Why the hell not? Look at Sin City. :D

I think we're setting our sights too low here.

There's without a doubt use for every kind of way of creating motion, via a variety of methods. I don't think in 2005 everything should look like it was created on film stock at 23.967fps just because close to a century ago, that was the best way of doing things... its why I've never been hung up on making my video look like its something else for the majority of my work.

Sin City looks amazing, there's no way shooting it on standard filmstock without CG would it look like a true comic book adaption.

CGI and film acquisition are two different animals...

I think had "Sin City" been shot on film and still composited in the same way it would have still been effective.

Rodriguez has, to his credit, done very well with presenting HD images. It's worth noting that HD can really shine in an entirely studio-originated environment such as was used in this production. It's still a bear to deal with on location, especially day exteriors, between the fundamental issue of overexposure latitude and the complication of the workflow on set.

Amen, brother, amen.

People rave about film because they do not know how to color correct digital video.

I think that's oversimplifying things, Emre. Digital video has only recently been able to CAPTURE the subtlety and nuance that is part of the film look--some may even debate that. And we are talking the high end of HD here, like the Genesis or Dalsa. A lot of it is personal preference. If you present a scene shot on 35mm and HD and projected side by side, certain people (probably the majority) will prefer the 35mm image, regardless of how well color corrrected the HD footage.

There are multiple issues on a set with HD, it is not forgiving and make-up/costumes/sets/etc. will show every imperfection that the natural softness of 35mm will smooth out. I did a Titanic parody video with Al Yankovich shot on 35mm and all the fake sets looked great. When they edited the B-roll (shot with an Xl1 and Sony 2/3" CCD cam) for a "making of" piece, everything looked very fake.

It is not just about color correcting, there are many many issues that still need to be worked out. RR seems to be the closest right now...




ash =o)

I find the "forgiving nature of film" argument incredible. Here is the chance to capture a more faithful likeness of reality, and people reject it? I believe that once people become accustomed to the heightened reality afforded by HD, they will not want to go back. We are in a transition phase right now, and we all know people are resistant to change. Anyway, I don't care what other film-makers do as long as I can shoot with what I want. Live and let live.

I think some of the things more filmmakers should consider is:

A- Make things look better than film, don't limit yourself to making things look as good as film. I think in this case, the "CGI look" makes Sin City look better than film.

If you limit your thinking, you end up with Star Wars 1-3. Does it look better than film? No. (Just my opinion here!)

B- Exploit the differences between film and video.
The big advantage for video is that it frees up time/money elsewhere. Filmmaking is a little more affordable (although at the feature film level, the cost savings aren't that much).

We're getting closer to the point where it doesn't really matter if you shot on video or film. I think Sin City is an example of this, although its shooting style wouldn't work for other films.

C- A lot of the filmmakers here probably can't afford to make a feature film. Never mind affording 35mm or high-end HD cameras. Craft services alone could cost ~$1 million for a feature film. So at some level, you have to make do with what you have- the main factors being limited experience/expertise/knowledge, limited money.

1- Matte painting
You can make scenic/landscape shots look a lot better with matte painting. It makes sci-fi films more achievable.

2- 3D:
Typically looks cheesy / unrealistic, unless you're specialized in this. An example would be Star Wars: Revelations (fan film).
Spaceships and space scenes are easier to do and can look good. Space means less interactions between the 3D objects and other things (shadows, atmosphere, collisions, etc. i.e. the little details that give it away)

3- Color correction/grading/enhancement
IMO this is the #1 thing you can do to film or video (other than good lighting of course).

It's not particularly hard to learn, especially if you just use Magic Bullet Editors (not the best tool, but the easiest).

If you present a scene shot on 35mm and HD and projected side by side, certain people (probably the majority) will prefer the 35mm image, regardless of how well color corrrected the HD footage.
I think the color corrected HD footage would look better, but it'd be hard to test something like this since color correction is subjective.
One person might like the Sin City look while someone else may not.

In this particular case, I would think that Sin City looks better as color corrected HD than it would had they shot on film (and not colored it the way they did).

Anyways that's my thoughts on this.

Why is that argument incredible? Instead of building an actual house, you can use a makeshift faux front of a house. You DO realize that movies are NOT real life, they are shot on sound stages and for the most part are manufactured. Film forgives this more than video. Part of the reason they went with digital Yoda was because the puppet looked terrible in HD.



ash =o)

Why is that argument incredible? Instead of building an actual house, you can use a makeshift faux front of a house. You DO realize that movies are NOT real life, they are shot on sound stages and for the most part are manufactured. Film forgives this more than video. Part of the reason they went with digital Yoda was because the puppet looked terrible in HD.
I agree with everything you said, but I draw a different conclusion. The greater the detail captured by medium, the greater the work required by the film-makers to achieve immersion. But once this immersion is achieved, it is more intense than that imparted by a medium capturing less detail.

Emre,

Impressionist paintings capture less detail than photo-realistic ones and are more compelling to most because of it. Capturing details is not what it is about. Some people prefer photo-realistic paintings, and you might be in that group. Try to understand that it is just your preference.

There is definitely an element of preference, but my argument is that the medium should be able to capture all the detail. One can then decide how much of that detail is needed. For example, to get a B&W image, you can start in color (i.e., with more detail), then decide how to desaturate it rather than using B&W stock. The reins are in the artists' hands rather than the designers of the stock. I like to keep my options open.

Well, the truth is that what they are doing in many projects is continuing to build the sets the same and adjusting the way they look in post. I personally think the best CGI is CGI that accentuates not dominates. I have a friend who was in Jurassic Park and I once asked her if it was hard to act in that environment. She said that 80% of the time there was an animatronic dinosaur there, it wasnt just CGI...




ash =o)

For example, to get a B&W image, you can start in color (i.e., with more detail), then decide how to desaturate it rather than using B&W stock.
That's not entirely accurate, Emre. When a B&W film is designed/shot properly, i.e., for B&W, it's not at all like designing and shooting a color film. The color palette for a movie shot in B&W is significantly different from that of a movie to be shot in color. It has to do with how colors are seen in B&W (black, white, and shades of gray). For example, in color "red" and "green" are seen with excellent contrast, one against the other. However, when shot in B&W that same red and green, more often than not, will come across with little or no contrast because the two "different" colors are rendered in B&W as the same, or nearly the same, tone of gray!

The lighting for B&W is considerably different than that for color, too. There have been many books written (and many articles in American Cinematographer) about this over the years. A trip to the library might be helpful.

Jay

This is true... you are really oversimplifying B&W if you merely define it as lack of color. I think B&W is GREAT for big wide cinematic scenes, not moves, just stories told in the cut.



ash =o)

Film forgives this more than video. Part of the reason they went with digital Yoda was because the puppet looked terrible in HD.
ash =o)

Now when you say film forgives fake sets more than video, what do you believe accounts for that? the 24fps motion that makes things feel less real? the grain? the resolution? dof?

I have heard other people say film is more forgiving to sets, but I dont think ive ever heard a convincing reason why that might be. 24p motion (with more motion blur and more stutter) can be achieved on video, so that might be why 35mm film footage was more forgiving than an xl1. Also shallow depth of field is a likely reason, since out of focus backgrounds are more likely to be assumed to be real for the lack of visible flaws. but also something like shallow dof can be achieved on video with larger chips or larger apertures. shoot on f4 on 35mm? so shoot at f1 on a small chip or f4 on a digital cinema camcorder like the d-20 or origin or genesis. neither of these things are inherent to video. And if perhaps the reason is grain or image softness, both of those things can be added to video as well, you can always downres, soften, or add a grain filter, so it seems like it makes sense to start with a high-res, grainless image.
I've seen 35mm film footage that was not forgiving the set it was shot on, and personally i like that video provides greater flexibility and ease at a lower price. even if it currently comes with a slightly higher contrast (lower lower exposure latitude) image.

Noah, the closest I think I can come to explaining why film makes certain things look better than video is--because it does. Much in the same way that old analog equipment (tube etc) is still used in the audio world for it's warmth and presence, the photochemical process of film has an undeniably different look than digital video. Whereas audio technology has progressed to the point where it is possibly to digitally emulate the analog gear to a point where only the most trained ear can detect the difference, there's still a way to go in the digital video world. 24p helps a lot; increased latititude and resolution HD is a big step but there's still a quantifiable difference in feel between the media.

Good call Charles... it just does. As you mentioned, old analog gear of all kinds has inherent warmth that digital is just void of. We are getting closer but I describe it sometimes like getting a hug from a robot. ProTools HD is pretty close to getting the warmth of analog in the sound world.



ash =o)

ash and charles,

it just does? could you elaborate on that? I do not believe I agree with you and you are not providing very convincing arguments to help me see otherwise. I just sounds like the current arguments are "professionals in the past have said film looks better than video" and "I am used to seeing film so it makes me feel warmer and fuzzier".

When it comes down to it, i find it difficult to make generalizations or even categorizations about analog/film vs digital. After all light doesnt travel in bits so even a ccd is an analog device that has to send analog voltage levels to an analog-digital-converter right? is using a DI (another ADC, just later in the workflow) as "bad" as digital aquisition? if its not, why? if its not just the exposure latitude then what is it?

Perhaps photographers/cinematographers have learned to love grain, in the same way i imagine some audiophiles love the sound of records. But not everyone loves grain.

Actually, technically, light does travel in bits. Though they may be in such small variances, quantumly speaking, that the difference cannot be detected by the CCDs.

For specificity's sake.

Noah,

If it doesn't look better to you then it doesn't. No problem. No one is trying to convince you that your tastes should change.

dj,
That's true, I suppose anything can be translated into bits theoretically. So does that mean when we capture digitally we are converting a digital signal to analog and then back to a much thinner digital signal? Now if that doesnt sound like a way to lose information :)

Barry,
thanks, i know, but i had a friend of mine me he thought film is easier on sets than video and I asked him why and he just said he heard it somewhere. I'm just trying to get to the bottom of it.

I don't know how much help this will be but...

Digital audio is said to be "cold" and "sterile" next to analog gear. This isn't really true, however, it is just that digital audio represents what it there, nothing more and nothing less. Analog gear adds harmonics and distortion that sounds good to human ears, and we perceive it as "warmth." Maybe the same thing happens with film and video?

Film being easier on sets:
Just guessing here, but it may be partially due to film's increased depth of field. In film, backgrounds would look more out of focus than in video. So imperfections in the set will be less visible.

It could be that set people working on film have more experience working (than people working on video shoots). The difference may be some correlation that has nothing to do between film vs video.

2- Not sure here, but I think film has less high contrast/high frequency detail than video. Video typically has some edge enhancement that creates those sharp, crisp lines. I don't think film does that.

Glenn is probably on to something with #2 (certainly there is truth in #1 in that 2/3" video has greater DOF than 35mm, and video arguably always looks better with soft backgrounds). I also believe that edges don't seem to smooth out the way they do in the film medium, and that edge enhancement may well have something to do with that.

A high-resolution (i.e. Viper, Dalsa etc) HD image can look "shockingly" sharp, yet it is still only approaching the resolution of film numerically speaking. The way in which an imager will translate light into information vs. the reaction of silver halide is hard to quantify, many have tried but words cannot always do an image justice. In the same way that once can look at a CGI effect as coming off as "fake", yet another might look quite real, HD can render a painted setpiece as looking like what it is rather than what it is supposed to be. Consider the now-virtually lost art of matte painting. A skilled artist could replicate the way that details in a landscape would fall off the way that film emulsion would do; that same matte painting used in the digital medium may not be convincing at all.

Noah, this issue is not about "I think film looks better than video"...it's about playing to the strengths of each medium. And as an FYI to any and all; the film "look" isn't really about grain any more, since late model stocks have all but eliminated it if that is the desired result (i.e., it is now largely a choice).

What blows me away with movies, is the color saturation. Be it film or video, the colors in What Dreams May Come and Wizard of Oz are breathtaking. It was the same with the really old Cinescope films.

The difference between film and video? You have to digitaly add scratches to video ;)

I love digital and shoot EXCLUSIVELY digital. I agree that it is not about one being better, just them being different. Video will never look exactly like film and vice-versa. My original point is that you cant simply swap out the film cameras for HD cameras, the sets wont look right, the make-up wont look right, etc. Having shot a boatload of DV on music video and movie sets, I can tell you that even DV exposes things in the sets and make-up that film smooths out.

Even if you match the resolution, film is inherently flawed. There is grain, softness, warmth, etc. Call it what you want but it is the same reason a synthesized violin doesnt not sound the same as the real thing. In order to get closer you have to duplicate the random variations and imperfections...



ash =o)

Amen, brother, amen.

People rave about film because they do not know how to color correct digital video.


I shot a short on the Sony HD-F900. Due to limited budget, I didn't spend enough time planning my lighting. (I had plenty of lights and generators at my disposal) As a result of that, my HD project didn't turn out looking like film at all. It looked more like a really sharp video. To make the long story short, I believe lighting, not color-correcting in post, is the key to making a project look more filmlike. Lighting for video, as I later discovered, is harder than lighting for film.

I've been watching some movies online and I was shocked at how much they looked like video even though they were shot on film.

DOF makes a huge "impression " difference between 35mm, HD, SD, hand size camera's .. use a mini 35 on SD or HD ( 2/3" CCDs) and it looks much closer to DOP of 35 = totally different image out of same camera ...

and lets not forget that lighting technique is geared to film .. we know how to light for film because it's been around XX years ... we then use same techniqes for HD BUT HD is different so it looks different or it bring out the defects/oddity of 3 CCD HD camera's.

back in the 70's lighting was completely different for FILM and video .. when you shot film you did X .. shot video you did Y ... today with the improvement in SD camera's you can use many FILM lighting techniques on video lighting but there are still differences .. same with HD ... a lighting cameraman has to know those differences and come up with solutions. for a 1 chip HD camera you might do X and for a 3 chip HD you might do Z ...
it 's all learning your equipment ...

filmstocks back in late 60's early 70's were very contrasty .. over the years kodak has been able to tune the stocks to the feedback they received from cameraman ... many video manufacturers never talked to cameraman till the late 90's ...

One thing about this whole discussion that's funny is that in order to make video "look like film" the technology itself has to be very significantly better than film. It has to have more lattitude, more resolution, better colour fidelity, etc.

It's getting there.

-Steve

What blows me away with movies, is the color saturation. Be it film or video, the colors in What Dreams May Come and Wizard of Oz are breathtaking.
Keith, I suspect that these films were re-transfered and re-color "corrected" (which is probably more like color enhancement, because the telecine operator can make lots of creative decisions to make it look better).

Color correction can make dramatic differences to how film looks. Typically, a lot of the high-end commercials you see on TV have nice saturated colors. I think it's added in during the telecine stage.

2- Another possible reason why sets look better on film:
Exposure latitude!
Suppose film captures 10 stops of light. (making this up here)
Suppose your DV camera captures 6 stops of light. (also making this up here)

You're squeezing that down into a format which can only display 6 or less stops of light.
Because you're compressing the dynamic range of film more, you're reducing the amount of detail/contrast within a particular tonal range. So texturing on stuff is less obvious.

Hi folks - new here ;-)

As others have mentioned, most of the "film look" characteristics are technically speaking flaws, similar to the ones in analogue audio - starting from 24 fps cadence, shallow DOF, grain and "rich" blacks, "artistic" color correction etc.

We're just like Pavlov's dogs - we've been trained to accept this look as the one with all the good stuff - it's had the best production values behind it.

If all blockbuster feature films starting from the beginning of cinema had been shot at 100 fields per second, extremely wide DOF neutrally graded digital images, and film was a new invention of the 2000's, no-one would accept that new jerky, noisy, blurry bad color reproduction medium called "film".

To make things straight... one can make video look like film, but one can't make film look like video. Which do you think has more detail to begin with??

(Okay, shooting film at 60 fps, f32 could get close ;-)

That said, i too am one of Pavlov's dogs, and i dig the film look. Most of the stuff i'm involved in is shot on either DigiBeta or HDV, processed to look like film on TV. I don't mind it ;)

Here's an example of HDV with film look processing:

http://www.poetsofthefall.com/videos/lift/

PS1: I shot it with Sony HDR-FX1, 50i (we had some slomo shots), black stretch on, cine gamma off, detail off. This gave me most information to start with: 50 fps cadence, low contrast original image. Messing that up so that it looks "cool" was kinda straightforward process from there on ;-)

PS2: The whole video was shot on greenscreen, the backgrounds are all 3D. The shallow DOF is a post process.