Janusz Kaminski: "..I don't have respect for digital media just yet."

[M Most]

Pilots, of course, are different, and in those cases, my experience is that the director does control the look about 75% of the time.

That is true. Pilots are much more analogous to features in terms of level of responsibility and control, although network suits often get involved - especially just prior to delviery - even when feature level directors are hired.

[Marc Wielage]

Give the guys at Red couple years more and watch what's gonna happen.

Give the industry a couple years more, and let's see how many 4K options are available from half-a-dozen manufacturers. The flood is coming. Lots of options are good for users at all budget and skill ranges.

At that point you'd be able to capture all the details in shadows and highlights and then either leave it as it is "in all it's cold digital glory" or play with "the shoulder" and soft rolloff any way you want in post to get that filmic feel (almost like the way they grade and carefully manipulate scanned 35mm negs for years now).

As far as I know, we've been doing that with digital images already in color correction for 15 years. The dynamic range can be controlled and change in post quite effectively, both shoulder and toe, depending on the skill and intent of the DP. The biggest issue now is what we can salvage from shooting problems, and that's a major problem with all digitally-derived media vs. film, in my opinion. But getting much better.

[Stanley Carpenter]

Hard to argue with the likes of Janusz who captures some of the greatest images ever... and yet, there is survival of the fittest. Adapt with the times or die...

[Scott Crawley]

Hard to argue with the likes of Janusz who captures some of the greatest images ever... and yet, there is survival of the fittest. Adapt with the times or die...

But if your read Mark's post you see that the article may not be an entirely accurate representation of his opinion.

[Frank Cueto]

[QUOTE=M Most;951042]Try working on the television show "The River." On any given day - not even any given episode - they used Alexa, XDCam EX, Canons of various types, NX Cam, SI 2K, GoPro, and at least 3 or 4 others. In one day. With each one supplying close to 2 hours of footage. Much of it with no slates. Of course, they still wanted to see the dailies at 9AM the next morning, even though they were shooting in Hawaii and cutting in L.A....

Ja! I remember working on the pilot for that show (The River) with your Team Mike. I most say, that ONE day where we got 18 hours of footage from EX3 (operated by the actors)/DVCAM (Non Square pixeled on a Tiny Heli)/GoPros (@30FPS)/Alexas/FLIR (on DV TAPE 4:3 @ 59.94)/VIXIA(@29.97 4:3)/Canons and spotty slating/reports was a HUGE nightmare (over 400 takes that needed hand audio sync IIRC), and it HAD to be in LA next morning. We had one advantage on L.A./Hawaii, we are 4 hours ahead ;)

[Harry Clark]

>>>>Based upon the amount of crap I see on television I have to wonder if the majority of television Producers have any appreciation of photography at all. It used to be just the errant auto-focus shots that led me to wonder, but now that we have the wonder of DSLR's in productions we also see a lot more hunting for focus... Not that it serves the story at all. <<<<

A-FRIGGEN-men. I almost can't even watch TV anymore. It's a disgrace that we have so many great tools out there and so much of what airs looks like cheap, lo-fi, monkey crap.
Cheers,
Harry

[Rob Ruffo]

>>>>Based upon the amount of crap I see on television I have to wonder if the majority of television Producers have any appreciation of photography at all. It used to be just the errant auto-focus shots that led me to wonder, but now that we have the wonder of DSLR's in productions we also see a lot more hunting for focus... Not that it serves the story at all. <<<<

A-FRIGGEN-men. I almost can't even watch TV anymore. It's a disgrace that we have so many great tools out there and so much of what airs looks like cheap, lo-fi, monkey crap.
Cheers,
Harry

Yet most fiction shows look better than ever. Non fiction, I agree, is abysmal and the level of tech knowledge in this domain, where you hear "its' all about the story" ad-nauseum, leads me to believe that many who work in documentary TV should work in radio instead. Yet, most prime time TV looks beautiful.

[Scott Crawley]

Yet most fiction shows look better than ever. Non fiction, I agree, is abysmal and the level of tech knowledge in this domain, where you hear "its' all about the story" ad-nauseum, leads me to believe that many who work in documentary TV should work in radio instead. Yet, most prime time TV looks beautiful.

There are many that look terrific! With the schedules they keep it is nothing short of miraculous what gets done. It is unfortunate though that they are so outnumbered... Or so it seems.

[Harry Clark]

Yes, I should have qualified my statement. Narrative TV can look great, and much of the prime time programming does.
It's just that it's a small slice of the TV world, and the documentary stuff does not seem to hold up well.
The "reality" type stuff is abysmal.
Cheers,
Harry

[Blair S. Paulsen]

Even those shows that are well done from set to mastering get clobbered by a distribution system that over compresses the living crap out of the final delivery step to the viewer. Compression is not evil if its done well, but MPEG-2 is not clever and efficient enough to deliver decent 720P or 1080i (let alone 1080P) at 5-8mb/sec bit rates. Because I work in the industry I have seen uncompressed masters being QCed, then watched the same material at home on a Panny Pro plasma in a darkened room and the difference was stark. Just saying'

Cheers - #19