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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 :)

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo...

Just spoke with the projectionist at AMC Fashion Valley in San Diego - Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is being projected in 4K for all showtimes. He recommended watching the film with 2D projectors since 3D projectors are not as bright and have a longer throw. 2D projectors are in houses 6, 8 and 12 for AMC Fashion Valley. He mentioned he watched the first 20 minutes of the film and it was visually stunning
 
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Saw it last night and it was excellent! I do feel a bit ripped off though, I saw a film print of it :-(. I'll have to see it again in 4K soon!
 
Michael Cioni said:
David is routinely classified as one of the pioneers of digital cinema throughout the early 2000's. During that time, most manufacturers had not yet developed PL mount camera systems or mass-produced single-sensors for motion pictures. Until 2007, B4 was king and routinely coupled with smaller, 2/3" CCD prisms as their "digital gates." The resulting early digital cinema pictures were optically different from 35mm in that CCDs with B4 lenses resembled that of a 16mm gate as well as the resulting 16mm depth of field. "Zodiac," for example, was shot on the Thomson Viper (2/3" CCD) using Zeiss Digi-Primes (B4 mount).

So for those of us who have been cultivating the foundation of modern digital cinema for some time, aesthetic challenges such as the ideal optics, depth of field and single-sensor characteristic formation of lens flares were important issues that needed addressing (among countless others). Shallower depth of field is congruent with a dramatically driven, so-called "cinematic feel," commonly found in 35mm, widescreen dramatic feature films. This is likely what is being referred to.

Both Dragon Tattoo and Social Network were photographed on Zeiss Master Primes with wide-open lenses, decreasing the depth of field as much as possible. Because the Master Prime is the only full set of lenses that can resolve 4K images and go as fast as a T1.3 consistently across the fleet, it's the ideal lens for the type of images David and Jeff are looking to create.

You will see in this film the utmost control over the simplest thing: the human face. What each face tells us in a complex and powerful story like GDT is everything. Every single frame of this movie is consciously controlled and executed and the depth of field has so much to do with what that. -What you are looking at and what you are reading from each face is partially sculpted by a strongly calculated depth of field design. With early digital cinema, a 16mm compromise was the closest option for most filmmakers. With EPIC, depth of field now can exceed 35mm which has an even more dramatic affect on image texture.
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Thanks for the explanation (up until now I didn't know what Zodiac was shot on, but I do know that it is a great film). I have no problem with almost anything you wrote above. I don't know what you meant exactly by "With EPIC, depth of field now can exceed 35mm". Do you mean that DOF can be shallower for any given FOV on account of the larger surface area of an EPIC sensor?

Michael Cioni said:
Do you really think that sounds stupid?
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That is a strawman argument. There is nothing in my comment about Fincher's stupidity that implied that DOF is irrelevant.

Michael Cioni said:
Before RED and during the time of films like Zodiac, there were a number of independent filmmakers facing the same depth of field problem. It wasn't that long ago, but this is what people used to do to capture the cinematic feel as good as they could given the resources at the time. Would you consider them stupid?
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I'll say it one more time because it appears to me that either I was not clear or you were not reading me closely: there is no 'cinematic feel' any more than there is a 'photographic feel' or a 'photographic look'. It's a meaningless term. Was Citizen Kane not 'cinematic'? Are landscape shots (including the ones by Peter Lik which Jim posted) not 'photographic' on account of their maximal DOF?

Steve Sherrick said:
Karim, last time I checked David is doing just fine both financially and as an artist.
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And so he deserves to. Lots of great artists are doing great, too. Some bad ones are as well, but such is life.

Steve Sherrick said:
I think David knows what he is talking about, and deserves a bit more respect don't you think?
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Good God, no. When people spout bullshit they deserve to be called on it (and you're free to ignore me at the same time). Same goes for me, for you, for David Fincher, Steven Spielberg, etc.

Steve Sherrick said:
A far more productive approach might be to offer your reasonings on why you wouldn't shoot something the way he is.
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Where on Earth are you getting this from, Steve? Why would I not shoot like David Fincher? I'm not a copycat but at the same time I know my betters when I see them. Where did I criticize his shooting style?
 
Karim D. Ghantous said:
Thanks for the explanation (up until now I didn't know what Zodiac was shot on, but I do know that it is a great film).
Where on Earth are you getting this from, Steve? Why would I not shoot like David Fincher? I'm not a copycat but at the same time I know my betters when I see them. Where did I criticize his shooting style?
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Perhaps I misunderstood you. It sounds like you are saying that shooting wide open, in this case at T1.3 does not make a movie cinematic. If that's what David said, I would assume what he meant is pretty close to what Michael Cioni is talking about. Of course, shooting wide open with very shallow depth of field is not the end all be all of making a shot cinematic. But I think most folks here understand that.

Anyway, no need for my input here. Has nothing to do with me. :-)
 
Just saw it today at the AMC flagship in downtown Kansas City (all screens are 4k digital :D). Looked incredible, and really loved the film overall. Worked better for me than the original, the subject matter just suits Fincher's style. Some of the shots looking through floor to ceiling windows were stunning.
 
Michael Cioni said:
While the tools are more and more available, it means talent (in this specific case; post talent) can break new ground and manipulate images in new ways that benefit audiences of today and audiences of the future.
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Amen to that. Good job, guys -- this is one of the most intense and scary movies I've seen in a long time.

BTW, there's a great piece on Creative Cow where Michael goes into more details about the post on Dragon Tattoo:

http://magazine.creativecow.net/article/4k-di-on-the-girl-with-the-dragon-tattoo

A story here on the editing:

http://digitalcontentproducer.com/videoedsys/revfeat/fincher_forensics_files_final_cut/

and another story here on the conforming and compositing:

http://digitalcontentproducer.com/v..._compositing_the_girl_with_the_dragon_tattoo/

Very interesting articles, particularly about the choices for framing, the amount of data storage involved, and the strategies for handling all that footage, conforming the project, and rendering everything -- especially on their deadline. Really interesting story. Kudos to Lightiron and Fincher's post team.
 
OT - but I just have to ask: Marc - are you the same Marc Wielage I used to hang out with on CEFORUM on CompuServe all those years ago? (That was my go-to community, pretty much daily, in the pre-Internet days...)

There were just a handful of us regulars back then who were really passionate about Home Theater and (esp.) laserdiscs. Ebert was one of us too.

There can't be too many chaps from California, in the industry, with that name. :)

Steve R
 
Steve Sherrick said:
Perhaps I misunderstood you. It sounds like you are saying that shooting wide open, in this case at T1.3 does not make a movie cinematic.
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That's what I'm saying. 'Cinematic feel/look' is a meaningless term. Whoever says that shallow DOF is a necessary component of the 'cinematic look' (whatever the hell that is) is full of shit.
 
Karim D. Ghantous said:
That's what I'm saying. 'Cinematic feel/look' is a meaningless term. Whoever says that shallow DOF is a necessary component of the 'cinematic look' (whatever the hell that is) is full of shit.
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I don't think anyone is saying that. Most of my favourite films feature an aesthetic with intricate compositions and layered mises-en-scene which require deep focus. In my opinion, that is as "cinematic" as it gets - something that transcends the boundaries of the literary (script/plot) and the theatrical (acting) to a more purely cinematic form (to be clear, by that I mean a state that can only be achieved in the medium of motion pictures and sound - not through a book or through a play. A good example is Playtime, which was filmed in 70mm yet featured infinite focus throughout - trying writing that into a script, it's impossible). Of course, shallow focus is just as important a device. I do think sometimes it reduces the mise-en-scene to - foreground/actor and background/bokeh. And in doing so, it becomes more "theatrical" than "cinematic". To be fair, 99% cinema is such anyway, driven completely by the script, and shallow focus is an important tool to manipulate the audience's eye trace and subsequently, attention.
 
Karim D. Ghantous said:
That's what I'm saying. 'Cinematic feel/look' is a meaningless term. Whoever says that shallow DOF is a necessary component of the 'cinematic look' (whatever the hell that is) is full of shit.
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Karim while i agree that by definition the term means little but on the other hand it means everything.its something that is present when it is present and not present when its not. As for the wide-open shooting concept that David was refering to
I get, to a certin extent the definition of cinematography is partly to drive the viewers eyes to what the director/writer emphasis is in the story, Dof helps in this task, not to menton, the eye candy one gets such as flares.
I think insulting someone you dont personally know is in poor taste. Davids body of work will put him in a small room of great film makers at the end of the day. imho
 
4k AMC List, GWDT 4k SF Bay Area

4k AMC List, GWDT 4k SF Bay Area

Found this list of AMC theaters with Sony 4k projectors:

http://pro.sony.com/bbsc/ssr/mkt-di...t-digicinema-solutions-amcentertainment.shtml

I called Bay Street 16 in Emeryville, CA. First surprise: a live person answered the phone. Nicest surprise: he said all three theaters screening GWDT are showing it in 4K! Would be nice to get confirmation from someone who has seen it there.


PS: Why are people arguing so passionately about a second-hand quote that was lifted out of context? Let it go, and let the work speak for itself.
 
Christian Munoz D said:
Any 4k in Philly? I will be there for the weekend, So better chance to find a 4k theater than in middle of the mountains in New England.
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Sorry if this was already answered, but I know that AMC Neshaminy has a 4K Sony in almost every theatre. Unfortunately, I went to hamilton expecting it to be the same and to see a later showing and I saw a film print. I have to go to Neshaminy soon and hopefully see 4K.
 
in LA most of the theaters AMC, Arclight have 4k projectors installed and it's showing in 4k and looks great. However the real question is, which theater has a 4k DCI? Most have a 2K DCI and projectionists say that it's the cleanest 2k. Most of the theater people when calling wouldnt know about the dci unless u can speak to a projectionist. If someone knows a theater in LA that has not only a 4k projector but 4k dci pls share.
 
It's on general release in the UK on the 26th. I know a lot of the VUE cinemas have 4K projectors but will check before i go.
 
Film was great. So great I didn't really even think about how it looked after about the first 10 minutes.
 
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