Why 4K?

[Stephen Williams]

LOL, right on Tom.

I fail to see how shooting 35mm has anything to do with controlling or stopping someone from reframing your shots. If you want to control reframing, you have to maintain control, period. Any time there is ample image to work with, it can be re-framed. And in most cases, I would say shooting 35mm would give the most opportunity to re-frame and would be superior in such an advantage (or disadvantage).

I was talking about a photochemical finish, reframing costs money & quality.
35mm anamorphic photography has no 'look around' so only tightening would be possible.

 

[Jeff Coatney]

I really wish our most experienced DP's would take up the challenge of refining these nascent camera systems. I understand the reluctance, I really do, but the future is knocking at the door. If not you, who? If not now, when?

 

[Todd M.]

I really wish our most experienced DP's would take up the challenge of refining these nascent camera systems. I understand the reluctance, I really do, but the future is knocking at the door. If not you, who? If not now, when?

I think they are by participating here. :beer:

 

[Michael Hastings]

I really wish our most experienced DP's would take up the challenge of refining these nascent camera systems. I understand the reluctance, I really do, but the future is knocking at the door. If not you, who? If not now, when?

Problem is the most experienced DPs tend to be working on high level, high pressure projects. High pressure dictates that you minimize the variables. So the answer of who? is the indies and documentarians and low/mid level music videos where the downside isn't so great. Once it's proven in those situations, higher pressure shoots can start to use it.

 

[Ben Coleman]

We encourage you to consider the future possibilities of what your footage can be used for when making a camera selection. Why would you shoot SD now? If 4K delivery is the future, why would you shoot 1080P and limit future options?

Jim

Those have been my exact thoughts for years! Why just "make do" when you can "blow away".

 

[Fredrik Callinggard]

Problem is the most experienced DPs tend to be working on high level, high pressure projects. High pressure dictates that you minimize the variables. So the answer of who? is the indies and documentarians and low/mid level music videos where the downside isn't so great. Once it's proven in those situations, higher pressure shoots can start to use it.

I choose my format accordingly to circumstances. Best tool for the best job. I own RED's and I don't mind shooting with them, but I'm realistic and they're tools. I find myself shooting 50/50 between RED and 35mm. As for the other digital cameras - I'm not shooting them since they would be a rental and I have a digital format at my disposal already. If I didn't I would fish around for the best, cheapest and most logical solution for my production.

As for 4K or not. Film is a medium of the presence. It's all about now and not the future. Everything in your film will look out dated sooner or later so the "high end" productions don't really pay attention to what will be 5-10 years from now, it's irrelevant. It's about now.

So the discussion is if 4K is the medium for you to buy, as a private person. The high end productions (most of the time) rent anyway, so they're on a day by day basis.

Secondly is we have to evaluate when 4K will be truly important for final output. Especially now that RED has shown us that the shelf life of digital cameras (for now) has a shelf life of about 2 years. Edit: with that I mean if a 1080p camera that looks as good as RED will last you 2 years and then it's time to upgrade... what has happened during those 2 years? Is 4K the output 2 years from now?

 

[David Mullen ASC]

I really wish our most experienced DP's would take up the challenge of refining these nascent camera systems. I understand the reluctance, I really do, but the future is knocking at the door. If not you, who? If not now, when?

Yet sometimes when these experienced DP's raise their concerns, they are called naysayers, non-believers, luddites, too critical, etc. Yet five years later, most of their complaints are considered common-knowledge...

I think a lot of this comes down to whether you, as a filmmaker, are more results-oriented or more process-oriented. If you only care about results, the impulse is to use what you know works well so you don't have to think too much about the process. The technology is only a means to an end; there is no intrinsic value in using something just because it is newer.

If you are process-oriented, then you get into the small details of making something new work for you, you like working with cutting-edge technology even when the results might not be as predictable.

I'm with Stephen -- I know that if I go out and shoot in 4-perf 35mm anamorphic, light and expose the scene properly, I will get a gorgeous negative that will make a great contact print. It's hard to forget that when trying out these other formats...

 

[David Battistella]

I'm with Stephen -- I know that if I go out and shoot in 4-perf 35mm anamorphic, light and expose the scene properly, I will get a gorgeous negative that will make a great contact print. It's hard to forget that when trying out these other formats...

If I might add....

with a complete, tried and true, consistent image science, post production pipe-line, and an achival quality that is considered to be between 100-500 years depending on who you talk to.

I had a friend raise the concern that when the "digital age" is all said and done, we may have no real archive of it's existence.

A few years back I worked on a series that documented the history of filmed NEWS. It was a strange experience because as we go closer to modern times the quality of the images got worse and worse.

Starting with 35mm films by the Lumierre brothers, to edison films, to the 16mm second world war films, to color footage of vietnam, to early video tape to "second stage" video tape eventually getting to the point where events like Tiananmen square were only preserved on grainy 3/4 inch video tape, with no opportunity of improving the image quality.

It is fantastic that we have RAW and a high resulotion digital format, but it was amazing that the best images in our show were the earliest "news reels" shot in 35mm, which when cleaned and transfered posed an interesting question which was counter to what we were used to seeing and consuming because, "old footage was supposed to look awful".

In this case the "oldest" footage looked the best. So it was the reverse of what we were used to, we assumed that the earliest films would look worse than 16mm, but it was all shot on 35mm a great testament to it's archival quality.

david

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

Problem is the most experienced DPs tend to be working on high level, high pressure projects. High pressure dictates that you minimize the variables. So the answer of who? is the indies and documentarians and low/mid level music videos where the downside isn't so great. Once it's proven in those situations, higher pressure shoots can start to use it.

There's also side-tests. I've been beta testing a piece of software for almost 24 months straight now working through bugs 1 by 1, reporting them. Finding work arounds. Changing procedures. I'm working with another piece of software that I've only started using seriously in production yesterday that has taken about 12 months to come to grips with. I'm sure that the work I've put into both will benefit indies and professionals alike since everybody usually has at same at least basic demands.

So while maybe experienced DPs might not be using RED on high profile projects that doesn't mean they aren't slowly developing a working understanding behind the scenes.

Like software I suspect RED will mostly slip in invisibly. As each DP's needs and concerns are addressed by hardware or workflow resolutions they'll start trusting it.

DIs sort of followed this route. Maybe use a DI on a 30s TV spot initially before risking it on a big project. Or maybe use it on a smaller indie project that offered them more freedom before pushing for it on a big blockbuster. Now it's almost the default workflow.

Personally how fast I adopt something is in how much better it is than what I already have. If it's a huge improvement in some way but unreliable then I'll still often give it a try. If it's only a marginal improvement then I wait. I think a lot of DPs are so happy with what they already have that it's a difficult sell to rush into something which can only burn them and offer marginal benefits. Whereas someone like myself who can't afford to shoot and process 35mm for personal projects sees RED as a vast improvement over my alternatives and would use it even if I had to keep it submerged in some sort of mineral oil bath to keep it cool.

 

[Steven Caesare]

Which makes producers & accountants very happy.

Which is not necessarily mutually exclusive to making DoP's and Directors happy, no?

 

[Steven Caesare]

I am the author of the image, I don't need or want any help with reframing. I also don't wish to light it flat, I don't want to change the look later. I know how to light & expose to get what I want.

Shooting 35mm Anamorphic with a photochemical finish would be my first choice, because I have the greatest control over the outcome.

What is to point of having a DOP if your going to change everything later?

But surely that's not something only to be concerned about with high-resolution digital acquistion, no?

Would you object to shooting 65mm because re-framing was possible?

Would you object to a chemical process becasue a bleach bypass might be done?

Would you object to shooting any given aspect ratio because it might later on be matted?


Indeed, it seems you object to manipulation of your creative work, which is certainly understandable. But why do you ostensibly lay that at the feet of 4-5k digital as on objection, when it it could just as easily be on objection to film or other processes?

 

[Stuart English]

4K digital

4K digital

Indeed, it seems you object to manipulation of your creative work, which is certainly understandable.

But why do you ostensibly lay that at the feet of 4-5k digital as on objection, when it it could just as easily be on objection to film or other processes?

Precisely my question, nothing to do with whether film is good and has an established workflow (it is and it does)

But the opportunity for re-framing being raised as an objection against shooting in digital 4K does puzzle me.

 

[Steven Caesare]

Precisely my question, nothing to do with whether film is good and has an established workflow (it is and it does)

But the opportunity for re-framing being raised as an objection against shooting in digital 4K does puzzle me.

Sadly, I expect Stephen will not see my questions, as he stated he chose to block me in another thread when I pointed out similar passive-aggressive inconsistencies. (altho I do note he subsequently replied to one of my posts anyway).

-sc

 

[David Battistella]

Precisely my question, nothing to do with whether film is good and has an established workflow (it is and it does)

But the opportunity for re-framing being raised as an objection against shooting in digital 4K does puzzle me.

Yeah.

Would a digital photographer who takes the image all the way through post (which is soon to be the norm in film IMHO) make that person less of an artist with light.

Part of the Digital film advancement is the ability to have critical control over the images color, contrast, look, wnhanced lighting, etc. Maybe more so and in a more personal way that film could ever afford.

Photoshop has come to filmmaking, not an image we see will not have major retouching so why insist on the fact that raw film and lighting is some puritan way of controlling the image. It's totally acceptable to light well and enhance the image. Whether or not you have a contractual obligation to do so is a different story.

It's an interesting conversation that I had just last week discussing how much control a DOP has over the image with a digital workflow. The colorist is is the DP's best friend and the communication and collabaration between the two needs to be an important component of production.



David

 

[David Mullen ASC]

Anything can be reframed, film or digital, it's just that with photochemical limitations, it would involve using an optical printer and making dupes, and with the lack of extra space outside the frame in 35mm anamorphic, there was not much reframing possibilities that would not look like crap once cropped, blown-up, duped, etc.

But even in a D.I. environment, there is less flexibility in reframing an anamorphic image compared to Super-35. As a DP, that's mostly a good thing -- I love composing a shot and I hate seeing that careful composition junked in post by someone thinking that what I'm shooting is only fodder to be creatively redesigned and reimagined (sometimes by people without much compositional sense.)

 

[Mike Gross]

As a DP, that's mostly a good thing

True and that's a good thing sometimes but there's more and more talk about controlling/protecting the DPs vision from the Directors/Producers. I've seen that kind polarizing attitude do damage to people careers very quickly. It's disappointing that we as DPs forget that film making is a collaborative process and that DPs while shouldering a big responsibility, do so at a lesser extent to the guys with bigger skin in the game.

Now if an editor fu*ks with my images, then it's war.
:devil:

 

[Rick Presas]

The thing is, (unless you wrote, produced, financed, directed, shot AND edited the beast) even though they are your pictures, they're part of someone else's movie.

Ultimately it comes down to what the owner of the movie (the person who paid for it, or the person that THAT guy put in charge) decides. Final cut approval goes to the person in charge.

Remember, as a DP you get paid to give the owner of the movie a picture that satisfies him/her/them. If what they want changes, they have every right to tell the editor to reframe.

Either you get (someone else's) money, or you get to keep creative control. You rarely get both.

Mind you, this is just my humble opinion. there are people here far more experienced than I am in the realm of filmmaking.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

That's not an argument for artistic integrity of the images though, just a business argument.

I believe in France, there was a court case that said that just because you paid for a work of art, that doesn't give you the right to cut it up into new shapes. Because that's the problem with the whole "it's my money I can do what I want with it" argument -- who is to stop you from buying a Rembrandt and deciding that it needs to be "reframed" with a chainsaw?

I know in filmmaking it's a grey area, but from an Art-with-a-Capital-A standpoint, there is a tendency for endless reframing in post to dilute the artistic integrity of the image because there are too many cooks, no singular vision.

Art is about making personal choices, right or wrong, not about revisiting decisions over and over again because you never have to commit. And it's rarely created by committee.

I understand the practical reasons that sometimes it is necessary to reframe a shot in post, I'm not unrealistic... but when you look at the greatest cinematic compositions in history, the majority were generally carefully composed on the set by the cameraman and director, and they have the "weight" of that careful consideration that went into deciding the frame. You see that in many movies shot by Gordon Willis, that precision of framing.

 

[Mark L. Pederson]

This thread took a slight left turn.

Just so everyone is clear ... you CAN shoot 4K and NOT reframe in post. We actually see very, very little reframing in our DIs - and many times NONE until the 4:3 Pan & Scan. And when it's time for the Pan & Scan ... boy is it nice to have 4K and the DPs appreciate it!

And I know Stephen ... I too long for the day we never deliver the butchered 4:3 Pan & Scan'd versions.

 

[Steve Sherrick]

I know in filmmaking it's a grey area, but from an Art-with-a-Capital-A standpoint, there is a tendency for endless reframing in post to dilute the artistic integrity of the image because there are too many cooks, no singular vision.

A grey area to say the least. In commercials, it happens all of the time. Can't tell you how many I've been on where I here the words reframe it in post come up. But it's happening in films too. Coppola and Murch did it in Youth Without Youth and Francis seems intent on doing it in the future too. And that was at 1080. Imagine what they'll do with 4K and beyond. High resolution digital images open up all kinds of possibilities for manipulation. Just think about not only the composition of your shots getting messed with, but things in the frame being completely removed and replaced. That too could mess with artistic intent of the DP if that thing being removed was part of the composition. But at the end of the day, business is business and those who control the project will decide things. Sometimes we take two steps forward and one step back.