Get Smart: Portions shot on Video?

TimTheFoolMan

TimTheFoolMan

Well-known member
I went to the midnight opening of "Get Smart" last night, and noticed some weird "video-ness" during several of the action scenes. Does anyone know any details about the production methods used here?

In particular, one of the climactic scenes with an SUV and a train contains several transitions that made me think "ewwww... video camera" while I was watching. Did I imagine this?
 
You didn't imagine this at all, go look at the trailer with the footage from the roof stuff at night. There is a 60i looking feel to some of it.
 
just saw the movie. i thought it was hilarious. a true tribute to the series (of which i'm a big fan.)

i saw the video look too on a few scenes.
 
Thanks to all for the info.

KyleProhaska said:
You didn't imagine this at all, go look at the trailer with the footage from the roof stuff at night. There is a 60i looking feel to some of it.
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I noticed this, but attributed it to some shortcut in putting the trailers online. In the theater, we sat about 7/8 of the way to the back of the house, and in some of those scenes, it was an overwhelming sensation. The feeling that I had was that it was partially lighting/color issues, but partially movement-related, since those were the scenes when it was most visible. (Making me less convinced of color issues is my red-green pastel color-blindness, which makes it almost impossible to distinguish between brown and green, or purple and blue.

Even so, I enjoyed the movie too, particularly the tribute moments where characters (or actors) from the original show were tossed into the fray unexpectedly. - Tim
 
GageFX said:
It was shot on the Panny Genesis.
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I'm a major noob here, so I apologize in advance for the lameness of this question, but what's the reputation of the Genesis among industry insiders? Good? Bad? Ugly? (I don't want this to degenerate into a film vs video rat hole, so feel free to nip this in the bud if I'm trudging down a path that gets run into the ground.)

The discussions on cinematography.com suggest that there is (at some level) the kind of pushback against video in film that audiophiles have used for years to promote analog recording/playback methods over digital, no matter what the specifications might say. When pressed on technical details (i.e. getting past 4-6K, the claimed 10 stops of contrast ration in the RED), the film guys start going into esoterica that sounds quite a bit like "oxygen-filled copper speaker cables" and "the warmth and soundstage of tubes."

In short, while I'm reflecting back on what it was that got my attention, it's hard for me to put my finger on any one aspect of "Get Smart" that made me think video. It didn't ruin the movie for me by any stretch of the imagination, but I can see how for some films (where the artsy, cinematic look is more important to telling the story), this could be a major factor. - Tim
 
Yeah you see that every now and then everywhere - never understood it as a lot of times it's overly obvious and fairly grotesque. Haven't seen Get Smart yet, but do remember seeing some bad video mixing all over.

Run Lola Run - damn, love it, but some of those scenes were just too much.

For Steve Carrell fans, every now and then, you'll see a few shots in The Office shot on subpar video (true the whole series is on video, but sometimes they'll seem to use a prosumer SD 1/3 camera, usually in a car vs. HD 24p)
 
I've noticed movies shot on film can have that goofy video-y motion too, like shooting on the 1/24 shutter speed on the DVX. I wonder if it has something to do with using a digital intermediate? Regardless, I'm seeing a similar look on movies shot both digitally and on film, in a theater, so there seems to be less difference in the way movies look on the sacred big screen.

But anyway, how about that Get Smart? I'm hearing mixed reviews so far, but I love the original Get Smart, and Steve Carrel, so I'll give it a shot.
 
Billy Pilgrim said:
But anyway, how about that Get Smart? I'm hearing mixed reviews so far, but I love the original Get Smart, and Steve Carrel, so I'll give it a shot.
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On the plus side, I think the story played well to the cast. Dwayne Johnson plays the arrogant muscle-guy really well, and Carrel had plenty of opportunities for his subtle facial expressions. For me, the best casting component was Alan Arkin as "The Chief." On a 1-5 scale, I felt like it was a 3.5. If you've never seen the original series, you'll still be able to follow along, but if you're a fan, you'll find lots of little touches that pay an honest tribute to Don Adams and the rest of the original cast.
 
I would rate it at about a 3 out of 5. It had its funny moments.

As far as the video look, I noticed a few times (especially in low light) that it was very grainy. We got there late so we ended up sitting in the third row. Maybe films always look grainy that close. But it seemed like this one was particularly grainy at times. It made me think of low light video.
 
The whole movie was shot on the Genesis. The scenes that felt like video (haven't seen the movie yet, but saw some shots in the trailer) were because they were shot at the 1/24 shutter speed. That creates the extra motion blur. I hate it (especially for high motion action stuff), but some of the film DPs newish to shooting digital like getting that extra stop by shooting at the slower shutter speed (something that the film cams can't do).

Russell Carpenter did the same thing with '21'.

The gain noise of certain shots was probably accentuated in the DI.
 
I did notice the "video-y" nature of some shots, but it wasn't enough to pull me out of the picture. Nobody else in the theater noticed.

I dug the flick, great summer popcorn fare.
 
Funny is about as subjective as it gets, but I did not think this movie was funny. There's something about Steve Carrel's humor that doesn't quite work in movies for me. I get the feeling that the nurturing environment of The Office allows him to take chances and have fun. But movies are a different beast - with studio reps tapping their watches in the corner and a bunch of unfamiliar people hanging around. That does not help when trying to be funny.

I thought everything about this movie was off though. The pacing seemed weird. The rhythm in the dialog was off. Even a Bill Murray cameo felt completely worthless and unfunny. I do not recommend this one. Then again - like I said - humor is subjective.
 
Funny you say that. It was about 1:10:00 into the film before I laughed for the first time. I didnt laugh much, if at all, after that.

I would give this 1 out of 5, and only because Anne Hathaway could sweep a sidewalk in a burka and I'd have to give it at least 1 star.
 
c.g._eads said:
Funny is about as subjective as it gets, but I did not think this movie was funny. There's something about Steve Carrel's humor that doesn't quite work in movies for me. I get the feeling that the nurturing environment of The Office allows him to take chances and have fun. But movies are a different beast - with studio reps tapping their watches in the corner and a bunch of unfamiliar people hanging around. That does not help when trying to be funny.

I thought everything about this movie was off though. The pacing seemed weird. The rhythm in the dialog was off. Even a Bill Murray cameo felt completely worthless and unfunny. I do not recommend this one. Then again - like I said - humor is subjective.
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I don't understand why you would get the rights to Get Smart, and not do Get Smart. The show was sort of the precursor to things like Naked Gun and all these godawful movie spoofs today that seem to make money, so I don't understand the changes. The whole comedy of the show was that he was a clueless bumbling idiot, so changing him to a character who is more competent makes it less funny.
 
This was the worst piece of drivel I've seen in a long time. Worst of many bad TV show-based flicks. A complete nothing.

(Except perhaps one line - "Nuclear!" - which didn't really fit with the movie but needed to be said by someone.)
 
Batutta said:
I don't understand why you would get the rights to Get Smart, and not do Get Smart. The show was sort of the precursor to things like Naked Gun and all these godawful movie spoofs today that seem to make money, so I don't understand the changes. The whole comedy of the show was that he was a clueless bumbling idiot, so changing him to a character who is more competent makes it less funny.
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Yes, that's exactly what I was thinking while I wasn't laughing. "Isn't he supposed to be a bumbling idiot?" And also I was thinking, "Gosh, this scene would've been so much funnier if he was a bumbling idiot."

They probably did it because some studio exec said, "If he's a bumbling idiot, the audience will never believe the romance between him and Agent 99".

All in all, I feel like Carrel wayyyyy underplayed it.
 
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