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I don't think shooting on film is particularly necessary; it's possible to match that look pretty convincingly. Though attention to why the film look appeals to

I don't think shooting on film is particularly necessary; it's possible to match that look pretty convincingly. Though attention to why the film look appeals to us is always valuable. Practical effects are probably getting easier, thanks to various 3D printing techniques, the expansion of low-cost microcontrollers, the low costs of servos, and the proliferation of small cameras and lens adaptations for rostrum/running shots. But saving money isn't the main reason we don't have practical effects. Saving time is the main reason we don't have practical effects.

roywiggins 5y ago
Apparently Dune was transferred to film and back again to try and get the look. I'm not sure how much it really mattered in the end- I'm sure there are digital methods- but it did work. https://ymcinema.com/2021/12/03/dune-was-shot-on-alexa-lf-transferred-to-35mm-film-then-scanned-back-to-digital/ https://ymcinema.com/2021/12/03/dune-was-shot-on-alexa-lf-tr...
- drewcoo 5y ago
  Digital -> analog -> digital. Is that what made it so dark? DAD cataracts?
- dylan604 5y ago
  If your highlights have already been clipped because of digital, you're not going to magically get the benefits of film's rolloff. There's a lot more going on with capture in an analog/physical media like film than just grain that most people associate
  - devindotcom 5y ago
    Modern digital cinema capture has nearly film-like dynamic range. It's gotten pretty good. Film is the gold standard but it's not always worth the trade-off in cost and complexity. And ultimately a lot of it comes down to good grading, not the DR of the original shot.
    - dylan604 5y ago
      >Modern digital cinema capture has nearly film-like dynamic range. NEARLY is not EQUALs. The dynamic range that you are touting being nearly the same is the specific feature of film that I was refering to on how it handles highlights. It's taken 25 years to get to where we are nearly there, but I understand why some purists still prefer the acquisition on film. However, the nearly is good enough for most but the purists.
      - greedo 5y ago
        You do realize that all this range and depth that purists talk about is just like what audiophiles do when they talk about the "warmth" of a vinyl recording? So film has a huge resolution advantage especially when you use 70MM. Theoretically capable of 16K. Yet by the time you've developed the negs, created interpositives, edited, created masters, created internets, and finally created prints for the theaters, that resolution, that dynamic range, those "highlights" (could you be more vague) get lower and lower. Then you send it to a theater with a crappy projector that's out of calibration, or has a bulb out of spec. Then you get crap. Same with when you have this pristine film scanned for DVD/BluRay/4k whatever.
        dylan604 5y ago
        I'm talking about the ability to expose what would appear to be overexposed details in clouds while allowing shadows to be exposed to avoid details lost in the blacks. When color corrected, the highlights have the ability to be recovered to see the details back in the clouds. Just an example of a shot. If the exposure was too much for the clouds to be recovered, then the roll off in film looks much cleaner than just the clipping that occurs in digital. Your reply comes off as if I don't know what I'm talking about which just isn't the case. I've already stipulated in a previous comment that modern digital is good enough for most everyone one but purists. So your audiophile comment implies to me you missed some salient details.
        greedo 5y ago
        Modern digital cameras like the Arri Alexa have 14+ stops of dynamic range. That is less than what Kodak says about most film stock.
- formerly_proven 5y ago
  I don't think people know why they "like" or "dislike" a certain look. Take a look at cinematography, it's all "anamorphic this"¹, "24 fps that", "digital is too harsh" etc. The article: > But it gave us the feeling we had been picturing a certain texture that’s painterly but feels timeless…The film has softened the edges of the digital. It gave us something that film acquisition couldn’t give us, and it gave us something that digital acquisition couldn’t give us Cinematography still has clearly a long way to go. It's currently in the "we don't know what perspective is" phase of painting. ¹ anamorphic lenses are, generally speaking, horrible. It's extremely obvious when they're used, which is probably the main reason why there has been a huge anamorphic filmmaking craze going on for a few years.
echelon 5y ago
> But saving money isn't the main reason we don't have practical effects. Saving time is the main reason we don't have practical effects. Absolutely. There are a lot of reasons this is happening. Prior to the pandemic (which will be seen as a kinetic accelerant to a thermodynamic inevitability), screen space was limited, meaning the biggest tentpoles would eat up a somewhat predictable lion's share of box office revenue and thus command a large percentage of screen real estate. If you churn out big things fast, you can fill the calendar year with your films, monopolizing on total screen space/time. You can bargain with theaters for placement and advantageous timing, maximizing your own ROI and preventing other studios from outcompeting you. This is more a function of pipeline maturity and scale than development time, but efficiency absolutely helps. It's also true that viewers only have so much time (and therefore money). You want them to spend more time watching your content than they do on alternatives (other streamers, video games, social media). Quick delivery of successful series is essential. Netflix is trying to fill its slate to compensate for media losses, but also to run quick experiments to find things that maximize for view time. Content doesn't necessarily have to look good to fit the need. The dust may look like it's settling, but it's not. Increasing efficiency will lead to lots of new competition in the space.
zardo 5y ago
>But saving money isn't the main reason we don't have practical effects. Saving time is the main reason we don't have practical effects. And not just time in general. The CGI could take more time to produce than the practical effects, but it's in post. The practical effects have to be ready for the shot.
- gaius_baltar 5y ago
  That's even more: it can be done in parallel, through the entire production, as interaction of the actual physical prop on the set is not a memory barrier for the rest of production.

roywiggins 5y ago

Apparently Dune was transferred to film and back again to try and get the look. I'm not sure how much it really mattered in the end- I'm sure there are digital methods- but it did work. https://ymcinema.com/2021/12/03/dune-was-shot-on-alexa-lf-transferred-to-35mm-film-then-scanned-back-to-digital/ https://ymcinema.com/2021/12/03/dune-was-shot-on-alexa-lf-tr...

drewcoo 5y ago
Digital -> analog -> digital. Is that what made it so dark? DAD cataracts?
dylan604 5y ago
If your highlights have already been clipped because of digital, you're not going to magically get the benefits of film's rolloff. There's a lot more going on with capture in an analog/physical media like film than just grain that most people associate
- devindotcom 5y ago
  Modern digital cinema capture has nearly film-like dynamic range. It's gotten pretty good. Film is the gold standard but it's not always worth the trade-off in cost and complexity. And ultimately a lot of it comes down to good grading, not the DR of the original shot.
  - dylan604 5y ago
    >Modern digital cinema capture has nearly film-like dynamic range. NEARLY is not EQUALs. The dynamic range that you are touting being nearly the same is the specific feature of film that I was refering to on how it handles highlights. It's taken 25 years to get to where we are nearly there, but I understand why some purists still prefer the acquisition on film. However, the nearly is good enough for most but the purists.
    - greedo 5y ago
      You do realize that all this range and depth that purists talk about is just like what audiophiles do when they talk about the "warmth" of a vinyl recording? So film has a huge resolution advantage especially when you use 70MM. Theoretically capable of 16K. Yet by the time you've developed the negs, created interpositives, edited, created masters, created internets, and finally created prints for the theaters, that resolution, that dynamic range, those "highlights" (could you be more vague) get lower and lower. Then you send it to a theater with a crappy projector that's out of calibration, or has a bulb out of spec. Then you get crap. Same with when you have this pristine film scanned for DVD/BluRay/4k whatever.
      - dylan604 5y ago
        I'm talking about the ability to expose what would appear to be overexposed details in clouds while allowing shadows to be exposed to avoid details lost in the blacks. When color corrected, the highlights have the ability to be recovered to see the details back in the clouds. Just an example of a shot. If the exposure was too much for the clouds to be recovered, then the roll off in film looks much cleaner than just the clipping that occurs in digital. Your reply comes off as if I don't know what I'm talking about which just isn't the case. I've already stipulated in a previous comment that modern digital is good enough for most everyone one but purists. So your audiophile comment implies to me you missed some salient details.
        greedo 5y ago
        Modern digital cameras like the Arri Alexa have 14+ stops of dynamic range. That is less than what Kodak says about most film stock.
formerly_proven 5y ago
I don't think people know why they "like" or "dislike" a certain look. Take a look at cinematography, it's all "anamorphic this"¹, "24 fps that", "digital is too harsh" etc. The article: > But it gave us the feeling we had been picturing a certain texture that’s painterly but feels timeless…The film has softened the edges of the digital. It gave us something that film acquisition couldn’t give us, and it gave us something that digital acquisition couldn’t give us Cinematography still has clearly a long way to go. It's currently in the "we don't know what perspective is" phase of painting. ¹ anamorphic lenses are, generally speaking, horrible. It's extremely obvious when they're used, which is probably the main reason why there has been a huge anamorphic filmmaking craze going on for a few years.

echelon 5y ago

> But saving money isn't the main reason we don't have practical effects. Saving time is the main reason we don't have practical effects. Absolutely. There are a lot of reasons this is happening. Prior to the pandemic (which will be seen as a kinetic accelerant to a thermodynamic inevitability), screen space was limited, meaning the biggest tentpoles would eat up a somewhat predictable lion's share of box office revenue and thus command a large percentage of screen real estate. If you churn out big things fast, you can fill the calendar year with your films, monopolizing on total screen space/time. You can bargain with theaters for placement and advantageous timing, maximizing your own ROI and preventing other studios from outcompeting you. This is more a function of pipeline maturity and scale than development time, but efficiency absolutely helps. It's also true that viewers only have so much time (and therefore money). You want them to spend more time watching your content than they do on alternatives (other streamers, video games, social media). Quick delivery of successful series is essential. Netflix is trying to fill its slate to compensate for media losses, but also to run quick experiments to find things that maximize for view time. Content doesn't necessarily have to look good to fit the need. The dust may look like it's settling, but it's not. Increasing efficiency will lead to lots of new competition in the space.

zardo 5y ago

>But saving money isn't the main reason we don't have practical effects. Saving time is the main reason we don't have practical effects. And not just time in general. The CGI could take more time to produce than the practical effects, but it's in post. The practical effects have to be ready for the shot.

gaius_baltar 5y ago
That's even more: it can be done in parallel, through the entire production, as interaction of the actual physical prop on the set is not a memory barrier for the rest of production.