Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

  • 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 :)

Hitchcock...

Great write-up of some behind the scenes of Hitchcock by Mike Seymour and FXGuide. It also includes an in-detph look at the on-set process of the film.
I think RED DITs in particular will enjoy some of the efforts we put in with our on-set workflow and tricks to get the images looking the way they do.

http://www.fxguide.com/featured/hitchcock

Thanks for the link .

When you're quoted towards the end of the article as saying:
"Cioni believes that the “unique image texture combination of Hitchcock can largely be credited to the capture workflow of shooting 5K, but framing and only working with a 4K window in the center of the picture (4K extraction) in combination with the classic soft frost.” " Do you mean that the online was done at 4k (and you're basically acknowledging the effect on resolution from the debayering of the 5k file), or that they recorded at 5k resolution on the Epic, but cropped to a 4k-sized frame guide throughout the film. If its the latter, what was the intention? Simply to have the flexibility to re-frame when necessary?

It also is a bit ambiguous re whether it was ultimately mastered in 2k (as Fox seems to have desired) or 4k?


Thanks again for your post Michael (and Mike Seymour!) and congrats to you and all involved in this great film!
 
I just caught the picture last night here in LA. It's a tough movie to see, because it's still only showing at two theaters.

I loved the production overall, and I thought the look was amazing. It was almost too sharp for what I'd consider a period picture that takes place in 1960. Creatively, my preference would've been for a much more diffuse look.

But the color (by Ian Vertovec at Light Iron) was fantastic -- really rich, very consistent, and I think helped enhance the luxurious sets and atmosphere throughout the show. My only real objection were the three major plot inventions: Alma Hitchcock's almost-affair (which I don't believe happened); Hitchcock being on the edge of financial ruin from self-financing Psycho (which I think was not nearly true, since he was a very, very successful filmmaker who also had a long-running TV series at the time); and Hitchcock being haunted by the imagined ghost of Ed Gein, which I think was a total invention of the film.

Granted, if they had just stuck to Steve Rebello's book The Making of Psycho, it would appeal to maybe a couple of thousand major Hitchcock buffs and nobody else. As it was, the theater was damn-near deserted, which is not good at LA on a Friday night. It's a shame, because it has some stunningly good performances and terrific technical work -- among the best Red Epic work I've ever seen. I think Helen Mirren was a little too glamorous for the real Alma Hitchcock, who was a very plain, mousey woman, despite being a tiger behind the scenes. Still, I thought it was an amazingly well-made film, a thousand times better than the made-for-cable movie The Girl​ from a few months ago.
 
It looks great!
On another note the super hi resolution of Epic means people may need to start paying more attention to make up it seems. It is fairly noticeably present in several closeups while watching the trailer in 1080p.
The movie looked fine to me, on a 40' screen. I never had a problem with the makeup anywhere in the entire picture, and I was looking pretty closely. At some point, I just stopped seeing Anthony Hopkins (who I've actually worked with before, on The Road to Wellville) and just accepted that it was Alfred Hitchcock.
 
Does anyone here have inside information as to WHICH Schneider Classic Soft filter was used by David Cronenworth in Hitchcock? Cronenworth says in ASC magazine he used "Schneider 1/2 Classic Soft", but I have been warned that those filters have been updated and now Schneider also sells the similarly named "HD Classic Soft" which has smaller lenslets, avoiding the possibility of those lenslets in the filter showing up in some types of shots. That filter's softening quality is apparently more potent than the original version, at the same strength label, "1/2" for example.
 
I absolutely hate when 'period pictures' use a more diffused look. I thought that treatment almost ruined LINCOLN -- when the story sags, a sharp, beautiful picture is what keeps me interested. No thanks to any of that dated technique. I'm all for what was done with HITCHCOCK and I loved the result. Brilliant. Thank you.
 
Back
Top