Movies looked better before "color grading" was invented. Let's return to proper film-making.

[Clark Nikolai]

23 hours ago, PannySVHS said:

The 1980ies Dune was fun and a best of 80ies spectacle with a meditative prologue and full of atmosphere, great ambitions and quirky failures, a cult classic with lasting charme and soul.

 

It was great in so many ways. I watched it on VHS in the late '80s with a friend who had read all the books and knew the plot. I didn't so I had no idea what was going on but still loved it anyway. The sets and outfits were all very cool.

I heard that Lynch was forced to have it edited too short for the story to fit it in to a movie time. It would have been great if instead of remaking it, they took the original footage and made a Netflix series, giving the scenes more time to breathe and maybe putting back any scenes or parts of scenes that had originally been cut for time.

I have a friend who shortly after the film was out was in LA and went to a movie prop and costume sale. There were for sale the Freman outfits from Dune. He kicks himself now for not buying one.

[Emanuel]

On 3/15/2025 at 7:39 PM, Davide DB said:

I don't understand whether this is a provocative post or a serious one.

Still on doubt actually, if just mere another non-sense ('movies looked better before "color grading" was invented' : D I've only paid attention to the talking marks... LOL ; ) or makes us to think better about that... 

Not a simple equation as much as film isn't either -- post in the previous century or after, is surely part of it (from the keyboard of someone with editing/post as his primary film background* exactly in the late 90s/turn of the century ; ) while digital is doubtlessly also this:

 

No matter how many LUTs, TikTokers & suchlike with their bloody vertical aspect ratio pop up... 

Lang protested against snakes & funerals as their proper format to shoot them when 2.35:1 cinemascope arrived despite MOONFLEET had been shot by him, go figure! : P 

While we can only dream in 2.39:1 ratio but on screen and in B&W or Colour out of there too, one doesn't exclude the other ;- )

The director playing himself on JLG's masterpiece LE MÉPRIS... : D 

 

[*] Moreover, currently in charge of a large 16mm/8mm inventory in EU, UK and U.S., as well their variations aka Super 16/Super 8 to be digitally transferred with the resource/use of the most advanced colour grading technology and techniques of today... just for the sake of memories preservation shot on film.

[Davide DB]

 

I was reading this interview with Matteo Cocco, the DoP of an Italian TV series produced by Sky.  

https://collettivochiaroscuro.com/sul-set-di-dostoevskij-con-i-fratelli-dinnocenzo-conversazione-con-il-cinematographer-matteo-cocco/?lang=en

In my opinion, it confirms that these A/B distinctions (where you can insert whatever you want for A and B) are absolutely arbitrary. Reading about how they worked on this series, it’s clear that the creative process and the desired result are achieved by using (and even mixing) all the available tools. As for the final outcome, I won’t say anything—I haven’t seen the series, and the trailer on YouTube doesn’t provide enough to form a judgment.

I’m sharing some excerpts here that are relevant to the thread’s topic.  I’ll also add that they chose to shoot on film and in Super 16mm format 😁

Quote

We did some photographic tests. A location had already been chosen—the protagonist’s home, a fisherman’s house at the mouth of the Mignone River. (..) We wanted to experiment by pushing things to the extremes. We took an ALEXA Mini LF and a Super 16, shooting the same images first with one and then with the other. Many of those shots actually ended up in the series. I’ll admit, one beautiful image captured digitally made it in as well—but I challenge anyone to spot which one. Shooting on 35mm was out of the question because it didn’t offer the same agility as Super 16, even in terms of magazine duration. We spent the whole day testing, and then, quite simply, a couple of days later, we went to the lab, projected the footage on the screen, and it took us no time at all to realise where we needed to go. It was crystal clear—we absolutely had to shoot on Super 16 film.

Quote

That film stock was rough—so rough it almost felt like skin. It created a kind of gritty surface between the film and the viewer. But the most incredible feature of Super 16—the one that defined our choice—was the way it rendered certain colours, especially skin tones. That was crucial because it allowed us to get inside the characters, to hear their thoughts. Another decisive factor was how film captures darkness—relentlessly, yet with fascinating undertones. We pushed its limits, using energy-saving bulbs and old sodium-vapour streetlights. We embraced the imperfections—they never stopped surprising us. The film was mistreated, underexposed, and developed with forced processing. We followed instinct more than technique.

Quote

All the dirt and grain you see is natural. We didn’t do any digital clean-up. Of course, the scans of the dailies weren’t the same 4K scans we used for the final film. Sometimes, there were imperfections in the dailies that we loved but didn’t appear in the final scans. In one scene, we even had to recreate the dailies’ grain with VFX because Walter Fasano had edited that sequence with those imperfections as a fundamental part of the image

 

Sky production didn't like the combination film/Super 16:

 

Quote

 

We’re sitting in the screening room, watching the footage we shot on film—it’s beautiful. Fabio, Damiano, and I are thrilled, very proud. But everyone else is thrown off—it’s not what they were expecting to see. At one point, Nils Hartmann says, “This material needs to pass the quality control,” meaning the technical review, which is the most crucial step for it to be approved for broadcast on Sky Atlantic and internationally. The review would take place in London. So, what happens? At the end of the meeting, we have an idea. The film scan was very raw because I had explicitly requested that no digital clean-up be done—I wanted the image exactly as it was, to see everything in it. So I say, “Let’s not clean up the image. Let’s send the raw, dirty footage to London.” I figured they would object to the dirt and only the dirt—and that was something we could easily fix! So we send the footage to London. A week later, we get the technical report: they say there’s too much dirt. Perfect! We do a digital clean-up, send it back, and it gets approved. And that’s how we ended up shooting on film.

Fantastic!

In that meeting, Romanzo criminale (2008–2010), directed by Stefano Sollima and produced by Cattleya and Sky, was brought up because it was also shot on Super 16. That was our main argument. And Nils said, “Yes, but that was a different era, another geological age, a completely different time…” And I replied, “But it was still Sky, it was you.” In the end, the series embraced that aesthetic, which was more common back then, but it never posed any issue for the audience. And if you watch Romanzo criminale today, for me, it has the same impact as it did back then.

Sky keeps airing it.

 

 

Camera: ARRI SR3
Lenses: Elite s16
Film: Kodak 7219 – 500T

[IronFilm]

On 3/16/2025 at 12:37 AM, MrSMW said:

Thing C = not all older movies look great. Some...a lot even, look shit to my eyes.

Thing D = not all modern movies look shit. Some...a lot even, look superb to my eyes.

Summary, I think there is too much rose tinted spectacle nostalgia about 'The Good Old Days' and that everything today is trash. Everything today is not trash, - it's just different times.

Exactly. it's much easier today to make with digital a film today that's above the average quality of pre-digital film. 

Not every film in the pre-digital era looked like Barry Lyndon. Many looked every worse than what Roger Corman was making. 

On 3/16/2025 at 12:37 AM, MrSMW said:

They also make a lot of shit today. Probably 19+ out of every 20 movies released today I would not wish to see, but they do still make some gems when the right people are involved.

Ditto 19+ out of every 20 films released in the pre-digital era I would not wish to see either. 

 

On 3/16/2025 at 5:51 AM, fuzzynormal said:

Might be a bit of survivor bias here. 

The older movies that were shot on film might seem to be of a nicer IQ standard, but those are the ones that are still acknowledged.

As an dude that went to the local 1$ 'grindhouse' theater rather regularly as a kid, I assure you that the quality of the image for the forgettable films were often nothing remarkable. 

Bingo, most of us look back and remember only the films from the past that are worth remembering. 

(obligatory inclusion of an image of the most famous example of survivorship bias)