Jesus watching this movie was a struggle.
Who the fuck thought that switching between mega soft vintage glass on film and pin sharp CGI renders for closeup dialogue scenes was a good idea?
Who thought that shooting wide open bokeh shots in the forest through anamorphic glass for the whole fucking movie was a good idea?
Who thought that using a scallop shaped aperture for the 4 stopped down shots in the whole film was a good idea?
Who thought that getting a 12 year old to pull focus on all these wide open shots was a good idea?
>i just wanted our blatantly stylised technical choices to dominate the visual experience, and distract the viewer from the fact that they were simply watching every single shitty Star Wars cliche being vomited back at them with a handful of fresh actors
>>2728402
newb here with just a couple questions.
I know what anamorphic format is, but how does it affect the shot vis-a-vis wide open shots?
What is a scallop shaped aperture? Google has failed me.
>>2728402
>J.J. Abrams
>giving a single shit
>>2728422
I can't say I noticed the scallop bokeh, but I did notice the horrible CGI didn't blend with the environments in ways not seen since the prequels. Also, where was the film grain? I wanted to see some.
>>2728402
Noticed this shit seeing it opening night. It was something that got under my skin, and I didn't want it to.
>>2728582
Wel I think most of it was shot on medium format, so you wouldn't see grain.
But also, you never see "grain" in film unless you look at screengrabs.
At 24fps, even a 16mm frame won't betray film grain. ie: Moonlight Kingdom.
>I can't say I noticed the scallop bokeh
Like I said, it was 4 scenes, max.
>>2728602
Mmhmm, me too. Hence the thread.
How narcissistic does a DP/Director combo need to be to let this kind of shit even be noticeable?
I liked it. A lot.
Won't go in depth about the film itself as I'm on a hurry (all I can say is: people wanted the original Star Wars "experience", Disney needed a clean slate to work with, this film accomplished both very well. Only big issue with the movie: it cannot stand by itself. If the next movie sucks, it'll have an effect on this one as well.)
About cinematography: I was really happy in the theater, it looked so good. I liked their choice of softer warmer glass for rebels and crisp, colder glass for the first order. It all clicked together so well. Never ever I had issues with the CGI being "clumsy", it all felt really Star Wars through and through... I just don't see it maybe. I'm not a huge fan of the series, I just liked it, that's all.
interesting article:
http://motion.kodak.com/US/en/Motion/blog/blog_post?contentId=4294992667
>>2728582
The Abu Dhabi scenes were shot mostly at ISO 50 to 250... with scene lights, reflectors and all that stuff. Won't see much grain in that.
some scenes were shot in 70mm m8
but gotta love those old anamorphic lenses with obvious breathing.. i personally liked it.
show some screens of the shitty cgi and/or bokeh?
I saw it on a rather large screen and it was pretty unsharp (admittedly it annoyed most on the subtitles). Could have been the cinema to blame..
>>2728790
Eh, I meant credits, not subtitles.
>>2728790
>>2728791
Yeah, the lenses they shoot the credits and subtitles with are usually pretty old and soft, just because they're so low on the priority list of equipment. they want to use all the good equipment on actors and scenery, but save money shooting the less important stuff like text on less impressive equipment.
>>2728790
thats definitely the cinema.
>>2728670
JJ was all about every shot looking well composed even if it took away from the story. Truthfully it would look better when it comes out in 720p or 1080p.
>>2728793
TOP KEK
>>2728402
haven't seen it, but the other day i saw a james bond movie from the 70s and it was the same deal: headshots were tack sharp, could hold their place even today. wide shots in action and landscape scenes had soft corners and all kindsa shit.
The worst part is the last scene where they shot a epic 360 telephoto helicopter shot, completely unnecessary.
Was Michael Bay in charge of the cinematography?
>>2728402
Probably the same guy that helmed this eventual 3 Billion dollar cash machine
>>2728402
One thing that bugged the hell out of me was there was some really bad vignetting in most of the shots that could have been easily corrected.
>>2728963
>implying the vignetting wasn't done in post.
>>2728957
Yeah that did stick out like a sore thumb
>>2728975
>It's the cinema if the credits weren't clear. Text is just that, text, so nothing to do with the quality of recording.
>not knowing how the star wars crawls are filmed
>>2729075
They have been replaced all the filmed crawls with CGI remakes in the blu-ray releases. I'm pretty sure the one in the The Force Awakens is pure CGI.
>Fucking dutch angles everywhere
>Soft landscapes agaings super sharp CGI
>Ultranoticeable focus breathing on close up dialogs
>totally out of place 360 helicopter shot at the end
This movie sucked
it definitely had the jj abrams flair if you know what I mean
>>2729563
>not anamorphic flares
whoever made that pic fucked up
>>2728957
this, its almost bollywood tier
ITT: Amateurs
>>2731870
Wait, no. Amateurs would be a compliment. Fucking plebs* is a much better fit
>>2728925
This was exactly the deal with The Hateful Eight. Close ups were fucking gorgeous but the establishing shots were so goddamn blurry.
>awful cinematography
>awful score
>meh acting all over
>meh rehashed story
>fucking useless and completely underwhelming villains
>mary sue as fuck protagonist
That was the most underwhelming third act I've ever seen. There was absolutely no threat whatsoever.
But back to the point... yeah, the cinematography was fucking awful. I wish they would have backed up with the fucking camera a hell of a lot more, everything was far too close to take in any of the scene.
The only scene that really stuck out with me was the stormtrooper lightsaber duel. Not only badass and unexpected but they actually BACKED THE FUCK UP for the action, for once. I could actually see what the fuck was going on.
something that i notice recently on the cinema is that some close ups and a lot in star wars were not exactly blurry, i would call it distorted blurriness.
is this what OP is talking about?
>>2728957
i liked it. gave some breath to the awesome intense stares they had before.
>>2728728
how can i learn more about seeing lenses the way you do?
i thought the descriptions you gave were more about camera choice, lights, color grading.
how can i learn to tell about lenses by just looking at a film?
[EXIF data available. Click here to show/hide.]
Camera-Specific Properties: Camera Software Adobe Photoshop CS6 (Macintosh) Image-Specific Properties: Image Width 1100 Image Height 2100 Number of Bits Per Component 8, 8, 8 Pixel Composition RGB Image Orientation Top, Left-Hand Horizontal Resolution 300 dpi Vertical Resolution 300 dpi Image Created 2014:12:07 19:06:11 Color Space Information sRGB Image Width 1100 Image Height 2100
>>2732053
>i thought the descriptions you gave were more about camera choice, lights, color grading.
You are correct. He is not.
>>2732053
>something that i notice recently on the cinema is that some close ups and a lot in star wars were not exactly blurry, i would call it distorted blurriness.
modern theaters are projecting the film on low res digital projectors and defocusing them so you can't see the pixels.
then there's JJ's obsession with using ancient lenses (muh flare)
and his focus puller was kinda incompetent too
>>2732091
Where do you find information like this? I always assumed the flares were added in post.
>>2732053
Here you go.
This isn't even what I'm really talking about, I'm mainly on about the interior shots and forest shots, where they were really shooting wide open.
But in this shot, the focus is clearly behind his face.
Probably shot at f/4, or someting like that, with so much ND that the camera op would have barely been able to see the focus, when f/16 would have been entirely feasible and taken nothing away from the shot.
>>2732095
>Where do you find information like this?
I got it from watching the movie, but if you google JJ Abrams and vintage lenses you'll find corroboration.
>>2732108
Googled it and didn't find a single hit in three pages of results. Merely that he likes flares. No relation to a preference for older uncoated lenses.
>>2732110
first result
http://www.techinsider.io/why-star-trek-has-so-much-lens-flare-2015-11
>"It became this weird kind of artform of how to make the perfect lens flares with different kind of lenses," said Abrams. "And it was just this thing that sort of felt like it was a kind of visual system for the movie."
>>2732115
Nothing at all about "old lenses without coatings to induce flare" and merely a few mentions to anamorphic lenses, which is a very different thing.
>>2732099
yea. it's on his back neck on a shot where he just stands up on his marks!
do you have any good YouTube resources about learning the relation betweem focus, f stops and shitter speed for videomaking?
>>2732099
>But in this shot, the focus is clearly behind his face.
A fuckton of movies and tv do this, as in, it's more common to find movies that do this than movies that don't.
>>2728582
I saw some grain.
So aside from Star Wars I would like to bring up Hateful Eight for a minute since I just got back from seeing the flick and must say how nice the movie looked. Though it isn't one of Tarentino's best films (this was his 8th film ayy lmao) with some hit and miss dialogue and dragged out plot line it had some breathtaking shots.
>inb4 /tv/ because I want to stick to the technical aspect
[EXIF data available. Click here to show/hide.]
Camera-Specific Properties: Image-Specific Properties: Image Orientation Top, Left-Hand Color Space Information sRGB Image Width 675 Image Height 380
Hi guys, I jumped in the thread mainly because a SW fan, but now that I see that many of you are pretty competent may I ask you a question?
I often see in recent movies that in medium to short range shots there is often a sort of "out of focus" or "optical" distortion on the borders of the image. It happens both in cinema and on blu ray when I rewatch them at home.
I couldn't find examples but I hope you understand...
What is that about?
>>2732453
example?
>>2732453
>>2732091
>>2732053
i think we are talking about the same thing but i notice it on the cinema only in many films.
some kind of blurriness like out of focus parts but distorted in a way.
probably cheap ass projectors amd bad encoders(?) to blurays not cameras' fault.
>>2728957
thbh the cinemetography in the film i liked, but that was a stupid ass shot.
Should have been a profile silhouette shot imo
The panning shot with Rey on her speeder, and the crashed x-wing in the foreground and Star Destroyer in the background was beautiful. I wish they had more shots like that in the film.
There's one particular scene where Han Solo speaks to somebody (Ren maybe?) and the focus is completely fucking off. Like it's not even on his nose or hair, it's somewhere else entirely. I was cringing hard at that. Like did they only do one take without reviewing it?
>>2732746
They were shooting on film so reviewing it happens a few days later.
>>2732915
Yeah, and I'm sure it was extremely difficult to ask Harrison Ford to reshoot something because the operator fucked up focus
>>2732994
fucker doesnt reshoot. /tv/ will tell you the details.
