"Club Penton" - Ask questions to Hollywood insider "Penton-Man"

[AaronSCH]

Originally Posted by Robert Harris

...As pertains to a 16:9 version, it may still be pillar boxed. I do find the idea of Gulliver in something close 2.55:1 an interesting idea. All those wide shots of him tied to the ground might just work. If he sits up, you simply change aspect ratios.

Would't that require that a great deal of the frame be excised? I assumed that Gulliver's Travels' oar was 1.33.1?

[Penton-Man]

What happens when Santa doesn’t get you everything you desired for Christmas?
Then one is compelled to take the matter in his own hands………or teeth to get it done.

http://www.ksat.com/video/18358041/i...=ant&psp=video

Moral of the story –
Human laws do not apply to the Canine Kingdom.

I hope everyone and everything had a fabulous joyful Christmas.

[Dan S.]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

What happens when Santa doesn’t get you everything you desired for Christmas?
Then one is compelled to take the matter in his own hands………or teeth to get it done.

http://www.ksat.com/video/18358041/i...=ant&psp=video

Moral of the story –
Human laws do not apply to the Canine Kingdom.

I hope everyone and everything had a fabulous joyful Christmas.

That's awesome! Hope you had a great Christmas, Penton-Man!!

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by BluDomain

I'd take it off the stove............

I can imagine the fun they would have at AVS with a
Warner or SONY or FOX or Disney or etc. calibration test........

Many screenshot *scientists* on that forum have the tendency to either speculate (wrongly) or sound authoritative, when in fact they have no accurate knowledge of a particular motion picture or technical matters, and one could make a career out of correcting the plethora of myths and misconceptions over there on a daily basis, so I expect you to be right regarding their response whenever this calibration assistance tool indeed does make itself to market.

This statement (which is actually a refreshing change compared to the typical daily dnr/ee disinformation that is floated there as ‘authoritative’ analysis) ……………………

Originally Posted by 42041

300 was shot entirely on green screen like Sin City with the backgrounds created digitally, so most of the grain is, in fact, artificial.

^ is a recent example of such an inaccuracy which was forwarded to me via PM by a Blu-ray.com member who was confused after reading it on *science* because fellow Insider Maxpower had mentioned months ago on our forum that the movie 300 was shot on bluescreen.
Rule of thumb……..when in doubt, always trust a Blu-ray.com industry insider.

To elaborate, nearly the entire movie 300 was shot on bluescreen, not greenscreen, basically because of problems with getting a clean matte when the Spartans wore red capes. Specifically, with all the reds in the movie, tests showed that saturated red on a greenscreen produced edge problems, i.e. the images displayed a yellow edge which was postualted to be due to the way light travels through film and interacts with its emulsion layers……….*scientists* can now add the phrase ‘yellow EE’ to their Q.C. vocabulary.
Another consideration for choosing blue, was due to the fact that light bounces off a bluescreen differently than greenscreen and pre-testing showed the amount of light reflected off the greenscreen caused images to be more overexposed than the look the filmmakers desired.

So, like Maxpower stated previously (and correctly), bluescreen was chosen by the creators for the production………not greenscreen.

Regarding shooting with film on either type of screen, DP’s should use the finest 35mm film grain stock they can; otherwise, you can end up with flying humming bird imagery. 16mm film would be just about the worst choice essentially with its grain size roughly about 4x as large compared to that with 35mm.
Although the filmmakers shot the movie 300 on 35mm Kodak 500T 5229 (for the most part) which is a low contrast stock with a fine grain structure, they still had major issues with grain which they even publicly admitted to during a past industry conference in L.A.
This was in part due to the fact that so much of the motion picture was shot overcranked (50 – 150 fps) and they didn’t have/use enough light to expose correctly and without enough light, grain became a big problem.

Whew, now I’m blue-screened as well as grained out for awhile.
300 bluescreen.jpg

[PeterTHX]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

To elaborate, nearly the entire movie 300 was shot on bluescreen, not greenscreen, basically because of problems with getting a clean matte when the Spartans wore red capes. Specifically, with all the reds in the movie, tests showed that saturated red on a greenscreen produced edge problems, i.e. the images displayed a yellow edge which was postualted to be due to the way light travels through film and interacts with its emulsion layers……….*scientists* can now add the phrase ‘yellow EE’ to their Q.C. vocabulary.
Another consideration for choosing blue, was due to the fact that light bounces off a bluescreen differently than greenscreen and pre-testing showed the amount of light reflected off the greenscreen caused images to be more overexposed than the look the filmmakers desired.

ILM (the best of the best for VFX IMHO) from the beginning has always preferred using bluescreen for their shots.

Interesting tidbits: ILM used purple-screen for one shot of Whoopi Goldberg in Ghost (newly on BD) due to the color of her costume, and a white screen in one shot for The Mask (also newly arrived on BD) because of compositing issues with a matte shot at dusk.

[Jeff Kleist]

Many shots of the Enterprise for ST:TNG were shot orange screen

Wouldn't White screen be luminence keying?

[PeterTHX]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

Many shots of the Enterprise for ST:TNG were shot orange screen

By Image-G. Easier to pull mattes in the digital compositing system they were using, which had little better than NTSC video resolution. One reason why remastering that series for HD will be a logistical nightmare.

Wouldn't White screen be luminence keying?

Not sure. It was that one shot where Jim Carrey is sitting with Cameron Diaz in the park and he waves his hand across the skyline.

[Jeff Kleist]

By Image-G. Easier to pull mattes in the digital compositing system they were using, which had little better than NTSC video resolution. One reason why remastering that series for HD will be a logistical nightmare.

Since all the non-ILM shots were on video, they wouldn't use them anyway. Rescan all the ILM stock footage in HD and CG the rest.

[PeterTHX]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

Since all the non-ILM shots were on video, they wouldn't use them anyway. Rescan all the ILM stock footage in HD and CG the rest.

Actually quite a bit was on film: all the motion control (model) shots, the bluescreen bridge shots, etc. Only stuff like phasers and transporters were on video.

The nightmare is the fact that the show was edited on video. All film was scanned in at NTSC resolution (D1 in the first 3 seasons, D2 4th season on) and then edited and composited on video. All the raw footage will have to be rescanned and re-edited.

[Jeff Kleist]

[quote[Actually quite a bit was on film: all the motion control (model) shots, the bluescreen bridge shots, etc. Only stuff like phasers and transporters were on video.[/quote]

There are huge numbers of ship models shot on video too. Watch it again, they stick out like a sore thumb

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by PeterTHX

ILM (the best of the best for VFX IMHO) from the beginning has always preferred using bluescreen for their shots. ......

There was a recent Digital Cinema Society meeting (http://www.digitalcinemasociety.org/...p?page=Society) which had two guest lecturers (compositors) in which it was revealed to the assembled cinematographers, engineers, etc. that in general, blue is better than green.

It’s just that it is more expensive to shoot with bluescreen.
Green is a much larger component of video so it requires half the light, a smaller crew and less air-conditioning which in reality is how greenscreen became the ‘standard’ – not because it’s better but, because it’s cheaper to shoot. Green is easier to light because tungsten throws out more green than blue photons; however, most eagle eyes agree that blue spill is also less offensive to the eye than green spill.

[Oliver K]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Chris has always been extremely innovative and creative.

In fact, at The Dark Knight Blu-ray release event earlier this month, Chris mentioned that due to the inherent noisiness of the IMAX cameras, it’s necessary for the dialogue to be looped-in post production, which some actors simply aren’t comfortable with.
So, in the perfect world, he mentioned that he would like to shoot a film where all the non-dialogue scenes are IMAX capture and the script with dialogue would be shot with a sync sound 65mm camera…….. such as the Arri 765 with a noise level that reportedly comes in at less than 25 db.

I don't remember such an idea of hybrid acquistion capture ever even mentioned publically by a filmmaker before and I would doubt there has been.
He's always on the bleeding edge of creativity whether it be storytelling or image acquisition.

I kind of like the thought of shooting film completely in 65mm 5-perf and IMAX !

I hope he gets encouragement and support for such a project, it would be a dream come true for many of us who have seen what the use of large format film can do for a movie

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Oliver K

I kind of like the thought of shooting film completely in 65mm 5-perf and IMAX !

I hope he gets encouragement and support for such a project, it would be a dream come true for many of us who have seen what the use of large format film can do for a movie

Oliver, I find your posts on my thread to be somewhat disingenuous when you spread manure like the first sentence of this post on other forums……….

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htf/3481141-post76.html

I found that comment ^ to be quite pretentious given the fact that you do not know what Chris Nolan knows or doesn’t know and I’m pretty damn sure that you don’t know this (i.e. no standardized color space and gamma) ………
https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.p...postcount=6574

something of which Chris and Wally do know about, which is one reason why they continue to shoot on and prefer film……..of any size.

If you want me to take you seriously on this forum, then I would suggest no further off-the-cuff remarks like that on any forum, concerning people I do know and respect. I hope your statement was just a momentary faux pas.

Since you seem to like large format stuff so much and give the implication that you are a connoisseur of its capture and exhibition, how about telling us the difference between ‘traditional’ 65/70mm and 70mm proper, something that the Russians had an affinity for shooting in with B & W films back in the olden days?

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

If you want me to take you seriously on this forum, then I would suggest no further off-the-cuff remarks like that on any forum, concerning people I do know and respect. I hope your statement was just a momentary faux pas.

Since you seem to like large format stuff so much and give the implication that you are a connoisseur of its capture and exhibition, how about telling us the difference between ‘traditional’ 65/70mm and 70mm proper, something that the Russians had an affinity for shooting in with B & W films back in the olden days?

Taking a little time to research that ^ ?
I suspect that Bobby Henderson, RAH and others could probably answer in a few seconds.

B.T.W., this link was just e-mailed to me from an industry person that reads this thread regularly……….
http://www.blu-raystats.com/Stats/Da...reen.php?u=141

Oliver, if I could, I would bold the “65mm.” part for you.

[Oliver K]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Oliver, I find your posts on my thread to be somewhat disingenuous when you spread manure like the first sentence of this post on other forums……….

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htf/3481141-post76.html

I found that comment ^ to be quite pretentious given the fact that you do not know what Chris Nolan knows or doesn’t know and I’m pretty damn sure that you don’t know this (i.e. no standardized color space and gamma) ………
https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.p...postcount=6574

If you want me to take you seriously on this forum, then I would suggest no further off-the-cuff remarks like that on any forum, concerning people I do know and respect. I hope your statement was just a momentary faux pas.

I posted this with a smilie to indicate that it was indeed meant tongue in cheek, sorry if it came off differently as it definitely was not meant to be. From what I have read about Christopher Nolan since that BD live event it is clear to me that he cares a lot about film as a medium, he even mentioned at that event that he considered traditional film to be superior to 4k, which for me is encouraging with regard to his future films.

I have read about the non standardized digital acquisition for the first time from you a few days ago so this indeed was new to me and a big surprise.

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Since you seem to like large format stuff so much and give the implication that you are a connoisseur of its capture and exhibition, how about telling us the difference between ‘traditional’ 65/70mm and 70mm proper, something that the Russians had an affinity for shooting in with B & W films back in the olden days?

I like large format a lot and have watched a little less than 20 movies shot in large format and printed to 70mm. So I would say that I have watched my share of 70mm prints, more to come at the Berlinale 2009. I do not know much about the capture side and my knowledge about 65/70 and 70 proper is that in Russia and a few other eastern block countries in the heyday of large format productions movies were shot on 70mm negative stock in Sovscope 70 and at least one other similar format (DEFA 70) and not in 65mm as it was done in western countries. That was to my knowledge mainly in the 60ies and 70ies and the movies I know where shot on color stock. About the earlier processes like Fox Grandeur or Russian black and white movies I know very little as they never were available to me on home media in satisfactory quality nor in a movie theater.

[Oliver K]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Taking a little time to research that ^ ?
I suspect that Bobby Henderson, RAH and others could probably answer in a few seconds.

I am no native speaker so I need a little more time to bring together a response that makes sense But apart from that I am not ashamed to admit that I do not know that much about 65/70 mm capture.

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Oliver, if I could, I would bold the “65mm.” part for you.

Thanks, as I said before my post was not intended to question Christopher Nolan and his knowledge.

[Penton-Man]

Okay, Oliver I’ll give you a pass on this, unless I receive future reports that you’ve turned into a video lunatic like some others on *science* and ‘watch’ a Blu-ray movie typically like this…………….

http://www.eri.harvard.edu/faculty/p...el_noprism.mov

[dialog_gvf]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

^ is a recent example of such an inaccuracy which was forwarded to me via PM by a Blu-ray.com member who was confused after reading it on *science* because fellow Insider Maxpower had mentioned months ago on our forum that the movie 300 was shot on bluescreen.
Rule of thumb……..when in doubt, always trust a Blu-ray.com industry insider.

Nowdays we dial numbers without dials. And we tape shows without tape.

I think a lot of people use "green screen" to mean the technique of chroma-key whatever the actual colour.

Gary

[Oliver K]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Okay, Oliver I’ll give you a pass on this, unless I receive future reports that you’ve turned into a video lunatic like some others on *science* and ‘watch’ a Blu-ray movie typically like this…………….

http://www.eri.harvard.edu/faculty/p...el_noprism.mov

Interesting presentation, and I agree a bit too obsessive compulsive to watch a movie like that

As a long term member of AVS I'd like to think that I am trying to mostly be constructive and positive in my posts and not to worry that much anymore over whatever bickering is going on.
So I think I stand a fair chance of not turning into a lunatic and I am also still on friendly terms with ender21 and Torsten Kaiser of TLE - that should be a good sign, too

[Nathan P]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Okay, Oliver I’ll give you a pass on this, unless I receive future reports that you’ve turned into a video lunatic like some others on *science* and ‘watch’ a Blu-ray movie typically like this…………….

http://www.eri.harvard.edu/faculty/p...el_noprism.mov

Very good riposte to some of the lunacy over there, p-man. However....

"But if I watch the movie any other way i won't be able to nit pick on the quality of the image even if i don't know what i'm looking for. I might even enjoy the movie. "

Thanks for keeping us all informed as to the truth behind why a movie looks the way it does. Your work and the work of the other insiders here is always much appreciated