Public Enemies
 

Anybody excited about seeing EX1 footage on the big screen? i hope i get to see a film-out and not a 2/4K projection. either way, i'm kinda excited. ok, maybe just curious.

How much of this is EX footage?

i'm not sure exactly, but there's some articles/talks of it either on this forum or the "other forum". mostly used in small spaces and for critical hand-held work.

great new for L.A. viewers. The Landmark Theatres in West LA are showing the film on 2 screens. 4K Sony digital projector and film. i'm gonna see it on film first since its a fresh print and digital projection next time. enjoy!!!!

Landmark - Los Angeles

Sony 4K Digital Cinema
 

Theaters with Sony 4K Digital Cinema Projectors:

Sony | Market - Digital Cinema

It's notable that these days where there's a new found obsession with shallow depth of field, one reason these cameras are being chosen for major features is because of their deep depth of field. The complete opposite result the lens adapter crowd is after.

I wouldn't be so dismissive about what the "crowd is after" - the adapters give us the choice, and that's what matters.

"EX1 camcorder was used to lens the interior of planes and cars during high-speed chases."

- PR Newswire

What sounded like dismissive was just my tiring of everybody doing the same thing. My motto is whatever floats your boat.

So far from the spots I've seen I don't care for the look at all. It screams video. Then again my opinion of the first of the new Star Wars movies wasn't that popular. Episode 3 Revenge of Sith, the movie that propelled the F900 into the stratosphere and opened up digital for features. I thought it looked like crap. But I'll give this a chance with a 4k Sony projector. Very interested in how the EX shots look.

The only digital feature I've seen so far worthy of rivaling film has been Knowing (Nick Cage) shot on RED 4k. If Mann wanted a hyper-real look I think the best application of that I've seen has been Sony's Motionflow 120Hz technology on their LCDs. If there was a way to apply that to 35mm origination. It gives the live look of video to film without making it look like video.

Frankly if I'm noticing the difference between HD and film then the story tellers aren't doing their job.

I don't care about the way film handles highlights compared to video etc etc etc. All I want is a damn good story edited to perfection.

Amen. Stories rule; aesthetics drool.

Also to note, EX chip is the same size as a 16mm film cam. Nobody used 35mm adapters when using 16mm. The movie watcher in me finds the adapter look has become way overused and overdone but that's just my personal opinion. A lot of times my brain is thinking "look, shallow DOF" over the story. Often as if a heavy blur vignette is overlaid around the subject blurring everything else in the picture to kingdom come.

For something really different, watch the Blu-Ray release of How the West Was Won sometime. It was shot with the 3-strip Cinerama process and they only had one set of lenses for those cameras - 27mm. For a full body shot the camera was only a few feet from the actors, and everything out to infinity was in sharp focus.

If you've never seen this film before (or never seen it in HD), the amount of detail in the frame is startling - and spectacular.

There is no questioning that shallow DOF is a useful tool, but has to be used appropriately. Good for separating the subject from the background when that can't be done with lighting and for focusing attention when that can't be done by composition. Quite often shallow DOF draws attention to itself because other important things in shot are too soft. Such as a two shot, where only one actor is in focus and I want to see their expression. I'd agree with Max that it has become a fashion, the "holy grail" for those seeking that cinema look. But in other times the film fashion was deep DOF, utilising split diopter lenses, high f/stops and wide angle lenses.
3D productions need deep DOF, so the fashion might change soon.

Funny - just heard the review of Public Enemies on BBC Radio 4. They were extolling the virtues of the HD look.

Cut to beard stroking moment: Not the video look. Not the film look, but what they called the HD look. Real. Visceral. Live. Hmmm. Very interesting.

On the other end of the scale, I've sat through Shrek 2 at both a cinema and at home on DVD, and there's a scene of 'Cops Video Footage' that is very video like, but it's still 24fps CGI. If I could bear it, I'd look at it carefully to see if it was a combination of gamma, (simulated) short shutter speed, (simulated) lens focal length to objective size and (simulated) camera shake. But it works.

But then again, watched 'It's All Gone Pete Tong' last night. A cinematic film that looks like a TV documentary in places - a 35mm film looking like a TV show - is it the interview lighting style? Is it the lack of DoF? It flips between filmic and TV nicely, anyhoo.

And then there's Peter's Friends - a full on Cinema film that looks like a 16mm TV show. A film that begged a video look if ever there was one.

All this reminds me of the Journeyman phase of doing colour grading (or curry cooking for that matter): build up your look then wind it back 50%. The DoF can be overcooked too.

I just see a 'look' when I watch a film. I find it rather hilarious when someone derides a fully professionally made movie because it looks like this or that. If something looks like video or HD or whatever then that is the look that the director wanted.

And it is a good movie as I saw it on Friday....the lady friend that I was with...(who is not in the business)...did say " it looked well done , for something that was shot on video".....
as she could tell the difference.......

That is the sort of comment that really winds me up though, because it implies that it is somehow not normal that something made on video can be high quality and look good. Perhaps she should watch the series Planet Earth. That looks pretty good too 'for something that was shot on video'.

Also WIlliam, did you tell your friend up-front that "it was shot on video"?

I just watched the trailer from this site:

Apple - Movie Trailers - Public Enemies

- and when blown up on my 50" plasma, I can see a lot of (what I guess is artificial) grain in it.

I wonder if that has been applied to "mask" the video grain/noise? Anyway, I find it excessive.

That's the look that the director will have wanted. Remember, Michael Mann purposefully put on the gain switch in films like Miami Vice in order to make things look more rough and ready.

Some might find it excessive, but do people really think that Mann would release a film that looked like this unless it was fully intentional and under his control?

Simon,

I absolutely trust Michael Mann's judgement and agree that generally, the "look" has been created on purpose (the latitude, cadence etc.). I just don't like this type of excessive grain, and frankly, suspect it has been a sort of compromise - I have seen it in other Hollywood movie released on BD (one example being the "Spiderman" BD I got free with my Vaio laptop from Sony).

As someone else already put it, it looks like someone wanted to make it look less videoish, but made it even more so - a video with the "film grain" FX overused.

Have you watched the trailer on a really big display, and from a close distance? This particular scene is quite low-light, and without the artificial grain added in post, the video noise would have been visible on a big screen for sure!

"nope".................................................................................

Just my two cents, but I think it's pointless to judge the technical qualities of the film from a trailer downloaded from the internet. I'm not an expert, but wouldn't there be a significant difference in the compression on an internet clip, compared to a projected film?
Pete

check this
 

here's a detailed description of how it was shot, and why
http://digitalcontentproducer.com/ca...708/index.html

The look of digital cinematography is unique. It's not film. And it's not video. It's good enough for some of the biggest names in the industry to embrace so how bad can it be?

I saw the comments left at Studio Daily and too many were hung up on the idea that they can see it's not film. One even said it ruined the film for him. If they think that's the most important aspect of the entire film, then they've missed the point of filmmaking.

IMHO, the term "video" implies interlaced standard-definition TV.

Progressive frame HDTV has more in common with film than TV. The frame rate is essentially identical (24 to 30 frames/second, as opposed to 60 fields/second). And the frame's wider aspect ratio is closer to that of film (16:9) than SDTV (4:3).

Certainly the origin of the image is electronic, as opposed to mechanical and chemical. But even still photographers are embracing the virtues of a much more predictable electronic image than the less stable and sometimes unpredictable medium of film.

Having been a photographer for more than 25 years, I've had my share of surprises with processing and printing just about every type of film there was. And as everyone knows, most color film dyes are very unstable.

Stephen Johnson's National Park Project brought tremendous legitimacy to digital photography back in the mid-1990s. At a Mac World convention I attended he openly stated that he was able to get much more accurate colors from his carefully profiled digital camera than any film medium ever could. After seeing what he accomplished I was sold on the idea and have been pursuing it (given limited budget considerations) ever since.

Digital Parks Home

We're planning to go see "Public Enemies" soon. The fact that it's all digital will be in the back of my mind. But I'll be there to experience the cinematic drama. I'm not going to let myself become too concerned with the technical details. Not at the prices they charge at theatres nowadays! :-)

I saw the movie on 35 and it looked good. The EX shots unfortunately were soft and more video-ish than other shots. Almost looking as if they were shot interlaced. Presuming the distribution is 35 as the reason why none of the 3 or 4 Sony 4k screens in my are were showing it. Mann achieved precisely what he wanted. It had a live edge to it that film does not and was much sharper than film. Digital is a new, and to some uncomfortable, sensation to the eye because we grew up with film, particularly for period films. Here you felt like you were in the reality more so than with film particularly because of the live video look. The Mann formula was successful. I had to concentrate to pay attention to the first EX shots because the story was well photographed.

As far critiquing the digital look vs. the film look in general, I would quickly run out of fingers and toes counting the number of totally crap major studio movies done by "professionals". A $70 million movie released under a major studio doesn't equate with everyone having made the right decisions. Throw the right amount of $$$ at a script and you will get your pick of established actors, director and DP working for you. That is the nature of the business and if wrong choices are committed to it will no doubt be gapingly wide open to be shot down and somewhat deservedly so to keep the bar of quality high for the industry as a whole.

By the way, I also picked up what appeared to be far red contamination in at least 2 scenes. When dillinger is locked up in the cell and when the reporters ask him questions in indiana. That signature iridescent maroon rendition from dillinger's vest and suit was the suspicion. A maroon exactly the same hue and 'chroma' to my seeing as the far red frame grabs posted on this forum. These shots appeared to be either F23 or F950. I'd be quite surprised if that was the actual color of that piece of wardrobe in a character and scene sense and just as far as manufactured clothing color.

Thanks for the link, Charles.

Fascinating bit of info about the flares.

My understanding is that a 1/2" 16:9 chip is much closer in size to the 8mm film format than 16mm. 16mm film is closer in size to 1" video format chips. Plus most 16mm film allows the use of fast and/or long lenses to shallow up DOF. on the EX1 we're stuck around f2.8-3.4 on the long end of the zoom. I own one and no doubt it is better than 1/3" but its no 16mm.

As for even discussing 35mm adapters, has any big-budget feature ever used a 35mm adapter on any kind of camera? I cant recall any, and for good reason, i dont use them anymore myself because the light loss and distractingly ugly bokeh and significant softness/abberations they introduce are just too much of a compromise to me.

Just saw the film with my wife, and these were her exact reactions to the movie. She had no idea how the film had been shot, just said it didn't' feel like all those other period movies, but that you were actually seeing it like it was in 1933. I find it remarkable that all of their technical testing would lead to an image than an average viewer would "get."

Where I noticed the difference with film was in the tight close-ups, seeing the pockmarks on the agents face as he leans down to hear Dillinger's dying words, seeing the threads in Dillinger's pants as he fingers his gun. Spinotti mentions that hd still can't compete with film in tonal range and that seemed to be the one place where the image fell down, a little too blown out in highlights in several places.

While having achieved the specific look intended, the movie in general is disappointingly poor, IMHO.

Wouldn't say, poor, Piotr, but wished it had reached for something bigger, but then again, I could watch Johnny Depp peel potatoes for 3 hours.

how do we know when we are seeing an EX? They used more than one camera for the tight stuff.

Thanks for posting the link, just watched it too.

Did someone forget to pack the tripod when shooting this sequence. (my wife's remarks without any provocation)

Dillinger dies? Aw now you ruined the ending for me! :-)

As if I heard my daughter, Mike!

Being Johnny Depp's fan like most (young) women are, she was disappointed with the film just like myself, though.

We had an older friend over the other night for dinner and she mentioned seeing Public Enemies. I asked her what she thought of the movie and the her reply was that the textures in the movie were so real. She said it looked like you could reach out and touch the bricks. Which I thought was interesting on two counts - first she isn't a person interested in photography etc. and second she didn't talk about the story...

I haven't seen it - maybe I should.

Find out if she was talking about the cinema or the film :-)

I'm sorry, Dean, I hate it when that happens! But I did keep waiting to see where and when it happened, kept thinking it was the St. Valentine's Day Massacre.

Kevin--Exactly, that's just what my wife felt. Have to give Mann credit for wanting a look to connect with the audience and getting it. Next, as Piotr says, he'll get a script that connects, too.

Piotr--I know where she's coming from. Pirates is the only movie I'm considering owning (except for Shoot Em Up).

Pirates are fine, but where my daughter (quite a film connoisseur, BTW) fell in love with Johnny was Chocolat (not to confuse with Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) - she was 12 years old then :)