The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo...

[Brian Timmons]

I have only just seen it recently in a theatre on 2K DCI projection and I have to say I was really impressed how the movie looked. There was nothing "digital" about it (aside from the missing film projector weaver shake - which is a welcome thing!). I was however puzzled with two scenes - one where Mara goes to the club and the other where she wakes up with Craig in the bed. Both scenes had quite a bit of noise. The bed scene was at the limit of what I can tolerate, but the club scene with its blue noise was a shocker - especially since the rest of the movie looked so perfect. Why would they not run even a simple denoise like Neat Video? That would have taken care of it...

Other then that - I love the movie - both from storytelling perspective and as a DoP/Colorist from visual one too...

Thumbs up!

Hey Peter,

I can't remember exactly where I read it but I'm pretty sure that noise in the club scene was deliberate and added in post.

Brian Timmons
BRITIM/MEDIA

 

[Peter Majtan]

Hey Peter,

I can't remember exactly where I read it but I'm pretty sure that noise in the club scene was deliberate and added in post.

Brian Timmons
BRITIM/MEDIA

I just don't see it. There is no value added to the scene with this noise - quite the contrary - it really took me out of my seat. Very distracting and from my experience - it looked very much like the "normal" blue noise RED can produce when underexposed and pushed in post. I really do not believe this was deliberate...

Just my honest opinion

Peter

 

[Nuka Wølk]

I just don't see it. There is no value added to the scene with this noise - quite the contrary - it really took me out of my seat. Very distracting and from my experience - it looked very much like the "normal" blue noise RED can produce when underexposed and pushed in post. I really do not believe this was deliberate...

Just my honest opinion

Peter

I certainly believe that it was intended and exactly what they wanted. I also believe that it was done in post.

I have to say, I loved the look in the nightclub-scene. The way it was edited, the form, made it different from the rest of the film - as were other scenes different in look (flashback scenes). Fincher simply doesn't do "not deliberate" - his focus to detail is too obsessive compulsive for that to ever occur

I found an interesting quote from a interview with Jeff Cronenweth that he did with CNN:

"CNN: Do you miss film? Digital isn't quite what film is.

Cronenweth: In all fairness, it's getting really close. The proudest comment I get is, "What did you shoot 'Dragon Tattoo' on?" To me, if you can't tell, we're getting much closer. There are certain scenes that it's indistinguishable. That was the software that you can add noise or grain back into it."