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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 :)

"Tinker Tailor" vs "Dragon Tattoo"

David Mullen ASC said:
I'll be sad when the day comes when the only look all movies have is a grain-free high-resolution digital image.
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I'm sure by that time complete film look emulation will be possible in every post suite. It's a matter of aesthetics, especially for the period pieces.
 
David Mullen ASC said:
I'll be sad when the day comes when the only look all movies have is a grain-free high-resolution digital image.
Click to expand...

Absolutely. However, I feel the whole grainy "film look" is just as hackneyed. Film grain is quite simply a defect in silver halide structure - there's nothing else to it. Yes, it works on many levels, due to nostalgic reasons - fair enough. But I hope there are new variations of image manipulations post-film era which distance themselves from both the "film look" and the pristine digital image. I hope that for achieving the "retro 70s" look more innovative techniques is used than simply "how films looked back then", i.e. grainy low contrast imagery. That said, I am a fan of Van Hoytema and while I haven't seen Tinker Tailor, from the trailer and being familiar with the source narrative, I do feel the look does work much better than a grain-free digital image would, in this case. I am just not convinced it is the ideal technique.
 
I don't like the idea of using superficiality to create mood. I mean, hell, I suppose anything visual can be thought of as superficial, but you know what I mean. Or not! Anyway, I think that lighting (and camera work, and perspective, and pacing, and clothing...) is the best way to create mood. When I saw the opening titles to Hulk (Comic Sans? Really?) I just shook my head. To hell with graininess or heavy-handed grading ("we do it simply because we can, sucker!"). At any rate, I look forward to seeing TTSS.

Film grain does have an appeal in certain contexts, so it is not just about nostalgia (if at all - I mean, who wants to go back to the days when unimaginative wedding photographers used soft-focus filters?). It works beautifully in still imagery - some slide films had very nice grain.
 
One Sony 4k projector in Australia. I wonder if they're actually screening anything in 4k?
 
David Mullen ASC said:
I'll be sad when the day comes when the only look all movies have is a grain-free high-resolution digital image.
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See, I will actually be happy when every film is clean, digital and 4K. I love the 4K digital cinema look. LOVE IT! I don't have any attachment to film at all. All film means to me is grain, jittery-ness, scratches, flaws, etc.

I've already become such a snob, I usually will not even watch movies unless they are 1080p.
 
Tom Lowe said:
See, I will actually be happy when every film is clean, digital and 4K. I love the 4K digital cinema look. LOVE IT! I don't have any attachment to film at all. All film means to me is grain, jittery-ness, scratches, flaws, etc.

I've already become such a snob, I usually will not even watch movies unless they are 1080p.
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That's an interesting take. I've never seen an all digital film that i thought had the same color tonality and visual appeal than that of its film counterpart. And I wish I could say different believe me. I still hear everyone longing to make digital look like film, not the other way around. It will be interesting to see how many people agree with you in the next few years, Tom. Of course, reduser is a bit biased to be having this conversation :)
 
Well, my statement above is not entirely correct. I do know that film's dynamic range is better than digital, at least for now, but all the other benefits of digital, especially the lack of grain and jittery-ness, far outweigh the small DR advantages of film, at least for me.

Like I said, I LOVE digital, especially 4K digital.
 
I've seen some pretty jittery 35mm prints in theaters, certainly in the last few years. When they maintain the projectors, it's not so bad. But when you see digital projected next to the same image on film, side by side, it's pretty appalling how much jitter and weave are in an average film print. Image steadiness is not one of film's strongest points.
 
Craig W. Bickerstaff said:
Tom, what movies have you been watching, that are so jittery that it's even noticeable?
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Every film print I have seen in the last year has appeared soft and jittery compared to digital. It's a mathematical certainty that film prints will be softer and more jittery than digital, due to the nature of those two technologies. The last really good film print I was probably "Inception."
 
The film projectors at Imax theaters are maintained pretty well, and I think the registration is better in terms of weave and jitter. The film prints I saw on Chris Nolan's The Dark Knight were pretty remarkable -- stunningly sharp and clear, particularly the scenes actually shot in Imax.

But realistically, I think the number of films that can actually afford to shoot in Imax are incredibly small. The sheer size of the camera and the noise problems, along with the extreme cost of shooting 65mm, are fairly tough, impractical things to deal with. I didn't get a chance to see the recent Mission:Impossible film in Imax, but I don't doubt it looked great -- and was very steady.

SMPTE did a demo some years back showing a very good D.I. print on a registered film projector (which are rare), side by side with a then-state-of-the-art DLP projector. Even then, the film print wasn't too steady, plus the corner-to-corner focus wasn't as good as the digital image. I think the color was better in the film print, but the other factors were very sobering to the audience, which was primarily film people. The jitter problems alone tend to reduce the apparent sharpness of the film print, which is a big problem.
 
Tom Lowe said:
The last really good film print I was probably "Inception."
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+1 to that! Inception looked amazing and so did Batman.

But what blew me away was when I purchased the BLUE-RAY for both of these films and projected it at our home cinema, Faaaaaarrrrrkkkkk... talk about amazing quality. Way sharper and cleaner than the cinemas...

Seriously though, 4k projection makes blue ray HD look like DVD... I cannot wait for true 4k home projection.
 
It all depends I guess, upon how you want your audience to experience your film. Is to be a film going experience in which you concede that the audience is mindful of the fact that they are watching a film (Partial suspension of disbelief), or do you aim to transport them to a time (Full suspension of disbelief)? In the former you want your film to be accepted as a product of the time in which it is set. For that you have to consider the historical facts and emulate what films of the period looked like. How else would you propose to do that short of shooting on the actual stock of the time? Are you really saying that there should be a better way to do that, or are you simply stating that you, as a member of an audience, prefer full immersion? Are you observing that stock emulation has been poorly done?

Subhadip Sen said:
Absolutely. However, I feel the whole grainy "film look" is just as hackneyed. Film grain is quite simply a defect in silver halide structure - there's nothing else to it. Yes, it works on many levels, due to nostalgic reasons - fair enough. But I hope there are new variations of image manipulations post-film era which distance themselves from both the "film look" and the pristine digital image. I hope that for achieving the "retro 70s" look more innovative techniques is used than simply "how films looked back then", i.e. grainy low contrast imagery. That said, I am a fan of Van Hoytema and while I haven't seen Tinker Tailor, from the trailer and being familiar with the source narrative, I do feel the look does work much better than a grain-free digital image would, in this case. I am just not convinced it is the ideal technique.
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Scott Crawley said:
It all depends I guess, upon how you want your audience to experience your film. Is to be a film going experience in which you concede that the audience is mindful of the fact that they are watching a film (Partial suspension of disbelief), or do you aim to transport them to a time (Full suspension of disbelief)?
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In the long run, I think it doesn't matter. I think content trumps everything. In a world where the Paranormal movies are making over $200 million every time they get released, and look worse than any home movie, I'm not sure the audience cares nearly as much about the look for a lot of films. I wish this were not true.
 
Tom Lowe said:
Every film print I have seen in the last year has appeared soft and jittery compared to digital. It's a mathematical certainty that film prints will be softer and more jittery than digital, due to the nature of those two technologies. The last really good film print I was probably "Inception."
Click to expand...

They did shoot some of Inception on 65mm...so that probably helped the film projection.
 
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