miami vice.. poor poor image quality

[Justin Lovell]

just saw the film, and it was indeed shot on video. So was his last film, Collatoral (with the exception of a few inserts)... but for some reason this one looked even MORE like video.

If that was what he was after, that's cool... but to me, I think it would have looked much better if they had shot on 16mm and went for the added grain, as opposed to shooting video and having ZERO latitude in their highlights. The low light shots have a lot of grain/ gain in the blacks.

It felt low budget/cheap in certain scenes. Maybe they could have lit their actors better to reduce the contrast a little more, I dunno. But I would be led to believe that they did this all on purpose, considering it was a BIG budget hollywood film.



Not at all like the impressive quality that superman had with it being shot on video. They used a completely different camera though..

[flatwood]

Does this mean that Hollywood is abandoning film???

[Evan Kubota]

They lit it that way on purpose for a murky, low-con look... I liked it 75% of the time. The one part that really stuck out as video, and looked awful, was the scene about 1/3 through where a guy is moving through a market in Bolivia. They tried to shoot it docu-style and didn't set up any lights, etc. and it shows. It looks like someone shot it with a Handycam.

[cubdukat]

Slowly but surely, Hollywood does seem to be moving away from film, though it's hardly the rapid exodus directors like Robert Rodriguez and George Lucas would have you believe.

Both Vice and Collateral were shot using the Thomson Viper Filmstream, which is comparable to the other 24p cameras out there. Mann deliberately went for the "video" look, and while I don't think it works very well, it is his film.

If it's any consolation, the look on both films is not indicative of the Viper's quality. David Fincher's upcoming film looks more conventional.

Vice has some film-originated sequences as well. In this month's American Cinematographer, the film's DP, Dion Beebe says that they filmed the underwater and slo-mo sequences using Vision2 500T, because despite everything that 24p is capable of, it still can't do slo-mo like film can, and they definitely can't go underwater--not to mention they're extremely delicate.

Also, Beebe also used the 950-series CineAlta (?), the same camera that was the basis for the Panavision Genesis used to film Superman Returns.

As a fan of the original Vice, I am hesitant to see the updated version. One of the things that drew me into filmmaking was the look of Vice, and I think that Mann just tried to change too many things too radically.

It's like I always say--There's a reason people still shoot film, and it's not because they haven't found anything better to replace it. It's because it works.

[Justin Lovell]

for me, the shots that really stood out, were from outside of the vehicle at night, looking in through the front windshield.. REALLY added a lot of gain.

and on the rooftop meeting with the fat guy and the other FBI agent, with the buildings in the background blowing out like crazy... in a really ugly way...

[flatwood]

A friend that I grew up with works in Hollywood as Stills Photographer (Star Wars, Raiders, Back to the Future, et al) and is one of the first calls guys in town. He's from my hometown in Georgia. He's my partner in the film we're planning to start in the spring. He's been questioning my desire to shoot it on film. I thought he was screwing with me but maybe not.

[idrawthings]

Notice all those highlights blowing out like a three tube camera?

I think depth of field was one of the big things Mann was going for by shooting digital. In an interview in ASC for Collateral, the DP (don't recall which of the two) and Mann tested digital cams versus 500T pushed and found they could get more detail and less noise punching up the gain on the digital cams. Looked great in Collateral, altho I agree that most of Vice was just TOO grainy, or gainy as it were. Maybe Miami ain't as bright a town as LA.

[fastwind]

One of Michael Mann's argurments for shooting on HD is that it can " see the night". I don't really see how it made that much difference to the look
of the film. The handheld camerawork became annoying and took me out
of the story several times. Most noticeable is the scene where Crocket
and the Asian girl are walking along the bay at night. The video noise is
SCREAMING, so I block it out. Then camera is WAY too unsteady for
a scene that would flow better with smooth camera movement. The
scenes shot on film DID stand out. Overall, I liked the movie. It went
places the original show(much respect) could not. The nighttime shootout
at the end was cool.

[Justin Lovell]

i agree, that walking shot was uber grainy...

but did you see that kickass shot at highspeed from inside the car when it was getting pummled?

All the gory scenes really felt like the video game "soldier of fortune".

And that last gun battle, when it was just starting, doing all the handheld stuff, it really felt 'photo journalistic'.... they really nailed the feel on that stuff.

[audadvnc]

Super 8 geeks complaining about grain. Gotta luv it... 8)

[tlatosmd]

Just a note, the video version of film grain is not gain, it's noise.

Gain is a way of electronically pushing up the picture's brightness without manipulating aperture, thus it only emphasizes video's native noise since it's not using physico-optical means.

And as for S8 and grain...what grain with K40, Velvia50D, and 100D?

[cubdukat]

i agree, that walking shot was uber grainy...

but did you see that kickass shot at highspeed from inside the car when it was getting pummled?

All the gory scenes really felt like the video game "soldier of fortune".

And that last gun battle, when it was just starting, doing all the handheld stuff, it really felt 'photo journalistic'.... they really nailed the feel on that stuff.

I just saw it today, and I have to say that I liked it a lot more than I thought I would.

The scene inside the car was one of the film sequences.

I thought it looked a lot better in most scenes than what they've been showing on the commercials. But they could have shot the entire film on 500T and achieved the same look, quite possibly without the excessive graininess. For me, though, it wasn't the g(r)aininess that bothered me so much as the smeared look some of the scenes had that gave away that it was on video.

The sharpness in some scenes, though, was scary. You could see just about every detail in Santiago's face in the trailer park assault scene.

[super8film]

A while back, I was reading through an industry periodical (it may have been American Cinematographer...I can't remember), and I recall being very amused when I read a couple of people in the industry referring to HD tape stock as "digital emulsion"...now who's being naive! I really think some filmmakers are of the mindset that as long as you can trick out an HD camera with a follow focus, matte box, a set of primes, a Fisher dolly, and so on, then it must be on the same level as a true film camera.

Don't even get me started on the oxymoronic inconsistencies in the term "digital cinematography" :)

[MovieStuff]

A while back, I was reading through an industry periodical (it may have been American Cinematographer...I can't remember), and I recall being very amused when I read a couple of people in the industry referring to HD tape stock as "digital emulsion"...now who's being naive!

What I find even more amusing is when film advocates say, "The main problem with digital is that the imaging chip for HD is so small, you can't get decent shallow depth of field" all the while shooting in super 8 where depth of field is virtually limitless. And then, when a movie like the new Superman comes out that actually used a 35mm sized imaging chip that allowed for shallow depth of field (as if that were really an asset in most circumstances), the new complaint was that it was too slick looking, without regard to the fact that the same people creating CGI effects could make it look however they wanted. What, they can create tornadoes, explosions and every effect imaginable but they can't mimic film grain? Hell, anyone on this forum can create believable film grain, which means Superman looked exactly like they wanted it to look. How many people struggling with jittery carts, grain, bad exposures from using E64 in non-compatible cameras can say their results were exactly what they wanted? Rarely do I see indie super 8 efforts looking "good" or even consistent. I think most people would love it if their super 8 had half the performance characteristics of the top of the line HD cameras out there. Bad super 8 isn't better than good HD, simply because super 8 was shot on film.

I really think some filmmakers are of the mindset that as long as you can trick out an HD camera with a follow focus, matte box, a set of primes, a Fisher dolly, and so on, then it must be on the same level as a true film camera.

That's funny, I've often thought the same thing about people tricking out their super 8 cameras the same way when they still can't manage to focus or expose properly. I mean, if image quality is everything, then why shoot super 8 instead of 16mm? More to the point, do you think that DPs shooting with Panavision cameras see our little super 8 cameras as a "true film camera"? Think again. The prejudice against super 8 by "professionals" is pretty high. Given the choice between using a professional HD camera and a super 8 camera of any sophistication, I can tell you right now what they would choose. Believe me, the 35mm industry doesn't respect super 8 in the way you respect 35mm.

Don't even get me started on the oxymoronic inconsistencies in the term "digital cinematography"

The use of digital in theatrical production is going to go up and the use of film is going to go down. That is just a fact of life, so we just have to get used to it. HD is a "digital emulsion", whether you or I like it or not, and HD is here to stay. It has its own unique look, just as neg doesn't look like reversal or vice versa, and you can't light HD the same as neg, just as you can't light neg the same as reversal. To fight this and ridicule it as if it were a temporary anomaly is kind of silly, given the almost cult nature of a very tenuous super 8 niche market.

I love super 8 and I love film. But making jabs at a maturing but still imperfect digital medium in spite of super 8's own shortcomings is a bit disingenuous, IMHO.

Roger

[super8film]

Points well taken, Roger.

I do, however, still take issue with the term "digital emusion", as "emulsion" by definition refers to a photosensitive coating on paper or a photographic film. Thus, I don't see how HD tape stock can technically be referred to as an emulsion, as it records images (well, data really) by magnetic means, not optically.