"The Dark Knight" director/cinematographer team Christopher Nolan and Wally Pfister are well known for their insistence on a traditional photochemical finish for their collaborations. And watching their films in a theater, it's hard not to see their point. "Batman Begins," "The Prestige" and "The Dark Knight" all had unbelievable clarity and depth. I have nothing against the DI process, but it does seem to result in a slightly flatter look when compared with a traditional finish.
"The Dark Knight" had a hybrid workflow; from what I understand, the IMAX shots were scanned digitally for the 35mm prints. Editor Lee Smith then selected the part of the frame that would appear in 2.40:1 on the 35mm prints. Those sections were then filmed-out and cut in with the anamorphic 35mm negative.
On IMAX prints, the process was backwards. The 35mm portions were up-scaled digitally using IMAX's amazing proprietary system. Those were then cut together with IMAX camera negative for the large format sequences.
How cool is that!! Here is an interesting article from Avid detailing the challenges facing the editing team.
Editing The Dark Knight on Avid
Monday, October 27, 2008
Friday, October 24, 2008
To DI or not to DI...
Bill and I are getting ready to post our latest collaboration. We shot on Super 16 (on 7201, 7205 and 7218) and pull processed most of our footage. Both of us like the increase in latitude and soft colors that it yields. In our initial tests, it also seemed to result in slightly tighter grain.
We're doing a few comparison tests over the next few weeks to decide whether to do a full 2K DI, an HDCAM-SR finish (then transfer to film), or to do a traditional optical blowup. Luckily, Bill shot the film in a way that keeps our options somewhat open. He didn't leave a bunch of stuff to be done in post.
One thing I really love about the newer 16mm filmstocks is that they can yield a look somewhat similar to old filmstocks of the 60's and 70's. The Vision 2 35mm stocks are so amazingly clean and sharp and grain free...which is nice, but I'm fond of a grubbier look now and then.
Our first film together as a director/D.P. team was shot in SD video on the ol' Panasonic DVX100. Although I definitely prefer working on film, with our first project that was not a possibility. It was a "work with what you go" type of situation. (As it always is, I suppose).
-Dave Boyle
We're doing a few comparison tests over the next few weeks to decide whether to do a full 2K DI, an HDCAM-SR finish (then transfer to film), or to do a traditional optical blowup. Luckily, Bill shot the film in a way that keeps our options somewhat open. He didn't leave a bunch of stuff to be done in post.
One thing I really love about the newer 16mm filmstocks is that they can yield a look somewhat similar to old filmstocks of the 60's and 70's. The Vision 2 35mm stocks are so amazingly clean and sharp and grain free...which is nice, but I'm fond of a grubbier look now and then.
Our first film together as a director/D.P. team was shot in SD video on the ol' Panasonic DVX100. Although I definitely prefer working on film, with our first project that was not a possibility. It was a "work with what you go" type of situation. (As it always is, I suppose).
-Dave Boyle
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Gigantic Digital Launches Online Cinema/Wayne Wang and Youtube
2008 seems to be a watershed year for internet distribution. Watching the growing pains of VOD/streaming video is very exciting.
Gigantic has been around for a little while, both in the music and movie business. Gigantic Releasing just launched a digital arm called Gigantic Digital.
For $2.99, you can rent one of their streaming movies for a 3 day window. Price wise, that's not bad compared with iTunes (which usually has a 24 hour window). Plus, they refer to it as a "ticket," which is kinda cool because you feel like you're going to the cinema. Sort of. Still, its a nice idea.
David Kaplan's rotoscope animated fantasy Year of the Fish is one of the first offerings on the site. I saw the film last year at AFI Dallas, and wanted to check it out again. I was struck by the high quality of the streaming video; I didn't notice any compression artifacts that distracted from the viewing experience. Nor were there many "hiccups" due to slow buffering. You can even select a full-screen option that fills your whole monitor. The image quality was totally acceptable--not all that much different from a DVD. Overall, the best digital streaming experience I've had yet.
Peter Knegt at IndieWire reported the launch of the new site this morning (which is how I came across it). Check out his coverage.
"The Princess of Nebraska" by Wayne Wang recently made a big splash when it debuted exclusively on YouTube. I haven't had a chance to watch the whole thing, but in the first few minutes I was distracted by the poor video quality (especially now having checked out Gigantic's site). Even in full-screen, high quality mode, the image was so chunky and pixellated that I had a hard time getting into it. Still, Wayne Wang is the man and I've always liked his work.
Broadcasting indie films via the internet is still very much in its infancy. Companies like Cinetic Rights Management are making heroic efforts to solve the two puzzles facing us:
1- How do we make sustainable income from this distribution model?
It's not clear if "Princess of Nebraska" has some kind of ad revenue deal with You Tube. Other sites do pick up some money from pop up ads or commercials...but movies are expensive, and no one knows when this will turn into a viable source of income.
I think that the $ issue can be solved once we figure out the answer to...
2- When are we going to be able to stream from our computers directly to our TV sets?
(Okay, so maybe this isn't one of the issues filmmakers think about...but I think this is a big one!)
In all honesty, who really likes to sit at their desk and watch a movie on their desktop computer? I do it only when I have to; my flat screen TV offers a much better viewing experience, as well as the ability to recline on the couch. Game over.
Thus far, Netflix has developed some kind of cable box to access their streaming VOD library, and Apple has something called Apple TV (imaginative name). Neither seems to have really caught on, by which I mean that nobody I know has either. Until the accessories necessary to hook up your Mac/PC to a REAL television become either affordable or built-in, I don't think streaming video will really take off as a major earning source for filmmakers.
There are tons of other issues that I haven't even touched. The Web as it currently exists was never meant to support something as complex as video transmission. Perhaps the next generation of "The Internet" will hold the key to many of our problems.
In time, these issues will get sorted out. "The Princess of Nebraska" was definitely a landmark event, but from the outside its difficult to tell how it really benefited the filmmakers. Getting an audience is great (200,000 views over the weekend from what I hear), but filmmakers have to pay the bills too.
-Boyle
Gigantic has been around for a little while, both in the music and movie business. Gigantic Releasing just launched a digital arm called Gigantic Digital.
For $2.99, you can rent one of their streaming movies for a 3 day window. Price wise, that's not bad compared with iTunes (which usually has a 24 hour window). Plus, they refer to it as a "ticket," which is kinda cool because you feel like you're going to the cinema. Sort of. Still, its a nice idea.
David Kaplan's rotoscope animated fantasy Year of the Fish is one of the first offerings on the site. I saw the film last year at AFI Dallas, and wanted to check it out again. I was struck by the high quality of the streaming video; I didn't notice any compression artifacts that distracted from the viewing experience. Nor were there many "hiccups" due to slow buffering. You can even select a full-screen option that fills your whole monitor. The image quality was totally acceptable--not all that much different from a DVD. Overall, the best digital streaming experience I've had yet.
Peter Knegt at IndieWire reported the launch of the new site this morning (which is how I came across it). Check out his coverage.
"The Princess of Nebraska" by Wayne Wang recently made a big splash when it debuted exclusively on YouTube. I haven't had a chance to watch the whole thing, but in the first few minutes I was distracted by the poor video quality (especially now having checked out Gigantic's site). Even in full-screen, high quality mode, the image was so chunky and pixellated that I had a hard time getting into it. Still, Wayne Wang is the man and I've always liked his work.
Broadcasting indie films via the internet is still very much in its infancy. Companies like Cinetic Rights Management are making heroic efforts to solve the two puzzles facing us:
1- How do we make sustainable income from this distribution model?
It's not clear if "Princess of Nebraska" has some kind of ad revenue deal with You Tube. Other sites do pick up some money from pop up ads or commercials...but movies are expensive, and no one knows when this will turn into a viable source of income.
I think that the $ issue can be solved once we figure out the answer to...
2- When are we going to be able to stream from our computers directly to our TV sets?
(Okay, so maybe this isn't one of the issues filmmakers think about...but I think this is a big one!)
In all honesty, who really likes to sit at their desk and watch a movie on their desktop computer? I do it only when I have to; my flat screen TV offers a much better viewing experience, as well as the ability to recline on the couch. Game over.
Thus far, Netflix has developed some kind of cable box to access their streaming VOD library, and Apple has something called Apple TV (imaginative name). Neither seems to have really caught on, by which I mean that nobody I know has either. Until the accessories necessary to hook up your Mac/PC to a REAL television become either affordable or built-in, I don't think streaming video will really take off as a major earning source for filmmakers.
There are tons of other issues that I haven't even touched. The Web as it currently exists was never meant to support something as complex as video transmission. Perhaps the next generation of "The Internet" will hold the key to many of our problems.
In time, these issues will get sorted out. "The Princess of Nebraska" was definitely a landmark event, but from the outside its difficult to tell how it really benefited the filmmakers. Getting an audience is great (200,000 views over the weekend from what I hear), but filmmakers have to pay the bills too.
-Boyle
"Appaloosa"
"Appaloosa" is a very good western directed by Ed Harris and shot by Dean Semler (ASC and ACS). Harris and co-star Viggo Mortensen are great fun to watch in the lead roles as a pair of gunslingers who freelance as lawmen in the old west.
The gunfights are short and sweet; Harris does for the gunfight what Takeshi Kitano did for the swordfight in "Zatoichi (2004)".
Dean Semler was one of the few DP's to often shoot on the ASA 800 speed Kodak stock (since discontinued), and has become one of the higher profile proponents of digital cameras in recent years. He shot most of both "Apocalypto" and "Get Smart" using the Panavision Genesis camera. He frequently uses different shutter angles and other tricks in order to shoot in low light conditions. In both of those films, I was annoyed by the smearing effect caused by the shutter angle ("21", shot by Russell Carpenter, exhibited many of the same artifacts). Most audience members don't get bothered by these aberrations, but they stand out like a sore thumb to me. It makes me feel as though I'm watching a cheesy reenactment on the History Channel; the film looks like interlaced video, especially when there is movement in the frame.
"Appaloosa" was shot on film, so I guess the above tangent was somewhat irrelevant. It could have been the print I viewed, but the film looked a little soft and had some distracting grain in some shots. Still, it's a wonderful film. And I loved the shot of the cougar.
-Dave Boyle
The gunfights are short and sweet; Harris does for the gunfight what Takeshi Kitano did for the swordfight in "Zatoichi (2004)".
Dean Semler was one of the few DP's to often shoot on the ASA 800 speed Kodak stock (since discontinued), and has become one of the higher profile proponents of digital cameras in recent years. He shot most of both "Apocalypto" and "Get Smart" using the Panavision Genesis camera. He frequently uses different shutter angles and other tricks in order to shoot in low light conditions. In both of those films, I was annoyed by the smearing effect caused by the shutter angle ("21", shot by Russell Carpenter, exhibited many of the same artifacts). Most audience members don't get bothered by these aberrations, but they stand out like a sore thumb to me. It makes me feel as though I'm watching a cheesy reenactment on the History Channel; the film looks like interlaced video, especially when there is movement in the frame.
"Appaloosa" was shot on film, so I guess the above tangent was somewhat irrelevant. It could have been the print I viewed, but the film looked a little soft and had some distracting grain in some shots. Still, it's a wonderful film. And I loved the shot of the cougar.
-Dave Boyle
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Alexander Witt on "Body of Lies"
Ridley Scott's new movie "Body of Lies" was based on a book that I really enjoyed. The book was smart, terse, and very dry. All of the explosions were "off-screen," so to speak.
The movie version has an explosion about every 10 minutes. I doubt many will complain, but it wasn't really my cup of tea.
HOWEVER...one really cool aspect of the production was that Scott promoted 2nd unit DP Alexander Witt to head DP for the movie. It's always touching when top filmmakers promote within the ranks. American Cinematographer featured the movie in the October issue:
Body of Lies--AC October '08
-Dave Boyle
The movie version has an explosion about every 10 minutes. I doubt many will complain, but it wasn't really my cup of tea.
HOWEVER...one really cool aspect of the production was that Scott promoted 2nd unit DP Alexander Witt to head DP for the movie. It's always touching when top filmmakers promote within the ranks. American Cinematographer featured the movie in the October issue:
Body of Lies--AC October '08
-Dave Boyle
Monday, October 20, 2008
"Rachel Getting Married"
Jonathan Demme has always been a huge inspiration to me. I read somewhere that when Orion was getting ready to make "Silence of the Lambs," and Demme's name came up, nobody (including Demme himself) believed he was the right guy for the job. Of course, that ended up being a huge success and swept the Academy Awards.
The versatility he's shown in his career, whether directing documentaries (like "Cousin Bobby") or breezy comedies (like "Married to the Mob") is really breathtaking. I even like his misfires, such as "The Truth about Charlie." He's always got something interesting going on, even when the movie itself doesn't entirely gel.
I recently saw "Rachel Getting Married," and he's really at the top of his game. It's a great movie by any standard. And yeah, it was shot on digital.
The thing that I really liked about "Rachel" was that the choice to shoot on digital really helped to tell the story. It was the rare case of a digital movie that I didn't wish had been shot on film. I felt like I was watching a real documentary, or somebody's wedding video (albeit a very well shot wedding video). Roger Ebert wrote a nice review that also comments on the film's wonderful "post race" mindset: Rachel Getting Married Ebert Review
One thing I've always liked about Demme is that he usually works with his good friend Tak Fujimoto. Long term director/D.P. collaborations give me warm and fuzzy feelings. This time out, Declan Quinn fills in (though I see from his imdb page that he's worked with Demme before on some docs).
Fujimoto has always been one of my favorite cinematographers; he's got such a great eye for natural detail and organic movement. Demme and Fujimoto shot some select flashback scenes for "The Truth about Charlie" on consumer-grade digital video and in the commentary track, Demme noted that Fujimoto was very excited by the results, and said that someday he'd like to do a whole project that way. Looks like Declan Quinn (who's pretty great too, BTW) got the gig this time (presumably Fujimoto was shooting "The Happening"?) but hopefully Fujimoto and Demme will find another great project for the DV medium.
-Dave Boyle
The versatility he's shown in his career, whether directing documentaries (like "Cousin Bobby") or breezy comedies (like "Married to the Mob") is really breathtaking. I even like his misfires, such as "The Truth about Charlie." He's always got something interesting going on, even when the movie itself doesn't entirely gel.
I recently saw "Rachel Getting Married," and he's really at the top of his game. It's a great movie by any standard. And yeah, it was shot on digital.
The thing that I really liked about "Rachel" was that the choice to shoot on digital really helped to tell the story. It was the rare case of a digital movie that I didn't wish had been shot on film. I felt like I was watching a real documentary, or somebody's wedding video (albeit a very well shot wedding video). Roger Ebert wrote a nice review that also comments on the film's wonderful "post race" mindset: Rachel Getting Married Ebert Review
One thing I've always liked about Demme is that he usually works with his good friend Tak Fujimoto. Long term director/D.P. collaborations give me warm and fuzzy feelings. This time out, Declan Quinn fills in (though I see from his imdb page that he's worked with Demme before on some docs).
Fujimoto has always been one of my favorite cinematographers; he's got such a great eye for natural detail and organic movement. Demme and Fujimoto shot some select flashback scenes for "The Truth about Charlie" on consumer-grade digital video and in the commentary track, Demme noted that Fujimoto was very excited by the results, and said that someday he'd like to do a whole project that way. Looks like Declan Quinn (who's pretty great too, BTW) got the gig this time (presumably Fujimoto was shooting "The Happening"?) but hopefully Fujimoto and Demme will find another great project for the DV medium.
-Dave Boyle
Friday, October 17, 2008
Sleeping Beauty Blu-Ray
I haven't yet bitten the bullet and bought a Blu-Ray player, but as the list of available titles grows, I'm getting more and more...eager.
This past week, Disney released a souped-up edition of "Sleeping Beauty." According to the New York Times DVD Column this past week, the film was originally shot in Super Technirama, with an Aspect Ratio of 2.55:1.
Films with unusually wide aspect ratios (like "Ben Hur" for example) always make for interesting viewing on TV. Sometimes the letterboxes themselves occupy much more of the screen than the actual frame. It must be stunning to see a picture that wide in a venue like the Cinerama Dome in Hollywood.
I'm pretty sure Disney must have re-released "Sleeping Beauty" sometime in the 80's because I have a distinct memory of going to see it in the cinema with my parents. I don't believe I've seen it since.
This may seem a little off-topic, but I've always been a huge fan of hand-drawn animation. You can really see the sweat that goes into moviemaking in every frame.
-Dave Boyle
This past week, Disney released a souped-up edition of "Sleeping Beauty." According to the New York Times DVD Column this past week, the film was originally shot in Super Technirama, with an Aspect Ratio of 2.55:1.
Films with unusually wide aspect ratios (like "Ben Hur" for example) always make for interesting viewing on TV. Sometimes the letterboxes themselves occupy much more of the screen than the actual frame. It must be stunning to see a picture that wide in a venue like the Cinerama Dome in Hollywood.
I'm pretty sure Disney must have re-released "Sleeping Beauty" sometime in the 80's because I have a distinct memory of going to see it in the cinema with my parents. I don't believe I've seen it since.
This may seem a little off-topic, but I've always been a huge fan of hand-drawn animation. You can really see the sweat that goes into moviemaking in every frame.
-Dave Boyle
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