Hobbit: Overly detailed 5K and HFR failing to please

S

Shoots56

Carbonite Member
Interesting article. It talks about Jackson toning down the detail in the red footage with promist filters, among other things. I personally have NO interest in these films compared to TLOTRings films. The Hobbit is plastic looking with over the top CGI and the choice of camera helped to ruin the look of the sets, not to mention skin tones. Why he didn't just shoot on 35mm and make the rather short original story into just one film I will never understand. Is he really that blind and selfish/egotistical?

http://www.engadget.com/2013/12/17/hfr-the-desolation-of-smaug/?ncid=txtlnkusaolp00000589
 
Wtf are you talking about? I posted a factual based article link and nothing about me "making a better film". What are you, 17 years old? That appears to be the level of writing you are at.

This has nothing to do with Star Wars. If any post is absurd it would be yours for trying to connect these two films in any way. One of is a FILM that broke a dozen rules and made new ones, the other was purely made to make money and it's only doing so because of an old, popular book and mass marketing that costs $100mil and the reason for that is based on the past success of the ultra boring and money wasting director. He made junk after LOTR yet he keeps working, making more of the same unmoving crap but with marketing money and gimmicks like 48fps.

Whatever kid, my post is about 5K and how high rez. footage doesnt help anything. Grow the hell up and learn something instead of being emotional.
 
The Hobbit is plastic looking
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Desolation of Smaug looks better than the first. From the article:

each scene was carefully color corrected to "take the (video-like) HD quality away"
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I actually said to myself while watching the movie that they made it look a lot like film.

Even so, I've been hating soap-operatic smooth motion since I ever first saw it decades ago, and I made triple sure to sidestep the 48-frame-per-second version and went with the 24-fps 3-D version. And I'm about this close to giving up on 3-D. It wasn't distracting and overall was well done, but at the end of the movie my eyes just felt too tired.
 
I wasn't a fan of the 48fps footage but wasn't opposed to it either. I saw the first Hobbit that way and decided to see the second one that way as well. Truthfully it has really grown on me. Surprisingly. I thought the movie looked great in 3D 48fps. I also liked it better than the first Hobbit.

I don't think every movie should be shot this way, but I do think it's a viable option. My 9 year old son also didn't seem to notice anything different. He liked the movie. So maybe this is just us growing up with certain expectations.
 
combatentropy said:
Desolation of Smaug looks better than the first. From the article:



I actually said to myself while watching the movie that they made it look a lot like film.

Even so, I've been hating soap-operatic smooth motion since I ever first saw it decades ago, and I made triple sure to sidestep the 48-frame-per-second version and went with the 24-fps 3-D version. And I'm about this close to giving up on 3-D. It wasn't distracting and overall was well done, but at the end of the movie my eyes just felt too tired.
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48fps 3d is much less stressful on the eyes.

I used to shoot industrial marketing films for a packaging machinery manufacturer in 16mm film for video. Most of it was rythmic machine movement cut to jazz soundtracks. I shot the Bolex at 30fps for that stuff to ge a one to one frame to video scan. 3:2 pull down looked far more atrocious than the higher frame rate and really messed with the motion cadence of the subject matter.
 
Shoots56 said:
Wtf are you talking about? I posted a factual based article link and nothing about me "making a better film". What are you, 17 years old? That appears to be the level of writing you are at.

Whatever kid, my post is about 5K and how high rez. footage doesnt help anything. Grow the hell up and learn something instead of being emotional.
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Thats an ironic thing to say…. considering the tone of your post.
 
No need for confrontation, Shoots56. This is the thing which is dawning upon the world of digital cinematographers at the moment - while a 4k resolution grid is a wonderful thing, the mtf contrast in the mid frequencies must be far lower to obscure the digital nature of the acquisition/projection. Additionally, like 24p, a smooth ~1.5k of detail helps to suspend belief in the painterly reality of film (& the actors love it..)


http://etconsult.com/papers/Technical Issues in Cinema Resolution.pdf

"a 2K digital projector will exhibit higher resolution than is currently delivered on release prints to the theatre, and will exhibit substantial image sharpness and clarity due to the better system MTF that preserves higher contrast in the mid frequencies. The images produced should be more striking than the competing (release) film images. Scenes will still exist where the digital structure of the system will be apparent in the image, and a comparative film clip will be smoother"
 
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Sage said:
No need for confrontation, Shoots56. This is the thing which is dawning upon the world of digital cinematographers at the moment - while a 4k resolution grid is a wonderful thing, the mtf contrast in the mid frequencies must be far lower to obscure the digital nature of the acquisition/projection. Additionally, like 24p, a smooth ~1.5k of detail helps to suspend belief in the painterly reality of film (& the actors love it..)


http://etconsult.com/papers/Technical Issues in Cinema Resolution.pdf

"a 2K digital projector will exhibit higher resolution than is currently delivered on release prints to the theatre, and will exhibit substantial image sharpness and clarity due to the better system MTF that preserves higher contrast in the mid frequencies. The images produced should be more striking than the competing (release) film images. Scenes will still exist where the digital structure of the system will be apparent in the image, and a comparative film clip will be smoother"
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No 2k projectors in my neighborhood chain multiplexes any more. All screens converted to 4k last year between Thanksgiving and Christmas. With digital, the projector and camera should not be the limiting factors for MTF or resolution. The filmmaker's creative choices should: lenses, filters, and post FX.
 
I like to criticize Peter Jackson because I've done so many pictures in my lifetime.

Seriously. The closest anyone here will ever get to Peter Jackson is handing him a cup of coffee. Imagine if you will you're sitting at your desk and somebody slaps down The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit and says, "Film it and put this on the big screen and make it 3D". I can guarantee that 99.99999% of us here wouldn't have the first clue.....The scope of production that went into these films is beyond shaking a criticizing stick at.

And when it comes to people bashing Jackson about bastardizing the product? Really????? You think for a second the studio doesn't want to squeeze every penny out of these movies? Do you realize what they cost to make upfront?
 
Razz16mm said:
With digital, the projector and camera should not be the limiting factors for MTF or resolution. The filmmaker's creative choices should: lenses, filters, and post FX.
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Yes - "the thing which is dawning upon the world of digital cinematographers at the moment - the mtf contrast in the mid frequencies must be far lower to obscure the digital nature of the acquisition/projection"
- it is a reference to the practices that cinematographers are beginning to adopt in the digital 4k camera/projector age (as opposed to an engineering or product recommendation)

The digital cinema resolution report is from 2002 (the references to 2k & release prints outdated). Its a great insight into the measured effective resolutions audiences had experienced in film based theaters using release prints

That said - in practice there is something to be said for paternalistic limitation of 'creative freedom'. To make a philosophical digression, the creative intuitively believes that if he could have unlimited freedom in his process, he would have greater expression - and by extension, happiness. The surprising thing I have discovered in my own experience again and again, is that it is indeed the opposite. The mind is crushed by options; creativity stagnates (!)
 
Sage said:
Yes - "the thing which is dawning upon the world of digital cinematographers at the moment - the mtf contrast in the mid frequencies must be far lower to obscure the digital nature of the acquisition/projection"
- it is a reference to the practices that cinematographers are beginning to adopt in the digital 4k camera/projector age (as opposed to an engineering or product recommendation)

The digital cinema resolution report is from 2002 (the references to 2k & release prints outdated). Its a great insight into the measured effective resolutions audiences had experienced in film based theaters using release prints

That said - in practice there is something to be said for paternalistic limitation of 'creative freedom'. To make a philosophical digression, the creative intuitively believes that if he could have unlimited freedom in his process, he would have greater expression - and by extension, happiness. The surprising thing I have discovered in my own experience again and again, is that it is indeed the opposite. The mind is crushed by options; creativity stagnates (!)
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Well cinematographers have used light, lens and filter choices to control the look, color, contrast of images on a high resolution capture medium (35mm negative), for decades. Shouldn't those same tools and quality of medium be an option for digital cinematography?
Must we be encumbered with lowest common denominator technical limitations that I have found so frustrating with video over the years from 3/4 U-matic to current gen long GOP high compression codecs, to the nearly universal presence of (to me) visually unacceptable levels of aliasing, chroma moire, and rolling shutter artifacts in most affordable low end cameras?
 
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Razz16mm said:
Well cinematographers have used light, lens and filter choices to control the look, color, contrast of images on a high resolution capture medium (35mm negative), for decades. Shouldn't those same tools and quality of medium be an option for digital cinematography?
Must we be encumbered with lowest common denominator technical limitations that I have found so frustrating with video over the years from 3/4 U-matic to current gen long GOP high compression codecs, to the nearly universal presence of (to me) visually unacceptable levels of aliasing, chroma moire, and rolling shutter artifacts in most affordable low end cameras?
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Yes, good points. An ideal, all things considered - an affordable Alexa (itself a smooth 2k camera) that would be a cherished 'format' (much like the Alexa) that would not require the prospective filmmaker to investigate a variety of stats and act as a secondary engineer, but rather count on its quality and reliability as attested to by others and their own experiences of it in the cinema. It would just work, and work beautifully. No numbers; new super 16mm
 
dustylense said:
I like to criticize Peter Jackson because I've done so many pictures in my lifetime.

Seriously. The closest anyone here will ever get to Peter Jackson is handing him a cup of coffee. Imagine if you will you're sitting at your desk and somebody slaps down The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit and says, "Film it and put this on the big screen and make it 3D". I can guarantee that 99.99999% of us here wouldn't have the first clue.....The scope of production that went into these films is beyond shaking a criticizing stick at.

And when it comes to people bashing Jackson about bastardizing the product? Really????? You think for a second the studio doesn't want to squeeze every penny out of these movies? Do you realize what they cost to make upfront?
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+1 Amen

We can sit here and talk trash about his choice of medium and storytelling all day. But in the end...we will still watch it and he will still get paid. The question remains...what have we/you done lately?
 
The comments posted on that article are pretty interesting. Lot's of people who think HFR is more like reality despite the fact the fact it looks like a soap opera.
 
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