What if...
Alexander Ibrahim
Hollywood...how would Dr. Zhivago be different...Ben Hur, Gone with
the Wind ?
Now...I am not talking about CGI...Star Wars Episode 1 showed what
that can do for good and for ill.
I am not talking about performances of cast or crew, or stylistic
tastes...assume they are identical.
I mean if they had used the new film stocks, modern optics, etc. What
would be the differences just by replacing certain technology they did
have with its modern counterpart.
Older movies often have a bland color pallette...was that all
production design or are the new films that much better ? Am I looking
at fading of the film ?
Was that bland look their goal ? Would they (the filmmakers) have made
modern stocks look the same intentionally ?
What refinements do you think would have helped...which might have
hurt ?
What about post ? Do we have new film developing techniques/processes
?
What about pre-production ? Does modern filmaking do more or less pre
production ? Is it done differently ?
Now I wouldn't ask except all these filmmakers were just 'too good' to
shoot behind the scenes documentaries for the DVD. Didn't they plan
back then ? I mean seriously...how can you not shoot stuff for the
second disk ?
--
Alexander Ibrahim
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David Mullen
>production design or are the new films that much better ? Am I looking
>at fading of the film ?
How can you generalize like that -- have you ever seen an old Arthur Freed
produced musical like "Singin in the Rain"??? Errol Flynn's "Adventures of
Robin Hood"? What about Michael Powell's Technicolor movies of the 1940's
like "Matter of Life & Death" and "The Red Shoes"? Watch the documentary
"That's Entertainment!" if you want to be drenced in color for some time.
Yes, some films, then and now, choose to use a limited color pallette.
"Sleepy Hollow" or "Seven" for example, or "Dr. Zhivago", which Lean
originally wanted to shoot in b&w -- he had the film art directed in shades
of grey so that the red of the Communist flag would stand out, or the red
restaurant that Steiger takes Christie to, etc.
Using a limited color palette to me is a sign of good visual taste.
Probably the NUMBER ONE reason many low-budget films look so bad is the
inability to coordinate and control color in the frame, creating that garish
and clashing ungliness of modern life that is often necessary to suppress.
But I can't see how you can say that old films had less color than modern
films, not when you have so many people using skip-bleach processing these
days to try to reduce color -- "Sleepy Hollow", "Saving Private Ryan", "Snow
Falling on Cedars", "Enemy at the Gates", "Ronin", etc. all have limited
color pallettes.
Yes, there has been some loss of saturation in the Eastmancolor negatives
(introduced in 1950) of old movies over time, but some movies have been
restored from b&w separations and some were shot in 3-strip Technicolor
(1935-early 1950's) which all have great color.
>Was that bland look their goal ? Would they (the filmmakers) have made
>modern stocks look the same intentionally ?
I don't agree that old movies look bland so how can I answer the question?
The directors probably would have art directed the films in a similar
manner, I don't know. Many of these old films (like "Ben Hur") were shot
"straight" -- no special film developing techniques, no special filters,
etc. They probably would do the same now.
If you're talking about 1950's films in particular, pastel tones in set
dressing & costumes were popular back then. That's just an issue of popular
taste. Strong colors come and go in popularity.
>What refinements do you think would have helped...which might have
>hurt ?
Helped what? I'm sure most cinematographers would have loved to use modern
film stocks; from 1952 to 1959, the only 35mm Eastmancolor negative was 25
ASA. 3-strip Technicolor was probably only 3 ASA when it was introduced in
1935, and then "jumped" to maybe 10 or 12 ASA in 1938. By the time it was
obsoleted by Eastmancolor negative (which was 16 ASA when it came out in
1950), 3-strip Technicolor had probably reached 20 ASA in effective speed.
Modern lens optics are great, modern 35mm sync-sound cameras are smaller and
quieter, etc. All of these developments would have been appreciated. The
introduction of larger negatives back in the 1950's (VistaVision and
Todd-AO, etc.) was partially a way of dealing with the lower resolution of
35mm Eastmancolor negative. While I don't think that modern 35mm color
negative is as sharp as 65mm photography on old Eastmancolor negative, we've
gotten a lot closer to that level of quality. Unfortunately, we counteract
that by using the fastest-speed film stocks on the market, and smaller
negatives like Super-35 for making widescreen prints.
I saw "Harry Potter" the other day, shot in Super-35 on high-speed stock,
released in scope prints, and it was all rather soft & grainy. That same
night, I went to see a new 70mm print struck off the 65mm negative of
"Patton" and it was razor sharp and fine-grained. When Patton steps up in
front of the American flag in the prologue, it looked like he was standing
in front of the audience for real, it was so clear.
I would say that a restored VistaVision film like "Vertigo" looks
technically better, for the most part, than a lot of average films made
these days in all regards, art direction, quality of the image, etc.
Lighting is the thing that's changed the most over time -- it's a lot more
natural these days. On the other hand, you try to use naturalistic lighting
techniques with 25 ASA film stock -- you'll find yourself trotting out 5K's
and 10K's just to light a small night scene inside an apartment. And with a
blimped camera the size of a small refrigerator, you'd probably prefer to
work on sets with removable walls...
>What about post ? Do we have new film developing techniques/processes
Of course, we have digital tools for one thing. But for the most part,
modern color negative developers are just variations on what was done in the
past for color negative. Some chemicals have been swapped for others, some
steps changed, mostly to reduce some of the most toxic elements in the
processing.
>What about pre-production ? Does modern filmaking do more or less pre
>production ? Is it done differently ?
The classic big-budget films of the past were a lot more thoroughly
prepared, and had longer post schedules as well. Directors really directed
back then -- as in, did their homework. "Dr. Zhivago" was incredibly
pre-planned, even in the scripting phase. A lot of editorial transitions
were carefully worked into the screenplay.
But if you're specifically referring to the golden era of the studio system,
often pre and post production were shorter and simpler because it was a more
efficient factory system. Nowadays, everyone making a film starts from
scratch, renting a production office, putting in phone lines, hiring crew,
etc. Back then, you had one big building handling the make-up for multiple
films in production at once, for example. So downtime between production
was shortened, and even through pre & post were shorter, they were more
efficient and therefore quality didn't suffer (other than the b-movies and
general run-of-the-mill features churned out.)
>Now I wouldn't ask except all these filmmakers were just 'too good' to
>shoot behind the scenes documentaries for the DVD. Didn't they plan
>back then ? I mean seriously...how can you not shoot stuff for the
>second disk ?
That's a joke right? You're asking why John Ford (who hated publicity)
didn't shoot behind-the-scene material for a second DVD? There was a
certain amount of 16mm documentation of movie shoots back then, particularly
in the 1950's and 1960's. But remember that that stuff was not "for the
ages", it was for promoting the film when it was released. There was very
little notion of any life to the film after its initial release. And there
were a LOT more movies made back then every year.
Also, many film artists (like Ford) were not comfortable talking about the
"art" of what they did -- that was seen as pretentious. They preferred to
think of themselves as craftsmen. And there was little public interest in
learning how movies were really made.
A lot of that 16mm behind-the-scenes material gets lost over time. Don't
expect all of that EPK video material shot for movies these days to not get
misfiled and lost either...
David Mullen
David Mullen
a desaturated color pallette and that was the 1970's. There was a movement
against what was perceived as the hard, bright colors & crisp lighting of
1950's / 60's Hollywood studio filmmaking, and against the technically slick
look of Eastmancolor negative and Technicolor printing.
There was some early movements in this direction -- Ozzie Morris' work on
"Moulin Rouge" (1952), which was shot in 3-strip Technicolor but used smoke
and fog filters to wash out the colors (one scene in "Black Narcissus" also
was shot with a fog filter -- Technicolor Lab told the director that the
footage as "ruined" because of it.) Later, you see some hazy fog-filtered
scenes in "Vertigo" (usually fog filters back then were reserved for
creating a fake foggy weather look). Some of the early Covent Garden scenes
in "My Fair Lady" are lightly fog-filtered (hard to see due to the clarity
of the 65mm format). But by the 1970's you start to see movies using smoke,
fog filters, flashing, underexposure, overexposure, push-developing,
pull-developing, etc. to "destroy" the color saturation of the film stock.
The work of Geoffrey Unsworth ("Cabaret") and Vilmos Zsigmond ("McCabe &
Mrs. Miller") are prime examples of this. At the time, knocking down the
colors was perceived as being more "realistic" than the color saturation
that standard shooting & printing techniques created. However, now these
techniques are more clearly seen as stylization (someone once said that one
generation's realism is considered by the next generation as artifice.)
Since the late 1970's, I'd say that the look of modern cinematography has
been greatly influenced by the work of Vittorio Storaro, Gordon Willis, and
Ridley Scott. Generally low-key, single-source, painterly, sharp lenses but
use of smoke sometimes, soft lighting but high contrast due to lower fill
light amounts, etc. In fact, I think it was Nestor Almendros who pointed
out that older movies could be typed as using softer lenses and diffusion
but harder lighting, while modern movies used softer lighting but sharper
lenses with less diffusion (he wrote this in the 1980's).
But there have been some new developments, or trends. One is that the work
of Robert Richardson on Oliver Stone's films has really legitimized the use
of mixed media -- this could also be seen in music videos and commercials as
well. The other is the emergence of digital technologies and videography as
well. As video starts to become more used for independent feature
production, from DV to Hi-Def, there has been an interesting reaction
against this -- to exploit the artifacts of film emulsion, such as grain. A
sort of anti-electronic look. Some directors and cameramen are starting to
think that ultra-sharp, fine-grain photography looks "too much like video"
and instead will do things to break up the image more into something rougher
and grainier, like push-develop stocks even though we have film that is fast
enough for most situations, and use skip-bleach processing, etc. It's also
a bit of a nostalgia for the look of grittier 1970's movies, a pre-digital
era so to speak. Some people want the look of a film stock made thirty
years ago, not something too high-tech and clean, too sharp & grainless --
because they perceive these as being "video" qualities. Or it's a reaction
against the hyper-slick commercial look epitomized by Michael Bay's films.
So we're seeing something of a split -- some films are being made to look
rougher than ever, while others are more sharp & slick than ever. Plus we
have to look of DV-to-35mm and the look of HD-to-35mm, which are also
different from each other. Plus we have this new trend of shooting on film
but putting it through a digital intermediate. And finally, we have digital
projection, which has not made much of an inroad, but does provide another
look to the movies, even those shot on film (I'm trying to imagine how
strange something like "Saving Private Ryan" would look digitally
projected... simulataneously hi-tech and low-tech...)
David Mullen
David Mullen
My general thought is that it is another form of information that the brain
has to process, so careful attention should be paid to how it's used in a
movie. The old rule, which should be a new rule too, is that color should
be subdued when it's not doing anything important, and then be prominant to
make a certain emotional or symbolic point. A good example is the use of
green in "Vertigo", which is used to symbolize Madeleine. We first see her
in an all-red restaurant wearing a green and black silk dress. Of course,
it's because the restaurant is in the opposite color that she stands out,
but it's also important that none of the other characters where green.
Even in the richly colored musicals of Vincent Minnelli, there is always
some thought to how these colors will work together -- his visual taste is
what separates his Technicolor musicals from the run-of-the-mill color
musicals of his era. He's not afraid to be monochromatic for effect; look
at the end party in "American In Paris" art directed in only black or white
tones.
Or look at Michael Powell's Technicolor films like "Black Narcissus" -- the
grey and white tones of the nuns and the convent from which they came is
meant to be in stark relief to the exotic colors of the Indian palace they
move into (where one of the nuns goes mad -- look at the shocking red of the
lipstick she puts on in one scene. At one point, she passes out with fever
and the screen dissolves to red.) Check out the restored version on the
Criterion DVD (not their old laserdisc.)
Of course, some films require that the color be handled very realistically
and not seem too designed and stylized -- but even then, there should be
quite a bit of careful thought as to what colors to put together, since
colors do generate an emotional response in the viewer, and can also
distract from other important elements in the frame.
But probably my favorite looking color movies are ones with very subdued
colors with occasional strong accents of richer colors. I also like
strongly saturated movies IF they are highly designed and color-coordinated.
And I like really desaturated movies that look almost like tinted b&w
images. What I tend not to be as interested in is something that presents
the mundane reality of clashing colors that exists in modern urban life; to
me, your average city block is a visual eyesore both in real life and on
film. But I suppose if it's important for your movie to establish the
ugliness of a setting...
David Mullen
David Marks
> What if an older movie had had the technical resources of modern
> Hollywood...how would Dr. Zhivago be different...Ben Hur, Gone with
> the Wind ?
What if Hitler had B-1 bombers and hydrogen bombs? The point is moot.
These three films are masterpieces. What if Da Vinci had Magic Markers?
Would he have created the Mona Lisa with these or with oils? Tough
choice.
Dave Marks
Jay Bala
>> Hollywood...how would Dr. Zhivago be different...Ben Hur, Gone with
>> the Wind ?
It would not be as good. Would custom built SW for CRAY make On the waterfront
look more real or any better? Ben Hur chariot race is wonderful because it was
REAL. 10 or 20 camera (may be more) with probable all the best DPs in town were
put to use. AND the best of footage was used to put together that scene.
With CG the chariots may look shiner cuter and more bloody flip-overs, but do
we need that? Would it make it any "better"?
When something is shot on-location, when pain and sweat are real, the actor act
better, DP's look harder to capture the moment, everyone feels the drama unfold
and its exciting and that comes through. Its that holistic experience
transforms into a holistic expression the audience feel it on the screen! Its
that human "thing." I never fell for that big ship in Titanic. BUT if your aim
is to thrill... sure CG works.
Jay Bala.
David Mullen
act
>better, DP's look harder to capture the moment, everyone feels the drama
unfold
>and its exciting and that comes through. Its that holistic experience
>transforms into a holistic expression the audience feel it on the screen!
Its
>that human "thing." I never fell for that big ship in Titanic. BUT if your
aim
>is to thrill... sure CG works.
I agree for the most part, it always looks more real when it IS real
(obviously). But occasionally CGI makes thing possible not possible before,
and sometimes it's pretty near seamless. Some (not all) of the CGI
battlefield soldier duplication in "The Patriot" are pretty good. The 360
degree Steadicam shot inside the Coloseum in "Gladiator" is pretty thrilling
even if a little unreal.
And there's a lot of simple digital touch-up work in period films that most
of us never catch, like removal of TV attennaes, extra levels of buildings
added, new skies added. "The Postman" had some great landscape shots in
Oregon with clouds added in post that looked very natural (since they were
real clouds also shot in Oregon, just on different days.)
As for "Titanic", although not flawless or completely convincing, I think
it's a pretty good example of CGI being used to tell a story rather than
simply be there for cheap thrills. Compare the climax to the one in "A
Night to Remember", which I think is a superior film in many ways but you
never get the SCALE of the disaster in that film due to budget problems. In
"Titanic", after the ship has sunk, and the camera pulls back to reveal
thousands of people stranded in the frigid waters, you get a good sense of
the tragedy.
But modern CGI being used to create crowds does lack the depth and texture
and reality of truly using a thousand or so extras (like the 400,000 extras
used for the funeral scene in "Gandhi.")
What I miss the most is not only the scale of those old epics, but the use
of large film formats to capture the texture of those landscapes and sets.
"El Cid," for example, looks amazing on the big screen. Most CGI effects
rely too much on the fuzziness of 2K resolution and the grain from shooting
Super-35 and blowing it up to scope to hide their difficiencies. (I just
saw a new 70mm print of "Patton" after seeing a fairly grainy scope print of
"Harry Potter" so this has been on my mind this weekend.)
It's certainly possible for digital efx work to be done at greater
resolutions; the recreation of the Star Destroyer flyover opening of "Star
Wars" that was redone in IMAX (using real models, but digitally composited
at something above 8K resolution) for that IMAX short on special effects was
truly spectacular -- it's a shame that Lucas isn't interested in that level
of epic filmmaking or technical quality. These days, efx movies are more
about quantity than quality.
Again, back to CGI, I tend to think that the bad stuff is giving CGI a bad
name, while the good stuff looks convincing enough that no one thinks too
much about CGI being used. For example, the duplication of hundreds of
Japanese Zeros from just a few flying by the camera was a great use of CGI
in "Pearl Harbor" -- mixing real and CGI planes is great because it gives
the animators something to compare to, and something to match to. And it
simply would have been impossible to make and fly hundreds of real Zeros for
a movie these days. But for bad CGI, look at a lot of "The Mummy
Returns" -- that climax looked like a bad computer game, not a real scene.
And for good CGI, I think the dinosaurs in the "Jurassic Park" movies have
been pretty effective. Using stop-motion animated models, which was the
original idea, might have looked charming but wouldn't have been nearly as
convincing in scale or motion or mass.
David Mullen
Bundleup
that was completely computer generated. Toy Storyl and Final Fantasy, while
they may not be 'exactly' what I was talking about show us that this step is
actually not too far off. Brave new world and all that. Remember that movie
"Looker"?, we are getting closer and closer to losing actors, now if we cound
only completely computer generate Tom Hanks' voice we'd have it made.
Bundleup
alt.rec.movies.production
Alexander Ibrahim
technologies on set.
Still, since it came up...
Final Fantasy ?
I think that it is a milestone. Sure it is deficient in ways that irk
me, but it is also simply one of the great technical feats. In many
ways it was harder than the moon missions...it certainly required more
math for one. I think it will be remembered like Tron is. (Tron is the
first movie to use CGI effects right ?)
10-20 years from now I think what was done on FF will be routine, and
done far better to boot. I think they'll look back and point to FF.
Final Fantasy was simply an enormous technical feat, what amazes me is
simply how much they succeeded...in fact they did so well that when
they did miss the mark it was jarring, it was a reminder that the
movie was CG usually right as you were forgetting about it. Of course
the story...ugh, I like anime so it is more tolerable to me than most
but script wise it was at best average for anime, and often fell below
average...to be politic.
I do agree with David Mullen about CGI in general. There are some
great scenes that are merely retouched, then there are real stunners
like Jurassic Park. I can't wait to edit Pearl Harbor down to
something I can live with, its use of CG was exemplary, like David
said the animators could really key off of the real planes and make
magic.
Also, about the IMAX effects show, that Star Destroyer was just...wow.
Tis a shame that composites are being done at 2k...but it is
practical. I think that the next step is to bump up composite and
render resolutions when computer power allows it, because the creative
questions are getting answered.
La...@la.com
<ne...@zenera.com> wrote:
>Well, I didn't want to talk about CGI, but rather about the other new
>technologies on set.
>
>Still, since it came up...
>
>Final Fantasy ?
>
>I think that it is a milestone. Sure it is deficient in ways that irk
>me, but it is also simply one of the great technical feats. In many
>ways it was harder than the moon missions...it certainly required more
>math for one. I think it will be remembered like Tron is. (Tron is the
>first movie to use CGI effects right ?)
The real question is why did they bother?
I know, I know, they were hoping for the "novelty effect".
>10-20 years from now I think what was done on FF will be routine, and
>done far better to boot. I think they'll look back and point to FF.
Given what a bomb it was, I'll guess it'll be years until someone is
taken seriously wanting to do what they did.
>I do agree with David Mullen about CGI in general. There are some
>great scenes that are merely retouched, then there are real stunners
>like Jurassic Park.
Which of course also used a lot of conventional techniques.
>I can't wait to edit Pearl Harbor down to
>something I can live with, its use of CG was exemplary, like David
>said the animators could really key off of the real planes and make
>magic.
Was the stuff in the movie better? What I saw in the trailers was
underwhelming to my eye.
Alexander Ibrahim
news:3bfd7ecb....@newsproxy.pacificnet.net...
Commenting on another movie you've yet to see ? Leaving that aside...
Sometimes I wonder about your "golden eyes" LaGuy.
The most vivid image in the trailer, to my mind, was the Zeros coming
in low over clotheslines and kids playing.
Those were real Zeros, and they were really flying low, like at about
10 feet, over clotheslines and kids.
So, lets just say it is funny that you pegged that as "underwhelming"
CGI.
Anyway, you are probably not alone. Jon Schwartzman said in his AC
interview, "I'm sure we'll never get credit for half the work we did,
everyone will assume it was all done by ILM." Of course they'd be
wrong.
They built this huge set of the USS Oklahoma listing and finally
rolling and had a few guys flopping around on them. They cloned a pile
of those guys and dropped them in other places. They also added smoke
and fire elements. That wasn't really computer generated imagery
though, that was digital compositing of live elements. I think they
could have cleaned it up more, but then again I don't think audiences
noticed the little spills and flaws. I am not even sure anybody but a
pro could have noticed some of the flaws. Anyway, it was the weakest
effects scene in the movie, and I thought it was good.
The movie had better comps and renders than I can do anyway so, if
they are reading, kudos to the ILM team that worked PH.
In the end, I thought Pearl Harbor sucked, but I thought it looked
great most of the time...there were certainly times it irked me, but
for the most part it was great looking, especially the aerial shots. I
would say a spectacle.
They had lots of boats in the movie, and they actually had BOATS from
the NAVY in the film, not little things either, but destroyers and
even a battleship. (USS Missouri) Turns out the Navy was going to sink
them to create artificial reefs, so the filmmakers had a free hand
with these very valuable props. At one point I think they had all of
the operational Zeros and Kates in the world flying on camera. That
alone was WORTH the price of admission.
Then again I could be wrong. Take a look at the May 2001 American
Cinematographer for more. CineFX had an article too, but I don't
remember what issue. Also the DVD should be out soon, and I am told it
will be a 2 disc thingy, most of which have fairly complete BTS
documentaries.
Now, back to the LaGuy bashing (gotta get my daily dose ya
know...)...either you set a very high standard which no movie ever
made has matched or you are just cranky and bitter...I still haven't
figured out which my good man.
I say this because I strongly disagree, PH was a good looking movie. I
don't object to the photography or effects at all. Could it have been
better ? Yes, but that is easy for me to say sitting at my desk and
not in a B-25 or T-38 screaming around Pearl Harbor trying to frame
fighter planes most of which I can't see and warships for single take
effects shots on the fly. (literally)
The script....that is another matter. Frankly I am insulted that they
made up a stupid love triangle...there was enough drama that day for a
dozen movies without making anything up. I don't need moron Hollywood
screenwriters to make the narrative of 12/7/1941 any "better."
The term I want them to learn is "research."
Happy Thanksgiving!
Alexander Ibrahim
"Bundleup" <bund...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20011122025707...@mb-mb.aol.com...
Computer generation of voices that really sound human is pretty far
off I'd say. It is actually a harder problem than getting computers to
be able to take dictation. Understanding and being able to reason
about speech is further off.
Then again there are plenty of humans that can't seem to manage that
feat.
Still, Final Fantasy may have been far closer than you think to
photoreal CG actors. For one, they purposely chose a color pallette
that took them away from photoreal. They did this to abstract the
images and let you suspend disbelief more, so you'd accept the flaws
in the characters better...I don't think they needed to do this at
all.
You should search images.google.com for "Aki Ross" and see an image of
her that is on the net that was rendered from the model. It was the
same pose as in the Maxim article, but nude. The skin seemed
right...at first I thought it was a photo of someone with a body just
like the CG with the CG head pasted on, but...well I've actually seen
the meshes and I even rendered Aki in a default pose with the Square
textures...very high quality. I tried to get a copy of the mesh and
skelegons to play with at home, but couldn't manage it.
The real trouble is the details, mostly in how the face deforms when
you animate emotion and speech. I am not sure it will ever be solved
using a synthetic approach. I think it will have to be solved
analytically, starting from a bunch of very fast and accurate motion
captures of real people talking.
Think 200 frames per second or faster with a resolution of at most
1mm...50um may be more appropiate. Right now the accuracy of scan I'd
like takes about 27 seconds to capture a head...so there is a lot of
engineering to be done before we can rally get started.
Once that is done the data can be analyzed to really get an
understanding of the topology of faces during speech and emotion.
Once we have an understanding, modelling and animating for film
purposes will be trivial. That first part though will take a LOT of
time.
Another trend that I think will be dramatic is the use of scientific
modelling for 3D. Scientific modelling tries to calculate from first
principles what happens in a goal oriented fashion. Scientists have
already designed a model that can render a human walking in a variety
of different terrains and situations. You can take a virtual hand and
knock it down, and it will get up, just like a real human. Check out
the July 2001 CG World, page 16. Also see:
http://www.dgp.utoronto.ca/dgp/software/dance/dance.html
CGI will move forward very fast if only because computers get faster
allowing people to "brute force" solutions if no new thinking
appears...and there is plenty of new thought on the matter.
The downside is that without actors, sets or props...eventually there
won't be a need for cinematographers! I am excited by and terrified of
that potential all at once.
Happy Thanksgiving,
La...@la.com
<ne...@zenera.com> wrote:
><La...@LA.com> wrote in message
>news:3bfd7ecb....@newsproxy.pacificnet.net...
>> On Thu, 22 Nov 2001 06:49:29 GMT, "Alexander Ibrahim"
>> <ne...@zenera.com> wrote:
>>
>> >I can't wait to edit Pearl Harbor down to
>> >something I can live with, its use of CG was exemplary, like David
>> >said the animators could really key off of the real planes and make
>> >magic.
>>
>> Was the stuff in the movie better? What I saw in the trailers was
>> underwhelming to my eye.
>
>Commenting on another movie you've yet to see ?
Michael Bay is not going to get my money. :))
>Leaving that aside...
>
>Sometimes I wonder about your "golden eyes" LaGuy.
>
>The most vivid image in the trailer, to my mind, was the Zeros coming
>in low over clotheslines and kids playing.
>
>Those were real Zeros, and they were really flying low, like at about
>10 feet, over clotheslines and kids.
>
>So, lets just say it is funny that you pegged that as "underwhelming"
>CGI.
That wasn't what I was talking about. I was talking about things like
the bomb falling off a plane staying in complete focus and without the
slightest motion artifact.
>Anyway, you are probably not alone. Jon Schwartzman said in his AC
>interview, "I'm sure we'll never get credit for half the work we did,
>everyone will assume it was all done by ILM." Of course they'd be
>wrong.
It was the same in Jurassic Park. The hype these days goes into
talking up anything "digital". :)
>They built this huge set of the USS Oklahoma listing and finally
>rolling and had a few guys flopping around on them. They cloned a pile
>of those guys and dropped them in other places. They also added smoke
>and fire elements. That wasn't really computer generated imagery
>though, that was digital compositing of live elements.
Which is a great use of digital possibilities indeed.
[snip]
>Now, back to the LaGuy bashing (gotta get my daily dose ya
>know...)...either you set a very high standard which no movie ever
>made has matched or you are just cranky and bitter...I still haven't
>figured out which my good man.
I just like effects that look good and have a hint of reality to them
(especially whne they purport to describe real things and not
imaginary spaceships). Digital effects 95% of the time don't come
close to what was state of the art 20 years ago. Maybe it's because
it's all created within the computer with no real objects underpinning
it. When you have a model and have to move it, I guess you can't help
but create something a bit more real.
>The script....that is another matter. Frankly I am insulted that they
>made up a stupid love triangle...there was enough drama that day for a
>dozen movies without making anything up.
That's true. :)
>I don't need moron Hollywood
>screenwriters to make the narrative of 12/7/1941 any "better."
That's Michael Bay for you.
>The term I want them to learn is "research."
LOL :))
Sydney Assbasket
>off I'd say. It is actually a harder problem than getting computers to
>be able to take dictation. Understanding and being able to reason
>about speech is further off.
>
Instead of computer _generation_ of voices, what about recording a large sample
of an actor's speech, with every sound possible and creating speech from that?
I saw a program on PBS hosted by Alan Alda where some company recorded Alda
speaking for a few minutes. They put that recording into a computer, typed out
a sentence, and created that sentence from the sounds and syllables in the
recording. It sounded disjointed, but the person at the computer spoke into
the computer and the computer conformed the speech to the voice patterns of the
person speaking. I don't know if anyone here can understand what I just
said...
________________________________________________________________
If love of money is the root of all evil, why do churches want it so badly?
Remove "bination" to reply.
C2001
>
> >Computer generation of voices that really sound human is pretty far
> >off I'd say. It is actually a harder problem than getting computers to
> >be able to take dictation. Understanding and being able to reason
> >about speech is further off.
>
> Instead of computer _generation_ of voices, what about recording a large sample
> of an actor's speech, with every sound possible and creating speech from that?
> I saw a program on PBS hosted by Alan Alda where some company recorded Alda
> speaking for a few minutes. They put that recording into a computer, typed out
> a sentence, and created that sentence from the sounds and syllables in the
> recording. It sounded disjointed, but the person at the computer spoke into
> the computer and the computer conformed the speech to the voice patterns of the
> person speaking. I don't know if anyone here can understand what I just
> said...
I understand your suggestion perfectly. While many would consider it
far-fatched, the reality is that a lot of the technology we take for
granted today would have been considered impossible only a few decades
ago. EG: storing an entire feature movie, encoded as high-resolution
video and discrete-channel surround sound on a CD-size disc, using very
heavy data compression from a digital/component master.
Charles
C2001
>
> What if an older movie had had the technical resources of modern
> Hollywood...how would Dr. Zhivago be different...Ben Hur, Gone with
> the Wind ?
>
> Now...I am not talking about CGI...Star Wars Episode 1 showed what
> that can do for good and for ill.
>
> I am not talking about performances of cast or crew, or stylistic
> tastes...assume they are identical.
>
> I mean if they had used the new film stocks, modern optics, etc. What
> would be the differences just by replacing certain technology they did
> have with its modern counterpart.
Other factors being equal the most likely difference would be less
grainy films, and much more natural looking low-light cinematography
which today has effectively rendered obsolete the long-standard "day for
night" techniques which make even certain sequences from Freddie Young's
work for David Lean visibly dated.
> Older movies often have a bland color pallette...was that all
> production design or are the new films that much better ? Am I looking
> at fading of the film ?
>
> Was that bland look their goal ? Would they (the filmmakers) have made
> modern stocks look the same intentionally ?
>
> What refinements do you think would have helped...which might have
> hurt ?
There are so many variables here that I doubt even the most experienced
people at this NG will be able to provide simple or generalized answers
to your question, except that -- yes! -- the transfers we see today of
older color movies often reflect fading and other forms of deterioration
unless they have been blessed with meticulous (and very expensive)
restoration efforts.
Some of the finest color photography ever put on film is in the earliest
Technicolor movies like "The Garden Of Allah" and "Gone With The Wind".
OTOH, the use of color during the 40s, 50s and 60s was often garish and
ugly -- almost a movie production parallel to "punched-up" TV sets with
gray scale set too high and red and/or orange push built in the chroma
decoding.
But the best movies were exceptions. I've never seen _any_ color movie
that eclipsed what Harry Stradling accomplished with color in "My Fair
Lady", or Pasquale De Santis in "Death In Venice" (produced just a few
years later).
And if the recent DVD is an accurate replication (I haven't seen the
movie in a theatre for decades) the exposure latitude in "Doctor
Zhivago" would be breathtaking even if it had been produced last year
rather than more than 35 years ago.
Charles
Alexander Ibrahim
I just got the DVD of Apocalypse Now Redux and compared it next to the
Apocalypse Now DVD. I found the colors significantly better in the
Redux DVD, I believe the Redux version did get a restoration.
Now, if Apocalypse declined that much in twenty years, then Dr.
Zhivago could well be practically bereft of the color it had when shot
originally.
I guess that answers my question...no they didn't film for the faded
look at all.
So...has anyone here actually done a restoration of an old film ?
--
Alexander Ibrahim
http://www.zenera.com
Wanna quote me ?
http://www.zenera.com/aibrahim/quoteme.html
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"C2001" <charle...@sympatico.ca> wrote in message
news:3BFF2ADC...@sympatico.ca...
C2001
>
> Well, taking this thread along the film deterioration lines...
>
> I just got the DVD of Apocalypse Now Redux and compared it next to the
> Apocalypse Now DVD. I found the colors significantly better in the
> Redux DVD, I believe the Redux version did get a restoration.
>
> Now, if Apocalypse declined that much in twenty years, then Dr.
> Zhivago could well be practically bereft of the color it had when shot
> originally.
The degree of deterioration isn't necessarily related to the age of the
film. How well the elements have been stored is a key factor.
Ironically, movies that were not jumbo successes are more likely to have
survived well, since the demand for prints was less, and wear-and-tear
on the original negative accordingly not as bad.
> I guess that answers my question...no they didn't film for the faded
> look at all.
>
> So...has anyone here actually done a restoration of an old film ?
Do a google/usenet search for Robert Harris' posts at various groups.
The main title for "My Fair Lady" was in such terrible condition, at
once point Mr. Harris' team considered rephotographing floral
arrangements similar to those in the original. IIRC, Panavision had
agreed to provide a 65mm camera identical to the unit used for the
movie.
In the end (again, IIRC!), they were able to rescue _one_ frame from
each of the still shots used and recreate the sequence accordingly.
By now, I expect Mr. Harris could write a book about the work that has
gone into the numerous restorations he has supervised.
Charles
Greasyfries
> Now, if Apocalypse declined that much in twenty years, then Dr.
> Zhivago could well be practically bereft of the color it had when shot
> originally.
>
Actually, for the restorations of "Zhivago", "My Fair Lady", and "Lawrence
Of Arabia", color fading really wasn't that much of a problem, even thought
the negatives had been stored poorly. The biggest problem was actual
physical damage to the negatives, caused by massive over-printing.
Aanand Prasad
by how godawful the picture quality on Apocalypse Now was. It looked like a
faded, blown-up painting. In a /bad/ way, of course. I presume AN Redux is
worthy of the DVD format?
Alexander Ibrahim
Uh...where are you ? That has a great bearing on what Channel 4 really
is to the rest of us.
As to AN REdux, yeah it is a huge improvement over the original AN
DVD, which itself is a big improvement over VHS and broadcast AN that
I have seen before.
--
Alexander Ibrahim
http://www.zenera.com
Wanna quote me ?
http://www.zenera.com/aibrahim/quoteme.html
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"Aanand Prasad" <mr_s...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
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