F35: Apocalypto

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VinceinLA

Carbonite Member
I thought there was a thread about this but didn't see it while scrolling through. Shouldn't there be?

It came on tonight. Saw it on a big plasma. Wow, is about all I can say. It's really one of the more film-like movies I've seen (next to Real Steel) except for those open shutter chase scenes. The leaves did not look anything like other digital cameras; it was jungle GREEN!

I know this was a Genesis. Other than masterful cinematography overall, is the bases of the secret sauce here mostly the illusive Panalog, as far as getting the green and skin so good looking? I also assume we are looking at a scanned-to-film-out version of the movie so that would affect things.

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I agree with you and I happened to watch it on a plane 3 days ago.
I had seen in it theaters, amazing film. Very very harsh though, hard to digest in retrospective.

I'm have the feeling that the bluray versions was scanned from the film print, which helps tremendously to get that film look. The gamma curve does not add much to the look (you can convert to panalog anything you want), it's the magic in the sensor+processing what gives that filmlike texture. The arrival into the city scene is pretty amazing.
There was a thread somewhere as well as some quotes from the AC magazine explaining a bit of the grading process.
 
I'm going to have to get the bluray. I was watching it via crappy digital cable which always has a bunch of artifacts, to even a moderately trained eye.

I was wondering about the Panalog because so few indie projects or test shoots I have seen that use the F35 have nailed the skin, saturation and green like this movie did. Of course they had a master colorist and all of that but it just seems illusive to nail even one shot as well as they did here, not that some of the posts here don't look great, like your gritty LA short, but overall examples seem off, or way off, most of the time. Real Steal is a perfect, or even better example, and is still my top pick for CCD=film movies. I need to see The Other Boleyn Girl via bluray though.
 
Apocalypto was mastered from film elements. Good colorist yes, but do not downplay the influence of a top cinematographer, who spent a great deal of time researching and testing before shooting the movie.

The Other Boleyn Girl is disappointing in its look.
 
I had the pleasure of speaking with Dean a while ago, this was one of his first forays into digital. Apparently it was Mel who called him and asked about shooting digital.

One of the main sequences he said they really benefitted from that workflow was where they're jumping into the waterfall - having a "magazine" last 50 minutes rather than 4 or 10 made a huge difference to them. They could get a lot more takes in before the camera came out of its housing, which was a major operation.

He and Gibson were watching dailies before the crew had even packed up and gone home, he really enjoyed the experience and clearly stuck with the Genesis for quite a long time.
 
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