F65: Lucy - feature film

I gotta say, looking at the trailer, this does not look great (from a cinematography perspective). Very "videoy" - blown out highlights, overly sharpened, lot of noise going on.

I get very confused when DoPs I admire come out with something that looks so plainly wrong to my eyes. I believe it was mentioned somewhere else that he had a very unconventional approach regarding exposure etc...
 
I saw it in the theatre too, wasn't a big fan of the look. Very detailed, very clean, but some unflattering clipped highlights and it just felt a bit lifeless image-wise.
 
You know what really sucks? All three cameras (RED, Alexa, F65) were used to shoot it, namely due to space requirements an article said, but why can't they just shoot the whole film on the F65 to really see how it stands on it's own? With 3 cameras who knows what was really shot on what... just saying.
 
I'm just glad to know it wasn't shot with 3 different cameras throughout - really though, what's the reason to use different cameras. They don't trust Sony so they put a little RED and Alexa in there? Or is it just marketing gimmick? If I was a hired DP on big shoot I'd insist on the same camera being used throughout, not a mix-n-match camera party. But that's just me.
 
I forgot exactly but RED was because of size. They use it for background plates mounted on car for car shots. They need many together and can't find so many F65 in Paris. RED everybody have. Alexa I think reshoot and they didn't have F65 there or something. It was long time I read article.
 
on that interview with the DP that I posted on the F65 thread he explains exactly where they used each camera.
 
Firstly, watch this to see a movie trailer within a similar genre and notice the look between this "film" and a *real* one (and this is a terrible file with what looks to be not final color): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUXWAEX2jlg

OK.
Secondly, I haven't made a feature of my own and my talent pales in comparison to this work here by the Director/DP- but IMO the aesthetic and color/look here is just not on par with the territory.

This looks so much like "HD" video that my 120hz tv turned on thinking it finally had some content to play on it, everyday I see vimeo videos that look better- even though I absolutely love Scarlet Johansen, my copy of Lost in Translation spontaneously combusted after watching this trailer- of course the story looks SOMEWHAT interesting, abet a recycle of a recycle, and really does Morgan Freeman always have to be pidgin holed into the same damn character in every film, is that what we want to see? Can we see him in more than a "wise old man"? Give the guy a break.


Judgements aside I'm just left wondering is this the best treatment that can be done visually? Is this the best foot forward within the realm of *hollywood films* or what post house (or lack there of) messed this up so badly?
Has "Hollywood" resorted to craigslist post-production? Who's running this show?

AND Its not the camera; the f65, Oblivion looked incredible- Claudio Miranda can do it with any camera anyway of the week.

This just solidifies the fact for me that "made for TV" movies and WEB SERIES now look better and more like *Hollywood* than "Hollywood" films. House of cards eats this films lunch.

God I need to take a walk, ill show myself out.

*/rant*
 
Hunter I agree with you this is my feeling too. But this movie not really hollywood. It's french from Luc Besson. All made in france. Story is too much umbelievable. Just ok movie.
 
This really goes back to what we all said and knew about the F35 - there are so many great DoPs who did amazing work on celluloid and then their digital output looked, for want of a better word, amateurish or consumerish or "video-y".

Michael Mann's stuff very much is in this mould. I think people are setting up the cameras badly or doing things with them that I would never do. It frustrates me because if people ask me what films were shot on my camera and I mention something like that, they automatically think that is the look you get shooting with this camera.
 
From reading that article it seems to me that the DP deferred too much creative decision making to the DIT. I've gotta say when I read that he let the DIT decide exposure I was surprised. I've not been on a lot of sets and my ignorance may be showing here, but is this a common practice? Seems like a less than optimal solution to me.

Perhaps this a common problem among film trained DPs? The digital options are overwhelming, so they rely on technicians to interpret things. "Ooh, this is digital. Here, engineer person, you push the buttons." But technicians tend to be rather precious about "doing it the right way technically". I work all day with programmers and engineers, and while they are amazing at what they do they often just don't understand creative or artistic decision making at all.

It's one thing to "do it right" according to numbers, curves, maths, efficient, etc. It's quite another to achieve something creatively pleasing. The F35 has gobs of options and features, but I've found that it's typically at its best when used in the simplest of ways- ways that might make an engineer pull their hair out because technically it's "wrong".
 
You said it Keith.

Also I think working with digital on *some* cameras it's harder to get a film look than with others, so perhaps these DP's feel some need to let "proper exposure" be dictated by a technician.

I don't work on overly elaborate film sets either, but perhaps this is how its done in this new era.
 
Last edited:
Not to knock the technicians, but this is exactly right. I feel like the old film guys can be nervous about the transition to shooting digital and they turn to technicians for the answers. Most camera technician don't like the "film look" because it's not an easily quantifiable characteristic, they say things like "yes you have a global shutter on the f55, you will get that film look." In turn it has become all about resolution and dynamic range and low light ability. All the things that make the F35 special that we are sick of explaining to the blackmagic boys is the exact same being forgotten in Hollywood also. Of course there are exceptions, and I get so excited when I get to work with people who know are care about these qualities, however on the whole, the Red Dragon is the top of the line and everything else is old tech.
Now granted there are lots of reasons why a production picks a camera, but I see on the whole numbers have become the standard of how good a camera is and "film-like mojo" is not important to technicians and therefore not important to the artists they are educating.
 
Last edited:
A similar cultural and technological problem happened in the animation world when CG took over for pencils. Guys who were world class pencil animators (we're talking living masters) suddenly forgot how to animate when they started using CG. And I'm not talking about "Gee, where's the button in this software?". I mean when you qualitatively looked at their digital work it was just bad. Stuff moved poorly, had terrible silhouette and motion arcs, the acting was off, the attention to detail was all lost, etc. Just artistically poor work all around. Granted it was simpler to achieve some of these things with a epncil, but in no way was it impossible (or even terribly difficult) in CG. It just required them to be able to see it. Lots of the pencil guys just blamed the computer and left. Some stuck with it and learned to "see" their work again. The digital has a way of blinding people who used to be able to see what was good. It's an odd phenomena.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top