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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 :)

F23, blah!

One thing to remember is that while we here might find that open-shutter look "videoish" and "distracting", for the general public it ususally looks "nicer" and "sharper" than traditional film look.

I was very recently at a screening of a feature shot with Genesis that had two specific scenes shot with open shutter. They screamed "video" at me. But when I asked the friends who were with me and who do not concern themselves with theses issues which scenes they thought looked the best, well you've guessed it, they spontaneously mentioned these two scenes.
 
Clearly Mann isn't trying to hide the fact he shot digital... he embraces it and pushes it and is unapologetic about it... sure most of us (myself included) aren't a fan of the video look and we're constantly trying to avoid this aesthetic... but Michael Mann is in a completely different league. He already has a few cinematic masterpieces under his belt, shot on film... now his having fun with a new format.
 
Well, I agree with DoF being an artistic choice. But there is so much of the video "signature" (or should I say Sony signature?) in these images.

In particular I hate the over-enhanced edges, most visible in prison interiors, but present in most exteriors and on edge highlights throughout the trailer. Sure, you could turn that down deep in the menus, but it's always too heavy on any Sony by default.

Even a Canon HV20 has a simple button to switc it off…

Plus the way a CCD reacts to blown out highlights with green an purple fringing!
 
Hey, hey, at least, there are vibrant, saturated colors here, something Mann hasn't done in a long while. I agree the motion feels odd for something which is obviously a period piece, but the DOF bothers me a lot less, I mean, Sergio Leone and Orson Welles shot their films with endless DOF and nobody ever complained about Citizen Kane or Once Upon a Time in the West looking "videoish"...but yes, there are oversharpened edges and unsettling motion in that trailer, although I suspect I'll leave the theater more impressed with the impeccable staging of the action scenes than displeased with the video look...
 
Hey, looks like a good movie to me.

I have my issue with Mann but at least wait till you see it projected.
 
David, I don't think I follow, are you saying that edge enhancement is done to online content and that is how they get H.264s to look so sharp? Thanks.
 
Well, the look doesn't help when it's one big cliché after another. RED, FILM, you name it, it would still be the piece of gack that it is. Looks like Mann was referencing a 'Filmmaking For Dummies" handbook. I can't help getting angry when I consider all the stories worth telling out there; when someone with the backing and infrastructure and potential talent chooses to make this commerce driven adolescent drivel.
 
You have no idea at what stage the enhancement has been added, and it's rather common to add it for any small screen version, especially lower rez versions like 480P. But even broadcast HD gets some enhancement.

Most people shoot 1080P HD on the high-end cameras with all the sharpening turned off, or with it turned down very, very low, so you shouldn't be seeing ringing artifacts unless it was added in post.
 
Bill Anderson said:
Well, the look doesn't help when it's one big cliché after another. RED, FILM, you name it, it would still be the piece of gack that it is. Looks like Mann was referencing a 'Filmmaking For Dummies" handbook. I can't help getting angry when I consider all the stories worth telling out there; when someone with the backing and infrastructure and potential talent chooses to make this commerce driven adolescent drivel.
Click to expand...

:mellow:
Have you considered that it is time relevant? Have you seen the movie?
 
USlatin: Don't need to see the movie any more than I have to read an entire novel that has a poorly written first paragraph.This one isn't even close.
 
The movie seems cool but I see this excess in motion blur all too much on F23 shows. Almost every movie that I've seen that shoots with this camera has a good amount of these type of shots in there. But it doesn't make any sense to me because I would think people would want to avoid this look as much as possible because it looks horrible.
 
I was an AC on the Show and even though I like the F23 I don't believe it was the right camera for the film; however Michael Mann loves the look that the 2/3 gives so for him it made sense. I can tell you Dante really wanted to shoot film.
 
C'mon Slatin- they make trailers for a very good reason, this one fails for a very good reason.

I realize this is a Cinematography thread and that we can all learn from even the most mundane specimens of moviemaking, but, as an aside, I think Mann could not have chosen a more ineffective topic than this, as far as his most obvious commercial aspirations goes. American film has been moving away, quite successfully, from these inbreeds. I hope it continues to do so.
 
Bill Anderson said:
Well, the look doesn't help when it's one big cliché after another. RED, FILM, you name it, it would still be the piece of gack that it is. Looks like Mann was referencing a 'Filmmaking For Dummies" handbook. I can't help getting angry when I consider all the stories worth telling out there; when someone with the backing and infrastructure and potential talent chooses to make this commerce driven adolescent drivel.
Click to expand...

Though your post may be a bit harsh, let's remember we're talking about Michael Mann here, when has he ever made an introspective, spiritual, socially relevant piece of work? Mann loves violence and guns (never seen anybody know more about guns that he does, he could easily be a Green Beret trainer) and though he tries to reference social factors and character complexities when showing the causes for the violence in his films, at the end of the day, he is just one director who loves to shoot action driven pieces, and who can do that exceedingly well by the way, and with an unmatched level of realism and attention to technical detail, some of those details being completely lost on most audiences. Again, he strives to show the action pieces on his films in as realistic a manner as possible, and in that sense, I can understand why he loves HD cameras so much. I admire him for his outstanding capacity to stage and execute complex action scenes that feel real, instead of the explodo-festival of Michael Bay for example, but at the end of the day, Mann has never been shy or coy about the type of story he likes to tell and how he likes to tell it.
 
Rudi, it is a harsh post. Too harsh? maybe. I like a Reservoir Dog schtick as much as the next guy; but, as a filmmaker, if you're gonna go that route then you'd better have something more in your head than a pistol full of blanks.
 
But do you think they have done it scene-by-scene? Shouldn't it look the same for the whole trailer (BTW, the screenshots are from the 1080 version)?

I could see varying degrees of this artefact throughout the trailer. Admitted, the example posted is the worst one and might even have been a mistake when adjusting the shot (in camera or in post). But you find them on quite a few highlights and edges at varying degrees.

Plus, I insist on a "videoish" look of overexposed highlights, you can find them in the bar scene too. This comes close to my experience when having a F35 side-by-side with a RED (and an ARRI D21). The F35 can look much deeper into the dark, but the RED and the ARRI look less electronical on blown-out highlights.
 
Even going as far back as the interlaced days of Dancer in the Dark, I remember how beautifully film like, or, to be more accurate, unvideo like, some of the scenes were in that movie. We've come a long way since then but there are times when the soap opera video look hits you between the eyes- even on well manned projects like Youth Without Youth. It is a motion related phenomena and might be masked or countered to some extent or another with lighting mood, curves, and post... . I've never seen one still from a DSLR that looks less like film than another, or more digital like than the next?

David, the two films of yours that I'm familiar with are Twin Falls Idaho and Northfork, both beautifully rendered and quite languorous- probably decent candidates for digital acquisition sans video look- but if you were setting up a scene with a RED, for example, and wanted to avoid falling into the video look, what might you consider? Kinda vague, I know, and maybe overly simplifying the matter, but in general terms do you have personal theories/preferences? (Film Stocks aside).
 
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