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Posted: |
Aug 2, 2020 - 3:29 AM
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By: |
Grecchus
(Member)
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None of the 'recent' Star Wars Reys.
There is an interesting and important distinction to be made here. The original Star Wars "films" really were films. Technically, there are no more real films being made due to the overwhelming use of digital cameras, which don't produce images that can deteriorate chemically due to environmental issues. The 'films' of today are stored in solid state memories. In terms of DvDs, I think of the tinned reels of film that had to be carefully threaded into projectors when viewed in a cinema as having been replaced by VOB (Video Object format) files, or their equivalent for HD replay.
This gives rise to entities that I can no longer regard as films because they are anything but in a strict literal sense. There are subtle differences in the resultant images produced from movie-grade digital cameras as opposed to the traditional hardware platforms (now defunct) that rendered real films encapsulating a sense of image richness that is completely lost to the dead flatness of digital platforms. This has many consequences - for instance, the light-weight aspect of digital cameras means film-makers now use hand-held approaches which to me, is carte blanche proof of the nefarious effects of 'going cheap' that are too tempting to ignore by those looking to save money.
But it gets more complicated. Having recently seen Sam Mendes' 1917 on DvD, I have to say I wasn't impressed. This was shot by Roger Deakins. He did use steady-cam techiques to shoot the 'film' and even went further. For some reason, the long take in the pre-title sequence used for SPECTRE was pressed into service for 1917, except the entire "film" was shot as one continuous take. This would not have been possible with traditionally heavy, real film cameras, which have to be loaded with cannisters containing thousands of feet worth of unexposed film. The digital memories used today are so expansive that long takes are now possible due, in large part, to the possibilities from the latest technologies. Yet, stll, the resultant images do not have the richness of quality that real film once conveyed. They are dead and flat and in the vast majority of cases, completely colorless. There's more and worse, but it would take a book to cover the bulk of what is wrong with digital. For instance, most people can more or less spot CGI because there is a bog standard synthetic aspect to its look that can be sensed immediately.
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Posted: |
Aug 2, 2020 - 3:41 AM
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By: |
Moonlit
(Member)
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None of the 'recent' Star Wars Reys.
There is an interesting and important distinction to be made here. The original Star Wars "films" really were films. Technically, there are no more real films being made due to the overwhelming use of digital cameras, which don't produce images that can deteriorate chemically due to environmental issues. The 'films' of today are stored in solid state memories. In terms of DvDs, I think of the tinned reels of film that had to be carefully threaded into projectors when viewed in a cinema as having been replaced by VOB (Video Object format) files, or their equivalent for HD replay.
This gives rise to entities that I can no longer regard as films because they are anything but in a strict literal sense. There are subtle differences in the resultant images produced from movie-grade digital cameras as opposed to the traditional hardware platforms (now defunct) that rendered real films encapsulating a sense of image richness that is completely lost to the dead flatness of digital platforms. This has many consequences - for instance, the light-weight aspect of digital cameras means film-makers now use hand-held approaches which to me, is carte blanche proof of the nefarious effects of 'going cheap' that are too tempting to ignore by those looking to save money.
But it gets more complicated. Having recently seen Sam Mendes' 1917 on DvD, I have to say I wasn't impressed. This was shot by Roger Deakins. He did use steady-cam techiques to shoot the 'film' and even went further. For some reason, the long take in the pre-title sequence used for SPECTRE was pressed into service for 1917, except the entire "film" was shot as one continuous take. This would not have been possible with traditionally heavy, real film cameras, which have to be loaded with cannisters containing thousands of feet worth of unexposed film. The digtal memories used today are so expansive that long takes are now possible due, in large part, to the digital possibilities from the latest technologies. Yet, stll, the resultant images do not have the richness of quality that real film conveyed. They are dead and flat and in the vast majority of cases, completely colorless. There's more and worse, but it would take a book to cover the bulk of what is wrong with digital. For instance, everyone can more or less can spot CGI because there is a bog standard synthetic aspect to its look most people can sense immediately.
I'm sure you can expand upon much better than I can, but I'm not a big fan of CGI because I cannot see the work like I did with production sets.
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Posted: |
Aug 2, 2020 - 3:58 AM
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By: |
Grecchus
(Member)
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Moonlit. I can't precisely define what the problem with digital is because a professional film-maker would probably say the advantages of digital outstrip film. But they would say that, wouldn't they? The cinematic quality digital image remains unperfected, IMO. I'm finding a resurgence of that ghosting effect that comes from persistence of vision. Film-makers will use the cheapest option, and that is a digital route by default. Will they attempt to make a film that looks like a Lean epic- fuck, no. They couldn't give one. Why - because they don't need to, since people are going to flock to see anything that moves anyway - well, except for little old me. To emphasize this point, I'm seeing a high degree of those telltale artefacts produced by persistence of vision. It's when you suddenly get that sense of artificiality in the image that makes it look very video-like. It tends to happen when some fast movement takes place on the screen and that electronic motion-blur ghosting effect tells you immediately the whole thing is electronic and completely destroys the illusion. As soon as I see that, that's it - I'm off. It's caused by very specific lighting effects that can catch digital cameras in a way real film cameras were immune to.
Maybe a rethink could be in order, especially with Covid putting paid to so much that once was. The bottom line is that film-makers don't seem to have got the message yet that people like me don't want to see fluff. I want to see a real film. If digital is so flexible why can't they put in parameters to make a so-called movie that has the qualities of Vista-Vision, Technicolor, Cinerama or whatever. Anything that can convey the finished article is what it's supposed to be - a FILM!
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Grecchus, it IS a bit off-topic but fascinating nonetheless. Just to let you know that your comments about digital vs film resonate with me because my brother has been banging on about it for years! Hope to make more intelligent contributions in due course.
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Yet, stll, the resultant images do not have the richness of quality that real film once conveyed. They are dead and flat and in the vast majority of cases, completely colorless. There's more and worse, but it would take a book to cover the bulk of what is wrong with digital. For instance, most people can more or less spot CGI because there is a bog standard synthetic aspect to its look that can be sensed immediately.
I really disagree... a few years ago, I was stunned at how good the Tom Cruise science fiction movie OBLIVION looked, it was one of the best looking blu-rays I've ever seen. And it was shot 100% on digital.
I think the new technology enables and frees filmmakers.
Also, of course, there is a lot of badly done CGI, no doubt that is true, but when it is done at its best, CGI is more convincing in many ways than other special effects techniques. While it's true that often times CGI is done unconvincingly and therefore easily to spot, it is not as if stop motion technique, matte paintings, miniature buildings etc. are immune from being spotted. Quite the contrary.
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Posted: |
Aug 3, 2020 - 3:53 AM
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By: |
Grecchus
(Member)
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I totally get where you're coming from Nicolai. I don't have the benefit of seeing what BR HD looks like, so thanks for pointing that out.
While it's true that all my experience is of the lesser definition DvD format, the overall image delivery for a majority of films I've picked up lately show this digital capture problem has not been cleared up.
Films with ugly persistence that I've seen are the recent Mary, Queen Of Scots, The Mule, 1917 and yes, even Oblivion - when the human partisan HQ is attacked by the drones, there's a shot of Cruise coming towards the camera with a massively expanding explosion following him that he's escaping from and it has the most densely electronic image signature from the entire film. The problem tends to occur during high contrast lighting zones on the frame and if a lighter object suddenly moves against a darker area behind it, that's when the ghosting effect is more likely to take place.
I've wondered if there are various 'grades' of digital cinematic cameras for 'rent' and that film-makers are going for the cheaper options thinking no-one will notice and if they do, tough.
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Have yet to see...
The King and I
The Man With the Golden Arm
The Killing
West Side Story (saw the first 30 minutes tho)
Advise and Consent
The Manchurian Candidate
The Shoes of the Fisherman (was this a big film?)
Dodes'ka-den
The Conversation
Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore
The Color of Money
The Last Metro
The Last Emperor
Under The Volcano
Madadayo
Natural Born Killers
Nixon
Kundun
W
Shutter Island
The English-language remake of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (saw the Swedish version tho)
50 Shades of Grey
That X-Men movie with Liev Schreiber
That uber-long Marvel movie from last year or the year before which everyone was talking about.
And I turned off The Lighthouse about 3/4 of the way through so I guess I have not "officially seen it".
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I've seen very few post-2000 movies, but I've been catching up with the "must see" classics during the last years: To Kill A Mockingbird, Guess Who's Come To Dinner, The Sting, Once Upon A Time In The West...
The big question is always how you define "big films".
- Are they well-known movies?
- Are they expensive movies?
- Are they worth the experience from an artistic point of view?
- Are they entertaining?
- Are they dealing with important social/politicial issues?
I could easily find many "must see" titles for either category and quite often they will only fit into one category. "The China Syndrome", for instance, would IMHO fit into the last category, but into none of the others.
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I've seen very few post-2000 movies, but I've been catching up with the "must see" classics during the last years: To Kill A Mockingbird, Guess Who's Come To Dinner, The Sting, Once Upon A Time In The West...
The big question is always how you define "big films".
- Are they well-known movies?
- Are they expensive movies?
- Are they worth the experience from an artistic point of view?
- Are they entertaining?
- Are they dealing with important social/politicial issues?
I could easily find many "must see" titles for either category and quite often they will only fit into one category. "The China Syndrome", for instance, would IMHO fit into the last category, but into none of the others.
Yeah Stefan - I asked henry to be more specific, but he just means "popular well-known films". But therein lies a problem. CASABLANCA might be "popular and well known", but the majority of youths I hang out with have never even heard of it.
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Under normal circumstances I have three different film-watching strands going on. New cinema releases (which is obviously not happening right now), rental DVD/Blu or streaming of recent titles I've missed (with an emphasis on horror and genre movies, so I've been spending long weekends bingeing through Prime, Netflix and Shudder), and a selected catch-up on much older titles that I've never seen. This last strand I'm doing roughly chronologically and over the last few years I've plugged gaps from the thirties through to the fifties, and am now up to the late 60s.
So it's only in the last few months that I've first-timed The Sand Pebbles, What Did You Do In The Way Daddy?, The Fall Of The Roman Empire, Far From The Madding Crowd, The Graduate, In Harm's Way, Genghis Khan, Is Paris Burning?, The Russians Are Coming The Russians Are Coming and The Longest Day amongst others. Some have been pretty impressive; the comedies less so (Russians in particular is terrible, and The Graduate left me absolutely cold).
Among the never-seen titles still to come on my queue at some point: Dr Zhivago, Bonnie And Clyde, The Green Berets, True Grit and Midnight Cowboy. But really I'm looking forward to seriously digging into the 70s.
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Yeah, I understood the question to mean by and large movies that are of above average and/or film historic significance or are in discussions of film circles usually well known, and also films you would consider as such. Obviously, if you don't like and never cared for Marvel Superhero movies, you are unlikely to have seen them all (or even one), not matter how "big" the movies are in terms of box office or popularity, but that's not really that interesting.... In my view, it's more interesting to mention the "big movies" that you consider "gaps", that you have not seen for some odd reason, not that you have not seen because you had not intention of ever seeing them anyway.
I've seen most (though not all) of the movies mentioned in this thread so far, but for some reason never Dr. No (even though I've seen pretty much every other Bond movie, including the David Niven one), so I consider that an odd "gap" in my filmography (and also a "big" movie most people have seen, particularly most people who have seen all the other Bond movies :-) ).
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Films I haven't seen from other members lists:
Ghost (seen parts of it)
Philadelphia
Forrest Gump
Goodfellas
Schindler's List
Fight Club
BOURNEs
CITY LIGHTS
SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS
SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION, THE
Chinatown
The Apartment
Lolita (Kubrick)
Ryan's Daughter
Love Story
Cabaret
Rosemary's Baby
Saving Private Ryan
I've seen all of these except movies except for two. :-)
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I totally get where you're coming from Nicolai. I don't have the benefit of seeing what BR HD looks like, so thanks for pointing that out.
While it's true that all my experience is of the lesser definition DvD format, the overall image delivery for a majority of films I've picked up lately show this digital capture problem has not been cleared up.
Films with ugly persistence that I've seen are the recent Mary, Queen Of Scots, The Mule, 1917 and yes, even Oblivion - when the human partisan HQ is attacked by the drones, there's a shot of Cruise coming towards the camera with a massively expanding explosion following him that he's escaping from and it has the most densely electronic image signature from the entire film. The problem tends to occur during high contrast lighting zones on the frame and if a lighter object suddenly moves against a darker area behind it, that's when the ghosting effect is more likely to take place.
I did not notice that on the Blu-ray, but that doesn't mean anything; it's been a while that I saw OBLIVION, but I remember I was stunned by how good it looked.
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Posted: |
Aug 4, 2020 - 10:18 AM
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By: |
Grecchus
(Member)
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On the DvD at 1:40:00 Cruise knocks out one of the attacking drones by shooting at it's rear weak spot and it goes nuts spinning around until it explodes. The camera turns right to track Cruise as he's firing with upraised firearm, releasing several rounds as he advances towards it. He's between two vertical posts. As he comes to stop close by the camera there's a heavy dose of this electronic image blurring effect. Then we see the reverse-view enveloping explosion. The interior lighting is subdued, except for all the explosions going on. The thing is, it creates an impression identical to all the BBC Doctor Who interior set video shoots. Only, the whole point of going to the cinema is to avoid such issues, isn' it? Digitial cameras don't like if when daylight is not illuminating the screen evenly.
I mentioned this years ago with someone who agreed with my POV. At the time, I noticed that the DvD of 2012 was rife with the digital camera problem only when seen on TV - and I made this very clear - it did not appear to be noticeable when projected onto a cinema screen, but it becomes very apparent when it is played back on a raster monitor device. It is, therefore, very much a bugbear when viewed from the surface of an electronically scanned device. My 2 cents.
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