program that automatically creates a 3D model from photos.

Combining aspects of all of this prototype software, into a future version of CS, you could do all sorts of stuff with your footage in the future, that we can't even imagine now.

While zooming into an image is an issue now (because we're not lighting it for a close-up), with a system that can automatically create 3D models from your footage, not only could reframing be an option, but dynamically relighting the scene and even adjusting the angle could be possible.
 
David Mullen ASC said:
Sounds like a recipe for a lot of lame directing. People learn to direct -- learn their craft -- by making hard choices and living with the consequences, particularly learning from the mistakes they make. Creating close-ups from wide shots is not only particularly lazy, but it means that the lighting on the face will be the wide-shot lighting with no ability to go in and "clean up" the lighting to make it more flattering, to add eye lights, etc. It also means that you aren't physically moving the camera closer to the subject, so all your tight shots become telephoto shots.
Click to expand...

Maybe this is what will separate the good cinematographers from the mediocre ones in the future. Whether they do as they do now; and should do, and light the shot for the shot rather than getting lazy lighting the whole scene then re-framing in post.

I'm all up for the possibility but I think each shot still needs to be treated and lit individually.

If this method of thinking did become mainstream in what way will in impact schedules and budgets too. Studios/producers will be pressuring the crew to get things finished quicker because it can be done etc.

Also is the resolution of optics going to be able to keep up with the increase in resolution? Glass for the 2/3" camera's is already quite a bit more than for s35 and we'd probably need more resolving power than that for the super high res'.
 
Gravy said:
Also is the resolution of optics going to be able to keep up with the increase in resolution? Glass for the 2/3" camera's is already quite a bit more than for s35 and we'd probably need more resolving power than that for the super high res'.
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Shortcomings in optics can be worked around, I mean look at our eye...

The image we receive on our optic nerve is full of holes, upside down, and criss crossed with blood vessels. It's a miracle we see anything at all.

I'm not saying that everything could be made up computationally, but what i'm saying is that with the right interpretation hardware (like our brain for instance) you can get a beautiful image from even a sensor that isn't giving you a great source image.

Now i'm not saying it's right around the corner, but our brain obviously shows that it's very possible to work around limitations of a sensor. Now it's just a matter of us figuring out how to do that with our hardware, the same way that we do it with our brain.
 
If you're lighting in a virtual environment you don't need a big crew you just need the decision makers and creatives present.

If your camera is a reality capture system then you can capture the performance and world. Load it into the lighting software and spend a reasonable work day inside of your virtual room using your HDRI headset to manipulate virtual lights.

No rigging. No electricity just an artist and a set.

Suits would love this. Why hire 300 people to be on set all day when you can just build the set. Get the performance and move on. No waiting on any department to be ready. No overruns from being on location too long. No set reconstructions from reshoots. It'll all be photorealistic and real time. It'll be in 3D. It'll be HDRI. So yes we'll be incredibly lazy on set. But the director can focus on working with the actors maybe have something like a director's viewfinder which makes notes of angles that catch his eye. But the real 'shooting' will be a second, less expensive phase of the project.

Now I know what you're thinking. "What about blocking, that'll affect your framing." True which will be one of the large hurdles that we'll have to overcome. We'll need the ability to meld performances and bodies or else the ability for advanced procedural systems to alter blocking while retaining the nuances of the performance.
 
With very high resolution, you can accurately define edges. The size of noise stays the same, but detail gets proportionately bigger, which means any noise left in the image is easier to deal with without removing any resolution.

Digital anti-alias filters for downsampling can be much better than optical ones. Higher resolutions mean you can filter properly optically, and digitally downsample and still have more than enough resolution. Think of how nice the downsampled RED looks, how creamy and smooth and sharp and detailed, but not edgy, and think how nicer again that will look at the higher resolutions.

You can always find uses for more resolution. You can always find limitations with lower resolutions.

Graeme
 
Gavin Greenwalt said:
If you're lighting in a virtual environment you don't need a big crew you just need the decision makers and creatives present....

Suits would love this.
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Too true. What you're describing is a further industrialization of the product, with the much desired result of replacing the director and DP with lower paid hourly editors and techs. It's unlikely, with this production model, the suits will want to pay premium rates to directors to work with the actors either, since many film directors give little or no direction anyway and/or are unskilled at it, and when the producers can simply hire dialogue coaches and dramaturges at much lower rates.

Now, if we could only get rid of the writers..... But, of course, the industry *has* largely gotten rid of the writers, insisting on formula and buying multiple re-writes to cater to the latest post-its of the suits. Which is why the only remotely original script you see today is one adapted from a novel.

What's left to eliminate? Other than the audience, I can't think of anything.
 
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