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As a former freelance DOP for cinema productions: Movies have dark scenes nowadays mainly because it is a trend. On top of that dark scenes can have practical
by atoav 4y ago
As a former freelance DOP for cinema productions:
Movies have dark scenes nowadays mainly because it is a trend. On top of that dark scenes can have practical advantages (set building, VFX, lighting, etc. can be reduced or become much simpler to do which directly translates into money saved during shooting).
If I had to guess, the trend of dark scenes are a direct result of the fact that in the past two decades we our digital sensors got good enough to actually shoot in such low-light environments.
Before that film crews were typically shooting day-for-night which meant waiting for a set of specific weather conditions and then hoping that grading things blue-ish would sell the thing as being shot in the night.
Another aspect is the much higher brightness and contrast (=dynamic range) of today's displays and projectors. Back in the day you had to literally use the whitest white and the darkest dark available to create a readable picture (and you had to do a ton of lighting to squash the extreme dynamic range of a real world environment into the small dynamic range of your target medium). As this dynamic range became bigger it became possible to not use the whole range and still have good looking results. So in that line of thinking pictures became darker because they can be.
Not that I defend the whole thing, sometimes dark pictures with a high contrast can be good and very readable, sometimes it is used as an excuse to not do the propper work.
- agumonkey 4y agoIsn't it a problem when technique and budget are the main drive in production ? It kinda fades off the story, acting, magic of a movie.
- atoav 4y agoSure. But that is a result of capitalism and the modern "3 simple steps to make a good movie"-approach. In my experience the best movies are made from people with passion. But those cannot be made if these people don't get the money or have to bend over backwards and betray their ideals to do so.
- cardanome 4y agoIf it were just about making money I would expect film-makers to go the way of least resistance. What perplexes me is that often viewer-hostile decisions get made despite being more work. For example in movie adaptations of known franchises changes are made just for change sake so that the writers can show off how smart they are. It would be LESS work to just follow the source material. To be clear: I am NOT talking about changes to better fit a specific medium. I am talking about "look how smart I am, you couldn't predict this twist"-kind of writing that does not improve the story. Still, ego-driven writing seems to be very much accepted? Same with lighting. No viewer has ever complained about unnatural lighting. This stuff is only made to impress peers. Why is this kind of behavior so common the industry?
- atoav 4y ago> If it were just about making money I would expect film-makers to go the way of least resistance. The way of least resistance in an industry controlled by capital is to cave to the interest of the capital.
- chriswait 4y ago>It would be LESS work to just follow the source material. But the source material might be less marketable and therefore less profitable. So it might be less work, but it would also mean less money, hence the changes.
- bazoom42 4y agoIt is possible the writers know what they are doing. In the end, what matters is if the audience shows up. Who wants to see the same thing again without any new twists or ideas?
- coldtea 4y agoThe studios seem to think "everybody", judging from the 100s of sequels, prequels, reboots, and nth installments of movies, where everything is a "franchize"...
- 3np 4y agoAnd here I thought it might be global warming. Thanks.
- masklinn 4y agoWhat would global warming have to do with it?
- leobg 4y agoSo the same reason basically as for the blue LEDs on every new device since 2010? Something that used to be prohibitively expensive before, and so now communicates high value (until people get tired of it eventually).
- masklinn 4y agoI got tired of it the first time I got one, yet these hell devices are still everywhere.
- brokenmachine 4y agoI must be the only one who likes blue LEDs.
- atoav 4y agoI have no proof, but this is my feeling yes
- actionfromafar 4y agoThe old school scenes were sometimes more incorrect, but less wrong than modern dark scenes. Thing is, the eye adapts to dim light very well. So an old school scene "night" scene may actually better represent what it feels like being there. While a modern "night" scene might look what a dim area looks like the first 10 seconds before your eyes adapt: dim, gray-ish. Curve-ball: what's your take on the dynamic range in over-exposing film vs under-exposing digital?
- atoav 4y ago> what's your take on the dynamic range in over-exposing film vs under-exposing digital? Depends what you're after and what digital camera you are using (and even which ISO you are using on that specific camera). But more broadly IMO digital has reached dynamic ranges that are "good enough" so you don't have to worry about it in most situations. And if shot correctly digital can look exactly like film. The major difference for me is the way you work with the material. Actors and everybody else tends to be a tad bit more concentrated when the know how many €/s is running through that camera unless you have an infinite amount of film stock and the funds to develope and digitize them. But whether that is truly worth the stress of changing a roll of exposed film in the wild during bad weather and praying the material survives is another question.
- MontyCarloHall 4y ago>what's your take on the dynamic range in over-exposing film vs under-exposing digital? You should actually overexpose digital (without blowing any highlights) to maximize dynamic range. Our eyes perceive brightness logarithmically — given something emitting P photons perceived as brightness B, something emitting 2P photons will be perceived as brightness B+1, while something emitting 0.5P photons will be perceived as brightness B-1. Image sensors are linear and discrete. So going from R,G,B=1,1,1 to 2,2,2 represents a doubling of photons captured, and thus be perceived by the eye as going from B to B+1. But 2,2,2->4,4,4 will go to B+2, 4,4,4->8,8,8 to B+3, etc. Thus, there is only one bit of dynamic range going from B to B+1, 2 bits of dynamic range from B+1 to B+2, 3 bits from B+2 to B+3, and 2^N bits from B+N-1 to B+N. That’s why you want as much brightness information as possible close to saturating the sensor, since that’s where the most bits of dynamic range are. This is called “exposing to the right” [0]. [0] https://digital-photography-school.com/exposing-to-the-right/ https://digital-photography-school.com/exposing-to-the-right...
- formerly_proven 4y agoThanks for reminding me of the "full moon in a forest" style night scenes :)
- makapuf 4y agoIn France we call this "American night"
- rokweom 4y agoCorrect me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure film has a higher dynamic range than digital SDR video? From a quick google search, 13 stops for film vs 6 stops for SDR. Obviously the stock that was used for final delivery to theaters was much worse than the stock that movies were shot on, but still.
- asimpletune 4y agoThey were talking about display tech
- atoav 4y agoI was mostly talking about display and projection technology. That aside: Any commonly used digital cinema camera today has 13+ stops of dynamic range without even considering any special HDR modes.
- tyingq 4y agoIs it also possibly a bit of protest against people watching movies at home on a television? That's assuming the dark scenes are easier to see in a theater.
- klyrs 4y agoThis insufferable trend is popular in made-for-netflix shows. If that's a protest against the medium, it's a weird one.
- tyingq 4y agoYeah, just wondering. I know another trend, indecipherable sound, is also odd. Because, for example, I had to walk out of "Public Enemy" in a theater...I couldn't hear the dialogue. But it was watchable at home where I could mess with settings until I could hear.
- monocasa 4y agoWhich is so word since the compression there leads to pretty heavy banding there, despite pretty heroic work on the part of Netflix's tech staff.
- brokenmachine 4y agoI'd rather watch dark scenes at home on the OLED than on a projector with blacks that look grey.
- 6stringmerc 4y agoDanny Boyle's commentary on The Beach specifically includes a discussion of the technique mentioned by OP of shooting in high light and playing with it later. So much to learn from him, Cameron, heck, Bad Santa pointed out that the Coen Brothers were extensively involved early on. Everything from Thurman Merman now, to me, sounds like a Coen Brothers character. I kinda think he is.