First Man 4K UHD (2018)

[balthazar_bee]

I've been putting off watching this, but what's this about hairs in the gate?

<rushes home and throws on First Man>

Yeah, it's weird how excited this makes me. We're none of us invulnerable to nostalgia it seems -- even when it manifests itself in a form like this.

[CarlosMeat]

Originally Posted by balthazar_bee

I've been putting off watching this, but what's this about hairs in the gate?

<rushes home and throws on First Man>

Yeah, it's weird how excited this makes me. We're none of us invulnerable to nostalgia it seems -- even when it manifests itself in a form like this.

I may be mistaken but i believe the reference was to the Apollo 11 documentary.

[Stanton]

Originally Posted by CarlosMeat

I may be mistaken but i believe the reference was to the Apollo 11 documentary.

Actually, I remember there was a visible hair in the movie during the footage when they were walking down the hall in their space suits (before they even got to the famous truck scene).

[CarlosMeat]

Originally Posted by Stanton

Actually, I remember there was a visible hair in the movie during the footage when they were walking down the hall in their space suits (before they even got to the famous truck scene).

We are talking Apollo 11 not First Man ?

[Stanton]

Originally Posted by CarlosMeat

We are talking Apollo 11 not First Man ?

No: I'm talking about First Man (unless I'm losing it).

[singhcr]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Heh. 2-perf 35mm is terrible for hairs in the gate, most modern productions paint them out in the DI but I guess Chazelle wanted to keep that hairy flava

Why is it any worse than 3 or 4 perf?

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by singhcr

Why is it any worse than 3 or 4 perf?

It's not so much that it magically attracts any more hairs than any other gate or rate of pulldown would do, it's that there's no extra space above/below the frame where the hairs would normally intrude BUT which would be cropped out for the final presentation. For a 2.39 extraction shot on Super 35 (full width aperture) 3-perf or 4-perf you've got loads of vertical space to reframe it if necessary, same goes for 1.85 shot on Academy (sound aperture) 4-perf. 1.85 can also be shot on S35 3-perf which is almost the same ratio on the negative, about 1.70, but it would usually be lined up with a significant 'safe area' for framing.

Even though 4-perf anamorphic's frames are edge to edge vertically, the gradual cinching in of the height over the years (2.35, 2.37, 2.39) to hide splices can help with the hairs, as does the far greater amount of real estate on the negative should it need to be reframed. (There are some infamous examples of anamorphic hairs though, like in the original Halloween or Interstellar.) Not that you wouldn't lose picture area in anamorphic by zooming it in, and an optical crop would look like shit anyway, but heavily reframing 2-perf is a no-no even in the modern digital era. So they paint the hairs out instead...usually.

[DavidNexus8]

Excellent news!
http://www.collectspace.com/news/new...x-release.html

[Gacivory]

Originally Posted by DavidNexus8

Excellent news!
http://www.collectspace.com/news/new...x-release.html

Here’s the Apollo 11 thread. Might want to post it there.

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread...ight=apollo+11

[FilmFreakosaurus]

While the filmmakers may have decided to emphasize a different aspect of Neil Armstrong's arc and motivations as a man set upon the greatest of adventures, I cannot fault them for it.

One can assume that his daughter's struggles to live and her untimely death hollowed Armstrong out and helped set him on a course of losing his way and ultimately losing his wife to divorce. The movie deals with this in subtle ways. Even people who knew him have said Armstrong changed and often withdrew after his daughter's death. The writers needed to show this somehow. Gosling handled the simmering despair felt by his character extremely well.

Traveling to the moon was ultimately not about planting a flag or patriotism, but very personal reasons to the astronauts and humanity in general. That's why they chose to show reactions from around the world and emphasized that it meant so much for so many... even the Russians.

Keeping with the theme of personal journeys, I can see why they had a moment of intimate catharsis on the moon, real or for dramatic purposes, rather than an ode to flag planting and saluting. A scene like that tacked on would have felt cheap.

The Atmos mix was quite enveloping and heightened the claustrophobic moments, though I am disappointed the bass was indeed neutered.

I'm not the biggest fan of handheld cinematography, but I can understand that they were going for a kind of in-the-moment home movie or documentary and POV style, and also a reason for the film stock and gauge choices. Maybe if they had toned the shake down a bit during the dramatic dialog moments I would have enjoyed the style more.

The special effects were outstanding and probably some of the most realistic recreations of space flight I've witnessed so far outside of the vomit comet, Zero-G shots from Apollo 13 that were handled in-camera.

The transition to true IMAX 70mm was handled impeccably. It's probably the first time I've seen an actual need for the shift in aspect ratios that fit with the narration and tone. The rest have seemed like the filmmakers did it... just because... with no true rhyme or reason.

I would give First Man an A- in total.

[Geoff D]

Holy crap the black levels on this are BLACK, the Arnie Effect is in evidence on Claire Foy's mop of dark hair in several scenes. I'm not saying it's "wrong", it's just that it's been so long since I've seen such fully opaque blacks that I thought something had gone wrong with my settings. The theatrical screening I saw certainly didn't look like this, but then modern xenon digital projection is so poor for black levels that it shouldn't be used as any kind of yardstick. And it's not that the TV doesn't do good blacks, it does chuffin' great blacks, but I think I'm getting so used to the trend for greyblack that anything else just looks weird.

[ROSS.T.G.]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Holy crap the black levels on this are BLACK, the Arnie Effect is in evidence on Claire Foy's mop of dark hair in several scenes. I'm not saying it's "wrong", it's just that it's been so long since I've seen such fully opaque blacks that I thought something had gone wrong with my settings. The theatrical screening I saw certainly didn't look like this, but then modern xenon digital projection is so poor for black levels that it shouldn't be used as any kind of yardstick. And it's not that the TV doesn't do good blacks, it does chuffin' great blacks, but I think I'm getting so used to the trend for greyblack that anything else just looks weird.

Yeah it seems to be older films in DV that give me raised blacks, almost exclusively LG and a few Paramount.

[Geoff D]

Lovely UHD though. When watching it in 4K I could appreciate how much 35mm is actually in the film, the whole "it's all shot on 16mm!" thing is nonsense. There's plenty of it, yes, but also plenty of 35mm too once the family moves to Houston. The only times 16 is used for non-cockpit interiors is the opening few minutes with the Armstrongs, when Neil's still a test pilot, and even then the exterior shots of the X-15 and the Armstrongs' cabin are in 35. The IMAX bit looked great.

I see what you meant about the schmutz in the gate, there's plenty of it in the 2-perf 35 scenes, and the negative density "sparkle" (random white specks) gets quite intense on the 16mm stuff. It's there in 35 but the larger negative area means it's not quite so obvious, but it all adds to the flavour: they wanted the look of the film to resemble that literal 'rough around the edges' approach that they took with the production design itself, and I guess that even extended to not cleaning up the dirt and hairs as much as they could've done. As for the Shakey-Cam™, I honestly stopped noticing it after five minutes but I can understand why other people would be more sensitive to it.

[ROSS.T.G.]

It's a nice looking disc, I really enjoyed the warmth of both the picture and sound. It felt like my speakers disappeared into my room.

[Geoff D]

I popped in the BD to compare and it looks pretty dang good too, but the grain is less well resolved and the highlights are blown out to buggery.

One thing I did notice on the HDR10 layer on the UHD was some slightly untidy compression during the Apollo 11 launch scene, some of those transitions from bright light fading down in particular, like the long distance shot of the launch vehicle after it first ignites on the pad which looks a touch posterised. Step-frame it and there's some quite chunky artefacts in there. The compression in that shot is much smoother on the Dolby Vision version.

[Resettito]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Lovely UHD though. When watching it in 4K I could appreciate how much 35mm is actually in the film, the whole "it's all shot on 16mm!" thing is nonsense. There's plenty of it, yes, but also plenty of 35mm too once the family moves to Houston. The only times 16 is used for non-cockpit interiors is the opening few minutes with the Armstrongs, when Neil's still a test pilot, and even then the exterior shots of the X-15 and the Armstrongs' cabin are in 35. The IMAX bit looked great.

I see what you meant about the schmutz in the gate, there's plenty of it in the 2-perf 35 scenes, and the negative density "sparkle" (random white specks) gets quite intense on the 16mm stuff. It's there in 35 but the larger negative area means it's not quite so obvious, but it all adds to the flavour: they wanted the look of the film to resemble that literal 'rough around the edges' approach that they took with the production design itself, and I guess that even extended to not cleaning up the dirt and hairs as much as they could've done. As for the Shakey-Cam™, I honestly stopped noticing it after five minutes but I can understand why other people would be more sensitive to it.

Actually, for the early domestic scenes, Sandgren sometimes went as far as shooting the close ups in 16mm, and the wider in 2 perf as 16mm is really soft overall.

Didn't notice anything about the 2 perf, 2 perf is really an incredible format and blows 16mm out of the water with barely more expensive costs, it's got a great texture to it. Anamorphic 35mm still wins but it's a great alternative budget wise.

[CarlosMeat]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

I see what you meant about the schmutz in the gate, there's plenty of it in the 2-perf 35 scenes, and the negative density "sparkle" (random white specks) gets quite intense on the 16mm stuff. It's there in 35 but the larger negative area means it's not quite so obvious, but it all adds to the flavour: they wanted the look of the film to resemble that literal 'rough around the edges' approach that they took with the production design itself, and I guess that even extended to not cleaning up the dirt and hairs as much as they could've done. As for the Shakey-Cam™, I honestly stopped noticing it after five minutes but I can understand why other people would be more sensitive to it.

Did you notice the white random speckles in the black sky during the distant shot of the LM flying low right before the landing.

With all of the work done to make the liftoff scope AR from the vertically oriented 70mm material NASA had tough to see why they left hairs .

[CarlosMeat]

Originally Posted by FilmFreakosaurus

One can assume that his daughter's struggles to live and her untimely death hollowed Armstrong out and helped set him on a course of losing his way and ultimately losing his wife to divorce. The movie deals with this in subtle ways. Even people who knew him have said Armstrong changed and often withdrew after his daughter's death. The writers needed to show this somehow. Gosling handled the simmering despair felt by his character extremely well.

Armstrong went through a period where he seemed to be having more accidents in his work than expected; This certainly could have been ,as the film showed ,due to distraction from his daughters radiation thearpy and ultimately her passing. He ,however, did not subsequently withdraw. His personality had always been quiet, introspective man of few words who thoroughly researched and thought through things before talking. He wasn't ever a life of the party type guy yet still would have a few with friends.

The damaged depressed guy in the film was not the Armstrong in the historical record.


He didn't divorce after despair from his daughter's passing but instead after 32 years !

I really liked the film but it took a lot of licence with things to make his daughter's passing the cental theme.

[CarlosMeat]

Originally Posted by FilmFreakosaurus

Traveling to the moon was ultimately not about planting a flag or patriotism, but very personal reasons to the astronauts and humanity in general. That's why they chose to show reactions from around the world and emphasized that it meant so much for so many... even the Russians.

Oh but it was ,in fact it was as Frank Boreman said "a cold war stunt". Even Kennedy despite his inspirational committment said that we had to win otherwise we have no reason to do it "since I have no interest in space".


It was from the beginning a way to show how America and the western world was better than the communist block and to "show" that to the world.


It was an all American endeavor with massive monies and massive risk taken by those involved. To say now that it was not an American thing is revisionist at best and PC at worst.

[IsabelleAdjani]

I can't believe even First Man is fake 4K.

When are studio's going to start finishing their films in 4K?

2K intermediates upscaled don't look too bad but still... is the technology not there still?