film question - film look

8salacious9

8salacious9

So theres types of film looks, adding black bars to the top and bottom, cropping the actual footage, shooting with anamorphic lens and squashing the footage down to get that extra special look.

so heres my question, in the dark knight rises they use it for some scenes, then in other scenes they go full frame.

my general perception before seeing the film was that if you go with a look, you stick with it, but i see that in many scenes they chop and change from full frame to cropped look.

has anyone else done this method?

Also does anyone have any tips on creating this look using after effects?
 
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Did they do that in TDKR? I didn't notice it.

They did do that in TDK, on home video at least; the full frame scenes were the one's shot on IMAX, the letterboxed scenes were shot on 35mm (I believe that all of TDKR was shot on IMAX). A lot of people found this distracting, going from one to the other. I'd say, avoid it if at all possible. If you really want to do it, I guess you'd just have to do it manually, cropping some scenes and not others.
 
mad_hatter said:
Did they do that in TDKR? I didn't notice it.

They did do that in TDK, on home video at least; the full frame scenes were the one's shot on IMAX, the letterboxed scenes were shot on 35mm (I believe that all of TDKR was shot on IMAX). A lot of people found this distracting, going from one to the other. I'd say, avoid it if at all possible. If you really want to do it, I guess you'd just have to do it manually, cropping some scenes and not others.
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yeah they still did it in the tdkr, im thinking that the cropped images were mostly the panavision shots, or maybe to portray more emotion.

unfortunatly not all of tdkr was imax, but alot more of it was than ever before, stunning imagery really
 
TDKR was not all IMAX, only 72 minutes was. There was one scene near the end that greatly annoyed me where it cut between two locations and it switched aspect ratio in each scene.

Another thing to point out, what you see on the blu ray is not the same that was shot. IMAX scenes played in an IMAX theatre are 1.43:1 whereas these scenes on your tv come out at 1.85:1. This is because on our widescreen TVs and monitors it would be basically changing from 2.4:1 to 4:3 (IMAX is only slightly wider than 4:3).

Except in scenes of extreme focus, think anime where the aspect ratio narrows in on someone's eyes or other detail, I don't think there is much point. I've seen films that jumped from 16:9 to 4:3 and it was awfully distracting. In the IMAX theatre however the change was not distracting for some reason. I personally don't agree with aspect ratio changes on our home copy
 
MileCreations said:
TDKR was not all IMAX, only 72 minutes was. There was one scene near the end that greatly annoyed me where it cut between two locations and it switched aspect ratio in each scene.

Another thing to point out, what you see on the blu ray is not the same that was shot. IMAX scenes played in an IMAX theatre are 1.43:1 whereas these scenes on your tv come out at 1.85:1. This is because on our widescreen TVs and monitors it would be basically changing from 2.4:1 to 4:3 (IMAX is only slightly wider than 4:3).

Except in scenes of extreme focus, think anime where the aspect ratio narrows in on someone's eyes or other detail, I don't think there is much point. I've seen films that jumped from 16:9 to 4:3 and it was awfully distracting. In the IMAX theatre however the change was not distracting for some reason. I personally don't agree with aspect ratio changes on our home copy
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i think certainly changing the aspect ratio throughout a film is risky, but also for me its an exciting concept to play with, i wish they would have said the reason for changing aspect ratio, maybe nolan wanted the imax footage to be shown in full glory? il have to watch it again so i can understand when the changes happened and what type of scenes they were.
 
I watched just a few nights ago and I'd previously thought that it would be just in action sequences (Spider-Man at IMAX, while not shot with IMAX was changed to the IMAX ratio for some scenes) but I saw quite a number of simple talking scenes with it as well. One thing I've noticed is that the smaller the screen (or I suppose the further away you are....) the more likely you are to notice. So if you're creating something for the web then it would be very risky indeed
 
The reason TDK and TDKR change aspect ratio is because only parts of the film are shot in 65mm IMAX film.

You've got anamorphic 35mm and then 1.44:1 IMAX. If you didn't change the aspect ratio, he would have had to crop in the IMAX footage, defeating the purpose of it. Alternately, he could have cropped the sides of the 35mm stuff to bring it into a 1.44:1 ratio, but that would also be pointless.

I personally would not do it on a film unless we were mixing 65 and 35mm. I'm personally not a big fan of changing aspect ratio (simply for the sake of it), and you can run the risk of being labelled a copycat, or simply an amateur who thinks that copying TDKR will make their film look amazing.

Keep in mind that shooting on anamorphic lenses has very little to do with a 'film' look, though you might think it looks more cinematic..
If you want a film look, you want to be rolling off your highlights, keeping dynamic range and adding grain and gate weave.
 
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I watched it on the big screen and it wasn't distracting. That's because there isn't an actual frame at the theater, just a plain white screen, so you don't notice as much that the aspect changed. You notice it much more on a TV or computer than a projector.

Nolan knows his stuff. Unless you have an IMAX camera in your garage and are a professional cinematographer, you don't have any good reason to have aspect ratios changing.
 
They didn't do this for any reason other than the fact that they shot a lot of the footage in an IMAX format. IMAX cameras are very loud, however, and in quiet scenes, specifically dialogue scenes, they couldn't shoot in IMAX, so they didn't.

In other words, shooting this way isn't really a "method". I am sure they would have opted to have it all shot in IMAX if it were possible to do so in the manner that they wished to film the movie.
 
TheArtist said:
Nolan knows his stuff.
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Some interesting debate on this floating around the web. Particularly an action scene from TDK that's on YouTube... visionary breaking every rule in the book OR an absolute mess of incohesive shots.

I care neither way but filming bits in IMAX and others not seems like a baffling choice for a filmaker... what's next ONE 3D scene :huh:
 
ShockingMind said:
Some interesting debate on this floating around the web. Particularly an action scene from TDK that's on YouTube... visionary breaking every rule in the book OR an absolute mess of incohesive shots.
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I'm definitely curious to know more about this debate. Can you link some of these youtube videos?
 
From what I remember reading about The Dark Knight Rises, the previous comments are correct. The city scape scenes were film with the IMAX camera, specifically for release on the IMAX screens. When the film was shown on regular theater screens, you would have that slight aspect ration change. Now I never saw TDKR on IMAX, but I think the aspect ration change was more dramatic on those screens.
 
I had no friggin idea, I honestly have NEVER noticed an aspect change in a movie theater.. I assumed that was against the law or something :)
 
wheatgrinder said:
I had no friggin idea, I honestly have NEVER noticed an aspect change in a movie theater.. I assumed that was against the law or something :)
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If you watch the Blu Ray of The Dark Knight, when ever there is a cityscape scene, it will change into 16:9, from the wider aspect ration. I never noticed at the theater. But they did the same thing Rises. I noticed t at the theater this time.
 
i for one disliked the idea at first but then come to think of it as maybe another tool, i mean we are the masters of our own tools right?

what if the ratio change could be used also not only for convenience but for creating mood..?

for emotional close up scenes letterbox, for scenes to capture the whole beauty of the image go fullscreen..

is this something that only batman can get away with? or can we use it ourselves to see what results we get? sure its not the norm but arent we evolving innovators?
 
I think if it enhances the story, why not? But if its so jarring that it pulls someone out of the mood you're trying to create. As I said before, I didn't even notice it, when I saw TDK in theaters, and it was probably the 2nd or 3rd time I'd watch the blu ray that I'd did. Then I looked up why it was happening, and it made sense to me. As with everything, its all in how you present it. What purpose does is serve for you?
 
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