Storaro's interview in Filmmaker

[Sanjin Jukic]

http://filmmakermagazine.com/webexclusives/uploaded_images/storaro-07-tweak-787915.jpg

The latest Storaro's interview in Filmmaker

STORARO TALKS SHOP
By Jamie Stuart
http://filmmakermagazine.com/webexclusives/2007/06/storaro-talks-shop-by-jamie-stuart.php

[Tom Lowe]

Nice interview. It's definitely an interesting issue, 2.35 vs 2:1 vs 16:9. In some ways I love 2.35 and am tempted to shoot features at that ratio, but other times 16:9 can really open up the sky when you are shooting outdoor landscapes with clouds and so on.

I got a kick out of this:

Storaro: Well, my dream is digital cinema, D-Cinema, at least in 4k 16-bit, 2:1 aspect ratio. Also, we should move to the European shooting frame of 25. We should discontinue shooting 24 because it doesn't work. The interlock between America (NTSC) and Europe (PAL) doesn't work. The pulldown doesn't really work, it's not a perfect balance between the two. In changing the algorithm, trying to do five-fields-plus-one we can easily do the 25 frames to the 30 frames. It will be much more linear and much more in synch. It would be a perfect 25, a perfect 30, not 29-whatever it is…

Filmmaker: 24p is usually 23.98, and NTSC is 29.97.

Storaro: That's ridiculous. That's my opinion.

haha. :)

thanks for the interview link, The Third Man.

[Robert Sanders]

Aspect ratios of today's motion pictures and HDTV are not going to change anytime soon.

I respect and admire Storaro deeply. His legacy will go down as one of the very best Cinematographers ever. His work on Dick Tracy and Tucker: The Man and His Dream are also amazing contributions to cinema.

But his Univisium crusade is absurd.

[Tom Lowe]

BTW, why is this guy shooting TV movies? :(

[Robert Sanders]

Some of the original content that HBO's been producing is feature quality. I realized recently I'd be completely satisfied with producing content for HBO, Showtime, Cinemax, Sci-Fi and never producing anything for the big screen.

[Sanjin Jukic]

I would like to make a suggestion to the RED Team that they could contact and invite Vittorio Storaro to test the RED ONE camera as soon as possible.
If that test could finish with a success that the Hollywood doors will be fast and easy a wide open to the RED projects.

[P Andersson]

"I wrote a long letter to Sony to explain this"

[Tom Lowe]

Besides, the fact that a lot of foreign films are produced or co-produced by TV networks (BBC, RAI, TVE, etc.) doesn't mean they will not see theatrical release all over the world. Many of these are award winning projects, too.

Just because a film may be made for TV does not mean it's not as good as one made for the movie theater.

After all, sooner or later, they all end up on the small screen any which way.

All good points, and I am not trying to bash TV movies at all, but we're talking about the cinematographer of Apocalypse Now for goodness sake.

[Sanjin Jukic]

"I wrote a long letter to Sony to explain this"

As we all know well Sony is still a leader in digital acquisition. Now RED is taking a part of this cake. For sure Jim is having an ambition to take soon a leadership in a high-end digital production and presentation. Maybe then he could change the standards to 2:1 format and 25 fps digital acquisition. Sony already looks on a half dead dinosaur that would not be able to make any requested revolutionary move forward. Sony is already beaten by Apple with iPod and today with iPhone launch, also Microsoft is a strong competitor to PS3 with Xbox etc...not so easy life for Sony...

[Sanjin Jukic]

All good points, and I am not trying to bash TV movies at all, but we're talking about the cinematographer of Apocalypse Now for goodness sake.

Storaro also thinks digital.

Till today digital was equal TV or broadcast production.
Tomorrow digital means a lot of movie production for big theaters.

[David Mullen ASC]

There's nothing stopping you from shooting at 25 fps on the RED and framing for 2:1 if you wanted to. Afterall, Storaro is shooting 3-perf for his Univisium format, which has a native 1.78 : 1 negative. I don't know he's having special 2:1 gates installed or is just framing for 2:1 extraction, though I think the first.

"Dune" the miniseries was shot in 3-perf Univisium but the final broadcast and DVD were 16x9 (1.78) not 2:1 (I guess they ignored that part of Storaro's contract...) And the 16x9 image appears to be cropped on the sides, not opened-up vertically, judging from the way some scenes looked on the videotap in the behind-the-scenes stuff.

In fact, that's been the biggest problem with Univisium, the lack of consistency in how it's released by distributors, which sort of defeats the purpose if all it creates is a third aspect ratio or if it gets distributed in multiple aspect ratios. Storaro has had more luck getting some of his older movies not shot in 2:1 released in 2:1 on DVD than he has getting the movies he actually shot in 2:1 released that way on DVD.

[Graeme Nattress]

David's spot on right about being able to 2:1 25fps on RED. 25fps, as Storaro points out is much more sensible than 24fps or 23.98fps, and Europeans have often laughed at the pulldown nonesense that their USA counterparts have to go through, and all it's inherent problems. I dare not think how far behind editing software is compared to where it should be at because of the complexities of NTSC, 24p and the fractional 1001/1000 frame rates.

Graeme

[Tom Lowe]

Red should invite Storaro to shoot some tests. Tell him it's Univisium-friendly. :)

[David Mullen ASC]

David's spot on right about being able to 2:1 25fps on RED. 25fps, as Storaro points out is much more sensible than 24fps or 23.98fps, and Europeans have often laughed at the pulldown nonesense that their USA counterparts have to go through, and all it's inherent problems.

Unfortunately, now that U.S. HDTV broadcast has been standardized to 1080/60i or 720/60P, all the pulldown problems remain whether you shoot at 24 fps or 25 fps, and if we shoot at 30 fps to get rid of pulldown, then we create problems for Europe's 25/50 rates.

The truth is that we shouldn't have to deal with conversions anyway -- we should be able to transmit/broadcast native 24P or 25P or 30P or 50P or 60P or 72P, whatever we shot at, and let the display devices increase the refresh rate in whole numbers (2X, 3X, 4X, etc.) if necessary to get rid of flicker. Same approach could be applied to digital theatrical releases.

[Jonathan L. Bowen]

Why would 25fps be a big deal? I don't understand why you'd want that rather than 24. I get why it's inconvenient that video often shoots at 29.97fps and all that jazz but I don't understand Europe's standard at all. It is odd how there are so many different frame rates.

[donatello b]

"but I don't understand Europe's standard at all."

in general Europe is very easy ..25fps for video ... 25fps for film ...
looking at USA... 24fps film ..... 29.97 video .. 23.976 + pull down ..59.9? etc ..
so when we shoot RED we will have to choose between - 24fps , 23.98, 29.97, 30fps, 59.96, 60fps while over in Europe they shoot 25fps ...

[David Mullen ASC]

Why would 25fps be a big deal? I don't understand why you'd want that rather than 24. I get why it's inconvenient that video often shoots at 29.97fps and all that jazz but I don't understand Europe's standard at all. It is odd how there are so many different frame rates.

It's because 24 fps is the worldwide movie projection rate starting with the sound era, but TV broadcast was standardized at 60 Hz in 60Hz countries and 50 Hz in 50 Hz countries.

So 50 Hz countries don't have to deal with pulldown issues for 24 fps and 25 fps material.

It's partly just a matter of luck that the 25 fps / 50i TV system for 50 Hz countries was a close match to the 24 fps rate used by cinema projection.

As to why we have a 60 Hz power system here, I guess blame Westinghouse...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utility_frequency
QUOTE:
Though many theories exist, and quite a few entertaining urban legends, there is little certitude in the details of the history of 60 Hz vs. 50 Hz. What is known is that Westinghouse in the US decided on 60 Hz and AEG in Germany decided on 50 Hz, eventually leading to the world being mostly divided into two frequency camps. Frequencies much below 50 Hz gave noticeable flicker of arc or incandescent lighting. Westinghouse decided on 60 Hz before 1892 and AEG decided on 50 Hz by 1899. Tesla is believed to have had a key influence in the choice of 60 Hz by Westinghouse. Use of 60 Hz allowed induction motors to operate at the same speeds as standardized steam engines common in the late 19th century.

--
Frequency changers used to convert between 25 Hz and 60 Hz systems were awkward to design; a 60 Hz machine with 24 poles would turn at the same speed as a 25 Hz machine with 10 poles, making the machines large, slow-speed and expensive. A ratio of 60/30 would have simplified these designs, but the installed base at 25 Hz was too large to be economically opposed.

AEG's choice of 50 Hz is thought by some to relate to a more "metric-friendly" number than 60. It may also have been an intentional decision to be incompatible, although since so many frequencies were used it may not have been clear that any one value was desirable.

END QUOTE

Certainly from a European point of view, a standardized 25 fps rate for cinema makes sense.

[Sanjin Jukic]

There's nothing stopping you from shooting at 25 fps on the RED and framing for 2:1 if you wanted to.

Great!


David's spot on right about being able to 2:1 25fps on RED.

Wonderful!


Red should invite Storaro to shoot some tests. Tell him it's Univisium-friendly.

Agree.

--------------------------------------------

And besides all that Hz and FPS mess,

let's invite Vittorio Storaro to test RED.

[Graeme Nattress]

Yes, they missed the opportunity with HD to do two things. 1) standardise on the frame rates the majority of the world uses, and 2) to make all TVs and broadcast chains capable of using any of the old frame rates, as a fallback position for archive programming.

I mean, every video projector can do 24, 25, 30 and 60 rates. Digitial cinema should also be fps agnostic, rather than the 24 or nothing (yeah, 48, right) approach we have now.

Graeme

[Sanjin Jukic]

I see that RED could do a lot for the fps agnostic revolution.

[David Mullen ASC]

Many cameras, including film cameras, can shoot at multiple frame rates. The problem isn't at the acquisition end. It's at the distribution and display technology end.

[Sanjin Jukic]

Many cameras, including film cameras, can shoot at multiple frame rates. The problem isn't at the acquisition end. It's at the distribution and display technology end.


RED already announced 4K projector and 4K display as I remember. There could be a lot of space for the revolution "at the distribution and display technology end."

[David Mullen ASC]

We're still some years away from digital projectors being the dominent method of showing theatrical releases.

[Tom Lowe]

I tend to agree with David, that digital projection will be one of the slower elements of this HD revolution.

People at home will be rocking 1080p screens and enjoying the beauty of it long before the theater guys get their act together and start projecting 2K or 4K.

In fact, I believe people like us will be sporting 4K screens for our RED editing long before 4K projectors become the norm at the local multiplex.

[David Mullen ASC]

it's just economics -- 35mm projectors (for now) are cheaper and won't be obsolete in five years, plus most theaters have long ago paid off their 35mm projectors. So getting digital projectors is a considerable investment, and the majority of savings come to the distributors not making prints, not the exhibitors buying digital projectors. And there are thousands of 35mm theaters in this country alone.

So basically, for digital projection to really take off, (1) the cost of 2K and 4K projectors has to come down, below the 100K mark that I've heard; (2) the savings that distributors get have to partially be passed on to the exhibitors; (3) exhibitors have to find some other cost-savings benefits, probably in reducing their projection staff even further, plus being able to quickly change which movie is playing on which screen (one digital file of the next "Spider-Man" movie can play on as many screens as needed in one multiplex and then be reduced as attendance drops, rather than having to book multiple prints.) (4) Exhibitors need to find some sort of big capital investment for the switchover.

But it really starts with #1. If the cost of the projectors is low enough, it makes everything else easier and even obsolescence is less of a concern.

[Steven M. Bailey]

As ticket sale's start to decline due to the home theater experience and better tv programming I think the salvation of the theater may be D-3D.

Who Knows consumers are a finicky breed.

[David Mullen ASC]

I have a 37" HD LCD screen and I'd still rather see a movie in a theater. I doubt the average family is going to invest in something much more elaborate than what I have.

When I'm working out of Los Angeles, though, and experience some of the horrible theater projection in some other U.S. cities, I can understand why some people would rather create a decent home set-up. But here in L.A., I can see a new print of a movie on opening week in a big theater and there's nothing quite like it.

[Steven M. Bailey]

I have a 37" HD LCD screen and I'd still rather see a movie in a theater. I doubt the average family is going to invest in something much more elaborate than what I have.

When I'm working out of Los Angeles, though, and experience some of the horrible theater projection in some other U.S. cities, I can understand why some people would rather create a decent home set-up. But here in L.A., I can see a new print of a movie on opening week in a big theater and there's nothing quite like it.

I've been to a few movies in LA and I have to agree that you do have some good theaters. You also have alot better selection than we do in Redding. When spiderman and pirates were playing, that's all we had at one eight-plex. We only have two theaters in town, and one of them is guaranteed get your car broken into and your stuff stolen.

A lot of people I know have 55-65 inch tv's and better sound systems than the theater. This may be a localized trend as my house is designed for a 15' wide screen theater room.

I love to see movies at the theater but its more from the opportunity to get out. That and I hate waiting for release. I am dying to see "I am Legend", "transformers", "Ratatooee". "Die hard" was awesome.

I realize that it is going to take some time, but the theaters are going to have to adapt or die. I am more interested in story than I am in projection format.

Digital or film I just love good movies.

[David Mullen ASC]

I see that "Transformers" is playing in 2K DLP projection at the Mann Village in Westwood, so I may go over there tomorrow and check it out. I saw "Spider-Man 3" digitally projected at that theater.

[Steven M. Bailey]

I saw "Meet the Robinson's" in LA in D-3d. It was the bomb.

I'll see "Transformers" this weekend. I just have to find a sitter for four kids. My wife will kill me if I go without her. I was going to go tonight to the special early show but by the time I found a sitter it was sold out.

[David Mullen ASC]

I'll see "Transformers" this weekend. My wife will kill me if I go without her.

That's funny... my wife would kill me if I made her see it with me.

[Jonathan L. Bowen]

I went to the early show tonight, the 8 p.m. one up here in Portland (I'm home for a week visiting) and we didn't even know of it until 7:25, haha, I bought tickets then online and we left at 7:35, got there at 7:50, and got horrible 2nd row seats, but oh well it was still tight. The dialogue is pretty cheesy at points, the story is really just an excuse for mass mayhem, but who cares? It's Transformers not Shakespeare. When people talk about story being everything, well, I get what they mean but not always. I was very entertained and that's all most people want out of a movie like this. The voice of Optimus Prime was tight, I thought, I heard some people had complained about that before the movie opened or something, they're full of it, he was awesome. Plus Megan Fox has to be one of the hottest chicks around, good god!

David, a lot of what you talked about has already been underway for a few years now with the Digital Cinema Initiative that all of the major studios finally signed on a bit ago. I don't think it will be a slow rollout, at least not from all of the research I did (for my last book, I had read a lot of stuff from Variety, Hollywood Reporter, etc. on the plans and the negotiations, etc.). From what they were indicating, it would be much more swift, where this plan once in place would quickly replace the projectors across the nation in a matter of a year and a half to two years, not five to ten years or some super long time frame. However, IMO, that remains to be seen because we've been talking about digital cinema since The Phantom Menace became the first major film ever screened digitally, in 1999, and that was a long time ago now.

I saw Revenge of the Sith digitally screened and it made every experience seeing it on a film print pretty horrible by comparison. I just couldn't tolerate that crap. I mean, the first week it looked mostly good, but when I kept seeing it in theaters after 5, 6, 7 weeks, the prints were horrible, missing sometimes a half-second here or there, just really bad quality, it gets to you after a while until the point when you just say, "Eh enough, I'll wait for DVD, I can't do this anymore."

Just the lousy grain and the cigarette burns and the scratches... ugg, it's very frustrating. I can't wait until the day when film projection is just seen as something funny they used to do before real technology. It's already such a joke, so embarrassing, that we have such amazing technology out there and we're using something that they could do in 1895 to show a movie. It's time to move on. If people want to film movies with film, great, but in fact film looks best transferred to digital and projected with a 4K projector, NOT projected with film, because that's just lousy. We're done with that. It's 2007 not 1895, not 1935, not 1970.

[David Mullen ASC]

I just don't think it will be a fast roll-out. Looking around on the internet, I believe that there are some 35,000 screens in the U.S., and some 3,500 of them are digital.

Well, just doing some math and figuring what it would cost to convert 30,000 screens to digital, at $100,000 per projector, I believe I get 3 billion dollars. That's a lot of overpriced popcorn to have to sell.

If you want to keep up on what's going on, visit:

http://www.DCinemaToday.Com

And film technology IS real technology. Don't make the mistake of thinking the only valid technologies are the newest ones. You still use a pen, ride a bike, use a toilet, etc.

What we have today with film projection is pretty good when it's done properly.

And what we will have tomorrow with digital projection will suck when it's done badly.

What you are doing is making the mistake of comparing the worst of what we have today with the best of what we will have tomorrow. You have no idea once there are 30,000 digital projectors going in the United States what sort of problems you'll be seeing at some typical mall cinema in some typical small town.

Yes, there will be some real improvements with digital cinema, but I also think we are going to learn just how badly some underpaid popcorn makers in the lobby can screw up a digital screening.

[Chris Gearhart]

That's funny... my wife would kill me if I made her see it with me.

Ha ha ha! I was thinking the same thing!

[Jonathan L. Bowen]

Well, that's the thing, there is no such thing as the best film projection because it always leaves something to be desired. Ok, sometimes, every once in a while, if you see a movie on opening day, it looks good. Sometimes. Much of the time, it's still not very good. When reels break in the middle of screenings, which I've had happen several times in the last few years, I don't think digital could screw up much worse than that. The hard drive could crash, etc., but that's a risk with any technology. I can't see anything good about film that wouldn't be better with digital, or anything bad with digital that isn't worse with film, as far as presentation alone. Now as far as what you shoot with, well, that has to do with the look you want, sure, but not the projection.

Also, 3,500 screens are digital in this country? If that's true, I'm very, very impressed -- I didn't think it was anywhere near that high. In 2005 when ROTS came out, the count was less than 100. It was actually higher outside of North America. Pretty pathetic.

PS: I don't ride a bike and I avoid using pens whenever possible. I can't handwrite anything, haha, I need to type it. I just sign my name to checks or credit card stuff, basically, lol.

[Jason Murphy]

Well, that's the thing, there is no such thing as the best film projection because it always leaves something to be desired.

OF COURSE the best film projection will leave something to be desired. But that doesn't stop it from being the best film projection. The best digital projection will leave things to be desired as well. The best implementation of almost any non-trivial technology leaves something to be desired.

And quite frankly, it's much easier to splice a film reel and get going again than to figure out how the data on a DCI package has somehow become corrupted, or why there is a hardware malfunction on a server, etc.

Also, all this talk of "film breaks, burns all the time, etc." makes me wonder where the hell (or in hell, maybe?) you guys are watching films. In the thousand upon thousands of film screenings I've been to, I've witnessed the film catch and burn/melt in the projector ONCE, during the trailers at an old art house theatre. I've seen a film strip break about five or six times, and always at screenings of old archival prints that are beat up to begin with. And always within a minute or two, the break has been spliced, the screening is up and running again.

Now, if we were still running nitrate prints, perhaps you'd have a valid point. Those things were nasty. They didn't just burn, they exploded.

Edit: On the upside, nitrate prints are freaking gorgeous.

[Steven M. Bailey]

OF COURSE the best film projection will leave something to be desired.

If nothing was left to be desired than no-one would strive to improve, and we would never know our true potential. Life would be boring if every thing was perfect from the get go. Flaming film and breaks are annoying, but only if you let them be. :matrix:

[M Most]

there is no such thing as the best film projection because it always leaves something to be desired....I can't see anything good about film that wouldn't be better with digital, or anything bad with digital that isn't worse with film

Jonathan, Jonathan.

We get it. In your mind, anything film is bad. Anything digital is good. Yes, we get it.

The problem is that your opinions are clearly born of lack of experience, closed mindedness, and a desire to embrace things you consider "cool." What David and a number of others here have attempted to do - repeatedly - is educate you and open up your mind a bit to the world around you. They're tried to make you aware of values that are held by experienced professionals with open minds, those with a great deal of experience in the visual arts and both the creation and exhibition of such arts, who don't judge things based on hype, buzz, and "coolness" factors. They judge things based on their merits, merits which you refuse to see because you've already made up your mind. Which would be fine, except that you have made up your mind without enough experience to make a clear judgement. And by experience, I don't necessarily mean technical experience. I mean general education - life experience, knowledge of art and the priciples behind classic art, knowledge of the human response to visual stimuli and why certain things are generally pleasing to the human eye and mind, knowledge of music, of sound, of the range of human emotion - all of these things make up what experienced professionals use to form the judgements they form. They are the true tools of the artist. David isn't just a practitioner of the mechanics of image creation. He's a life long student of the arts, and of all the things I've just mentioned. When he talks, you should listen - except that you don't. You come back with your quickly formed opinion and rarely consider who you're talking to or what you can learn from him, which is a pity.

Open your eyes. And your ears, and your mind. You might learn something.

[GlennChan]

Michael: laying down the law as usual. :D Don't change it.

Jonathan: When forum members like Michael talk, try to listen to them and see where they're coming from. Michael speaks from his experiences. In practice, a lot of theory (and marketing hype and dogma) don't work out the way it should. He tells it like it is, as abrasive as it may come off as on the Internet. It's a good thing that he's sharing his insights from his many years of experience working in the industry.

[David Mullen ASC]

Well, the last time a reel broke during a screening was in 2002 when I tried to see "28 Days Later". Before that, I'd have to go back at least a decade. That's a pretty low failure rate -- once every five years -- for film projection considering I see about 100 movies a year in the theaters.

90% of the time, the problem is focus, which is fixable 90% of the time. That's the most common annoyance. Occasionally it is due to more than simple bad projectionist work, but some mechanical problem. And some theaters just don't have very good lenses on their projectors, so refocusing doesn't help. You just learn to stop going to some theaters.

Beyond focus, the next common problem is dirt, dust, and scratches.

Below that, poor registration, jitter.

Below that, annoying light leaks coming into the theater.

Below that, it's film breakage or jamming. Like I said, it's pretty rare in most theaters.

I mainly experienced it on a regular basis when I was in college going to the local art house cinema in town, the local mall cinemas, and the screenings that the fraternities ran on campus (I was at UVA in Charlottesville, VA at the time -- and learned everything that could go wrong with film projection.) But that was back in 1980-82.

Badly designed theaters with light leaks won't really be solved by a switch to digital projection. And digital projectors still need to be focused, though there is less reason for it to drift during the day.

[zak forrest]

Beyond focus, the next common problem is dirt, dust, and scratches.

Below that, poor registration, jitter.

Below that, annoying light leaks coming into the theater.

Below that, it's film breakage or jamming. Like I said, it's pretty rare in most theaters.

Badly designed theaters with light leaks won't really be solved by a switch to digital projection. And digital projectors still need to be focused, though there is less reason for it to drift during the day.

yeah my biggest peeve is the red light from exit signs going all over the corners of the screen. i forget what its like in los angeles (i go back and forth from LA and Maryland a lot) but in maryland every single theater i go to (theres a lot) always have red light on the screen. dark/black scenes just suck like that.. and the "best" theater in DC, the "Uptown" is the worst, they dont have double doors, so when you see a movie in the daytime and someone leaves the theater, BRIGHT as hell daylight floods the ENTIRE screen and you even see lots of white bars streaming across the screen (reflections from cars driving by) its been that way for years, ive complained countless times, i cant BELIEVE nobody has ever fixed that. seriously what is wrong with people. running a theater doesnt seem to be that hard. make sure theres no light on the screen, make sure its focused, make sure its loud. why do they always screw it up?

ps david you came to my class in calarts, maybe even twice actually. it was always the best. your book of stills is awesome. harris savides is one of my faves and when you pulled out deborah kara unger in the cab as an example of what a "good closeup" is, well, my heart just swelled..