Pirates of the Caribbean 4

[Rudi Herbert]

Actually, I know this same thing has been said before by a few people and we all laugh at it as a cute compliment, but the Pirates trailer looked WAY TOO CLEAN, ABSOLUTELY DEVOID OF NOISE AND GRAIN! It was eerie really, there was a sense of trickery afoot because of the lack of depth cues that usually come from dark and/or out of focus areas getting noisier as it happens with film, but there was none of that here. Whatever was dark, was dark, and whatever was blurred, was blurred, but the crisp, clean, as if there was no atmosphere, feeling, was there from extreme foreground to infinity background. It even made the 3D look unnatural (not bad, just unnatural) since noise and grain add to the textural perception of the different depth planes within the image. There is nothing I've ever seen before that looked this utterly, pristinely clean. It is not the feeling of sharpness you get from immaculate HD or the rich, opulent feel of well developed film, this is something else altogether. I've always had nothing hut respect for Jim, but felt at times that resolution, that mantra he embraced so obsessively was not all that mattered. Well, resolution DOES matter, and it matters A LOT.

 

[Dane Brehm]

I thought it looked great the skin tones were fantastic but this will all be realized when it comes out to theaters....I hope their is a true 4K version to gander.

 

[Andrew Rieger]

Actually, I know this same thing has been said before by a few people and we all laugh at it as a cute compliment, but the Pirates trailer looked WAY TOO CLEAN, ABSOLUTELY DEVOID OF NOISE AND GRAIN! It was eerie really, there was a sense of trickery afoot because of the lack of depth cues that usually come from dark and/or out of focus areas getting noisier as it happens with film, but there was none of that here. Whatever was dark, was dark, and whatever was blurred, was blurred, but the crisp, clean, as if there was no atmosphere, feeling, was there from extreme foreground to infinity background. It even made the 3D look unnatural (not bad, just unnatural) since noise and grain add to the textural perception of the different depth planes within the image. There is nothing I've ever seen before that looked this utterly, pristinely clean. It is not the feeling of sharpness you get from immaculate HD or the rich, opulent feel of well developed film, this is something else altogether. I've always had nothing hut respect for Jim, but felt at times that resolution, that mantra he embraced so obsessively was not all that mattered. Well, resolution DOES matter, and it matters A LOT.

I agree a little with your analysis. I have not seen the trailer in 3D but from what I have seen on the internet, it does look very very clean, as you said, a little too clean. It may be because I love film grain so much. Do you think that there was so noise reduction in post? Red has the resolution, dynamic range and the sensitivity to put away film for good but as others have said, it does look too clean at times. If you compare the footage to that shot for the first three, you can see the difference. The question is, can film grain sampling in post (with programs like Arri Relativity) be effective enough to make Red Footage indistinguishable from film?

 

[Jannard]

John Schwartzman added grain to RED footage to match it with film on The Green Hornet "and no one could tell the difference". His words.

Peter Jackson intercut RED footage (original M sensor) with film in The Lovely Bones.

Matching film doesn't seem to be an issue. Although some prefer the clean look. Vistavision looks much cleaner than S35mm film... because it has much less grain.

Good news is you have a ton of options with clean high resolution images.

Jim

 

[Jannard]

Additionally... newer movies shot on film are a lot cleaner with much less grain than older films (vastly improved film stock). So does that make newer films less interesting because they have less grain? And why did Kodak work so hard at reducing the grain if grain is good? Or is it just a certain amount of grain that you like? These are all interesting questions that each DP gets to answer when choosing a look for his or her feature.

Jim

 

[Philipe Ratton]

I never had the chance to work with film. I used to dream of it. Probably would never have the chance. Always low budgets. But my dream of quality is very much alive.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

Remember this was an IMAX trailer -- it's standard operating procedure to de-noise / de-grain everything being blown-up using the IMAX DMR process, the idea being that grain would be annoying on a 50' tall screen. Not that I think the image was cleaned-up. What's nice about the Red M-X image, as compared to the F35 image blown-up to IMAX for "Tron", is that there is much less IMAX DMR processing being done (denoising, then sharpening) because less is needed, giving you a more natural image on the big screen. Compare the "Pirates 4" trailer to some of the 2K D.I.'s of 35mm productions like "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" and some of the Harry Potter movies blown-up to IMAX, which actually look more video-ish due to the high amount of degraining and then resharpening that went into the blow-up, giving the image a somewhat plastic look.

 

[Philipe Ratton]

The trailer looked awesome !

 

[David Mullen ASC]

Additionally... newer movies shot on film are a lot cleaner with much less grain than older films (vastly improved film stock). So does that make newer films less interesting because they have less grain? And why did Kodak work so hard at reducing the grain if grain is good? Or is it just a certain amount of grain that you like? These are all interesting questions that each DP gets to answer when choosing a look for his or her feature.

Jim

Some DP's have been unhappy with the newer stocks, which have more latitude and less grain to them, saying that they look lifeless and undramatic. I'm not particularly in that camp, there are ways of reducing latitude and increasing graininess if that's what you want, so I'm completely sympathetic to film engineers as they've worked to improve the product technically -- leave the artistic applications to the artists, just give us the best technology you can.

That said, options are always nice, which is why Fuji recently introduced a higher-contrast 500T Eterna Vivid stock, which has more of that "classic" look of older, snappier color processes.

I think what has happened lately in DP attitudes is somewhat a reaction to digital. In other words, until the year 2000, most DP's pushed Kodak and Fuji to increase speed, reduce graininess, improve dynamic range -- basically to improve the overall technical quality. Then when digital improved and 24P appeared, suddenly there was a movement towards embracing the "film look" warts and all as a reaction, defining that look as being softer and grainier for some reason. Super-16 looked sexy and was appealing to many people as being the "anti-digital" format and the new 35mm stocks were derided as being "too digital" because they were sharper and cleaner.

In some ways, this was inevitable because as digital improves, it becomes the first choice for people that want clean and sharp images, thus leaving film as the choice for people who want that "retro" look that they grew up with. And as digital improves even more, there is going to be an even bigger push for film to look diametrically opposite -- if digital goes HDR, for example, some people are going to start to want a high-con reversal film look, if digital gets higher in resolution, some people are going to desire a 16mm and Super-8 film look.

However, generally most movies don't aim for such a distinct look, they just want the image to be polished and high-quality and to look like every other big-budget movie looks, so if the Epic image claims that ground, then most filmmakers are probably going to want their movies to look the same.

But there are always a few contrarians among filmmakers and artists in general, and God bless them, we need a few people to take the opposite approach to the majority and to question conventional wisdom, just to keep the rest of us honest and help us avoid complacency.

 

[Philipe Ratton]

You nailed it David !

 

[Rudi Herbert]

Additionally... newer movies shot on film are a lot cleaner with much less grain than older films (vastly improved film stock). So does that make newer films less interesting because they have less grain? And why did Kodak work so hard at reducing the grain if grain is good? Or is it just a certain amount of grain that you like? These are all interesting questions that each DP gets to answer when choosing a look for his or her feature.

Jim

No, I'm with you, if given the choice, I want a pristine, clean image that I can manipulate towards less perfect looks if wanted. I've shot IMAX and I've shot 70mm and was blown away by how clean they looked much more so than how well they held up on the big screens. I saw the trailer both on a regular 40 ft screen, digitally projected, and IMAX and they both looked identical in terms of lack of noise.
The thing is, right until now, every other RED movie I've seen has had very particular color grades and looks applied to them, i.e: the hyper saturated tones of Gamer, the grungy feel of District 9, the dark, desaturated patina of Knowing, etc, and when dealing with such extreme treatments, you will many a time push an image a little past its breaking point here and there. Pirates however, is the first one that aims for a more classical high end look, with super extended dynamic range, rich and saturated yet "normal" colors, and aggressive color contrasts, with strong warm and cool colors coexisting in almost every frame. In other words, from a technical stand point, the domain of film. Film expertly exposed and shot and skillfully developed and scanned to squeeze the absolute best from it.
And in Pirates, RED seems to have managed to match all that while adding that surreal clean look that was only possible with 65 or 70mm film. I know the staff working on this film is the very best, but I definitely expected the footage to look a little stressed here and there, as would be normal, not to be so utterly devoid of noise of any kind. It was, at once, very exciting and a little frightening to realize I was looking at something I really had never seen before. And this was shot on the good old RED MX...

 

[Casey Green]

Remember this was an IMAX trailer -- it's standard operating procedure to de-noise / de-grain everything being blown-up using the IMAX DMR process, the idea being that grain would be annoying on a 50' tall screen. Not that I think the image was cleaned-up. What's nice about the Red M-X image, as compared to the F35 image blown-up to IMAX for "Tron", is that there is much less IMAX DMR processing being done (denoising, then sharpening) because less is needed, giving you a more natural image on the big screen. Compare the "Pirates 4" trailer to some of the 2K D.I.'s of 35mm productions like "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" and some of the Harry Potter movies blown-up to IMAX, which actually look more video-ish due to the high amount of degraining and then resharpening that went into the blow-up, giving the image a somewhat plastic look.

For the record, David, what is your current opinion of the RED MX program? Where do you feel RED ONE MX and EPIC fair?

 

[Deanan]

Noise in 3D will perceptually cancel itself out somewhat between the eyes. This is actually a good thing because if noise/grain was synchronous would be stuck at screen plane.

I have been meaning to try and see how the same noise/grain pattern applied in post with a positive parallax would feel. Has anyone seen the effect of this?

 

[Andrew Rieger]

Additionally... newer movies shot on film are a lot cleaner with much less grain than older films (vastly improved film stock). So does that make newer films less interesting because they have less grain? And why did Kodak work so hard at reducing the grain if grain is good? Or is it just a certain amount of grain that you like? These are all interesting questions that each DP gets to answer when choosing a look for his or her feature.

Jim

I agree with you about the new stocks. I saw True Grit in 4K and it looked very clean, almost digital at times. So yes, stocks are trying to get closer to Red cleanness and people shooting digital are trying to make it look dirtier. Interesting times.

 

[Antonio Forjaz]

This thread is a real interesting read, thanks all for the input.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

For the record, David, what is your current opinion of the RED MX program? Where do you feel RED ONE MX and EPIC fair?

Based on my experience with the M-X Red One last spring in Chicago, I'd have to say it's the best digital image (and most film-like) I've ever got out of a camera to date.

But I haven't played with an Alexa yet, nor the Epic with HDRx, etc.

With the Epic and HDRx, you've really gotten resolution and dynamic range nailed in terms of providing a high-quality alternative/replacement to film. I think now it's really just about tweaking the color response and getting the post houses in sync and trained to handle it.

A totally unrelated issue is that movie productions still have to get used to data acquisition and back-up on the set, it's something that doesn't really have a past precedent. I remember on the first day of my M-X Red pilot, using three cameras, we shot something like four hours of footage on the first day when most shoots generate about two hours at the most. The line producer and AD came up to me the next day and said "what's up with your digital loader having to work for two hours after wrap while we've got teamsters standing around the truck and still having to back-up more footage from Day One on Day Two?" We eventually caught up on the back-ups and got the loader to keep on top of it better, but it was always an issue due to the volume of footage we were shooting daily. Then one day, we had a big second unit shoot an action scene on some borrowed Genesis cameras and of course, they just had a pile of tapes at the end of the day, no one was left after wrap dealing with back-ups and I didn't have to deal with how their footage, shot across town, was going to get downloaded during the day if they had a bunch of Red cameras, without giving them a data manager and back-up system as well. I was thinking of just getting them a bucket-load of CF cards and hoping they never ran out, and then somehow getting someone else to come in and back them up overnight, but I didn't have to do any of that once we had access to a bunch of Genesis cameras leftover from a wrapped pilot.

But honestly, this is the future (and the present) -- data acquisition -- so we all better just get used to it.

 

[Rudi Herbert]

How about a dual, or triple, pathway out of the camera to record simultaneously to 2-3 recording media bays of choice? This idea has always intrigued me. Once the image has gone through processing/compression and is ready to be recorded, can't this signal be multiplied and sent to several recorders? You could record to your onboard SSD or CF module, and then send additional signals to external modules. Instant backup so to speak.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

How about a dual, or triple, pathway out of the camera to record simultaneously to 2-3 recording media bays of choice? This idea has always intrigued me. Once the image has gone through processing/compression and is ready to be recorded, can't this signal be multiplied and sent to several recorders? You could record to your onboard SSD or CF module, and then send additional signals to external modules. Instant backup so to speak.

Might work, but that's a lot of gear and cables if you've got three cameras rolling...

 

[Jannard]

Think of on set data management (more than just backup) as the replacement for sending film to the lab and waiting until "tomorrow" to see what you have shot. There is a "transfer" with that process also.

They have a great process on Spider-man for on set management... and John gets to see what he has immediately with his look... in 3D. Soon after "cut", the images are reviewed and backed up. No drama.

Jim

 

[Andrew Thomas]

Jim, I know this has been answered before but I don't remember and search isn't helping.

Can you put multiple rear SSD modules on the cam and record simultaneously to all of them?