Watched Barry Lyndon yesterday

[Gunleik Groven]

And what did I see?

Blown highlights, soft focus, inconsistent colors, low saturation in indoor shots (bad or no lightning?), colors that didn't really pop in my face. Zooms. They are TV, right? Intercut images with different filmlook (DOF) - how could he use different filmlook in different intercut shots? And the HDR stuff... Man that was bad! And even some shots looked like he hadn't used a mattebox. Is that legal?

Is it shot on RED? Looks like. But I guess the post guys just messed up?

I think someone should give this stanley guy some basic training in cinematography and storytelling asap, or he will never make another movie again.













\end rant

[Adam Levins]

How dare you Sir... On Mr Kubrick's honor I challenge thee to a duel.

Muskets at dawn!

[Priyesh P.]

lightning? did he shoot during thunderstorms? ;-)

[Marc Berger]

Funny...
I remember the first release. I had a student job as film projectionist. Barry Lyndon was a real challenge, because Stanley Kubrick delivered a whole book with instructions to make sure the film looks on screen like he wanted. The distributor had a test person. If you failed they would not let you show the film in your cinema. Only certain film theatres with the right technical background got a copie. There was no additional light used with Barry Lyndon. Kubrick developed a high speed lens (I think with Zeiss) with an aperture 0,75 to shoot the movie.
Did you see it on DVD?
Marc

[Cail Young]

Kubrick developed a high speed lens (I think with Zeiss) with an aperture 0,75 to shoot the movie.

A Zeiss lens for NASA (used in the Apollo missions) tracked down and rebuilt for cinema use.

[James T Mather]

Interiors were famously (perhaps apocryphally) shot by candle light - hence the wide aperture. Apparently the lens testing went on for days and days - beyond all rational sense. Go Stanley.

[Deanan]

http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/sk/2001a/bl/page1.htm

[Weston Ford]

Stans the man.

[Cüneyt Kaya]

to bring some cospiracy in it.

stanley did get the super lens, because he promised to shoot a movie for the NASA first...the landing on the moon :)

[Sanjin Jukic]

And what did I see?

Blown highlights, soft focus, inconsistent colors, low saturation in indoor shots (bad or no lightning?), colors that didn't really pop in my face. Zooms. They are TV, right? Intercut images with different filmlook (DOF) - how could he use different filmlook in different intercut shots? And the HDR stuff... Man that was bad! And even some shots looked like he hadn't used a mattebox. Is that legal?

Is it shot on RED? Looks like. But I guess the post guys just messed up?

I think someone should give this stanley guy some basic training in cinematography and storytelling asap, or he will never make another movie again.

\end rant

Barry Lyndon is an example that "avant-garde" thinking was and hopefully still exists in a movie making industry worldwide (writing, directing, acting, editing, cinematography, sound, music, post, vfx,...etc).

[Gunleik Groven]

So he really intended to do all those weird and totally unfilmic and illegal things???

Geee!!

\end rant 2

[Roberto B]

trac(k)ing the classics humm?.. ehehehehe

[Gunleik Groven]

Just as a sidenote, Kubrick's been one of my my heroes since first time I saw Clockwork Orange, some 20 years ago...

[abrosenfeld]

Mr. Kubrick was a bit of a control freak. Many years ago, when I was in charge of Broadcast QC for Showtime we ran Clockwork Orange. I rejected the copy they sent us because the opening titles and such were full of video scratches recorded in from the master. The studio had to get permission from Kubrick to retransfer the film to video and then get his approval on the transfer before I could get a copy. He held final approval for everything he did.

[Tico Llaurador]

Gunleik, please, define the term "unfilmic"? I certainly don't get it. Unless you really meant to say "against conventional film industry doctrine" instead?

Any which way, "Barry Lyndon" is a work of art in my book. Like most of his work, definitely not for everyone, though.

I personally don't think that any type of art should be measured against a generally accepted notion of how art should be.

Can you imagine?

[Eddie]

When D. W. Griffith made his first close-ups the investors said "you cant have peoples heads floating around like that in a film"... guess they also thought they knew whether something was filmic or not.

[Gunleik Groven]

Gunleik, please, define the term "unfilmic"? I certainly don't get it. Unless you really meant to say "against conventional film industry doctrine" instead?

Any which way, "Barry Lyndon" is a work of art in my book. Like most of his work, definitely not for everyone, though.

I personally don't think that any type of art should be measured against a generally accepted notion of how art should be.

Can you imagine?

It's always risky to do ironic posts. I know... But sometimes I cannot help myself.

There's so much talk about "film look" and what technical solution makes a film look like a "Film"on all these boards... I'm pretty familiar with the myths and truths surrounding Barry Lyndon, and really enjoyed watching it.

It was also very entertaining with all the talk about "film look" being defined by shallow DOF and some particular color/contrast scheme.

One of my most favoured films is RAN by Akira Kurosawa. Deep DOF and very conservative (but defined) use of colors - for the most part. Still one of the films I've seen and loved the most.

As is "The Wall" by Alan Parker.

I just think the whole "it does/it doesn't" look like film thing is quite eh.... uninformed @ times.

I really like some of the Chaplin movies, but according to these rules, they simply are not films.

I don't like conformity much - even though I'll be the first to admit that "different" isn't neccesarily "better". But conformity is no success - parameter either...

I wouldn't agree that Barry Lyndon is avant-garde, though. But it's done with a thorough idea and aestethic thought. And then the tools are chosen.

This forum is exactly the right place for technical geekery, but when technicalities (which are important to control) are put out as dogmatic aestethical statements, I sometimes find it amusing...

Cheers!

[Nils J. Nesse]

Dear Gunleik, Barry Lyndon is my favorite Kubrick, and one of my very favorite films. It has moved me deeper for each time I've seen it. I need to watch it again soon, thanks for reminding me.

[Tom Lowe]

One of my most favoured films is RAN by Akira Kurosawa. Deep DOF and very conservative (but defined) use of colors - for the most part. Still one of the films I've seen and loved the most.


You thought the colors on "Ran" were conservative? What do you mean by that? I thought the use of colors was extremely overt and powerful.

http://www.sea.fi/foto/Ran2.jpg

I am also a big fan of the look of "Ran," though I thought the ending dragged on too long.

[jpp]

It's always risky to do ironic posts. I know... But sometimes I cannot help myself.

I really like some of the Chaplin movies, but according to these rules, they simply are not films.

Your post may be even more ironic than you ntended, because in one of his interviews, Kubrick actually came out and said that if you have a narrative worth paying attention to, it doesn't matter much how you shoot it or what it looks like. And he cited Chaplin as an example of a great filmmaker (in his estimation) who's indifferent to the visual realization of the material.

[Jorge Díaz-Amador]

I find it interesting to note that the Carl Zeiss Planar 50mm f0.7 lens used on Barry Lyndon (which I was privileged to see and touch and even look through at the Stanley Kubrick Achives Exhibition in Ghent Belgium), would probably work on the RED ONE if the sensor protection window was removed. The back focus (rear element vertex to image plane distance) was just 3 mm.

The lens has a built-in shutter and you can tell it's obviously a medium format lens. It was strange to see an iris scale that went all the way to f0.7. They had locked the focus so you couldn't turn it, but you could look through the side viewfinder on the BNC and see nothing but bokeh.

Incidentally, in the Stanley Kubrick documentary A Life in Pictures, a former studio head recounted how Stanley had asked to buy a couple of Mitchell BNC "Rear Projection" cameras for "nostalgic reasons". The cameras were sold to Kubrick. Later when Bob Gottschalk of Panavision found out, he had a fit, saying that those Mitchells were the "best cameras ever made" and were hand made to perfection (or something like that).

I wonder if these very same BNC's were converted to use the f0.7 lenses by Ed DiGulio. Anyone else heard of this story or have any other details on it?

[zak forrest]

Incidentally, in the Stanley Kubrick documentary A Life in Pictures, a former studio head recounted how Stanley had asked to buy a couple of Mitchell BNC "Rear Projection" cameras for "nostalgic reasons". The cameras were sold to Kubrick. Later when Bob Gottschalk of Panavision found out, he had a fit, saying that those Mitchells were the "best cameras ever made" and were hand made to perfection (or something like that).

I wonder if these very same BNC's were converted to use the f0.7 lenses by Ed DiGulio. Anyone else heard of this story or have any other details on it?

Yes they were.

The focus was so shallow on those lenses in Barry Lyndon, they set up a video camera catching the scene from the side, drew a focus scale on the TV, and pulled focus from the video feed.

[Gunleik Groven]

You thought the colors on "Ran" were conservative? What do you mean by that? I thought the use of colors was extremely overt and powerful.

I am also a big fan of the look of "Ran," though I thought the ending dragged on too long.

Conservative as in "spent with thought and consideration", not as in "not used"

I saw RAN @ its release in Norway, 87? And it still stands in my head as one of the most colorfull and color thought of movies I've ever seen. But seeing it again, the reason I remember it like that is not saturation and contrast (which I think is quite conservatively applied) but well thought of color coding.

But that's just me.

Gunleik

[Jorge Díaz-Amador]

Yes they were.

The focus was so shallow on those lenses in Barry Lyndon, they set up a video camera catching the scene from the side, drew a focus scale on the TV, and pulled focus from the video feed.

Thanks Zak!

I'd love to know more about those "rear projection" BNC's and what was special about them if you or anyone else has more info.

[Eddie]

as with so many other asian films praised for their colors, i think its more fair to credit the director, set decorators and costume department for this achievement, rather than the DP. Grading really didn´t add much to the spectacle.
Akira did things the hardway, building up his epic visions in real life scenery. Pushing and pulling around with meta-data isn´t gonna help us much in this respect

[Gunleik Groven]

Who spoke about metadata? :)

[Eddie]

Incidentally, in the Stanley Kubrick documentary A Life in Pictures, a former studio head recounted how Stanley had asked to buy a couple of Mitchell BNC "Rear Projection" cameras for "nostalgic reasons". The cameras were sold to Kubrick. Later when Bob Gottschalk of Panavision found out, he had a fit, saying that those Mitchells were the "best cameras ever made" and were hand made to perfection (or something like that).

I wonder if these very same BNC's were converted to use the f0.7 lenses by Ed DiGulio. Anyone else heard of this story or have any other details on it?

As I understood it, the cameras were more or less obsolete because they didn´t do much rearprojection anymore, atleast not in the way these cameras were designed for. Kubrick knew that, but he also knew that the lenses on these rearprojection cameras were among the fastest on the planet (guess you need fast lenses to make the colors pop out when filming the projection). Thats why he got away with it, i believe.
correct me if i am wrong

[zak forrest]

more about Kubrick and the BNC, etc:

http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/sk/ac/len/page1.htm

[David Mullen ASC]

All sorts of cameras can be used to shoot plates for rear-projection. To rephotograph the image, yes, you'd probably be shooting on a fast lens but usually not anything faster than a T/2.8 for most movies using rear-projection. The main thing is that the shutter of the camera and the single-bladed projector being used had to be in sync. The sync connection was probably the only thing unique about the Mitchells Kubrick brought.

The only thing in particular he needed in order to use those f/0.7 lenses, other than to remove their iris / shutter (so the lens was permanently f/0.7), was to use a non-reflex camera and have the Mitchell shutter shaved down in thickness to clear the back of the lens, which almost touched the film. He also had a locking mechanism installed that prevented the camera from racking over if you didn't first rotate the lens out a little.

Anyway, it's all be covered in the old AC article posted online:
http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/sk/ac/len/page1.htm