apocalypto

I meant, how did they shoot the straight on running shots? Do they have a parallel dolly track for those? I had just never seen such long durations shots like that before. And, since the guys are sprinting, I don't see how you could shoot them with a steadicam.


overlandfilms said:
If you're talking about the tracking shots, they stated that they'd cleared long corridors through the jungle and paralleled the talent as they ran through.

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Yeah, he was great. I loved that he was kind of like a cut snake. He wasn't on the top of the food chain, and took it out on his victims because of it. You never quite knew what he was capable of.

I also loved loved loved the King at the top of the pyramid who never spoke. He just stared. He had the greatest eyes. Man did you see menace in those eyes.
 
Charles Papert said:
As far as the look of "Apocalypto", I've seen some footage in HD and it does have a funky motion cadence to me also. I do wonder if they might have shot with the 360 degree shutter (i.e. none) for some reason as that looks similar to what I have seen in these clips.
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That's my guess. I completely forgot that the film was shot on the Genesis until that first handheld shot. It just looked like a discovery channel reinactment special. In retrospect, I don't know if it looked "bad" but it defenitely looked different. If I didn't have the mental association of "discovery channel video special" I'd probably be inclined to think along the lines of calling it "heightened adrenaline reality."


As far as how they did it though, I was really confused. At first, I thought that maybe the film was shown on a digital projector and that the lack of a black frame inbetween every image was throwing the look off. But then i remembered that I saw Nightmare before Christmas 3d digitally and the cadaence didn't look off. And I know that it's not a result of the Genesis being digital. The camera is able to expose at 24fps; there shouldn't be any problem!
My theory is that some of those handheld shots were overcranked at 22fps with a 360degree shutter. It would make the film look a bit faster and there'd be no motion blur stutter, which IMO would look a lot like 60i video even though Apocalypto played at 24fps.

that's my theory anyways...
...someone with an HVX should try it
 
I believe that theory is right. Mel Gibson is not shy about his love of overcranking/shutter speeds, etc. He probably applied some tricks that he used in his film days, thinking the result would be the same. Welcome to technology, my friend.
 
Best movie of the year! I have never seen anything like it in my entire life. I still can't get some of those images out of my head. Some parts were very disturbing.
 
I thought it took so many chances, especially the screenplay. I didn't watch any of the previews so I was really in the dark as to what would happen. I figured it was going to be an epic because of the subject matter, so when he goes up into that tree to avoid the chasing mayans and sees that baby jaguar, I honestly thought he was going to befriend it, they were going to grow up together, and then come back and destroy the entire Mayan city. hahahaha. I mean, they kept talking about that prophecy with the jaguar so I figured it made sense.
 
so I just watched Miami Vice and Once Upon a Time in Mexico. Both of them were shot in High Defintion. The interesting thing I found is that Once Upon A Time In Mexico looks better than both Miami Vice (which I thought looked horrible - especially the night shots - although I'm told it was some sort of stylistic choice) and Apocolypto. This movie was shot, what? Three years ago? How does it look so much better than these newer movies with newer cameras and more experienced HD DPs?
 
c.g._eads said:
so I just watched Miami Vice and Once Upon a Time in Mexico. Both of them were shot in High Defintion. The interesting thing I found is that Once Upon A Time In Mexico looks better than both Miami Vice (which I thought looked horrible - especially the night shots - although I'm told it was some sort of stylistic choice) and Apocolypto. This movie was shot, what? Three years ago? How does it look so much better than these newer movies with newer cameras and more experienced HD DPs?
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Yeah, you're right! Something about it, but OUATIM looks GREAT! It's the Robert Rodriguez Mojo ;)
 
Finally saw this last night on a 35mm print. I went in looking for the video cadence described throughout this thread, and was pleased that it didn't register - or at least enough to take me out of the story.

I think the camera shined when used on longer lenses and at shorter DOF. Wide shots almost felt claustrophobic - like there wasn't that much scale to the 16:9 image.

The best moments were during the scenes at the Mayan city. I've been through about a half-dozen ruin cities in Mexico and Belize and I feel like Apocalypto really got it right. The scale of the city was perfect - Gibson didn't take it over the edge with some impossibly grand and sprawling Mayan empire.

Rudy Youngblood was very, very good - he's at the top of my actor list for 2006.

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I really liked the story and the bit about fear being able to take over a community. The action kept me gowing throughout the whole movie. And, I really liked the unkown actors. However, I did not like the look of the film. I thought that the colors where dull and not natural at all, which stinks because almost the whole movie was shot in a what-could-have-been-beautiful forest. It kind of reminded me of an MTV real-world documentary look.
 
I agree with you about the story and action. Overall, a very impressive movie. Mel can definitely direct an action flick, and dang, that is incredible to get such a believable feel out of non-professional actors. And the Mayan city? Holy crap that was amazing.

Incidentally, I watched it in 2K digital projection. A different experience altogether.
It was kind of funny because you could see that the Panavision Genesis digital camera it was shot with had a lot of the same issues any other HD camera has. I saw lots of noise in shadow areas and some limited dynamic range in bright jungle scenes.

All that said, it was breathtaking at times. The clarity was absolutely insane for the most part. Far better than any typical film release print could possibly show. The biggest annoyance I had overall was that some shots seem to have gone a little "slurry" in terms of motion blur, a lot like Collateral and Miami Vice fell victim to. Most people think of it as the "video" look, but I'm pretty sure it was either 1/24 shutter speed or possibly some difficulty the cameras had in rendering brightly lit, high contrast scenes.

All that said, I can definitely see where the end-to-end digital product is going to beat out film in the near future.
 
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