Have people forgotten what film looks like?

androbot2084 said:
Shifting the goal posts? I can remember a time when 65mm film was the mainstream format. My favorite movie was shot with 65mm film. My sisters favorite movie was shot with 65mm film.
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Was never a mainstream format in cinematography. Was mostly used of optical VFX shots, so it would hold up after the manipulation and match the 35mm stuff. 65mm or IMAX was popular with special projects, such as the original IMAX screenings at science centers and etc.

I don't recall there every being a time where 65mm trumped 35mm production. There were years of larger popularity compared to other years, such as the time period where people were experimenting with widescreen and ultra large screen presentations, but I still think those big films could be more compared to how we got 'The Master' and 'The Dark Knight Rises' in the same year all shot 65mm. Just a good year to be 65mm/IMAX.

my view on it anyhow.
 
Well, according to this on Wikipedia, there were 28 films that were shot in 65/70mm in the 1960s. Then, to contrast, here is an (incomplete) list of films that were released in that decade overall.

To say that 65mm was a "mainstream" format is overstating the issue to an incredible degree.
 
How about this clarification.

During the 1960's 65mm film along with 35mm film were both considered mainstream formats for Epic films.

Today 65mm film is a niche format but it was not always so.

In and of itself IMAX was always a niche format for film production nevertheless in a way even IMAX can be considered a subset of a mainstream format because IMAX uses the exact same 65mm film stock which was one of the mainstream film stocks used for 1960's epic productions.

Chris Nolan a mainstream director is a champion of 65mm film, both 5 perf and 15 perf.

Digital will eventually rival 65mm film however most critics do not think that digital 4K or even 5K is an acceptable substitute. In my opinion digital 4K can more closely mimic 65mm film if it is shot at 30 frames per second. 30 fps is the genuine 65mm Todd AO format. 30fps preserves the film look and it is was argued by Michael Todd that 65mm film needs its own slightly higher frame rate because motion artifacts are more noticable at higher resolutions. Todd AO is a mainstream format but only 30 fps is genuine Todd AO.
 
androbot2084 said:
Chris Nolan a mainstream director is a champion of 65mm film, both 5 perf and 15 perf.
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Mainstream directors (Steven Soderbergh, Danny Boyle) have also shot on MiniDV, so that doesn't mean anything. You said 65mm was "mainstream" at one point, trying to insinuate the point that it was as equally in use as 35mm during some period in film history. It was not, only used for a relative handful of films in the 50s and 60s, which was its heyday (though it's enjoying a comeback now). The vast majority was 35mm, something digital can match now...at least when you don't take a magnifying glass to it, apparently.
 
Gary Huff said:
The vast majority was 35mm, something digital can match now...at least when you don't take a magnifying glass to it, apparently.
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I agree...in fact there are many digital films that I only knew were digital from reading details on these boards. In these films, I could notice a few things looking different here and there AFTER the fact, but no way I'd have seen them upon one watch.
 
The reason we do not see digital's square box pixels is because of the optical low pass filter which blurs the image. Film matches the natural contours better than digital can.
 
TheDingo said:
Just look at all these talentless hacks using digital cameras...

James Cameron
David Cronenberg
David Fincher
Peter Jackson
Ang Lee

David Lynch

Martin Scorsese
Ridley Scott

Joss Whedon
Robert Zemeckis

...If only they could afford to shoot on the real thing, film.
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Ok, calling these guys "talentless" is just ridiculous. I know this comment is little old, but I can't stress how stupid you are.

But anyway... if we're going to talk about how a film SHOULD look, then I suggest you watch Phone Booth. Schumacher gets a lot of jive about hit 2 Batman movies, so say what you will, but he work on 8mm and Phone Booth shows how he knows what REAL movies look like, not including credit to his DP's though.
 
mark84j said:
Ok, calling these guys "talentless" is just ridiculous. I know this comment is little old, but I can't stress how stupid you are.
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You should probably refrain from calling someone "stupid" when the problem is that your sarcasm detector is either broken or nonexistent.

EDIT: Duh, sarcasm, not irony.
 
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Sometimes I watch things that were done in HD, and I think, "That looks pretty nice". But then when I see something shot on film (maybe an earlier season of a tv show before it went digital) I realize what's missing. Something just looks better about the color and the contrast. Lately, it seems the style to make everything look washed out and very clean. "The Following" looks this way. I think maybe people do forget what film looks like sometimes, but the "film look" seems to be losing popularity these days.
 
Patro said:
Sometimes I watch things that were done in HD, and I think, "That looks pretty nice". But then when I see something shot on film (maybe an earlier season of a tv show before it went digital) I realize what's missing. Something just looks better about the color and the contrast. Lately, it seems the style to make everything look washed out and very clean. "The Following" looks this way. I think maybe people do forget what film looks like sometimes, but the "film look" seems to be losing popularity these days.
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Well for me its the exact opposite,when i watch tv programns filmed on celluloid expecialy 16mm i think thank heavens i can now watch them in true high deff,no grain, true to life colours,washed out and clean that is the most stupid statement i have heard in a long time,regarding what i watch on tv anyway.
 
flinty said:
Well for me its the exact opposite,when i watch tv programns filmed on celluloid expecialy 16mm i think thank heavens i can now watch them in true high deff,no grain, true to life colours,washed out and clean that is the most stupid statement i have heard in a long time,regarding what i watch on tv anyway.
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What is stupid about my statement? I wasn't trying to attack anyone. I was simply stating that the desaturated, smooth look (seemingly only with digital) seems like it's becoming the norm. Just take a look at "The Following", or the new show "The Americans". While not exactly the same, they do look very similar in this regard.
 
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Patro said:
What is stupid about my statement? I wasn't trying to attack anyone. I was simply stating that the desaturated, smooth look (seemingly only with digital) seems like it's becoming the norm. Just take a look at "The Following", or the new show "The Americans". While not exactly the same, they do look very similar in this regard.
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Patro i was saying here that desaturated smooth look on digitaly made tv progamns is far from what we get,brilliant colour and resolution,if yours are not so be it.
 
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