Video - why don't movies look like movies anymore?

[Karim D. Ghantous]

Some trends are just wanky. They are obviously so and don't need hindsight. Like, underexposure even seeped into commercial photography for a while, which is ridiculous, because people need to see the product. A wedding couple doesn't care about your trend signalling to other photographers - they want their wedding photos in focus.

I just rewatched The Lord of the Rings (2000) trailer. It looked good. No obvious affectations. It sold tickets. ;-)

 

[Jon Pais]

Colorists are trained to handle colors as those should be. The first cut the colorist does is always good. Then comes the DP and other folks, who start spoiling the colors. So far so good. Then comes finally the studio guys, they handout the pdfs, the colors should look like that. I have seen that happening with movies, commercials etc when it looks like the forced look or over-use of luts. If you look at small budget pieces, those still look great where the cinematographer and director are completely in sync with colorist.

In addition to the simple fact that HDR actually enhances contrast, off the top of my head, I can name well over a half dozen streamed movies/episodic TV shows that have been released over the past few years with wonderfully strong contrast that disprove Tomasso’s contention that HDR is responsible for the “grey, sludgy look” of many of today’s movies. That kind of look is the result of lighting and grading decisions, not HDR. Would you be so kind as to similarly back up your claims by providing the titles of a half dozen or so streamed movies, preferably HDR, where the first cut was beautiful but was later ruined by the DP & “other folks”? Statements by 6 or so renowned colorists whose work on a streamed movie or series was damaged in this way will suffice.

Here’s an example by Swiss cinematographer Thomas Hardmeier, who complained that the director was the one who made most of the decisions about how the movie No Limit ought to look. The thing is, for the most part, the grade looks just fine to me; and TBH I’m not particularly fond of the look of Hardmeier’s other work, where he evidently did have input!

« SOUS EMPRISE » (aka NO LIMIT) directed by DAVID M. ROSENTHAL

produced by:	Nolita Cinema – Romain Rousseau+Maxime Delauney Versus Production – Liège Mely Productions – Mélanie Laurent
starring:	Camille Rowe, Sofiane Zermani, César Domboy, Zacharie Chasseriaud etc
worldwide on Netflix:	9th of september 2022

NOTE ON THE COLORS OF THIS FILM:

The grading of this film is signed by the director alone. Me being filming in Cairo during this period, I was able to make my suggestions how to improve the images remotely during the grading period. But since the director believes that it’s up to him alone (and not in agreement with the DOP) to decide on the final grading, he generally did not listen to my suggestions. A new experience for me.