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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 :)

New James Bond will not be EPIC. :(

Here's what Janusz Kaminski thinks of digital: 'shoot a a man standing still, not moving, not even blinking. Do it on digital and then on film. Here's the difference; the digital capture looks like a still frame, its a dead image. Whilst film, with its grain, is constantly moving, its got life!'

I must say, I agree with him. People go on about sharpness and resolution as the ultimate goal, and it being the definition of a good image, but it only makes them lifeless, sterile and cold.

And this is where I agree with Deakins, Alexa, somehow, has a more organic look than Red. Not only that, but it handles the highlights better and has more dynamic range. Not sure if this 5K thing has any worth at all, when there are lots of other much more important factors to an image that seem to be forgotten or taken aside, only because a few highly paid and bright technicians decided it was so.

And this is where Arri has the advantage. They have been doing film cameras for a long time, and for better or worse, digital format owns a lot to film. Red, Sony or Panasonic no matter how gracious they might be, didn't reinvent the wheel, they didn't win the battle, they've just joined in... it's good to remember that.
 
António Fagundes said:
Here's what Janusz Kaminski thinks of digital: 'shoot a a man standing still, not moving, not even blinking. Do it on digital and then on film. Here's the difference; the digital capture looks like a still frame, its a dead image. Whilst film, with its grain, is constantly moving, its got life!'.
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Since you can add film-like grain in Post this comment only comes off as sentimental to me.

You can make Red footage look like film, but try and make film look like Red footage....not so easy, if doable at all.
 
Martin Stevens said:
You can make Red footage look like film, but try and make film look like Red footage....not so easy, if doable at all.
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Not really. Grain in post is not the same as crystal particles reacting to different variations of light and shadow, its not organic, its fake, and that's what it will look like, fake. As we speak, and that I know of, post grain is only a 'layer' and does not reproduce the random values of what the original sensor captured in terms of all the different shades of light of any given frame. It will treat the entire image as one value only.

On the other hand, why would anyone want to make film look like Red, is beyond me...
 
António Fagundes said:
Not really. Grain in post is not the same as crystal particles reacting to different variations of light and shadow, its not organic, its fake, and that's what it will look like, fake. As we speak, and that I know of, post grain is only a 'layer' and does not reproduce the random values of what the original sensor captured in terms of all the different shades of light of any given frame. It will treat the entire image as one value only.

On the other hand, why would anyone want to make film look like Red, is beyond me...
Click to expand...

This sounds to me a lot like the analog(LPs and cassetes) vs digital(CD and Dats) arguments once upon a time in the music world. Yes, most music artists and producers preferred the "warmth" and "sound" of recording to multi-track analog tape... but at the end of the day, the majority of the public couldn't even hear the difference. Especially when you have incredible plugins that can add the warmth effect to a digital recording. So you might think that adding film grain in post looks fake. But going off the past, the majority of the public probably will look at the grain and think it was shot on film.
 
António Fagundes said:
Not really. Grain in post is not the same as crystal particles reacting to different variations of light and shadow, its not organic, its fake, and that's what it will look like, fake. As we speak, and that I know of, post grain is only a 'layer' and does not reproduce the random values of what the original sensor captured in terms of all the different shades of light of any given frame. It will treat the entire image as one value only.

On the other hand, why would anyone want to make film look like Red, is beyond me...
Click to expand...

In post you can add REAL film grain by doing a film out if you wish and then scan the film out negative.

So now.....it does not look like fake grain, but is indeed real grain.....if you wish.
 
Subhadip Sen said:
I just watched the Late Spring Blu-ray last week and while it was certainly a minor improvement over the DVD it wasn't anything notable. And much of the improvement can be attributed to the remaster. This is also fairly new - 1949 - and towards the end of the "first 50 years of cinema" I was referring to.
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Age is not the main factor, what elements survived and in what condition and can be scanned, is. Then how it was digitally processed to make the most out of it (usually the less processing the better). If you could watch Ozu's films scanned and restored from camera negatives there would be no complaints about lack of difference to a DVD.
 
António Fagundes said:
Here's what Janusz Kaminski thinks of digital: 'shoot a a man standing still, not moving, not even blinking. Do it on digital and then on film. Here's the difference; the digital capture looks like a still frame, its a dead image. Whilst film, with its grain, is constantly moving, its got life!'
Click to expand...
The digital capture at high resolution would show that the man is actually not standing still, but micromoving and other minute changes might be visible. Small things film with its grain usually dithers into oblivion. You can always make your images artificially alive with random processes in post, you can't get lost information back that was swallowed up by a random process. Digital can mimick analogue to the desired degree. The other way around is far more difficult if not impossible.
 
totally agree with this...

António Fagundes said:
Here's what Janusz Kaminski thinks of digital: 'shoot a a man standing still, not moving, not even blinking. Do it on digital and then on film. Here's the difference; the digital capture looks like a still frame, its a dead image. Whilst film, with its grain, is constantly moving, its got life!'
Click to expand...

and this....

António Fagundes said:
Not really. Grain in post is not the same as crystal particles reacting to different variations of light and shadow, its not organic, its fake, and that's what it will look like, fake. As we speak, and that I know of, post grain is only a 'layer' and does not reproduce the random values of what the original sensor captured in terms of all the different shades of light of any given frame. It will treat the entire image as one value only.

On the other hand, why would anyone want to make film look like Red, is beyond me...
Click to expand...


António, just out of curiosity, where is that Kaminski quote from?
 
drew sandoval said:
This little side conversation is actually my favorite part of this thread... What does it mean to be "future-proof?"

When you compare a 60s 35mm image to a modern digital image, is there really any comparison? 60s film stock, with its massive silver halide crystals and 8-stop latitude, the soft optics, how can you ever say thar image is comparable to a modern RED (or Arri) image? No matter what resolutioon you scan it at, a sixties image is not "future-Proofed."

We think our 4k images will withstand the test of time, but will they feel modern a decade from now? My humble opinion is that the coolest trick out there right now is RED's HDRx, and when that becomes mainstream, that will make everythinh pre-HDRx, everything pre-2010 look positively old fashioned.
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I've watched the bluray version of "The sound of Music", "Ben Hur", "Lawrence of Arabia"... and I can attest that they are visually stunning... especially "The Sound of Music." I would love to shoot in a format now that in fifty years people can watch at home with the current technology of that time. Then again these were all 65mm shot films.
 
Taj Jackson said:
But going off the past, the majority of the public probably will look at the grain and think it was shot on film.
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Perhaps. But they also won't care. Those of us in the industry can talk all we want about such things as grain, sharpness, texture, depth of field, and suspension of disbelief, but it's all just theory and it usually doesn't mean squat to civilians. 95% of moviegoers don't know what the picture is created with because it really doesn't matter to them. All they know is if they like it or don't like it, and that has a lot more to do with the story, the cast, the direction, the editing, and the sound than it does the camera or format that was used. That's something more of us should probably keep in mind. You can only fool a certain percentage of the people for a certain length of time until they realize that you're trying to sell them snake oil. Or, in the last 2 years or so, stereoscopic snake oil........ :crying:
 
Alexa shoots the best looking digital image but RED offers smaller and cheaper package.
 
I'd assume RD is shooting the camera he likes better.

I love my epic.
 
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