Ripley, what did you think of the visuals?

Doug Jensen

Doug Jensen

Carbonite Member
Absolutely gorgeous black and white cinematography. The best I have ever seen. The blacks are deep, the whites are white, and the compositions are spectacular. I think every frame could be printed, framed, and hung on a wall. Amazing work by Robert Elswit and team. If you haven't seen it, you have to see it.
 
I'm 6 episodes in and couldn't agree more. As you note, every frame is beautifully crafted without being overwrought. Some of the best cinematography I've seen period, and certainly a study in doing black & white visuals well. Seeing it really underscores the difference between just turning footage black & white in the edit and actually planning to shoot for black & white starting from the production design and continuing all the way through the grade.

It's also great storytelling!
 
It's not really comparable to other B/W because it is produced in HDR. Well, I can think of one, from the Netflix anthology series, Black Mirror series 4 episode 5, "Metalhead." (Shot on the PMW F55 btw.)
 
I've never really seen HDR that impressed me. And I've looked at a lot of it at NAB where it should absolutely be the best examples of HDR, right? Usually when the exhibitors show how great HDR looks it comes at the expense of dumbing down the SDR to the point that I'd never accept the poor quality SDR that they are showing. I didn't buy into 3D either, and now where is it? Yeah, probably everything will move to HDR eventually but I don't really care one way or the other.

Take a look at Ripley in SDR on a nice television and then explain me how I would enjoy it any more if I had an HDR TV.

Heck, most consumers are sitting at home watching movies with Motionflow turned on since it is the default mode of most TVs. Do you expect them to run out and buy an HDR monitor?
 
Doug Jensen said:
I've never really seen HDR that impressed me. And I've looked at a lot of it at NAB where it should absolutely be the best examples of HDR, right? Usually when the exhibitors show how great HDR looks it comes at the expense of dumbing down the SDR to the point that I'd never accept the poor quality SDR that they are showing. I didn't buy into 3D either, and now where is it? Yeah, probably everything will move to HDR eventually but I don't really care one way or the other.

Take a look at Ripley in SDR on a nice television and then explain me how I would enjoy it any more if I had an HDR TV.

Heck, most consumers are sitting at home watching movies with Motionflow turned on since it is the default mode of most TVs. Do you expect them to run out and buy an HDR monitor?
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Yeah that was my reaction to 3D. I saw Avatar in Imax 3D as well as 1 or 2 other top-shelf 3D productions (maybe Hugo and one other). And I thought-- if this is the best it can be, I'm not interested.

I haven't really seen HDR but I've heard good things from reputable sources.

Of course, it's clearly in part a stratagem to move TVs.

And I'm not crazy about the idea of staring into a brighter light bulb. Seems like it could be bad for your vision in the long term. Same reason I haven't gotten a pair of viewscreen glasses, which I would love. Do I want to stare into an EVF in my spare time? My eyesight is deteriorating fast enough as it is. I walk past houses as night with a blue TV glow emanating as bright as an alien spaceship. Not even a red filter on, poor devils.

Chart of average sleep over time in Japan. Couldn't find the one for the US but I think it's similar.

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