28 Days Later shot w/ Digital Zoom

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Gordon JL

Well-known member
I know a professor from UC Berkeley who claims that 28 Days Later was shot with the digital zoom on; and that is why the image quallity is so bad. But I'm thinking that a lot of the shots were indoors, and it would have made it impossible to even use the digital zoom. And aside from intentionally degrading the image quallity; why would they decide to even shoot the film with the digital zoom on? Also, couldn't they have degraded the footage optically? It just makes little sense that they would have shot the film with it on. They could have wanted a more shallower DOF appearance; but they could have easilly used more telephoto lenses (unless they wanted degradation). Can anyone explain why it could have been shot with the digital zoom, or if at all?
 
Wow; 28 Days Later. A true digital blast from the past (I love this film)

The image quality looks bad because it is bad compared to today's available camera's. I don't know about any Digital Zoom being on but this may help you:


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

Nevertheless; as usual, your professor probably is talking out his ass.
 
Doesn't sound true to me. I don't think you can even enable the digital zoom until the end of the zoom range, can you even use it at all with a manual lens?

Also, digital zoom will not improve DoF.

I think it looks poor because it is DV that has been put through a multi-stage post-production.
 
Honestly, this film looks better than November (recent film shot on a superior DV camera(DVX-100). They took more time to make this film look good. Still one of my favorites in the DV realm.
 
briceman said:
Honestly, this film looks better than November (recent film shot on a superior DV camera(DVX-100).
Click to expand...

I see your point about November being shot on a newer camera - but then again, 28 Days later had better look better, considering it had an 8million dollar budget compared to November's 300,000 dollar budget.

Gordon:
As far as the digital zoom goes - it's probably fair to say that your professor has no idea what he's talking about. They went pretty far out of their way to squeeze every ounce of quality out of the DV footage they shot, all the way through the post process. I mean, how many DV features dub their footage over to D1 for an online? They were obviously already concerned with the effects of DV compression on the image.
I seriously doubt any 'digital zoom' was used, DV looks bad enough on it's own already.
Also, any digital zooming could have been done in post (if reframing or cropping was required - the idea of doing it on set seems kinda stupid.

The good thing is you can take a VERY valuable lesson away from this - people can be wrong, including people in a position of authority.
:thumbsup:
 
Luis Caffesse said:
I see your point about November being shot on a newer camera - but then again, 28 Days later had better look better, considering it had an 8million dollar budget compared to November's 300,000 dollar budget.
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True, still, and XL-1 vs a DVX, c'mon!
 
Alright - I'm going to get slammed for this one but -
If you took them both through the same post workflow and color correct on a DaVinci and transferred to film - I don't think you'd be able to tell the difference between XL1 PAL and NTSC DVX footage in a blind test.
(i'm using 'you' in the general sense, not you in particular).

More importantly, your average audience member DEFINITELY isn't going to see a difference.

Just my 2 cents though.


What's funny is we comb over the minutiae of all these cameras that are pretty much the same (i mean, there's a reason they all cost within $1000 of each other). As though the footage from one would be vastly different than the other.

But at the same time everyone expects the HVX to shoot footage that can intercut seamlessly with Varicam footage.
:)
 
mm... you're probably right. I mean they're both DV, 1/3 CCD. Some differences, but overall I think you'd be right.
 
Yeah man.. Luis' avatar is scary as hell.

And as for 28 days later... why does no one ever mention the film trick they used?

They shot the beginning and the end of 28 days on film and the rest with the XL1....

But I never hear ANYONE mention anything about it.

As for Prosumer camera battles...

No regular audience member is going to notice the difference between them. Luis is correct.
 
And as for 28 days later... why does no one ever mention the film trick they used? They shot the beginning and the end of 28 days on film and the rest with the XL1....

But I never hear ANYONE mention anything about it.
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Film Trick ? Why is that a trick ?

The beginning is all XL1s.

The end however is indeed film 35mm and the flashback of his parents was done in 8mm.

Why does that bother mention ? It was the end.
 
Not only was it the end. I'm pretty sure it was only filmed for the American release after having raked in truckloads of money in Europe.

Also it worked, because the "zombiefication" was over, so the tone allowed nice clean, well saturated film.
 
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