Just saw CHE in Cannes today at the Salle du Soixantieme, I'm going to attempt to sum up what I saw as far as the cinematography and image quality are concerned. I'm probably forgetting some things but I'd be happy to answer specific questions. I'm not going to go into the movie in detail... There are plenty of reviews already floating around.
I am a self confesed Red Uber-Fanboy, co-owner in camera #513, I tell most of the industry people that I meet how much I like shooting with the Red. I also have a feature film at Cannes in Official Selection this year ( I was the DP, shot anamorphic 35mm ). You can see a little of my work at www.mattuhry.com
OK. I hope everyone takes this in the right way. Perhaps it will partly explain what the poster known as film101 seems to be saying.
1st Part: The Argentine 2.35, shot mostly with anamorphic lenses.
I think that this was shot after the 2nd part, and it looked like SS was in much better control of the image and had a better idea of how to expose. The image looks great on the big screen, about like a clean 35mm print as far as noise and resolution. Impressive since with 2:1 and 'Scope lenses he's using a small part of the chip. Much of the film takes place in the Jungled mountains of Cuba and when the Fighters are in the shade and there is a patch of sun or sky in the background it looks very clipped at time, as also some flames and explosions ( during the daytime ) and tail lights of cars look clipped and a bit bad. In some places there motion looks slightly weird on pans, but I did not see much flagging, just kind of synthetic looking. In controlled situations, or at times that the light or lighting is working for SS and not against him it looks amazing. All in all pretty sucessful. A friend sitting next to me who works in audio post said "That was digital ?"
Part 2: Guerilla 1.85, spherical lenses
Perhaps this is what you would end up with if shot using a light meter, ignoring scopes. Exposing the video just like you would color negative and favoring overexposure quite a bit. In this section of the film there are many shots with offensively hard clipped highlights, I'm not nit picking, heavy clipping, over large areas, sky, ground, peoples faces. In a non sequitur cameo with Matt Damon he's wearing a bright white shirt and it's just a blob on the screen. I can't put any of this clipping down to filmmaker intention - it just looks like an unfortunate mistake. There were some scenes shot at golden hour and also interiors which looked magnificent.
There is markedly more resolution and almost unnoticeable noise in this part of the film. ( versus "the Argentine") At many times it seemed there was far too much depth of field and when the fighters are in the forest all the leaves are tack sharp even in the deep background and it's kind of distracting and looks bad HD shooting. A few places where SS takes a different approach look very good, like when the fighters go to a mountain village.
Summary:
I know I can get good results from my camera in similar situations, but it can take a bit of lighting to build up the foreground, which SS did not seem to be using much of at least in the day / forest scenes. There are well known and commonly practiced photographic solutions to most of what I found broken with how the film was shot. More dynamic range and a global shutter seem to be the elusive last pieces of the puzzle that hopefuly build 16 or Epic will adress. I'm sad to say, the "Guerilla" part of the film, being the first high profile project to be shot on the Red serves better to illustrate some of the pitfalls of shooting with the camera, rather than decisively putting it on a par with 35mm.
Matt Uhry
www.mattuhry.com
I am a self confesed Red Uber-Fanboy, co-owner in camera #513, I tell most of the industry people that I meet how much I like shooting with the Red. I also have a feature film at Cannes in Official Selection this year ( I was the DP, shot anamorphic 35mm ). You can see a little of my work at www.mattuhry.com
OK. I hope everyone takes this in the right way. Perhaps it will partly explain what the poster known as film101 seems to be saying.
1st Part: The Argentine 2.35, shot mostly with anamorphic lenses.
I think that this was shot after the 2nd part, and it looked like SS was in much better control of the image and had a better idea of how to expose. The image looks great on the big screen, about like a clean 35mm print as far as noise and resolution. Impressive since with 2:1 and 'Scope lenses he's using a small part of the chip. Much of the film takes place in the Jungled mountains of Cuba and when the Fighters are in the shade and there is a patch of sun or sky in the background it looks very clipped at time, as also some flames and explosions ( during the daytime ) and tail lights of cars look clipped and a bit bad. In some places there motion looks slightly weird on pans, but I did not see much flagging, just kind of synthetic looking. In controlled situations, or at times that the light or lighting is working for SS and not against him it looks amazing. All in all pretty sucessful. A friend sitting next to me who works in audio post said "That was digital ?"
Part 2: Guerilla 1.85, spherical lenses
Perhaps this is what you would end up with if shot using a light meter, ignoring scopes. Exposing the video just like you would color negative and favoring overexposure quite a bit. In this section of the film there are many shots with offensively hard clipped highlights, I'm not nit picking, heavy clipping, over large areas, sky, ground, peoples faces. In a non sequitur cameo with Matt Damon he's wearing a bright white shirt and it's just a blob on the screen. I can't put any of this clipping down to filmmaker intention - it just looks like an unfortunate mistake. There were some scenes shot at golden hour and also interiors which looked magnificent.
There is markedly more resolution and almost unnoticeable noise in this part of the film. ( versus "the Argentine") At many times it seemed there was far too much depth of field and when the fighters are in the forest all the leaves are tack sharp even in the deep background and it's kind of distracting and looks bad HD shooting. A few places where SS takes a different approach look very good, like when the fighters go to a mountain village.
Summary:
I know I can get good results from my camera in similar situations, but it can take a bit of lighting to build up the foreground, which SS did not seem to be using much of at least in the day / forest scenes. There are well known and commonly practiced photographic solutions to most of what I found broken with how the film was shot. More dynamic range and a global shutter seem to be the elusive last pieces of the puzzle that hopefuly build 16 or Epic will adress. I'm sad to say, the "Guerilla" part of the film, being the first high profile project to be shot on the Red serves better to illustrate some of the pitfalls of shooting with the camera, rather than decisively putting it on a par with 35mm.
Matt Uhry
www.mattuhry.com
