What happened to the theatrical look?

bclighting said:
I have to wonder if also the lenses used have changed and become sharper.
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Yes, lenses have gotten 'sharper' for several reasons. Older lenses, such as 'pre-50's' often were not coated. Coating became available in the late 30's, but the 'war' effort sort of put everything on hold. One can recall the business about Kaminski having the coating removed from modern lenses to get the vintage look of the shots in "Saving Private Ryan"(1998).

Each glass element in a multielement lens addes to 'flare' if not coated. The coating reduces flare. Flare decreases contrast, which humans interpret as 'sharpness'. In addition, older lenses where 'hand ground', and 'hand calculated', and so did not have the aspheric corrections to allow all the wavelengths in 'visible' light to be focused at the same point. The older lenses would have some aberations, and so, this lended to a 'softer look'. Since most films were B&W, the non-convergence tended to 'blur' rather than color banding/blur.
 
David Jimerson said:
Yes. Much as with the movement of 24 fps, there's a certain unreality which makes things cinematic.

If you want things truly natural, walk around with a camcorder. Boom. You're done.
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Uh... no... the Camcorder will record the scene as 'it sees it'... not how the human would see it... which is why even in 'natural lighting' set ups, care has to be taken to say, 'soften shadows', place light in 'black holes', etc on a given set/location.

That's because the human vision system does a great amount of dynamic adjustment even in the presence of 'high contrast'.

The closest thing I've seen recently that would allow for 'total naturalism'... is a device that I saw at NAB, which was an Neutral Density filter, that was 'individual pixel' controlled. If a realtime analyzer were to 'look' at the image being presented to the camera, and adjust the ND filter on a pixel by pixel basis, a wide dynamic range image could be mapped into what the camera could accommodate...

As it was the company was touting this filter's ability to create a sharper 'temporal' filter to eliminate motion aliasing, such as spoked wheels appearing to 'turn backwards', which is a common film artifact, as well as human vision system artifact...
 
berylium said:
I'd argue that most old hollywood films AREN'T lit realistically, and that's what gives them the charm and the romance. Rarely is anyone in real life situations lit with 3 point lights... only in photo studios and hollywood backlots.

That's the problem with lighting for realism... it isn't particularly romantic. Realism is boring... just look around you...
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Film and theater both emulate motivated natural light sources at their best. But you do have to add sources that may not be naturalistic to get correct exposure, to focus attention on some aspect of a set or scene, or for more flattering appearance for actors in closeup. The art lies in making those look naturalistic. Light is like paint for the cinematographer.
Theater classically uses a combination of 4 point opposite diagonal cool/warm pairs for general modeling and illumination plus motivated key sources too.

TV news crews use 3 point lighting.
 
j1clark@ucsd.edu said:
Uh... no... the Camcorder will record the scene as 'it sees it'... not how the human would see it... which is why even in 'natural lighting' set ups, care has to be taken to say, 'soften shadows', place light in 'black holes', etc on a given set/location.

That's because the human vision system does a great amount of dynamic adjustment even in the presence of 'high contrast'.
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OK, take the limitations of the camera out of it. The point is, doing no work at all would give you total realism. But no one wants that.
 
David Jimerson said:
OK, take the limitations of the camera out of it. The point is, doing no work at all would give you total realism. But no one wants that.
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You can't take the camera out of it and have a film. What the camera records does not necessarily look like what your eyes see. So total realism as in what you see or what the camera sees?
You can do the work to get the most out of the natural available light, you can augment the available light, or you can overpower it and create something completely different. But the camera will only record what it sees, not what you see or want to see.
There is a lot of beautiful compelling footage shot with only natural available light, but you can bet in most cases if it really looks good it was not shot casually. There is always work to do: picking camera angles to get the best composition and light on your subject, picking time of day, scouting locations for light sources intensity and direction, correct exposure, etc. What about camera filtration or light modification with reflectors or diffusion?

But if you don't do the work, there is no one to blame for dull poorly composed boring footage but the photographer.
 
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Razz16mm said:
You can't take the camera out of it and have a film. What the camera records does not necessarily look like what your eyes see. So total realism as in what you see or what the camera sees?
You can do the work to get the most out of the natural available light, you can augment the available light, or you can overpower it and create something completely different. But the camera will only record what it sees, not what you see or want to see.
There is a lot of beautiful compelling footage shot with only natural available light, but you can bet in most cases if it really looks good it was not shot casually. There is always work to do: picking camera angles to get the best composition and light on your subject, picking time of day, scouting locations for light sources intensity and direction, correct exposure, etc. What about camera filtration or light modification with reflectors or diffusion?

But if you don't do the work, there is no one to blame for dull poorly composed boring footage but the photographer.
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I'm not at ALL advocating that anyone do what I said. In fact, I'm saying exactly the opposite -- do the work.
 
Much of 'Raiders' was lit with classic Carbon Arc lamps which at the time and for years before was the big gun of studio lighting. They have long since been replaced by big HMI's and modern tungstens that can be 12K and above. Modern lighting instruments just don't have the same look, for better or worse. On several recent period films, 'Crystal Skull' and I think War Horse, Spielberg has lamented about not having access to the old arc's to re-create the style.
 
David Jimerson said:
OK, take the limitations of the camera out of it. The point is, doing no work at all would give you total realism. But no one wants that.
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Every time I hear(read) the word 'realism'... I think of "Socialist Realism"... which typically wasn't real, but a buzz word created to distance 'socialist' art from 'decadent capitalist' art... and directed to the 'truth'... that is only the positive aspects of the Socialist Worker's Paradise...

But I digress...

I suppose that I think of 'realism' as used here, would be use/support existing 'real light', and modify it for a dramatic effect. If I shot a scene on stage, I may actually setup a spot, hair, and fill in a 'three point' configuration (or just the spot...). But unless the venue had an existing 'hair light' potential like ceiling mounted pars, as some clubs and restaurants do... I'd not set that up normally. If the existing lighting wasn't sufficient for my camera... of course add more... but the 'hard light from nowhere'... there to give a future Marlene Dietrich 'butterflies'... with nose grease on a glass filter to give a 'soft glow' while eye lashes are razor sh not really...

As a note... the "Artist"(2011)... felt 'softer' in lighting than those films of the era... perhaps due to shooting on color film... perhaps lighting... perhaps both... But then I've not seen real(tm) B&W from Negative to Projection Print projected in a very long time... probably since I was young and there would be silent film nights... at certain 'cool' theaters.
 
Great thread, by the way...
I think we film-goers are programmed to expect great, dramatic lighting. Natural lighting doesn't seem natural because it's not what we're used to. Watching a Dogme film hurts my eyes. And, I admit, I didn't like Barry Lyndon (not just because of Ryan O'Neal's performance.)
 
dop16mm said:
Much of 'Raiders' was lit with classic Carbon Arc lamps which at the time and for years before was the big gun of studio lighting. They have long since been replaced by big HMI's and modern tungstens that can be 12K and above. Modern lighting instruments just don't have the same look, for better or worse. On several recent period films, 'Crystal Skull' and I think War Horse, Spielberg has lamented about not having access to the old arc's to re-create the style.
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This got me thinking. They way things have gotten more sensitive as led to the reduction on the amount of light needed to obtain exposure. I wonder if the massive amount of light needed in the past also created part of the look.

On another note, were most carbon fixture also open face type parabolic fixtures with large reflectors? I would think that if you have a large format fixture with a hard beam you would get hard light with a certain softness to it. I may have to play around with that idea, a hard light with a large diameter source and see what happens.
 
bclighting said:
This got me thinking. They way things have gotten more sensitive as led to the reduction on the amount of light needed to obtain exposure. I wonder if the massive amount of light needed in the past also created part of the look.
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I hear this expressed quite often. Is it the actual quantity of light that makes a difference, or the fact that because the amount of light needed was great enough to pretty much render any ambient light useless, they were basically always "lighting from zero"? I'm willing to bet that a very similar look could be achieved with far fewer watts by starting with a pitch-black location and using similar techniques (things like the specific look of arc lamps notwithstanding).
 
stefancolson said:
I'm willing to bet that a very similar look could be achieved with far fewer watts by starting with a pitch-black location and using similar techniques (things like the specific look of arc lamps notwithstanding).
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Actually, we pretty much demonstrate that on the Lighting DVD.
 
The majority of my work, TV commercials. I really enjoy seeing a spot air that had the time and effort, AKA expense put into it where I can say to my wife for example, that was a nice spot. The lighting on the food was perfect! That also translates into the world of indie film production, where so many youngsters feel that their camera can almost see in the dark so they don't need to light. It's also really sad in this day and age of no budget producers who refuse to spend a dime on any type of stylized lighting, and produce the most unwatchable garbage. What's the point?
 
We try to whenever possible make ambient or practical lights irrelevant. The first thing I do is go around and change every light bulb to a 15w, 25w, etc... (carry a box full of them in my kit). Then usually (not 100% of the time) unless a window is part of the shot we black out every window at the location. I'm so old school if I had budget (which I don't) I would literally shoot everything on a sound stage and rarely use real locations.
 
gonzo_entertainment said:
We try to whenever possible make ambient or practical lights irrelevant. The first thing I do is go around and change every light bulb to a 15w, 25w, etc... (carry a box full of them in my kit). Then usually (not 100% of the time) unless a window is part of the shot we black out every window at the location. I'm so old school if I had budget (which I don't) I would literally shoot everything on a sound stage and rarely use real locations.
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This is a tangent from the thread, but . . . if you're going to all this effort to make the lighting, production design, etc., as good as you can, then why don't you put as much effort into your performances? Ultimately, it's the actors -- that is, the characters -- the audience watches. The rest is atmosphere. You should get the atmosphere right. But none of that matters without the performances to match.

Anyway, just a thought.
 
Even before the shitty acting begins (or before the **** hits the cam, if you will), a setup/scene can be obliterated by talent the camera doesn't like. Ah, the lost art of screen testing...
 
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