Cinema Tests

F

fuen

Active member
Hi,

I know, a lot of words are already spent on wether or not the DSLR's are cinema-worthy. And topics like the one from Phillip Bloom certainly give us hope, but i'm still not convinced.

In perfect circumstances, it's good enough, no doubt about that. But what when we want to crop our footage to 1:2.35 to get the full wide screen? How do forest shots with a LOT of detail and everything in focus look - because often enough they're just do-able on my 13" MacBook.

Now, to test all this, and get good data for once and always, i'm thinking about renting a real cinema room for an hour. It's not thát expensive, and you can do a lot of good testing in an hour. The cinema i'm planning to do this in is just a few minutes away from here, and has about a 46 feet wide screen.

But to make it worth the money, i want to ask everyone here what they want to see, what they want to test, to test as much as scenarios and potential problems as possible.

Maybe even send me your own footage and we'll put it up there. I'll document everything.

So... what do you want to test in a cinema if you got the chance?
 
I think that natural scenery is a big importance to me, I believe that while set lighting can make things look beautiful, the important thing with cinema is that the beauty you recorded is sharp enough to watch, not just as an illusion. Since outdoor shots are usually raw and natural for the most part (taking adantage of good weather more than anything) and so far, I've seen Red videos of natural no manipulation nature scenes that have blown me away in the realism, yet on the DSLR's this same scenario seems to look blurry, distorted, and camcorder-ish, although the 2nd two negatives may be caused by my lack of experience in focal perception. But I think the 'sharpness' is one question that seems to have no answer, with the popular opinion that these camera only do at most a quality closer to a 720p video stretched to 1080p.

So I guess one major thing is showing a native 1080p file with no editing, and possibly a 1080p video that has had all the post-sharpening effects in the book to see how the possibilities can be legthened or whatev. The one thing these cameras seem good at is macro shots and close-up face shots, but I'd love to see how normal scenery angles hold up.
 
It'a ll pretty meaningless until you talk about projection. A state of the art digital projector? What kind of files do those use? 1080p or something bigger?

A DVD through a lower-powered presentation projector? That would seem like a kind of why-bother scenario to me... (but that's just me... once you MPEG it down to SD...)

A 1080 BlueRay? Again, what's the projector?

An actual 35mm film-out through a standard theatrical 35mm projector? Now you're talkin'...

Not trying to be a {feminine hygiene product consisting of rubber-like pouch for liquids and some sort of hose assembly} but my guess is you may not learn much if it's the standard "rent a theater for meetings and bring your DVD for our Epson projector" setup.
 
@Michael:
I don't know any techical data about the projector yet, but it's an above-average standard movie theatre where feature films are shown daily, and they very recently upgraded the screen and their projection technology, so i'm guessing it's really up to, or even above, the standards.

I also don't know how digital delivery to cinemas usally works oe can be done (ProRes quicktime file?), but of course we're going for 1080p/2k - which the projector obviously can handle. Have to talk with the theatre to know about how we can do that best.

I understand your question, i can't answer everything yet, but i know it's not a 'rent your theatre'-thingy - which as you said, would not tell much - but an actual pretty big movie theatre with up-to-date equiptment. So if we get the delivery also right, i think it's pretty safe to say if it looks good there, it will look good in many, many cinemas around the world.
 
No, that was my own personal filter... my poor wife, she is going to need optical surgery from all the eye-rolling she does...
 
My official two cinemas in town, the ones that show all the mainstream films, have two projectors for each room; one is to show 1080P local advertisments before the official previews start (these commercials range from car lots, to auto shops, to churches, whatever.) and they're all in 1080P I believe, most of them looking outstanding if shot with the right camera. Then the 2k-4K-Film projector switches on for the official film and previews, with the theater screen curtains actually widening mechanically for the new showing. I've accepted that DSLR format means 16:9 and 1080P, so I figure that if my film ever gets distributed, it'll be shown on the 'local advertisments' projector instead of the real one, which probably is just fine with the cinemas since it uses a little less power on the electricity part and probably is easier to set up. Or if they want to use the 2K-4K one, I'll keep the aspect ratio and add some sort of experimental graphic border around the 1080P file, which actually fits with the campy atmosphere my project is going to have. Worst case scenario for me, is I'll re-size the video itself smaller, to make it a little sharper or better ratio'd, and fill 25% of the screen with animated graphics around the film itself that interact with the picture. Seems like a rightly solution for a indie film that doesn't have 4K to work with or a proper-wide screen ratio.
 
Good news! The cinema is going to allow me to test for free in exchange for an ad i'm going to make for them. So that's basically two tests; one with the different sizes and st00f, and one real production, where the DSLR's really will be put to use for an ad which will run before every movie. How cool's that! Awesome to have a cinema that's open to such ideas.

Cinema is suggesting i deliver as DCP (- oh ****, never did that before), but Blu-Ray and an own laptop with HDMI is fine too, so it's definately possible to test some different sizes and aspect ratios. 16:9 and 2.40:1 (which their screen is), and possibly even more.

Also, i have been thinking; maybe it's even a better idea to downscale 1080p to 720p and then upscale again to 2k (-or get it printed on 35mm)? The biggest problem i see with the DSLR's is not the resolution per se, but the 'fake sharpness' and 'digitalness' of the picture, which dissapears when you blur the stuff or the actual resolution becomes less and then gets upscaled again. It looks better - in a way.

- i'm so tempted to call this topic "42 feet screen meets $800 camera".
 
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I watched Due Date today, and payed attention to all the previews and local commercials and the film itself, and I have to say that these projectors must be extremely powerful devices. I saw clips that I knew must be only 1080P, and they looked way above acceptable for an indie film, even if by a smudge blurrier than the feature film itself. I also walked into Colored Girls, which surprisingly had a 16:9 ratio and no one seemed to mind (the entire theater was cheering with every thing that happened in the film, so it didn't seem to effect anyone being a skinny ratio.) Now, if these projectors will display a 1080P video exactly at the same quality it is on our computers, I have no problem trusting that these DSLR's can make a theater film. But if they require 4K files, that's an entirely different story. So hopefully this upcoming test will confirm alot of things!
 
I think the projectors might even make the 1080p look better then on our computer screens. RED footage looks often better on a computer screen then in the cinema, because on your computer screen, you're with your nose on the pixels - which is a good thing if your footage is THAT good. DSLR footage isn't that good, so it looks not te best on a computer screen, but it might very well look great projected. I don't know for sure - it's what we're about to find out.

Also, i saw Due Date today too, and paid some attention to the detailed areas, and everything isn't THAT sharp projected in cinemas which very well might help making the DSLR footage look good.
 
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