Some observations about 'Last Vegas' (minor spoilers)

[Karim D. Ghantous]

This film looked very nice - bold yet natural colour. I guessed RED but it was an Alexa production. It seems that certain gradings more than others suit this camera. Interiors all looked rather lovely. I didn't really like the fake looking 'milky shadows' which were visible on one or two interior shots, but then again that's the built-in LC filter, probably.

This film would not have benefitted from a film intermediate (unlike DBC, which I felt could have looked nicer). The camera did not seem to perform well in the outdoor shots, according to my perception. (I won't comment on light sources such as traffic lights from a DVD file, but they weren't too bad).

Outdoor shots looked a bit more 'video camera' than 'movie camera'. But maybe the camera had nothing to do with it - bad light looks like crap, no matter what the medium, and the crew could have been shooting at midday. OTOH, the evening shots were smooth. I liked the quality of the evening light playing on Paddy's white tuxedo jacket towards the end. And the city in the late evening was beautifully captured.

I was puzzled as to why spherical lenses were used, not anamorphics. I am not going to criticize the DP's choice, as the Primos helped the image quality no doubt, but if it were me I'd be using anamorphics if the aspect ratio had to be 2.35:1.

The film as a whole was a likeable one. The script was a bit forced and predictable in parts but not enough to taint an otherwise good movie. I also appreciate that the pacing was never rushed.

 

[Marc Wielage]

I was puzzled as to why spherical lenses were used, not anamorphics. I am not going to criticize the DP's choice, as the Primos helped the image quality no doubt, but if it were me I'd be using anamorphics if the aspect ratio had to be 2.35:1.

There's a lot of good reasons to shoot in spherical for 2.40: the lenses are lighter in weight, you gain about an extra stop or so (depending on the specific lens used), the lenses are less costly to rent, there are fewer optical aberrations in the light path (less glass), the spherical lenses are generally sharper. Plus you also have the room to reframe vertically, which was done for hundreds of films like all the Harry Potter films, the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit films, the Iron Man films, and quite a few others. Whenever we did camera tests on anamorphic projects at Technicolor and A/B'd them against spherical lenses, I always preferred the clarity of the latter. But I concede it's a valid creative choice, like anything else.

All your other technical criticisms can be handled in color correction in post, and I suspect those were a creative choice as well. Having been part of the crew on a few decent-sized projects, I can tell you that there are times when one shot turns into a 20-minute discussion of the most minute visual issues. So often what you wind up seeing is a compromise between what the colorist, the DP, the producer, the studio, and the director wants... and the director usually wins that discussion.