Just Finished Watching Knowing

[Patrick Wynne]

Although the critics seem to not care for it I thought it was a terrific film. It was a well thought out apocalyptic thriller that I think only someone as talented as Alex Proyas could make.

#Minor Spoiler#

The plane crash and Nicholas Cage wandering through the wreckage and people was easily the most interesting special effects sequence I've seen all year and the prolonged take through all of it made the scene all the more interesting and powerful.

#End Spoiler#

On the plus side of critics I noticed Roger Ebert absolutely loved it!

In terms of cinematography and general picture quality I saw the movie on film at a theater in East Grand Forks, MN. The picture looked quite soft and I have no doubt that it was due to focus error on the theater's part (it's fairly notorious for that sort of thing). The only time you may ever realized it isn't shot on film is during the scene mentioned above. Other than that if someone told me it was shot on film I would've been inclined to believe them.

[mhullum]

I saw it last night with a friend in Federal Way, WA. Our presentation was in sharp focus, but one of the reels was a little funky. Some weird color aberrations like it hadn't gotten completely developed in a few spots. Hope someone gets to see it digitally projected and can post about that.

Despite that weird reel, it was easy to see that the RED footage is totally comparable to 35mm. We were really eyeballing it to see if it was going to look "good, but not like film," which is a comment I read a lot. There were a few shots where I thought maybe the color rendering had some characteristics that would be described as not totally "film-like," but you really have to be nit-picking. (And really, what film today that has been through a DI doesn't have a few shots that have been pushed too much to compensate for being underexposed, etc.?) I don't think 99.9% of people see anything other than "movie."

The thing I found most impressive and interesting about seeing it on film is that I actually thought some of the material looked better than it did in the HD Quicktime trailer! I've looked at the trailer several times, and you can easily see a lot of noise in the blacks and dark areas on quite a few shots (look at the blackboard in the classroom scene for one). But in the film presentation it was clean as a whistle. I'm assuming the noise in the Quicktime trailer was introduced in the h264 compression, but I've done a lot of converting RED footage to h264, and I've never seen noise be introduced in quite that way. Anyone know if something was done in the color timing or post process to reduce noise before the release prints were made?

The only aspect of the visuals I really did not like was the color timing. All of the interiors in the house had a tinge of yellow-green sourness to them that turned me off. I think this was an artistic choice though, and not a failing of the RED. Those scenes actually reminded me some of the look of Dark City, so I assume it's a preference of the director.

[Baltazar Balta]

Is it true that plane crash scene takes three minutes without cut?

[Sanjin Jukic]

What is your top choice to see this weekend (Mar. 20-22)?

24.9% Knowing
22.1% I Love You, Man
13.9% Watchmen
12.1% Duplicity
11.1% No interest this weekend.
3.8% Race to Witch Mountain
2.7% Taken
2.0% The Last House on the Left
1.9% Coraline
1.8% Slumdog Millionaire
1.6% Other

LINK>>> (http://boxofficemojo.com/)

[Adrian T.]

Here's an article about the crash scene. It also includes that clip from the movie.

http://www.slashfilm.com/2009/03/17/anatomy-of-a-scene-knowings-plane-crash/ (http://www.slashfilm.com/2009/03/17/anatomy-of-a-scene-knowings-plane-crash/)

[Andrew Walker]

Is it true that plane crash scene takes three minutes without cut?

Yep and its really intense. Along with all the other disasters in the movie.

[Jeremy Torrie]

Here's A.O. Scotts' comment from NY Times: "If your intention is to make a brooding, hauntingly allegorical terror-thriller, it's probably not a good sign when spectacles of mass death and intimations of planetary destruction are met with hoots and giggles."

[Zakaree Sandberg]

i thought the special effects were nausiating.. the camera was wayyyyy toooo handheld (I LOVE HANDHELD.. BUT I COULDNT SEE WHAT WAS HAPPENING)

The fire looked super digital...

i dont know..

wasnt a huge fan of the special effects.

plus, there was some soft scenes... but i was watching a film out, so that might have been it

[Paolo Tinari]

from cinemablend.com
"As Knowing gets increasingly preposterous, and Cage's stony deadpan acting seems even sillier in context, a kind of slack-jawed joy may overtake you. How on earth did this movie get made? How did anyone involved think they had a story worth telling? And, as always, what is Nicolas Cage thinking?"

[Ramesh Jai]

from cinemablend.com
"As Knowing gets increasingly preposterous, and Cage's stony deadpan acting seems even sillier in context, a kind of slack-jawed joy may overtake you. How on earth did this movie get made? How did anyone involved think they had a story worth telling? And, as always, what is Nicolas Cage thinking?"
"And, as always, what is Nicolas Cage thinking?"

LOL!!

[Rudi Herbert]

Well, I did see the movie digitally projected at 2K, in Miami's best theater...

Did RED pass the test? Yes it did, it looked no different than any other movie made on film, the 24 fps cadence was there, there was no skew that I could see, and uniquely to RED, the images were VERY clean. There was no noise anywhere in the shadows at any point and there was a LOT of information in the dark areas on all the night scenes. That was oustanding. However, all other scenes looked a bit too contrasty, while at the same time somewhat desaturated for my taste. In effect, you'd get the impression that this camera has a limited dynamic range, because in borad daylight so many things in the shadows were DELIBERATELY darkened. On top of that, the color correction felt flat and a bit monotone, although for the life of me, I couldn't tell you what the dominant tone was, except that it wasn't pleasant. Images were as sharp as anything else, there were no clipped highlights, and yes, 99% of the audience wouldn't know they were watching a digitally acquired film, but that said, I didn't feel the movie actually look good. And again, I think this was due to the choices made in color correction, and maybe in keeping with Alex Proyas' dark vision of the world.

From the story standpopint, the plot becomes mildly interesting before turning preposteropus, and the acting is as flat as an undeveloped RAW file. Effects are not great but no the worst, and indeed, both the plane crash and subway crash scenes have an emotional weight that is better than a lot of things I've seen lately, although yes, some things like fire look weird.

I'm happy for RED and in many ways the film did fulfill my expectations, but the tone and palette of the movie were far from the first widely presented RED effort I would have liked to see...

[Alex Mills]

just got back from watching and well I must say that I did not connect with the story but from a technical standpoint the movie did look really good, for me the red test was passed, I must agree that I feel the same way about the color grading and the contrast of the film, I found it a bit distracting but then again I am like most here "a post production junkie" I bet I was the only one in the room that knew the technical specs behind the film, and I think that is the point of shooting red, the audience accepts the look and cannot differ it from 35mm, so congrats to the red team

[Paolo Tinari]

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/photos/stylus/75638-knowing_plane_341x182.jpg

THR:
"Nicolas Cage's apocalyptic thriller "Knowing" captured the imagination of moviegoers on Friday. The PG-13 film directed by Alex Proyas and released by Summit led the trio of new wide openers, capturing nearly $8.9 million in 3,332 theaters, setting itself up for a $20 million-plus opening weekend."

[Kevin Wild]

Wow, I just watched the minute clip on that link of the plane crash scene and this movie looks worse than I thought! It's laughable.

Check out the police officer. He looks over N Cages shoulder and gets scared of something but the plane comes from far over to the right of the screen. Yikes.

It made me laugh when he yelled "Hey" at the guy on fire. Wow, that looked totally stupid.

Oh well. Had Cage done anything in the past 10 years that was good? My, someone needs to hook up with a good story & director for a "comeback" soon. :-)

[Sanjin Jukic]

"On Friday, Knowing arrived with an estimated $8.9 million on approximately

4,300 screens at 3,332 sites, handily leading the box office. In a single day, the supernatural thriller

featuring Nicolas Cage out-grossed the first weekend of another Cage future-seeing thriller Next,

and its initial attendance was on par with The Forgotten and Deja Vu among comparable titles.

If Knowing follows the paths of those movies, it would wind up with a $24 million-plus opening weekend."

More>>> (http://www.boxofficemojo.com/news/?id=2565&p=.htm)

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/img/k/knowing/19K-04927.jpg
"Knowing" director Alex Proyas on-set/location with RED1.

[Justin Kirchhoff]

Had Cage done anything in the past 10 years that was good? My, someone needs to hook up with a good story & director for a "comeback" soon. :-)


If we're talking the last 10 years, his best work was in Adaptation. Great movie and even better acting. Gone in 60 Seconds was fun too.

[Joel J. Feigenbaum]

Saw KNOWING today at an AMC. This was a film print in a very large theater. Picture looked excellent by any standard.

The director's choice of RED One certainly made the integration of CG shots into the narrative more seamless because the CG artists work in the grainless digital realm. The film-out print -- with its introduction of grain -- was pleasing to the eye and delivered a very pleasing motion picture feast for the eyes.

Whether you like the film is a whole other smoke.

But as a film maker, if I ever had any doubts about shooting a main stream feature on RED, they were put to rest. The proof is in the pudding. And this pudding was very, very sweet indeed.