Will The Creator change how blockbusters get filmed?

[Clark Nikolai]

On 11/17/2023 at 1:04 AM, IronFilm said:

Cheapest place to save money in a film! When writing the script. 

 

I once worked at a production house that produced TV movies for American TV. There was a guy there whose job was to go through the scripts and change things to make it cheaper. Replace expensive aspects of the story with cheaper things that had the same story progression, change the locations of two or more scenes to be the same location, etc. Pretty effective in lowering the budgets. 

[TomTheDP]

On 11/17/2023 at 9:15 AM, IronFilm said:

Zero need whatsoever to shoot in LF format!

This film could have been done with normal S35

 

19 hours ago, JulioD said:

That not your choice my guy. 
 

they wanted to shoot with 135 format anamophic lenses. 
 

It’s like saying Dark Knight could have shot S35 and didn’t need all that imax.  
 

 

I think the choice for the FX3 was the second native ISO of 12,800. That is two stops more than the Sony Venice's native ISO. The RED Raptor may be pretty usable at 6400 iso but the FX3 is still a stop above that. 

The less light you need the quicker you get it done. I have done projects using almost all natural lighting and it is so much quicker in almost everyway. 

[Llaasseerr]

1 hour ago, TomTheDP said:

 

I think the choice for the FX3 was the second native ISO of 12,800. That is two stops more than the Sony Venice's native ISO. The RED Raptor may be pretty usable at 6400 iso but the FX3 is still a stop above that. 

The less light you need the quicker you get it done. I have done projects using almost all natural lighting and it is so much quicker in almost everyway. 

Agreed, forgot about the ISO. Obviously a major factor in choosing this sensor.

[kye]

3 hours ago, Clark Nikolai said:

I've heard this called "Availableism". Using what's available to you to determine what's in the story. It's something that has been done since the beginning of cinema really. The advantages over writing whatever then spending money to obtain those things is that it's cheaper. You use what you have around you. The other advantage is that it can be about a certain subculture and made by the people in that subculture giving it an "authenticity" I suppose.

This is a good approach I've used a lot producing short art videos. In the mid '90s I applied for an arts grant for a feature length video (FLV) to be shot in S-VHS, using this exact method. I had the themes figured out and the cast, who were playing characters based on themselves, a skeleton of a story but no details figured out. This would be done with the workshopping as we went. No script but notes about what would happen in the scene and how it would end. The actors improvising.

Anyway, the arts grant jury were all traditional film people and they thought this approach was sloppy and likely to fail. They were so used to the cost of shooting film determining the level of planning needed (in those days there was a big divide between video art and film art,). I didn't get the grant (But I'm not bitter... Anymore.)

I ended up making it as a short video out of my own pocket a year later having wasted all that time and effort in the application that could have gone into just making the thing a year earlier.

Availableism - nice!  It reminds me of approaches like Dogme95 etc, which integrate that sort of element and go a lot further with it as well.

Sadly, I'm not surprised about the grant decision.  I've been to enough film festivals to know that the thinking is often enormously traditional / blinkered, and also motivated by who-you-know and all that crap too.  One student film festival I went to had a film in the documentary category that was old people talking about their sex lives - it was very entertaining and the old folks were all very cute and it definitely deserved to win an award for concept / direction / producing, which it did.  However it was shot terribly, there were booms in shot on half-a-dozen occasions, the camera wasn't held steady sometimes and was bumped significantly and obviously a couple of times, but it also won best cinematography and best sound, which was completely ridiculous.

One of the things that dominates the overall architecture of how traditional films are made is that many of the people who are involved are not critical thinkers, they learned how to perform their role but they don't understand the other roles, the overall process, or even how to make a film.  There are often territorial disputes as people defend their patch, etc.  The film-making process is a factory production line, and most workers in a factory don't understand it's possible to redesign a factory and make it work better, let alone be ok with it when someone suggests it.

2 hours ago, TomTheDP said:

I think the choice for the FX3 was the second native ISO of 12,800. That is two stops more than the Sony Venice's native ISO. The RED Raptor may be pretty usable at 6400 iso but the FX3 is still a stop above that. 

The less light you need the quicker you get it done. I have done projects using almost all natural lighting and it is so much quicker in almost everyway. 

Yeah, that's a big drawcard about the FX3 that makes it stand out.  I don't understand why there aren't more cameras with the ISOs further apart.  Most cameras are have lower base ISOs, and have a much smaller interval between the lower native ISO and the higher native ISO, combining to give the FX3 a huge advantage in low light.

[JulioD]

I've said it before.

The camera was chosen because it was part of the directors on-set process.  You're all trying to say how you would have done it with an Alexa.  But you didn't.

It couldn't have been done.  Not with the lenses they chose, the way they wanted to light, and the METHODOLOGY they wanted to shoot with using a hybrid gimbal handheld rig.  No way are you hand holding an Alexa mini LF on a gimbal for 30 mins.  Maybe with a rig sure I hear you say, but then it's DIFFERENT because the camera is a different height, it's not going into the same positions you can go with a hand held should rig.

I'm surprised that creatives like you all don't understand this simple idea...

The Director chose a certain way to work.  This was the only tool that could work the way the director wanted.  You keep saying a different camera could be used when it was not really as feasible.

"The FX3 was chosen as an extension of the methodology director Gareth Edwards was interested in fostering on the film. In an effort to embrace an immersive, authentic filmmaking approach, and inspired by Gareth's approach in making his first feature film Monsters, we sought out a very small and lightweight camera that still provided a robust image for post-production and visual effects purposes, and that could be paired with a Ronin RS2 gimbal to be operated for extended takes and with massive flexibility and freedom to move around a location and react spontaneously to what the actors were doing, or to something happening just outside of frame Gareth would catch out of the corner of his eye.

One of the unique things about this film is that Gareth operated the camera himself in order to be able to react in real time to spontaneous occurrences on set and would often shoot 30-minute extended takes with the actors, going over actions a few times and discovering different angles and approaches to playing and covering a scene in the moment with them, like a kind of dance."

 

 

[MrSMW]

29 minutes ago, JulioD said:

"The FX3 was chosen as an extension of the methodology director Gareth Edwards was interested in fostering on the film. In an effort to embrace an immersive, authentic filmmaking approach, and inspired by Gareth's approach in making his first feature film Monsters, we sought out a very small and lightweight camera that still provided a robust image for post-production and visual effects purposes, and that could be paired with a Ronin RS2 gimbal to be operated for extended takes and with massive flexibility and freedom to move around a location and react spontaneously to what the actors were doing, or to something happening just outside of frame Gareth would catch out of the corner of his eye.

I read the same thing recently which summed up the choices made perfectly.

It was essentially a reverse engineering process of finding/choosing the right tool for the job, knowing exactly what the job was in the first place.

Rather than a case of, “we use these tools because we always use these tools and the job needs to fit around us using these tools and…” Break the mould.

[IronFilm]

12 hours ago, Clark Nikolai said:

I once worked at a production house that produced TV movies for American TV. There was a guy there whose job was to go through the scripts and change things to make it cheaper. Replace expensive aspects of the story with cheaper things that had the same story progression, change the locations of two or more scenes to be the same location, etc. Pretty effective in lowering the budgets. 

Interesting, I'd imagine he's always aware of what's available. 

So if for instance they story needs  two different locations and Location A & B has be put in the script, but he might realize a third location C would do just as well if changed in the script for being the second location as location B does. 

But Locations A & B are miles apart (would have to be separated into two different days), but Location C is just across the road from Location A, so it would be a very easy company move (Unit etc wouldn't even have to move), and perhaps they could both then be scheduled to be on the same day. 

 

[Llaasseerr]

18 hours ago, JulioD said:

I've said it before.

The camera was chosen because it was part of the directors on-set process.  You're all trying to say how you would have done it with an Alexa.  But you didn't.

 

 

Nah I got it the first time you pointed it out and it all sounds very valid. Appreciate you sharing this by the way.

I was curious why an FX6 wasn't chosen given it's the same sensor but the cameras is "more pro". My takeaway was that although it's lightweight, the rig needed something even lighter (the FX3).

[IronFilm]

10 hours ago, Llaasseerr said:

I was curious why an FX6 wasn't chosen given it's the same sensor but the cameras is "more pro". My takeaway was that although it's lightweight, the rig needed something even lighter (the FX3).

FX3 body only = 640 g

FX6 body only = 890 g

250 gram difference. 

[JulioD]

We’re going around in circles.  

It’s not just the weight difference, which is by the way 40% heavier.

It’s how it balances (if it even would) on the freakin custom ronin rig they wanted to use with the specific lenses they chose. I dunno why you want to keep pretending they aren’t real and valid reasons to not use your precious FX6 or Alexa mini.  Maybe if you’re a DP with Garth one day you can convince him to make a different choice.

[ntblowz]

Yeah on this thread he can't loop out why not FX6 and on the other thread he is all in on FX3, I m so lost as well. 😂 

Atm only director knows as he is the one that set the gear, there is no point keep repeating the same question here as we can't answer for him.

[Llaasseerr]

8 hours ago, JulioD said:

It’s not just the weight difference, which is by the way 40% heavier.

It’s how it balances (if it even would) on the freakin custom ronin rig they wanted to use with the specific lenses they chose.

I gotta admit I have almost zero experience with gimbals, but a friend with an FX6 and I think an RS2 also commented that it was a little hard to balance it. So yeah, the weight, the size, the shape, all of the above...

[TomTheDP]

They could have just used much smaller spherical lenses and done the look in post like Fincher does. At the end of the day DP's/Directors almost always sacrifice convenience and time for a certain look that the audience won't really care about. 

[MrSMW]

I think a case can also be made for the argument, ‘Just Because’.

I’ve done it throughout my career. And life.

Sometimes…most of the time, I do things the way they need to be done, but sometimes I don’t.

I’ve shot an entire 4 days of Motorsport for a top team with Fuji X Pro2’s with a bag of primes, nothing longer than ‘85’mm.

The pro photographers at the event didn’t bat an eye wit their massive long lenses as they had no idea what I was doing which was in fact doing something the polar opposite of what they were all trying to do.

Because I could.

This whole Creator/FX3 thing is a ‘Just Because’.

And what a boring world it would be otherwise…

[Davide DB]

Nine pages of comments... Who saw the movie?

[kye]

2 hours ago, Davide DB said:

Nine pages of comments... Who saw the movie?

This is the internet...  such things are irrelevant when arguing about technical matters!

[Llaasseerr]

5 hours ago, TomTheDP said:

They could have just used much smaller spherical lenses and done the look in post like Fincher does. At the end of the day DP's/Directors almost always sacrifice convenience and time for a certain look that the audience won't really care about. 

The Kowas are pretty small and of course the FX3 was small (and light and the right shape, as we have found out) so they didn't need a smaller lens. It was a 75mm lens so you could argue that if spherical it would be only a 37mm, but you can't say people don't notice the anamorphic look. I think many of us have that visceral emotional connection to all the films shot with the C-series anamorphics that the director cites from his youth.

To be honest what they did on The Killer was not full blown anamorphic. Just "partially". I watched the Variety video. There is still some spherical bokeh happening, and considering the shallow DOF in The Creator on quite a lot of shots it would have been difficult and expensive to get the more waterfall bokeh happening in vfx. You have to get decent depth maps from live action which is difficult, and then the edges where the falloff happens can be a real pain. Pointless basically.

It does make vfx much easier if shot spherically, but if you can blend the vfx right into the optical signature of an anamorphic lens then it really sells it and looks great. ILM would have only had to characterize basically one 75mm lens and they did a great job. 

Did I like the film? Not really, but credit where due.

[kye]

43 minutes ago, Llaasseerr said:

ILM would have only had to characterize basically one 75mm lens and they did a great job. 

I've had some contact with ILM and discussing how they emulate lenses in post and they do very detailed and meticulous work and overall it's very impressive.  

So much so that I actually find the VFX breakdowns a very instructive tool in understanding the look development process.  When they show the scene starting with mesh and then wipe after wipe shows each stage of the VFX process, often with the final wipe being the one that just adds that cinematic magic.  

In analysing what that final wipe does, I normally see:

• vignetting
• un-sharpening overall, and often more in the corners
• bokeh and defocusing
• glow / halation / mist

If you take the average nice-but-digital looking shot from a modern camera and apply similar effects, the flavour of image quickly goes from video to cinema..

[kye]

In addition to the above, one of the previous wipes they apply is often the show LUT, which also reveals a bunch of stuff about the colour grade too.  Things like:

• cooling shadows / warming highlights
• highlight rolloff
• subtractive saturation effects
• shifts to skin tones
• etc

Normally the VFX will only have the show LUT and the "final" shot in the VFX breakdown isn't the same as the final shot in the film because the final VFX shot will be exported without the show LUT and will be coloured by the colourist in the final process, but it'll be in the same overall direction and colour breakdowns are often not available for those movies so it's good info to have.

[IronFilm]

14 hours ago, ntblowz said:

Yeah on this thread he can't loop out why not FX6 and on the other thread he is all in on FX3, I m so lost as well. 😂 

Are you referring to Jedi Master's thread? 

He doesn't need any of the professional features required by productions. 

Just needs a sensor to capture pretty landscapes in a slow paced chill manner on the weekends. 

5 hours ago, Davide DB said:

Nine pages of comments... Who saw the movie?

That's like expecting someone to read an article before commenting on it on Facebook! Totally unrealistic expectations.