So 28 days later was shot with XL1s + 35mm lenses...

M

MelonDome

That is pretty cool. How do you guys think they got such a good film look though? Hours of color correction? I really like the colors in their film, I wonder if it can be duplicated on the XH-A1.
 
Yep... so next time sone one tells you digital films cant make money remind them that film, WITH NO STARS, cots $5million and made over $40million in the US/Uk.
 
MelonDome said:
That is pretty cool. How do you guys think they got such a good film look though? Hours of color correction? I really like the colors in their film, I wonder if it can be duplicated on the XH-A1.
Click to expand...

To answer your question directly, they used PAL which inherently has more resolution and is at 25fps which is "film-like" frame rate to begin with. As for the 35mm adapter, I don't believe they used one.

Here's a quote from http://www.hollywoodjesus.com/28_days_later_about.htm about the production and the choice to use DV:

"Early on in the development of the script was the idea of filming on digital video. "We thought it would be the right decision to do it on DV. It would make the film feel and look different in a way. Our sort of realist science fiction would make it look very interesting and also the flexibility of it would make it possible to do some of the bigger scenes like street scenes where you have to clear roads," says Macdonald.

Boyle had shot STRUMPET and VACUUMING on DV with Director of Photography Anthony Dod Mantle and had many reasons why he wanted to shoot on it again. "For me there has to be an organic reason to shoot on DV," says Boyle. "The format felt appropriate to the post-apocalyptic landscape. This is very much an urban film, with the visit to the countryside aside, and I think DV has a grittiness about it that's magnificent for 'city' movies. We're surrounded in all major cities by CC cameras; they're recording our every motion. This is now the way that we record our lives."

"Also we wanted to make the world look different. Electricity and pollution are no more, and a stillness has returned," continues Boyle. "Digital cameras are much more responsive to low light levels and the general idea was to try and shoot as though we were survivors too."

Producer Andrew Macdonald maintains that on a practical level it would have been virtually impossible to shoot the film unless it was on DV. "The London scenes were key to the film. The police and the local authorities were quite happy to assist us because we could do it so quickly. We could literally be ready to shoot with a six-camera set up within minutes and we were allowed to hold the traffic for a minute or two at a time. This was repeated over a number of key locations - something we would not realistically have been allowed to do if shooting under the restrictions of 35mm which takes a good deal more time to set up a single shot.""

----

So you see, it was a decision to go with DV based on the need to practically fly around the set on public streets, and to get the "gritty" aesthetic.

But, to be honest, the DV although it serves a point for DV-proponents, could just have easily been 8mm, 16mm, whatever, and I doubt anyone would have enjoyed the film less although the DV curiosity factor would have disappeared.

The director and the DP already had extensive experience shooting film and DV (they shot the last scene of the film in 35mm), and so they already knew how to exploit DV to get the look they desired.

Just because they shot in DV doesn't mean it was a couple of guys and a camera, the film cost $8m USD to shoot, which means they used the same sound equipment, the same lighting packages, and the same production techniques as a 35mm film.

Finally, let it be said that there are some cutting edge elements to t he horror zombie storyline, of which ANY of that genre that ever get a decent release do well in the box office, let alone one that does something new.

So, to recap, the film-look was achieved with some XL1s PAL with no 35mm adapters, cinematic lighting and other techniques, good direction and good acting as well as a good storyline. In post, they spent a lot of time and money tweaking the image before laser scanning it to film (which of course is not cheap).

As far as duplicating it with the HD cameras, I'm not sure they wanted that "clean" of an image. HD with an HDV camera is pretty amazing quality, and not really the "gritty" they are looking for.
 
I thought they had used the P&S adapter.. At any rate I'm sure they used big expensive prime lenses, properly lit their shots, and spent plenty of time on coloring.
 
Thanks for that link knightly. Yes, so we can be clear the Optex is simply an adapter to affix 35mm prime cine lenses to a DV camera. This is commonplace on new higher end DV cameras such as XL2, as well as the higher end HDV cameras and of course, Red.

What I was saying is they didn't use a DOF adapter, such as the mini35. The cine primes are much higher quality of course than a standard lens, but wont give the super shallow DOF associated with a DOF adapter. Of course, rental of cine primes could be as much as $1.5k a day.

A lot more great info there as to how and why they chose DV.

"Dod Mantle composed shots by looking at 9" color monitors. "It's amazing, because this little consumer camera gets built up with matte boxes and transmitters for sound," he says. "But they were still streamlined and light compared to film cameras.""

Interesting, isn't it? It was basically a film shoot, but they used DV instead of a 35mm film camera.
 
You can recreate that optex adaptor for < $10 by gluing (I used JB Weld by Justice Brothers) a body cap from the XL1/XL2 and the back cap from the lens, shave them down, pop a hole in the cover big enough for the light to get through and stick them together so the lens' back focal distance is about right, (mines about 4 mm off :( ) and you have an adaptor for your 35mm canon still lenses (cheap used from the local camera joint!)...I have to track down those shots from my nikon adaptor.
 
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