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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 :)

"Flight"...

This is really just unbelievable news. Thanks entire RED team. Kudos and congratulations for this incredible achievement and for a job well done. Just terrific. Life is best shot on RED, which is an extension of not just your soul or even just mine, but for all the souls everywhere. Great work, Jim. Thanks everyone. I just want to say how amazing this is.
 
We attended a screening at the 57th Street, NYC DGA Theater. Following the film there was a Q & A with Robert Zemeckis.

Robert was extremely complimentary of the Epic-X camera. He remarked on how small the brain was, and joked about the comparative size of the Panavision lenses that they used.*

*Except when shooting in the small cockpit set.

He made a couple jokes about how he was glad to see the end of film. "All those chemicals that we put into the environment". He smiled.

More seriously, he described how film was becoming just one layer in the digital sandwich. In his opinion, the next logical step was to have everything created digitally.

An interesting fact he shared: Many scenes were shot at 60+ frames per second, so they could speed ramp at will.
 
Peter Matthes said:
He made a couple jokes about how he was glad to see the end of film. "All those chemicals that we put into the environment". He smiled.

More seriously, he described how film was becoming just one layer in the digital sandwich. In his opinion, the next logical step was to have everything created digitally.

An interesting fact he shared: Many scenes were shot at 60+ frames per second, so they could speed ramp at will.
Click to expand...

Well, he's right. It's not just about digital vs. film anymore. The gold standard once were human eyes and imo in many ways it still is. Celluloid and photochemical process went through 100+ years of evolution and now you have beautiful Kodak Vision3. Red started with Mysterium, then next step was MX and now the Dragon is about to be unleashed. The Monstro line would probably replace 65mm and IMAX large format film before the end of this decade. With large sensors it's possible to shoot 3D with one lightweight camera and stereo lens extensions for 4K finish. Some years after that I guess lightfield sensors with at least 4K usable resolution will appear and who knows what else. I hope I still be around to see all of that goodness and get my little hands on some of it, he he.
 
Mark Toia said:
I love 2d movies. So much easier on the mind.

I went and watched Prometheus again last night but in 2d this time 3d last week.. Was fantastic. So crisp. I could only imagine what a 4k projection would be like.

Is 3D really worth the trouble and cost... ? 3d does not tell a better story, but post is twice as much to do so... Some one has to explain to me the logic and cost benefits weighing up the turn over and profits. The same amount of people would have watched Prometheus in 2d if that's all it came out in. Right... So why spend 30% more in making it.?

The 3d on Prometheus was a lot better than most other movies Ive watched... except for AVATAR.
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Here here...!
 
Peer Landa said:
Originally Posted by Obin Olson
I can't stand 3d. really can't. wish it would die. just go away.
I second you on that one -- it's a silly infantile fad, at best.

-- peer
-- peer
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I think 3D films should wait until we got superb light fields and goggles that can track the iris of our eyes. Without the viewer being able to control interest point and focus I find 3D films very stressful to watch. Looking at a whole feature in 3D gives me bad headaches.
 
Peer Landa said:
I second you on that one -- it's a silly infantile fad, at best.
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Björn Benckert said:
I think 3D films should wait until we got superb light fields and goggles that can track the iris of our eyes. Without the viewer being able to control interest point and focus I find 3D films very stressful to watch. Looking at a whole feature in 3D gives me bad headaches.
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This is for you who might have blinked and missed it:
Not long ago a new French invention was presented (and we all know how inventive those Frenchies are; the Guillotine, French Fries, French Kissing, Ménage à trois, etc.), however this invention relates to 3D monitoring -- a better way to watch 3-dimensional movies WITHOUT those annoying 3D glasses:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uef17zOCDb8


(For you ladies out there, I think he winked at you)


-- peer
 
I second you on that one -- it's a silly infantile fad, at best.

Without meaning to put my foot in my mouth, as I don't have nearly enough experience, or years to comment. but in the vein of keeping cinema alive, (as in going to the cinema, vs watching at home on small screen) and for motion picture to depict art as "real" to life as possible, technology has progressed.... from black and white to colour, from silent to talkies, from 1.33:1 to 2.35:1.

And maybe when all the technology eventually catches up, it will become 4K3D from 2K2D.

just an opinion really

Denzel Washington is amazing. so glad this movie is on Epic
 
I just saw "Flight" last night. And not to spoil the movie for anybody all I'll say is that I really liked it. The cinematography was great, the acting was great, the story was great. I really enjoyed it. The only negative thing was the person in front of me was massive, so tall, had to watch the film while leaning into the aisle.
 
Wow, I hate to be the contrarian here, but I was pretty disappointed in the film, with the notable exception of Denzel's performance, which was spectacular. I saw it projected DLP, though in a smallish screen. I found the projected image very videoish. This was due to an oddness of the motion blur or apparent frame rate - looking more like 30 fps than 24. May have had something to do with the projection. The image was hyper clean, and just seemed lifeless to me. In general I thought the cinematography totally devoid of any art whatsoever. Could the scene with Denzel opening his eyes have been conceived as happening with some daylight coming through the big windows of the recovery room? Raising the possibility of silhouette? Or cool light and its impact on the side of Denzel's face? Some visual opportunity of portraying the pilot's isolation? And if your low angle shot of the union rep must have an HVAC vent in his background, why not use a more shallow DOF? Instead, that scene, like pretty much all of them, seemed shot in really unartful light, composition, movement and even location. The scene on the stairwell being a prime example. I could write a few paragraphs about the very unrealistic ascent and descent sequence, the ridiculous sound design of cross fading turbine spool-ups over and over and over. In sharp contrast to Flight was Argo, with beautiful (yes, film and Alexa) images, great texture, effective cinematography, and amazing attention to detail. Just my take.
 
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I'll give you that the entire hospital scenes were not the best. Liked the lighting but I think there may have been one or two opportunities for a close up here or there that I would not have minded behing thrown in.. Especially on the cancer patient.
 
I don't see why shallow focus makes cinematography more artful or why a serious drama like this needs to have more expressive, less understated, lighting. This is a case where I commend the cinematographer for not getting ahead of the story or showing off, the lighting was natural and straightforward. Hospital rooms felt like hospital rooms, hotel rooms felt like hotel rooms, etc.
 
David Mullen ASC said:
I don't see why shallow focus makes cinematography more artful or why a serious drama like this needs to have more expressive, less understated, lighting. This is a case where I commend the cinematographer for not getting ahead of the story or showing off, the lighting was natural and straightforward. Hospital rooms felt like hospital rooms, hotel rooms felt like hotel rooms, etc.
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Yeah - the whole argument is either or. Either shallow focus with beautiful knocked out of focus shots. Or be able to see everything and each story requires something different. Also, a cheat I was told in order to make some screenplays look more expensive is longer lenses with more out of focus shots. That being said, if all in all it's not pulled off it's no good regardless. If you have expensive sets, sometimes it's called for you to show everything.

Mr. Mullen what are your thoughts on this? I am a young cinematographer (35) so not that young.

Best

- Paul.
 
David Mullen ASC said:
I don't see why shallow focus makes cinematography more artful or why a serious drama like this needs to have more expressive, less understated, lighting. This is a case where I commend the cinematographer for not getting ahead of the story or showing off, the lighting was natural and straightforward. Hospital rooms felt like hospital rooms, hotel rooms felt like hotel rooms, etc.
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David, I think you may have misinterpreted my post. Using shallow DOF is a tool of the DP. In that particular shot, I would have used shallow DOF to bring more attention to the character and his emotion. I am not, nor did I imply that using shallow DOF is in itself "art". It's been overused in place of good composition in many instances, we all know. I happen to feel the visual medium is as important as the performance of the actors - it should not devour them, but it also should not disregard the emotion. I also believe that artful photography has an important role in a delicate balance between actors, score, etc. Roger Deakins is one who is supremely skilled at walking that line, in my opinion. Just because one might want the story's focus to be the characters doesn't mean the visuals need to be completely antiseptic. I found the visuals in Flight to be antiseptic. Is that better than overwrought? They're equally undesirable in my opinion. The DOF issue is separate, but part of what, in my opinion, was a disregard of the power and role of the visual in story telling. This is all subjective. To each their own!
 
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Loved this movie and really feel this could have just as easily been captured on 35mm film and had the same impact, which is my way of giving a compliment to the RED team. Great looking skin tones, kudos to the colorist, and the team that designed the camera.

Sadly my theater appeared a bit dark, even the trailers appeared to need more light from the projector.
 
Movie looked just fine to me, maybe it was a decent 2K projector or something. That whole crash scene was amazing and overall I'm not seeing "cheap video" image, except maybe in a shot out of the window in hospital. Alexa's highlights are softer and nicer, that's true, but I weren't thinking of all this watching the movie. Maybe I've got used to the "un-filmic" video look...
 
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