Has anyone seen "28 days Later" directed by Danny Boyle

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

<<<-- Originally posted by Chris Hurd : Actually it was the XL1, not XL1S.

There was an extensive write-up on this in American Cinematography some time ago. See also all of the various "28 Days Later" threads over in our XL1 / XL1S forum. -->>>

Indeed, I forgot it for a moment.

[Jon Turner]

it was actually shot in 4:3, not 16:9 - read second paragraph in link:

http://www.theasc.com/magazine/july03/sub/page2.html

check out the whole article if you have the time, it's the best i've read on 28 days later.

[John Threat]

Someone should contact IMDB, because if they shot on the XL2 it would have ROCKED.

Remember when canon put out all those ads for Steven Sodenberg's next movie because he was using the XL1S, and then when the movie hit, they didnt realize he was going for the crappiest mini-dv look he could muster while still registering an image on the screen? They quitely stopped mention this movie after that. Too bad they didnt get behind promoting 28 Days more, because it was a great film that showed the strength of using these cameras.

[Laurence Maher]

Ya kind of a silly topic, but I got into this discussion with several guys in another thread that had nothing to do with it. So I started this thread.

The lowdown . . .

I say it was lame for 28 Days Later to be shot on mini dv if the director had a budget that easily supported 35mm film.

Others disagree.

What's your opinion?

[Jeff Patnaude]

From the little bit of reading I did, it sounded like they needed a large number of cameras rolling at the same time to get certain shots. I.E. for the empty street scenes, they had to hire police to block London streets for a short period of time in the mornings, and roll video from 8 different cameras to get all the shots they needed. That's not to say it couldn't have been done with 35mm, but it would have been costly.

I also heard that there was a lot of post work to correct for irregularities.

I never did hear the bottom line- the cost of making the movie versis the gross earned from box office and rentals.

Jeff Patnaude
P.S.
I just read in an Aug 8th article on CNN.com that says the movie grossed $40.3 million. With a budget of $8 million- thats quite a chunk to put in your pocket.

http://money.cnn.com/2003/08/08/news/companies/28_days_later/

[Brandon Greenlee]

I think we as video people worry way too much about formats, resolutions, and just overall video technical issues.

I watched this movie before I was 'into video' and thought it was great. Me nor did any of my friends thought that something was weird about the way it looked. I think this is the way all of your audience will be except for an elite few who are actually into video or film.

I'm not saying that people shouldn't know their craft well or do the best work they can, but that we may fight over the little issues such as long gop editing versus intraframe compressions and two resolution standards ect ect when none of this even becomes apparent in the final viewing experience to the average person.

Sure the 35mm would have given him a much better picture and probably a better dof than the mini. It also would have entailed probably a cleaner overall production.

We can fight over formats, methods, resolutions, and compressions until we are blue in the face, but that will never change the fact that 99% of our end viewer's experience is based purely on content.

It was shot on MiniDV and I bet nobody in the theatre were thinking - "I wish this had been shot on 35mm".

[Luis Caffesse]

"I think we as video people worry way too much about formats, resolutions, and just overall video technical issues."

Absolutely.

I read a great quote the other day:

If you know how to light, it doesn't matter what format you shoot on.
If you don't know how to light, it doesn't matter what format you shoot on.


Quality is really reliant on perception much more than raw specs.

[K. Forman]

Keeping in mind that I never saw it on the big screen, I still thought it looked pretty good. Not as good as say, What Dreams May Come, but better than some of the movies I've watched. It was a better movie than some, because it was put together well, regardless of the format. You need a good story and actors, more than camera format.

I think you might be missing a bigger picture. It shows that a very well recieved movie CAN be shot on miniDV. Ok... maybe not VERY well, but it made some money.

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

I think the movie was a (little?) hit.
My opinion is the DV look gave it a real distinct look, and I liked it, for that movie.
And also, when I saw it in theaters, I wasn't so very busy with resolution and video, I just knew it had been filmed on digital video, and I, and the others, didn't mind. Some people never noticed it, and found it to be the best movie they ever saw.
That's not my opinion, but it is a proof that if you know how to tell a story, you can do it with minidv, and it gives you maybe other options you wouldn't have if you shot on 35 mm.

But, that also, just my opinion, it's very subjective offcourse :-).

[Joshua Starnes]

Laurence;

You made the point that you had stolen shots in the streets of Dallas. I'd say that is much harder, really impossible, to do in London, especially with a full shooting crew. Renting and shooting off 8 35mm cameras on a 3 million budget would have been really tough, especially because they new before hand they weren't going to get everything and were going to have to spend a bit of money removing things in post.

I have question, and you probably know the answer but I'm just wondering, can you spot the point in the film where it changes over from being shot on DV to being shot on 35?

[Luis Caffesse]

"can you spot the point in the film where it changes over from being shot on DV to being shot on 35?"

Interesting question...
Many of the people I saw it with thought the whole thing was made on film. Many didn't realize there was a switch in formats at all.

To me, it was like a punch in the face.
Then again, that was in the theater... I haven't seen it on DVD, but I'm pretty sure the difference would still be just as noticable.

[Joe Carney]

They used a mini35 hooked up to their XL1s, using it to add a film grain look. I also heard they could only use prime lenses with it, so had to do a lot of setups.

[Dylan Couper]

<<<-- Originally posted by Joe Carney : They used a mini35 hooked up to their XL1s, using it to add a film grain look. I also heard they could only use prime lenses with it, so had to do a lot of setups. -->>>

Actually it was a different adapter than the mini35, and I believe they used broadcast lenses, but point taken it wasn't shot on stock XL lenses.


Joshua, Yes, I can tell where it switches over to 35mm, but a better question is, did I care? No.


This whole disscussion is quite funny because outside of our miniscule little DV/production world, no one else knows or cares that 28 Days Later wasn't shot on 35mm film. People went to see a scary movie with a good story, and that's what they got. The proof is in the box office receipts.

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=28dayslater.htm

$82 million worldwide for a film shot on miniDV?
From that, I interpret that the format doesn't matter.

[Joshua Starnes]

I don't think it matters either, I don't think it ever did.

I don't think the director was stupid for picking DV even though he had a good budget - I think he had excellent logistical reasons for doing so, and I don't think his choice was a particular bad one.

I think if he had waited a few more years, he would have had the choice and probably would have chosen to shoot it on HD instead. But for the time it was made, I don't think it was a particularly bad choice or hurt the film. I actually quite like the look of it.

[Laurence Maher]

Well, I'll be honest and say that I didn't realize it was shot on 35 at all, however, you must keep in mind I saw it on a small screen, and I do remember there were definitely points where I went . . . "now wait a minute, that shot looked pretty good, oh, what? It's crappy again." If I had had my wits about me, I would have realized they were mixing formats, but I was assuming that it was all shot on mini dv. If I had known they were mixing, I'm sure the points at which I recognized the quality difference would have translated into . . . "oh, okay, that's 35, now that's not, that is, that's not." And I also never saw in in a theater, where I'm sure it would have been very obvious.

What you guys might consider too is something I heard Dov Simmens say at one of his notorious "2-day film school" seminars, which was, "You must have good sound. If you don't have good sound, the average audience will tell you they didn't like the movie because the picture was bad, in other words, it will bother them subconciously, because something was ab-normal or not of highest quality. Even if they didn't really know what was wrong, they could sense it." I believe the same thing might be applicable here. You guys say you didn't notice it, and I didn't much either at first, becasue I saw it on a tiny TV and was blown away. Then I saw it on a medium sized TV and wondered what the hell happened. Of course, as you say, the people who will notice it the most art the artists. So perhaps your right and it's due to my seeing things from a filmmaker's point of view. But I can honestly say this. I can remember seeing movies as a child and recognizing something was strange that I didn't like. I couldn't put my finger on it. Then later, making my own home movies and then studying films in college, and eventually actually making features, I figured out why I didn't like them . . . because of bad technical qualities. So even at a young age I would have wondered what was wrong.

Overall, I see here that most people didn't mind, so that's cool. Personally, with 8 mill, I think it could have been done on 35mm. Even with the 8 cameras or whatever. And as I said in the other thread, maybe the distributors would have grabbed it faster or promoted it more if the format was larger.