What is Film-Look

[budwzr]

IOW, "film-look" is an insider's term that captures whether something has good production values or not.

What you write is simply not true.

There are great video productions which don't have, pretend or even want a film look.

"Film look" is not a statement of quality.

That is the first troll-like comment I have encountered on this forum. I guess I have been officially baptized.

The fact that my comments elicit such vitriolic reactions confirms my assessment. Perhaps I was a little too charitable in my initial comments. I am not sure what makes what I write "simply not true." You build a nice strawman by bringing the example of "great video productions." Whatever.

If people have to contend with attitudes such as yours then I fear "film-look" is now loaded language devoid of a certain aesthetic but stuffed with prejudices.

You're going a bit far here -- film look simply means it looks like it was shot on film instead of video. It was coined in the days (1970's IIRC) when the differences were greater and more obvious.

Who are you talking to?

Who were you referring to?

(Hahaha, I got the biggest post on this thread!!!!!)

Oh, yeah???!!!!!
<post-ular proliferation engaged>

I'm "Repostular-izing your prlieration"

[Cornucopia]

You win. This time...

Scott

[Seeker47]

IMHO the worst Bond movie ever.

The boxoffice results beg to differ on that.

I am not surprised, my movie preferences do not very well match movie boxoffice results.

How about you? Are your most favorite movies the most popular movies?

No, I usually fall well outside of the mainstream myself.

(Hope you're not going to tell us that your preference runs to Roger Moore . . . .)

Actually I think Craig acts pretty well, Casino Royale I consider one of the better bond movies.

I have to give them a lot of credit for resurrecting and refreshing a franchise that had become quite moribund, with scant creative reason to continue. Of course, they happily run a lot of such things into the ground, where even a turn to meager receipts may not stop them.

[akkers]

I personally did not like Skyfall because it had too many dark scenes, one of my pet hates.

[akkers]

I guess it was too late for Peter Jackson to go back to film for the final part of the Hobbit. Seeing this latest film in a normal cinema I noticed that some of the scenes had a lot of Soap Opera Effect. In the scenes which were shot inside the gold mountain with Baggins and the dwarves the SOE was prominent but the outside scenes looked more like film.

So did he shoot this one at 48fps too and converted it down to 24fps?

[Cornucopia]

Shot at 48fps, converted down to 24fps for cinemas that cannot do HFR (most).

"Soap opera effect" is mainly about acclimated expectations (which change in time).

Scott

[akkers]

Yes I know. But sat there in the cinema watching the film and seeing the SOE was weird; like, 'no, please this is wrong'.

In any case scenes inside the mountain were pretty static and did not really warrant a high frame rate treatment. But then if they shot the whole film on HFR then they had no choice.

[jagabo]

In any case scenes inside the mountain were pretty static and did not really warrant a high frame rate treatment.

Then your SOE had nothing to do with the frame rate.

[akkers]

They did I am afraid. I believe the film was shot in HFR (48fps) and then downconverted keeping the SOE effects. If you get a chance to see the movie, watch the mountain internal scenes especially where Baggins is sat thinking etc

[smrpix]

They did I am afraid. I believe the film was shot in HFR (48fps) and then downconverted keeping the SOE effects. If you get a chance to see the movie, watch the mountain internal scenes especially where Baggins is sat thinking etc

Downconverting in this case means skipping every other frame, meaning you are watching a "true" 24fps version, meaning film "look" (as has been repeated exhaustively in this thread) is about more than frame rate.

Meaning:

Then your SOE had nothing to do with the frame rate.

and

"Soap opera effect" is mainly about acclimated expectations (which change in time).

[akkers]

'Film look is more than frame rate' - exactly. Thats what I am saying. Even though the footage was downconverted to 24fps it still retained some of the SOE effects.

[jagabo]

In any case scenes inside the mountain were pretty static and did not really warrant a high frame rate treatment.

Then your SOE had nothing to do with the frame rate.

I should add "for those static shots". Obviously, the jerkiness and flicker of 24 fps are part of the "film look" for motion shots.

[akkers]

It is difficult to describe. Maybe when more people have seen this film we can pool better opinions about the exact nature of those scenes. But it was definitely SOE.

[hello_hello]

There's probably a few factors contributing to the "film" look. Film grain, obviously. Motion blur. I wonder how they changed the Hobbit frame rate from 48fps to 24fps. Surely simply deleting every second frame wouldn't be enough. Wouldn't there be a need to process it to compensate for it having less motion blur? I wonder if the resolution also contributes to a different look. Wasn't the Hobbit filmed at 5K? I know potentially "film" probably has a higher effective resolution, or at least we're told it does, but I often wonder.

There's also an issue of "jump & weave" with film (or whatever it's called), because the frames would never line up exactly from one frame to the next. The older the film gets and the more the sprocket holes wear, the worse it can get. That's possibly a fair contributing factor to the "film look" yet it's no doubt considered a disadvantage when it comes to film. I remember seeing an interview with a director a while back (might have been Peter Jackson) and he said it's a big problem when it comes to maintaining the quality of film projected in Cinemas, especially the more popular films.

I don't watch movies in Cinemas much so I'm more concerned about how video looks on my TV. The "sample and hold" effect (I think it's called) where motion such as slow camera pans can look "jittery" at certain speeds drives me nuts. I don't think there's a fix aside from using a higher frame rate due to the way modern displays display the image (it's not the same as NTSC "judder" due to telecine). That's probably the main reason why many TVs have motion interpolation. Yes it results in more of a soap opera effect, but I'm not crazy about the artefacts it can produce. The real solution would be to use higher frame rates in the first place.

Personally, I think if everything had been digital from the get-go we'd all be used to the way it looks and higher frame rates would be the norm. If a new method for capturing moving pictures at 24fps called" film" had been introduced in the recent past everyone would consider it to be inferior.

Speaking of inferior (no spoilers), was that (almost) final scene in Sons Of Anarchy the worst quality special effect used in a TV show for quite a while? I can't say I particularly liked the way the show was wrapped up, but that aside, the most predominant memory I have of the final Sons Of Anarchy episode is the bad special effect. That's a bit of a shame, really.

[akkers]

There were a few scenes in the Hobbit which showed artefacts or frame jumps; signs of bad conversion I suspect.

[smrpix]

There were a few scenes in the Hobbit which showed artefacts or frame jumps; signs of bad conversion I suspect.

Unlikely. Odds are it's a local projection problem. And depending on where you saw it you may have been watching a film print.

[akkers]

Its possible it was a projection issue. I saw it in a Cineworld cinema and I believe their cinemas are all equipped with digital projection.

[akkers]

Has anybody been to see the Hobbit yet? Any opinions on the SOE?

Incidently, I replaced one of the old incandescent light bulbs in the living room recently. The new bulb was a LED white daylight type and the light looked great and natural to me. However, the rest of the family were up in arms; they absolutely hated the light coming from it and said that it was unnatural. They just could not stand it. So I was forced to remove it and install a bulb with the old orange-ish tint.

[hello_hello]

Was the new bulb florescent tube type white? LED torch white? If so I'm on the side of the rest of the family. Natural sunlight isn't white by the time it reaches our eyes. It's a little on the yellow side. Or there's less blue, however you might look at it. I find "white" unnatural and somewhat annoying. The joy of an old incandescent bulb... I'd have thought you'd be able to buy "soft" or "warm" LEDs these days that are close to incandescent colour.

I find "white" light when watching TV fairly annoying if there's light reflecting off the screen as it seems to be harder to ignore, given the colour temperature is "bluer" than natural light.

[akkers]

It was soft daylight white. But the family rejected it. Yes there is warm white in LED bulbs though not tried it yet.