Anson Fogel
05-02-2010, 07:19 PM
A small festival audience saw the difference yesterday
We just screened a short at an adventure film festival, last night. It played alongside pieces all shot on "1080" cams - 5D, Sony EFP HD cams, EX's, and Panny EFP it appeared. Some pieces received good treatment in post, some not so much. All films were projected via BluRay to a (not very well calibrated) new high quality 2K DLP projector. Our piece was shot largely on R1, and we did our own post carefully. So all films were 1080 captured and projected. Ours was the only film shot at 4K (with a lot of 2K and 3K for overcranking). While an adventure film fest, many of the films were professional productions with distribution deals, not what you might associate with adventure film.
The audience was about 800 people in one auditorium last night, the usual adventure fest audience. Not industry people, not even really film buffs. Residents of a small mountain town.
At least 20 audience members mentioned to me at shows end how much "sharper" or "crisper" our film looked compared to the others. They mentioned that often along with the usual wow that was great, etc - but mentioned clarity as often as not. Beyond those 20 or so strangers, my own father said the same thing, and he is far from a trained eye.
Frankly, we were surprised by this. Our piece was more image driven, with less of a narrative than other pieces and that may have drawn more attention to it (the image quality technically). One might attribute the processes downstream of capture as more of the responsible factor - rightly, as many of the films clearly did not get treated well in post. But the fact remains: a normal audience noted a difference.
And as a filmmaker, I do think that helped us communicate with the audience more effectively. They got it. They responded very well to the piece (cheering often, which sure is nice!). And having better technical quality (resolution, color accuracy and range, better compression, etc etc) in this case DID translate clearly and directly to a better film from the audience's perspective.
If we had shot on an F23, maybe that flavor of fine 1080 would have gotten the same result. Maybe not. In our case, we are comparing very high quality 4K capture and post with mediocre quality 1080 capture and post. But in any case:
Our festival audience said hey, 1080 is nice, but 4K looks better - even though its capture only. Not knowing what the heck 4K is. Or how it all works. But they saw it.
We just screened a short at an adventure film festival, last night. It played alongside pieces all shot on "1080" cams - 5D, Sony EFP HD cams, EX's, and Panny EFP it appeared. Some pieces received good treatment in post, some not so much. All films were projected via BluRay to a (not very well calibrated) new high quality 2K DLP projector. Our piece was shot largely on R1, and we did our own post carefully. So all films were 1080 captured and projected. Ours was the only film shot at 4K (with a lot of 2K and 3K for overcranking). While an adventure film fest, many of the films were professional productions with distribution deals, not what you might associate with adventure film.
The audience was about 800 people in one auditorium last night, the usual adventure fest audience. Not industry people, not even really film buffs. Residents of a small mountain town.
At least 20 audience members mentioned to me at shows end how much "sharper" or "crisper" our film looked compared to the others. They mentioned that often along with the usual wow that was great, etc - but mentioned clarity as often as not. Beyond those 20 or so strangers, my own father said the same thing, and he is far from a trained eye.
Frankly, we were surprised by this. Our piece was more image driven, with less of a narrative than other pieces and that may have drawn more attention to it (the image quality technically). One might attribute the processes downstream of capture as more of the responsible factor - rightly, as many of the films clearly did not get treated well in post. But the fact remains: a normal audience noted a difference.
And as a filmmaker, I do think that helped us communicate with the audience more effectively. They got it. They responded very well to the piece (cheering often, which sure is nice!). And having better technical quality (resolution, color accuracy and range, better compression, etc etc) in this case DID translate clearly and directly to a better film from the audience's perspective.
If we had shot on an F23, maybe that flavor of fine 1080 would have gotten the same result. Maybe not. In our case, we are comparing very high quality 4K capture and post with mediocre quality 1080 capture and post. But in any case:
Our festival audience said hey, 1080 is nice, but 4K looks better - even though its capture only. Not knowing what the heck 4K is. Or how it all works. But they saw it.