"Three Kings" shot on minidv?
 

Has anyone seen the movie, Three Kings? It has what appears to be a "minidv/cinema" look to it, with alot of blown out highlites and white sky.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120188/

Dorothy

No it was not. Definitely not.

It says under the tech specs in the link you provided that it was shot on Kodak 35mm...

It was 35mm.

Thanks, guys! In one of my shows shot on Beta SP, a slo-mo sequence sort of reminded me of Three Kings (hence my assumption that Three Kings was not shot on 35mm).

Can anyone explain why Three Kings is overly contrasty with blown out highlites? I've never seen a commercial release like this before.

Dorothy

I guess that's the look they wanted. About 10 years ago John Sayles did a film with big fog filter effects, so all the highlights were blown out and fuzzy (I can't think of the name of the movie at the moment). It was a fairly common effect a few years back but seems to have grown out of favor a bit these days. I have done it when I didn't have the lighting power to override the windows...put on a No. 1 Black Promist and let the background go soft, and you get the blown out blurring. In the case of "Three Kings" it worked very well because of the locations, but in Sayles' film I thought it was too gimmicky.

I read an interview with the director. The look is intentional and designed to bring the 'feel' of the environment to the screen.

"Three Kings" used a number of different techniques, particular using reversal film stock, which is a type of film that records the images as positives rather than negatives (like slide film). Reversal tends to be a bit more contrasty than negative film. It was traditionally used for newsfilm purposes, because it didn't require a postiive print to be struck.

On "Three Kings", they also cross-processed, which means that they used the processing techniques and materials used for negative film instead of reversal, which makes the image even more contrasty and with desaturated color. I thought it was incredible looking when I saw it on the screen, I'd never seen a feature look like that before. Now, just a few years later, with digital intermediates gaining popularity, there are a lot of unconventional looks being created.

<<<-- Originally posted by Mike Rehmus : I read an interview with the director. The look is intentional and designed to bring the 'feel' of the environment to the screen. -->>>

Thanks, Mike. I'm amazed that this was the director's intentions. To me, at least, it looks amateurishly and poorly lit and shot.

Dorothy

Dorothy, if you have the DVD, there is an extended making of section that talks about what Charles refers to, their method of film grading. It bored me to tears but it has enough detail for most Cinefex readers and beyond.

Its the desert, (kind of contrasty), there are news reporters involved, and last but not least its the end of a war---(or at least we thought so)

Grab hold of a Bleach Bypass plug-in (Magic Bullet or Digital Film Lab etc), and it'll make your well shot DV footage look similar to Three Kings...

This is one of my favorite movies.
If you get the DVD, you'll see David O. Russell(director) and
Spike Jonze (actor in 3kings, director in Adaptation) shooting
each other (one on bicycle, other sitting on top of a vending machine)
with handycams on a New York street.

The film is 35mm but was shot with a lot of steadycam in a crazed fashion.
I don't like Bleach Bypass (Traffic (badly) or
Oh Brother Where Art Thow -- another Clooney film)
Notice how many producers got their finger in the pie?
Charles Roven was also "helping" on Twelve Monkeys.

<<<-- Originally posted by Doug Turner : Grab hold of a Bleach Bypass plug-in (Magic Bullet or Digital Film Lab etc), and it'll make your well shot DV footage look similar to Three Kings... -->>>

I am pretty sure that the correct look was called "Color Reversal" in Magic Bullet, not "Bleach Bypass". Bleach Bypass is 'Saving Private Ryan's' look.