How does the EX3 replicate the look of film in 'Monsters' ?

L

L1N3ARX

Well-known member
Like everyone knows, Monsters was shot on the EX3 and well ... at least to my eyes, it looked phenomenal. Not once did I question if it was really film, only when I saw the behind the scenes and interview/commentary with the director did I realize it was really an ex3 with a 35mm film adapter.

After learning this my curiosity was piqued. Until now I have never seen a single piece of footage or movie/clip from red, canon, sony or anybody that imitated film so well. Albeit, not perfect it was convincing enough for the untrained eye to not spot any obvious difference to question it whilst watching. I just wanted to know if anybody knows how this was truly accomplished. I mean, I have seen loads of clips and amazing cinematography done with this camera and a 35mm film adapter. Philip Bloom and others have shown what an amazing job this thing can do. But... Monsters, at least in my eyes, is on a completely different level. If anybody can explain to me how this was done I would really appreciate it.

On a side note, I realize that the "film look" is quite subjective and not everyone will think or interpret it the same way. In this case it just simply approximated the properties of film I have grown accustomed too.
 
Perhaps the crew were recording the HD-SDI output and getting 4:2:2 uncompressed 10-bit, which looks loads more solid than the watery-looking MPEG @ 35mb/s that gets recorded to SxS cards. Put a good lens on the EX3 and a Wafian, or even a Nanoflash, and that's a pretty tough combination to beat.
I'll have to add that movie to my Netflix list--on Blu-ray of course...
 
Have only seen the trailer and I agree that it looks great. I am pretty sure that I heard it had a film out - If true I sure that would help give it the film look. The EX3 is a phenomenal camera
 
Henry is spot on. It's funny how shooting digital and going to film can add a filmic look, it's because it's adding that aesthetic. It's even funnier to see films digitized and have it pick up artifacts, moire, aliasing and such. I guess shooting on film, and projecting on film, will always be the best.
 
There are many versions of the trailer on Youtube. Some worse than others. What I found disturbing was that the night scenes were terribly posterized. It looks like they stretched the blacks, which makes me think they did indeed record to SxS instead of using something like a KIA Pro Mini. I found one version of the trailer that didn't look as bad, but it has noise in the night scenes and a little posterizing. I hope that was just Youtube recompression to Flash that caused the posterizing, because that would look awful on a huge screen.
I have the Blu-ray on my wish list on Amazon, so I'll buy it when it comes out in March. Should be interesting. The first Amazon review talked about how they couldn't believe it was shot with a video camera. If not a shill, then that's encouraging news.
 
hey basspig,

It's also on my list of blu ray purchases as well. I wonder whether they make the blu ray from the film out or from the digital master...hmmmmmm

As far as trailers go

http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/independent/monsters/

http://www.monstersfilm.com/

May look better than youtube perhaps. I can see the problems you mention. Perhaps a nanoflash would have helped and also more moderate colour grading but the colours are very good. Love the overall look in spite of the concerns. The guy had the get up and go to just go and make a film .. can learn from him.

Now I have learn some VFX LOL
 
basspig said:
Perhaps the crew were recording the HD-SDI output and getting 4:2:2 uncompressed 10-bit, which looks loads more solid than the watery-looking MPEG @ 35mb/s that gets recorded to SxS cards. Put a good lens on the EX3 and a Wafian, or even a Nanoflash, and that's a pretty tough combination to beat.
I'll have to add that movie to my Netflix list--on Blu-ray of course...
Click to expand...

I thought the nano still gave 8-bit recording from an EX3?
 
That's right... 4:2:2 but still 8 bit. I thought a lot of footage from Kerberos looked just as good.
 
Checked out both sites.. the trailers site wanted me to download and install Quicktime. My reward for that was getting to watch a tiny picture with player controls right smack in the middle of the video. Couldn't see diddly. Then I tried the monsteresfilm site.. they only had low def. When I click the high def it goes to the Apple site. Anyway, watched the low def version full screen. Wasn't too bad on posterizing, but I get the impression they threw in film grain or something to noise it up. I'm not accustomed to seeing that much noise on my EX3/EX1's. The Monsters logo at the end, specifically the cloud effect, was posterized, so I think it's due to the compression, since that was a CG element, not a camera image.
 
'Monsters' is indeed a great looking movie. In the 'making of' featurette the director specifically mentions shooting on cards and the camera doesn't seem to tethered to anything in any of the 'making of' shots so I don't think they went sdi out.

IMHO, the Blue Ray may have the film out version, but also remember: any digital footage (RED included) will always look more cinematic when cropped to 2.40 as 'Monsters' did. 2.40 is like a jedi mind trick. I see RED footage that looks super videoie at 16x, but all cinematickie at 2.40.
 
That's encouraging. It would have been fascinating to watch this in a theater, from the 35mm filmout. Of course distro prints would degrade the picture quite a bit.. I remember a constant annoyance with the softness and graininess of the picture whenever I went to the movies.
No matter how you crop a video, it won't look better, except only in the illusion of a theatrical presentation.
I am looking forward to seeing how a film made to look theatrical with the EX3 (and not video-like as in District 9) will actually turn out. That it may have been shot to SxS really ups the stakes. I've seen how much better footage looks when captured to a NanoFlash, so I won't expect magic, but just the same, it should be interesting to see how it compares with a film shot on a Panavision film camera.
 
I think Gareth Edwards, did a great job, small crew defined Indie film making. Yess, ex3 is soft, but imagine how much he saved on cost. i thought it was shot beautifully/convincingly.

End of the day you can forgive the visuals its the sound that creates the realistic world.

But i do think the film was great visually.
 
Reading some of the YouTube comments I hope you weren't looking for a good action movie basspig. Lots of talk, little action. :-(
 
This is all great info! Thanks for the response, I was just really curious. Now when everyone says "filmout" I'm assuming its just a transfer of the final cut to 35mm film and that it somehow gives it the added aesthetic of film? If so, that is really good to know. I wish I could find an example of some original footage from this movie or another and be able to compare side by side after a "filmout" transfer.

I'd love to shoot some footage with this camera and then after color grading, editing and a filmout; just analyze the difference. Would be cool. Costly, but very cool.
 
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brudney said:
Gareth is said to be directing the next Godzilla movie... :]

and yeah, Monsters looked amazing. here's the link to fxguide's podcast with Gareth, highly recommended:)

http://media.fxguide.com/fxpodcast/fxg-101014-monsters.mp3


also, AFAIK they didn't record to any externald device, such as Nano..
Click to expand...


Gareth is so absurdly inspiring it makes me want to jump out of my chair and start making some kind of movie. It's almost dangerous, ha, but seriously this guy has a gift that you don't come across too often.
 
Yess very true. If you want the 4:2:2 looks without nano.

Is to set timeline up in 422 pro res and export. Might still be little compression but still great quality.

Nano flash would help with grading etc.
 
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