Discuss the Ghostbusters movie that was released in 2016.
#4895360
Sav C wrote:That's a good point about the association of red and heavy metal. Perhaps if they had turned the lights down just a tad it eould've been better.

There was really something special about the world created in the first couple of movies. I remember the feeling of excitement reading the Philosopher's Stone for the first time, in the part where Harry goes to diagonon alley for the first time. Great stuff. I haven't read the newest book, Fantastic Beasts I think, and probably won't see the movie until I've read it.

I really enjoyed the Tobey Mcguire Spidermans, the new one looks good too. Still haven't seen the Amazing Spiderman series.
Agreed. I gotta be honest. I think this debate of old and new is a fifty-fifty thing. Yeah, we bring up the older films and older techniques. To a degree, the films of the past from silent era to up to the 90s would go nuts if they had their hands on the technology of today. Why? It'd make life easier. The issue to me then is that, like you said with Harry Potter's first two movies being filmed in a style that was more in tune to the magic ... that's why I complain about when making comparisons. Not that oh yes, back then we made it great, but its about whether a film's execution is done in a way that feels good, just right, on the money. I mean, older stuff will seem like that because, well duh, they didn't have the technology to make things that weren't there while making the movie, but there is a charm in seeing old methods that worked once to make you believe. It's like a magician. You might know the tricks, but you'll always be charmed that once upon a time you believed it.
Sav C liked this
#4895361
The biggest problem we have with special effects is, because of all the behind the scenes stuff knowawdays, people know where to look.
They see the cable that rolls around the Jurrasic Park Jeep, notice that shadow on that CGI character is off or realise that artefact in that screen means a green screen has been used, or a strange movement shows it's a reverse shot or a weird tug tells you are looking at a puppet.

The closer you get to perfection, the easier it become to notice where it's off, and better screens are not helping.
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#4895366
It really depends on your attitude. I've always loved watching behind the scenes documentaries, even at like 3 years old. I knew all about blue screen, tape edits, and being matted into shots, because Jim Henson never talked down to me. :) It didn't ruin the actual viewing experience, because at that point I would be swept up by the story and the characters. But then nowadays I hear fans talking about being "taking out of the movie" when they notice the FX. I will never understand such an attitude, and I'm glad I don't have to. :)
#4895368
And sure, sometimes an effect looks especially fake or dated and I laugh about it. But that's all that happens, it's not a problem to be solved. I dunno, I get the impression some fans need to believe in the absolute reality of the world. But for me, I guess I believe in the absolute reality of the movie, if that makes sense.
#4895384
GBPaulRivera wrote:Realism is relative and limited to the scope of cinema at a technical and human level. Heck, besides for budget reasons, didn't Ivan bring Harold in to make Ghostbusters a little more ... realistic?
Great choice of course. He decided that setting it in the present was the best way to interest the audience but as I mention below there are ways to provide escapist cinema without a film looking cheap and ugly. Unfortunately most films today do look like that even with all that money spent on them. The example you gave with Ghostbusters worked because the lack of digital effects, the look of New York, the acting made it authentic and real.
Alphagaia wrote:The closer you get to perfection, the easier it become to notice where it's off, and better screens are not helping.
Let me know when they reach perfection because they at the moment seem far off it. :-D
Sav C wrote:I thought movies were more grounded in the 90s, and their realism has decreased over time. Look at Bullitt, Dog Day Afternoon, they're about as realistic as cinema gets I'd say.

Maybe I'm wrong but isn't that the opposite of what you're saying?
No you're wrong. Any director will tell you that films today go for absolute realism even though only in terms of colour pallete they manage to achieve that. Every studio strives for more realism than a movie in the 90s but ends up with something much worse. I learn nothing from watching Wonder Woman in awful blue picture quality. Your missing some key things here that make a movie realistic:

Acting: Everybody in movies take the acting deadly serious or overly comedic depending on the genre. There is no balance between, there's no sense of creating a balanced figure. It's hyper real if you will.

Movement: Editing and movement of actors is more visceral but less cinematic, more like a bad documentary someone made up.

Visual effects: More realism means creating more that's real in CG. More CG stunts, more everything, none of it looks 'real'.

Picture/design: More realism means desaturated picture, more digitally altered blue like in Wonder Woman. Studios seem to think make superhero costumes as bland and dull looking as possible to make them look 'real'. It doesn't, it just makes them look dull. There's no colour, no imagination. Studios are worried about putting colour on screen.

This all adds up to the difference between a film like Superman (1978) and Man of Steel (2011). The former feels real to me, the latter doesn't even though it pushes more to look less camp.
JurorNo.2 wrote:And sure, sometimes an effect looks especially fake or dated and I laugh about it. But that's all that happens, it's not a problem to be solved. I dunno, I get the impression some fans need to believe in the absolute reality of the world. But for me, I guess I believe in the absolute reality of the movie, if that makes sense.
It's a combination of all the factors explained to Sav C. You can have the most bright and colourful movie in the world, the most camp film ever but as long as all those factors above combine to work without all that awful post modern referentialism you can believe in the movie you're watching. The thing is all those things need to come together and that's difficult for most studios to handle. Compare Jumanji to the trailer for the new movie. Look back at my list above. See which does everything properly and which doesn't?
#4895387
pferreira1983 wrote:The example you gave with Ghostbusters worked because the lack of digital effects, the look of New York, the acting made it authentic and real.
The original Ghostbusters would definitely have used digital effects if they'd been available back in 1984. The first film's lack of them wasn't a creative or practical decision, it was down to the fact the technology either didn't exist or wasn't anywhere near advanced yet.
#4895392
pferreira1983 wrote:Acting: Everybody in movies take the acting deadly serious
Agree with you on the deadly serious, I am so sick of seeing that style of "acting" in movies.
Studios seem to think make superhero costumes as bland and dull looking as possible to make them look 'real'.
Well not "studios" but Warner Brothers specifically, who are still stuck in Nolan mode and haven't realized everyone else has moved on. ;)
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#4895396
Kingpin wrote:The original Ghostbusters would definitely have used digital effects if they'd been available back in 1984. The first film's lack of them wasn't a creative or practical decision, it was down to the fact the technology either didn't exist or wasn't anywhere near advanced yet.
You are right to an extent but thank goodness we never had digital effects back then. The results mostly still hold up all these years later.
JurorNo.2 wrote:Agree with you on the deadly serious, I am so sick of seeing that style of "acting" in movies.
Apparently I know nothing about the industry so my opinions are invalid... :roll:
JurorNo.2 wrote:Well not "studios" but Warner Brothers specifically, who are still stuck in Nolan mode and haven't realized everyone else has moved on. ;)
I'd extend that to Marvel as well. The films look dull in colour pallete. Probably doesn't help they use those awful Alexa cameras that have trouble understanding natural light.
#4895403
GBPaulRivera wrote:Agreed. I gotta be honest. I think this debate of old and new is a fifty-fifty thing. Yeah, we bring up the older films and older techniques. To a degree, the films of the past from silent era to up to the 90s would go nuts if they had their hands on the technology of today. Why? It'd make life easier. The issue to me then is that, like you said with Harry Potter's first two movies being filmed in a style that was more in tune to the magic ... that's why I complain about when making comparisons. Not that oh yes, back then we made it great, but its about whether a film's execution is done in a way that feels good, just right, on the money. I mean, older stuff will seem like that because, well duh, they didn't have the technology to make things that weren't there while making the movie, but there is a charm in seeing old methods that worked once to make you believe. It's like a magician. You might know the tricks, but you'll always be charmed that once upon a time you believed it.
Apologies for not getting back to you sooner. Even though having fairly unlimited possibilities is great for creativity, I think that having limitations helped older movies--in that they had to work harder for the story to sell the effects. Now they can portray almost anything they want FX wise, and it will look realistic. But for it to be believable, the story has to be up to the task of selling it. I heard a quote once that bad acting is bad directing, or something like that. For the most part I think it's also true for effects--an unconvincing story will result in unconvincing effects.
Alphagaia wrote:The biggest problem we have with special effects is, because of all the behind the scenes stuff knowawdays, people know where to look.
That's a good point, however I think that mainly applies to movies with less effective cinematography.
pferreira1983 wrote:The example you gave with Ghostbusters worked because the lack of digital effects, the look of New York, the acting made it authentic and real.
I think it works due to the tightness of the story.
Sav C wrote:I thought movies were more grounded in the 90s, and their realism has decreased over time. Look at Bullitt, Dog Day Afternoon, they're about as realistic as cinema gets I'd say.

Maybe I'm wrong but isn't that the opposite of what you're saying?
No you're wrong. Any director will tell you that films today go for absolute realism even though only in terms of colour pallete they manage to achieve that. Every studio strives for more realism than a movie in the 90s but ends up with something much worse. I learn nothing from watching Wonder Woman in awful blue picture quality. Your missing some key things here that make a movie realistic:

Acting: Everybody in movies take the acting deadly serious or overly comedic depending on the genre. There is no balance between, there's no sense of creating a balanced figure. It's hyper real if you will.

Movement: Editing and movement of actors is more visceral but less cinematic, more like a bad documentary someone made up.

Visual effects: More realism means creating more that's real in CG. More CG stunts, more everything, none of it looks 'real'.

Picture/design: More realism means desaturated picture, more digitally altered blue like in Wonder Woman. Studios seem to think make superhero costumes as bland and dull looking as possible to make them look 'real'. It doesn't, it just makes them look dull. There's no colour, no imagination. Studios are worried about putting colour on screen.

This all adds up to the difference between a film like Superman (1978) and Man of Steel (2011). The former feels real to me, the latter doesn't even though it pushes more to look less camp.
So you're saying the point of realism is to look surreal? Because honestly everything you just stated is the opposite of what I consider realism. I consider films made earlier on the most realistic, with that realism decreasing over time. Basically I consider realism to be films with the least intrusive techniques being employed. If the filmmaking style breaks the immersion of the film, then it is not realistic.
pferreira1983 wrote:Probably doesn't help they use those awful Alexa cameras that have trouble understanding natural light.
I don't follow; are you implying they have cheap sensors in them?
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#4895487
To Sav_C:
I agree and to be honest, as much as selling us a concept is left up to the story ... it's also left on the actor(s) because their abilities and the character have to guide you into this world. In essence, when a writer or creative team of artists come to make a story, in my humble opinion, it's character first and concept later. I mean, think of say the Dr. Suess books which are basic great examples kids are exposed to in regards to development and artistry. The Grinch, the Cat In The Hat, the Lorax, Horton & the Whos, these are well grounded and creative characters who can be applied to a lot of concepts as long as they are who they are. The Ghostbusters are characters you can see in lots of scenarios meeting lots of people and handling different situations that'll challenge them and we await on their interactions and personalities to sell us the believablity. Now in regards to the technology limitations, and I'll go deeper for the person below this post ... limitations a lot of time are sometimes the best way to push the writers and directors and actors and designers to bring a well made story. Just look at Doctor Who, they've been doing that for 50+ years.

To Pferreira1983
I'm quite happy actually that you keep reminding me of my points because I stand by them a lot. The technical limitations to a pre-digital age do help the world of Ghostbusters. In all honesty, there is something fun about pre-digital era that adds to these SFX movies. I kinda have to agree on some of your points about acting. Depending on the genre, sometimes the acting can be realistic or hyper realistic or throws subtly out the window for overly insane. Now, I excused that for Ghostbusters: Answer The Call because its a comedy that is self-aware of the world it's entering. I think the best show that has balanced acting is Stranger Things when it comes to reacting to a genre like horror and science fiction. Like Sav_C suggested, bad acting is due to bad directing. Sometimes directors can't direct actors. I think our issue is that we're bringing up films in categories that allow for hyper-realism more than actual realism. The Danish Girl or The Theory of Everything or Nightcrawler is realism, with great realistic acting, but its subject matter and genre is supposed to go in that direction. Their creative liberties are limited not only to our physical world, but how these characters much like people in real life, whether they think a little differently, or specially , or insane (in respect to the movies I mentioned), would be. However, let's be honest, your points on the DC and Marvel movies are mixed. Yes, they have an issue of colors and that could be down to camerawork, but like I told Sav_C, films like Wonder Woman, GOTG, Doctor Strange, and recently Spider-Man: Homecoming are improving on that. I think it's just due to your eyes, and not ours. And yes, Sav_C is right, you're definition of Realism is Surreal when you consider the fact films of the past captured color differently. Do I love them more than now? Yeah, but I'm not going to call 1978 superman realism the instant I see him in front of blue screen. The flying in camera and landing, and Christopher Reeve's body movements sell how I'd think Superman would fly. Sure, but not the blue screen when he's flying over Manhattan or the camera is zooming to him. Man Of Steel fails too as did Superman Returns because they're going too quick and the camera barely shows the whole body, going for instead a CGI double, but I bet you if you PAUSE the shots, some of those are right out of the comics, and amazing stills ... but they need to fix on the movement and colors. To be honest, Justice League in recent trailers seems to also be doing a better job. Improvement and progress. No, it's not returning to the past, but trying to find ways to engage the technology for realism, while letting go of this bleak and dark age thanks to the Nolan effect with The Dark Knight.
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#4895535
That's a very good point. Good characters are definitely the "in point" for the audience while watching a film, so they do have to be believable first and foremost. Have you ever read Syd Field's book on screenwriting? It's interesting in that it has one chapter about having story evolve out of character, and one chapter about character evolving out of story.

The great thing about limitations is that it makes the crew work double to make the story convincing, thereby focusing more on the psychological/emotional response of the film.
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#4895560
JurorNo.2 wrote:Well it's not that you're wrong, it's that you're battering at walls that aren't easily broken.
Ok then. :-|
Sav C wrote:[I don't follow; are you implying they have cheap sensors in them?
Those Alexa are incapable of understanding colour. They were originally designed for saturated grays and night scenes. The joke is the only thing Arri Alexa cameras can shoot is gray. Have a look at this:


Kingpin wrote:Maybe some, but not all Marvel. I saw Spider-Man: Homecoming earlier tonight and it was pretty colourful.
I've seen clips from it and it looks just as gray and desaturated as any other Marvel or DC movie. See above.
GBPaulRivera wrote:Yes, they have an issue of colors and that could be down to camerawork, but like I told Sav_C, films like Wonder Woman, GOTG, Doctor Strange, and recently Spider-Man: Homecoming are improving on that. I think it's just due to your eyes, and not ours.
Let's see...Homecoming has the same gray issues as every other Marvel or DC movie, Doctor Strange I haven't seen although I fail to see how it would be different to everything that's out, GOTG sort of but it suffers from a lot of CG blur, it's more in line with The Phantom Menace in successful use of colour (which isn't a bad thing actually). Wonder Woman suffers from blue saturation so yeah I stick by my original points.
#4895564
pferreira1983 wrote:I've seen clips from it and it looks just as gray and desaturated as any other Marvel or DC movie.
I've had a look at some of the trailers for it on youtube, and I remember it being more vivid in the cinema. Either way I'd recommend going to see it and let that be the comparison rather than some clips which may not have been finished when it came to their colour grading.
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#4895586
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Alphagaia wrote:Image
That's a picture dude.
Kingpin wrote:I've had a look at some of the trailers for it on youtube, and I remember it being more vivid in the cinema.
I saw a televised clip I think. If it's like the scenes from Civil War above then it's the same issue. I saw Mission Impossible Rogue Nation today and that had some colour, still felt a little two desaturated in areas. For the most part the MI movies have been good with colour. The only one where the colour looks awful is the third movie and surprise surprise who directed that one.
#4895591
pferreira1983 wrote:I saw a televised clip I think. If it's like the scenes from Civil War above then it's the same issue.
I'm really sure the clips don't do the film justice, my recollection is closer to the film poster alpha posted, and even if that isn't the case, there's more to the film than just the colour grading.
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#4895599
pferreira1983 wrote:
Sav C wrote:[I don't follow; are you implying they have cheap sensors in them?
Those Alexa are incapable of understanding colour. They were originally designed for saturated grays and night scenes. The joke is the only thing Arri Alexa cameras can shoot is gray. Have a look at this:

I'm not an expert, however I do have experience in the video field; the Alexa cameras shoot in what is known as "LOG" format (they also shoot in Raw format, and other cameras shoot compressed formats (known as "codecs")). Low light cameras generally perform just as well on normal lighting conditions. All it means is that they are more light sensitive and therefore there is less noise at high ISOs. Digital Noise, unlike film grain, is obviously disgusting so less is better. Being low light cameras mean that they can shoot at either 200 ISO or 1500 ISO, and still make clean images.

LOG formats have little contrast and saturation, therefore they can capture a lot of information for manipulation in post production. Once imported into a color program, the contrast and saturation can be increased so that they mimc the colours our eyes see. This is known as color correction. The program I do color correction in, Adobe Premiere, has LUTs built in which can be applied to footage to make it mimic what our eyes see. If you shot with an Alexa, for instance, you would find the Alexa preset and you would apply it to the footage, reversing the changes the Alexa made to the natural colors. For instance, if the Alexa has 90% less contrast than what our eyes see, the preset increases the footage's contrast by 90%, making it look natural. This can be done manually by dragging contrast and saturation sliders, which is the case with cameras like mine which are consumer grade and don't have presets made for them (however, if I wished, I could make a preset for mine). Just so that I am not misleading, even after a preset is applied there are usually minor tweaks made to the shot.

Once footage is color corrected, it can then be color graded, which is where a uniform look is applied to it. Color Grades can be subtle, or they can be really noticeable, that's why the bad ones stick out. I haven't seen it, however from your description of Wonder Woman, they probably made the blues more saturated than normal, or they desaturated all of the other colors more than normal, or both. That's not completely on the color grade, though, they would've decided in pre-production that they were going to also light the shots with blue lighting.

Not to be confusing, however if you get really detailed you can change colors using secondary color correction. For instance you could select the blue and make it green. OK, now to be confusing... Secondary Color Correction is actually applied first. :)

The color grades in that video shared aren't the best. Honestly the fact that Marvel's black is brighter than actually black is stupid to me. It would take me ten seconds to lower the blacks and fix the contrast. It would take me fifteen seconds to show you how to do it, assuming you don't know how to already. So it's not the cameras being used, and it's not the computers, and it's not the programs that are making you dislike the color. It's the personal choices of the colorist. I'm not going to say Alexa cameras are the best in the world, but they certainly aren't the problem. Movies have been color timed since the invention of color film.

I understand your frustrations with color grades, I really do. I'm mainly self taught video-wise (which means to take my opinions with a grain of salt, haha), but honestly when I learned about the idea of color grading I didn't like it. I thought color grades stuck out too much, and preferred the look of films like Ghostbusters (which actually was color graded (the technical term for color grading movie film is "color timing")). At the time I figured I was better off using the footage straight out of the camera (I don't shoot log, I shoot with codecs (which was probably obvious when I said my camera was consumer grade), therefore my shots were already close to normal contrast and saturation, but not quite there).

One day I was merging two shots together to make a composite. The colors didn't line up properly (due to the camera being set to auto). That's how I discovered the power of color grading. First, I color corrected the two shots so that the white balance was the same for both. The bottom layer was too cold and the top layer was too warm. I exported the shot, but was curious to play around with color some more. I brought the highlights down a bit, and increased the saturation of the shot. The end result was pretty cool looking. It wasn't one of the crazy color grades you see in Marvel movies, but compared to the original shot it was much more eye-catching. That was my orientation to color work. Since then I've learned a bit, and ultimately have used it in some capacity in all of my projects since.

I hope you don't mind my novel of a post, I just think that you may want to keep an open mind about color grades and Alexa cameras, as in the end it is what the colorist wants you to see that is up on screen, not what the camera sees. :)

One last thing, Ghostbusters ATC was shot RAW, not LOG. I only explained LOG since that is the desaturated, contrast lacking format. Out of the camera RAW is much closer to natural colors than LOG is, and the same color grading techniques apply to each.
Last edited by Sav C on July 16th, 2017, 10:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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#4896000
Alphagaia wrote:Yes, it is! But carefully chosen because it represents the end result.
Kingpin wrote:I'm really sure the clips don't do the film justice, my recollection is closer to the film poster alpha posted, and even if that isn't the case, there's more to the film than just the colour grading.
Yikes, not from what I've seen in the clips and those clips are part of the finished movie.
Sav C wrote:I hope you don't mind my novel of a post, I just think that you may want to keep an open mind about color grades and Alexa cameras, as in the end it is what the colorist wants you to see that is up on screen, not what the camera sees. :)
I guess people in Hollywood aren't doing their job properly then or maybe it's just they all want desaturated looking films instead of actual colour and texture? That's why Marvel movies look like the above video.
#4896045
pferreira1983 wrote:
Alphagaia wrote:Yes, it is! But carefully chosen because it represents the end result.
Kingpin wrote:I'm really sure the clips don't do the film justice, my recollection is closer to the film poster alpha posted, and even if that isn't the case, there's more to the film than just the colour grading.
Yikes, not from what I've seen in the clips and those clips are part of the finished movie.
Maybe you should watch the entire movie before you base your opinion on a few clips while disregarding multiple people who saw it in their interity and say it's brighter movie when compared to some previous Marvel outings.
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#4896051
Alphagaia wrote:Maybe you should watch the entire movie before you base your opinion on a few clips while disregarding multiple people who saw it in their interity and say it's brighter movie when compared to some previous Marvel outings.
I'd second that suggestion, but we both know what he's like when he's made up his mind.
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#4896349
Sav C wrote:Well it's a trend. They see what's hot on the market, and then they all want a piece of it.
Yeah, kind of a shame but almost like they forgot how to provide natural colour.
Alphagaia wrote:Maybe you should watch the entire movie before you base your opinion on a few clips while disregarding multiple people who saw it in their interity and say it's brighter movie when compared to some previous Marvel outings.
Listen the above clips I've seen as well as the above video show what these movies are like. I'm not sure what I need to disprove as there's visual proof?
#4896367
pferreira1983 wrote:
Alphagaia wrote:Maybe you should watch the entire movie before you base your opinion on a few clips while disregarding multiple people who saw it in their interity and say it's brighter movie when compared to some previous Marvel outings.
Listen the above clips I've seen as well as the above video show what these movies are like. I'm not sure what I need to disprove as there's visual proof?
Well, for starters, trailers/movieclips and posters often are made by a different team with a different colorgrading. (Not all of course, this is why I showed you a poster that is very close to the actual movie.) This is done because a trailer/clip has a different job to convey emotions in quick succession when compared to a movie who can use multiple scenes to convey a feel/look/emotion.

Or simply because the movie is not done and the final colorgrading is still to be aplied.

And not all Marvel movies follow Civil Wars color grading. (just compare Age of Ultron and The Avengers).

For instance: http://www.theonering.net/torwp/2014/04 ... -of-smaug/



Even between trailers colors can vary:

Image

Or, case in point:
Movie:
Image
Trailer
TLDR/W: movie and trailers can differ greatly in tone and color. Really, at least watch it yourself before you make up mind while disregarding others who have.
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#4896384
Plus colour grading is one element of the film, you're not going to know if the film's good if all you're basing your opinion on is the colour, and not the story - that's like judging Monet on his use of colour rather than on if he's actually painted the portrait with any skill.
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