motion blur film vs video look
- Thread starter Ruairi Robinson
- Start date
Graeme_Nattress
Red Team
Challenge! Yes indeed it is. It's probably impossible, but.... I know I'd love to see what 4k50p looks like as I think it should look superb. And I'd like to see it without needing a stonking big RAID. I know the BBC would love 4k50p, so there's a hell of an incentive for us to really explore this.
To me, cinematic-ness comes mostly from lighting, and the "tone" of the image, gamma, colour and lack of silly edge enhancement, and these over-weigh fps and shutter. But that's me
And that's why you have choice for these things in camera.
Graeme
To me, cinematic-ness comes mostly from lighting, and the "tone" of the image, gamma, colour and lack of silly edge enhancement, and these over-weigh fps and shutter. But that's me
And that's why you have choice for these things in camera.Graeme
Gibby
Red Savant
Ruairi Robinson said:
Most film-oriented people and people who need a film look for a particular project like the way film looks, but conversely most video-oriented people and people who need a video look for a particular project like or need the way video looks. Then there is a huge contingent of shooters who like and need both looks regularly. If RED One can achieve both looks easily it will be a much more versatile camera.
Ruairi Robinson said:
Agreed…knowing how to set up the camera for each needed production value is definitely a good thing.
Ruairi Robinson said:
Some will only shoot cine style with RED One, some will only shoot EFP style with RED One, and some will shoot both styles. The point is that the camera system will readily be able to shoot either style.
Ruairi Robinson said:
The RED team has verified from the very first announcement of the camera, and confirmed regularly, including a current long thread on this forum, that though RED One is primarily designed as a digital cinema camera, that it is also being designed for broad use as a non-hardlined EFP and limited use ENG camera, so each aesthetic profile, whether that be film-like or video-like should be easy to setup. Link: http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=79858
Ruairi Robinson said:
Exactly…RED is providing the options for us all to be happy, whether we shoot cine-style or non-hardlined EFP style…and a huge number of us, myself included, regularly shoot both styles, many times in the same day. If productions need a 24p filmic look, and then portions of that same production, or a different production need a 60p look for slow motion or a more reality look, RED One should be able to be quickly re-accessorized and setup for whatever looks we need.
The genius of RED One will be its versatility and broad utility.
I just read some posts on another forum with people stating that the straight 24P material in Apocalypto looked no different than film origination, but that some of the chase photography looked like video. As was mention by Stu, this is not a good thing for wide acceptance of digital photography in "Hollywood" features. It just gives the anti-digital crowd more ammunition and the studio execs more trepidation about using it.
Graeme is right however, about the cultural acceptance of "video" for drama. One of the reasons Sony has been so resistant to 24P is the fact that, like the UK, Japan has plenty of dramatic programming done in video and the public accepts that.
I have watched many video aquired UK dramas on PBS and have enjoyed them very much. However, they don't feel the same as a 24P shot feature.
It is like watching a recorded stage play, I feel very aware of the actors and of the sets. I don't feel immersed in an alternate "reality".
Some shots in Collateral looked like video transferred to film. I still enjoyed the movie but it pulled me right out of the narrative when those shots appeared. I started thinking about the film making process and was not with the story.
For the US viewers the 24P or film look, however you define that, is the proscenium beyond which the viewer accepts being taken along for a ride in an alternate world and "suspending disbelief". When the filmmakers suddenly puts "video" looking images into the narrative, it can pull the viewer right out of the immersion experience and back into the "disbelief" of seeing actors acting for a camera. Video is like news or sports, it conveys "events happening now" in our culture.
I would disagree with Gibby. Sure, the production team sits down and plots out the best means for telling a story including what formats to shoot. But I think you are being too diplomatic about 24P and "video" existing side-by-side with no consequences to your narrative. If it's a mish-mash documentary then fine, but with a dramatic feature you are significantly altering your captive audiences "captive state-of-mind".
Graeme is right however, about the cultural acceptance of "video" for drama. One of the reasons Sony has been so resistant to 24P is the fact that, like the UK, Japan has plenty of dramatic programming done in video and the public accepts that.
I have watched many video aquired UK dramas on PBS and have enjoyed them very much. However, they don't feel the same as a 24P shot feature.
It is like watching a recorded stage play, I feel very aware of the actors and of the sets. I don't feel immersed in an alternate "reality".
Some shots in Collateral looked like video transferred to film. I still enjoyed the movie but it pulled me right out of the narrative when those shots appeared. I started thinking about the film making process and was not with the story.
For the US viewers the 24P or film look, however you define that, is the proscenium beyond which the viewer accepts being taken along for a ride in an alternate world and "suspending disbelief". When the filmmakers suddenly puts "video" looking images into the narrative, it can pull the viewer right out of the immersion experience and back into the "disbelief" of seeing actors acting for a camera. Video is like news or sports, it conveys "events happening now" in our culture.
I would disagree with Gibby. Sure, the production team sits down and plots out the best means for telling a story including what formats to shoot. But I think you are being too diplomatic about 24P and "video" existing side-by-side with no consequences to your narrative. If it's a mish-mash documentary then fine, but with a dramatic feature you are significantly altering your captive audiences "captive state-of-mind".
Graeme_Nattress
Red Team
Again, culturally, UK viewers are totally used to the OB on film, studio on video mix and match look of 70s and 80s TV drama. We don't bat an eyelid as that's how drama looks.
I am sure that's true for most of the world. Somehow, early on, the film look became codified as "what drama looks like" for the US.
I would be guessing here, but I would think in the 60's and 70's US television had better budgets for network shows than other international markets. They could afford it. Plus making dramas in film gave the content more of a "feature film" cache than "television" which in the past was always low brow to the creative types.
I would be guessing here, but I would think in the 60's and 70's US television had better budgets for network shows than other international markets. They could afford it. Plus making dramas in film gave the content more of a "feature film" cache than "television" which in the past was always low brow to the creative types.
Thomas Mathai
Active member
I can guarantee you that the average person in the movie theater does not care what shutter angle was used.
zuvis
Member
I have no problems enjoying mixed look drama here in Norway, all american 24p dramas gets converted to 25p[50i] by speeding it up and not by pulldown as it is done in US, so frame-vise it looks almost the same is it shot on 24p or 50i, now the shutter speed and lighting and acting etc, that makes the magic.
Ruairi Robinson
Member
Thomas Mathai said:
Maybe not, but I've heard a few punters say parts of collateral look "cheap" - they might not be able to explain why, but they know enough to know that say, the stampede scene in King Kong, had crappy special effects. It's up to the EXPERTS - the people who do this stuff professionally, to know better, and to know why.
and anyway, we arent here because we are aiming for the lowest common denominator - we're here because we want to raise it.
Gibby
Red Savant
Sproketz said:
My reference was not to dramatic features or narrative production, but rather to the the vast amount of television programming that mixes 24p (mood montages, inbumps, outbumps, etc.) with 60p (body of the program) in the genres of sports, adventure travel, some reality, etc. Yes, 24p and 60p are juxtaposed, and yes it works quite well aesthetically for those particular genres of programs.
Case in point: each year I'm an invited judge for the National Sports Emmy Awards in New York. Many of the Emmy-winning programs present an eclectic mix of 24p filmic footage for show opens and closes, and breakaway profiles, then use 60p glass smooth motion sequences and slow motion sequences for the immediacy of the event. An example of this type of multiple-Emmy winning program is the Ironman Championships on NBC. Other multiple-Emmy winners, like the excellent Beyond the Glory series (Fox Sports Net), are documentary profiles of athletes that use 24p filmic images for the entire half hour program. Both are valid approaches for the stories they are telling, and both consistently win Emmy Awards. My most recent Emmy Award as a director was for a nationally airing sports documentary comprising elements similar to the Ironman - 24p filmic openers and mini-segments, sandwiching 60p action sequences. For those, and many other genres of production, there is a need to alternately switch the audience between a captive state of mind and immediacy.
Dramatic features are only one small portion of the many genres of production RED One will be used for.
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Ruairi Robinson
Member
Gibby said:
Gibby, do you not think that the vast majority of shooters would tend to prefer a film aesthetic if that were available without altering out aspects of their production process...?
i.e. cost, ease of use, lack of lab/processing/telecine costs etc.
All things being equal, there is a difference between good and bad quality. We could argue that it's all just a matter of taste and opinion, but I feel confident that I'm arguing for the majority in terms of taste for punters, and for professionals. Everyone tends to prefer the film look.
The difference is, the option has never been there before without sacrificing ease of use, or breaking budget constraints...
Ruairi Robinson
Member
If people here can't see the difference in QUALITY between Doctor Who and BARAKA... I mean, what's the freakin' point...
Graeme_Nattress
Red Team
What you're forgetting is that there is not one universal, cross-cultural "best" aesthetic. You're talking quality when you can't possily mean that as no two people will agree on whether one visual image is better or worse quality than another. You as a movie maker, a cinematographer get to choose your favourite aesthetic. Your choice does not, however invalidate anyone elses choice, or anyone who disagrees with your choice of aesthetic. They may like your work or hate your work, but that does not make it is good or bad. It just means that they like or don't like it.
To you, you may think bits of Collateral looked cheap, but to the director or cinematographer who made the movie, they are expertly chosen aesthetic choices that are neither right nor wrong, but their own personal choice on what they wanted the look to be. I'm not saying that you don't get to say it looks cheap to you, but please don't impose your aesthetic on everyone else, as everyone gets to choose their own with RED. That's the whole point. Cinematography is a broad church and is in no way limited to some people's holy grail of 24fps, 180 shutter and shallow DOF. That's just one aesthetic out of the infinite choices you can make.
To you, you may think bits of Collateral looked cheap, but to the director or cinematographer who made the movie, they are expertly chosen aesthetic choices that are neither right nor wrong, but their own personal choice on what they wanted the look to be. I'm not saying that you don't get to say it looks cheap to you, but please don't impose your aesthetic on everyone else, as everyone gets to choose their own with RED. That's the whole point. Cinematography is a broad church and is in no way limited to some people's holy grail of 24fps, 180 shutter and shallow DOF. That's just one aesthetic out of the infinite choices you can make.
Jim Arthurs
Well-known member
Graeme_Nattress said:
Most true...
...take an alien, slap he/she/it in front of two monitors, both showing the same content in terms of lighting, production value, angles, etc., yet one is 24fps and the other is 60i... without the context of our cultural experiences, which do you think the alien would prefer?
My bet is on the one that's more "real"...
Gibby
Red Savant
Ruairi Robinson said:
Actually I think wise directors have their shooters match the aesthetic of their footage to the specific needs of each production they shoot for. Sometimes that will call for filmic footage, and sometimes that will call for a look of immediacy. "Best" is a subjective value. Determining "best" for each project is both subjective and objective. If you're saying that a film look is good and a video look is bad, I disagree. Either can be good or bad if matched wrong with the aesthetic storytelling needs of a particular project. There is a best choice and a worst choice for each individual production or portion thereof. Numerically there are far more video shooters than film shooters in the overall motion media production industry. There is also a huge cross section of convergent shooters that shoot in both styles. In view of those numbers, sweeping statements that everyone tends to prefer the film look are precarious at best. A professional shooter should prefer the aesthetic look that best fits each production he/she shoots for, whether that be film like or video like.
I bypass sweeping “this is better than that” judgments in my work. I love a filmic look when it is the best choice for a production or portion thereof…and I love a video look when it is the best choice for a production or portion thereof.
Concur.ProLost said:
Gibby, all your points are valid except for one thing. This whole thread started in regards to the image quality of the theatrical feature film "Apocalyto" and not all the other possible uses of "motion picture photography".
Ruairi, are you picking on Dr. Who the movie or the tv series?
If it's the tv series then as Graemme mentioned that might not be a fair comparison as Dr. Who was produced for an audience perfectly happy with the look.
I think alot of people here aspire to craft images on the level of the great cinematic visual stylists we all know. In the photography world there are people who aspire to be photojournalists and people who aspire to do Ansel Adams. I think the differences between the two styles are obvious and don't require an argument to sort the validity of each approach and what types of people are drawn to create imagery in either of those styles.
Graeme_Nattress
Red Team
"Everyone tends to prefer the film look." unless you come from a different culture though.... Or unless you've seen super-high quality 4k50p with no silly edge enhancement that is just so real that it eats you into the image.
Gibby
Red Savant
Sproketz said:
There is also a third kind of shooter: the kind that has the experience, talent, and attitude be a photojournalist, Ansel Adams, and every gradient in between, as called for by each particular project. One that can be a videographer if need be, and a cinematographer if need be, and takes great pride in getting the best images possible no matter what the project, tempered with the reality of what the best aesthetic choice is for each individual project. One that checks his/her ego at the door and resists the urge to look down on other forms of creative expression and mediums as being somehow inferior. RED One will have the widest utility for this third type of shooter.
There is no ego in my comment. You are reading that in.
I am looking down at no one. You are saying that all "motion photography" is the same game and I am saying it's not. If you are a photographer on CBS's "The Great Race" you are doing great work and have reached a high level of success doing a network show. But to compare that with the game Vittorio Storaro and others bring to the table is wrong. To say everybody comes from the same creative mind set or has the same aspirations or visual styles is wrong.
I am looking down at no one. You are saying that all "motion photography" is the same game and I am saying it's not. If you are a photographer on CBS's "The Great Race" you are doing great work and have reached a high level of success doing a network show. But to compare that with the game Vittorio Storaro and others bring to the table is wrong. To say everybody comes from the same creative mind set or has the same aspirations or visual styles is wrong.