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Word. One reason however that some CDs really did sound cold and clinical in the early days was because the transfers to CD were using EQ curves that toned dow

Word. One reason however that some CDs really did sound cold and clinical in the early days was because the transfers to CD were using EQ curves that toned down bass and heightened treble frequencies for pressing vinyls. It made the vinyl records more even, but it made the CDs sound weak and harsh. My brother has been spending time in his home studio remastering some of his 80's CDs with normalization and EQ changes mainly, and they sound tons better. Like the article says, HFR may require similar "mastering" to suit the newer format better, changing filmmaking techniques that no longer apply like they did in the 24fps era.

ChuckMcM 14y ago
This captures it concisely. There is years and years of experience lighting things to make them look good in the theatre. There is also years of experience in lighting things to make them look good on video. Unfortunately the video lighting people and the cinema lighting people aren't the same people. On a related note, I saw a clip of Patton running on a television that was doing active motion compensation filtering. It made the movie look like it was shot on video, and in that mode the various prop items stood out. In one scene the jeep in the background, and the background in general, is clearly painted on a flat surface. Without the motion compensation on that jeep looked like it could be a real jeep in the scene. Very weird effect.
- jspthrowaway2 14y ago
  That motion compensation that TVs do is the most egregious sin of all, and makes 48fps film pale in comparison. It's the first thing I turn off.
  - encoderer 14y ago
    It is god awful. I have a sibling who seems to have, somehow, adjusted. Probably out of bias: He just dropped $1600 on that fancy 240hz TV. This is just the new new thing. I HATE watching movies at his house. It ruins them.
mturmon 14y ago
Lighting is so extraordinarily important to film shooting. Visit a set (not in a studio) and see the rumbling generators, the giant lights everywhere, and the cranes, diffusers, and reflectors needed to get the light into the scene.
- tzs 14y ago
  A good illustration of the importance of lighting (even though it is in a virtual world) is "How to Train Your Dragon". One of the big reasons that looked so damned good was the lighting. They brought in Roger Deakins, cinematographer for most of the Coen brother's films and many other well known films, as a visual consultant. On Deakins' forum on his web site, a puzzled reader posted asking what a cinematographer does on an animated film. Here was part of Deakins' answer: --------- My role on 'How to Train Your Dragon' was as a consultant and very much as part of a team. It is, for sure, a less personal involvement if only because of the numbers of people involved in the process. However, from an early stage I was involved in discussions about the 'look' of the film with the directors, designer and effects super. This involved all aspects of the production from the choice of lens lengths to our approach to 3D. Following that we created a template of images to reflected the arc of the film. Next we created a number of animated reference shots, which depicted the characters in various lighting situations such as a candlelit room, a foggy day in a forest and in moonlight. For the next 12 months I was working with the layout artists (who set the camera) and the lighters (who light the rendered images) to follow through on the whole process. During part of that 12 months I was shooting a (live action) film but I was kept in touch with the production through a dedicated work station. --------- Full thread here: http://www.rogerdeakins.com/forum2/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1658 http://www.rogerdeakins.com/forum2/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1... See also this NYTimes article: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/21/movies/21dragon.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/21/movies/21dragon.html?_r=0 The 12 months Deakins spent on this is a bigger fraction of the film's production time than you might expect. Normally animated movies can take 3 or 4 years, but after a couple of years production the producers of HTTYD decided that the story and characters they had would not work. They were doing a faithful reproduction of the book (in which dragons and humans have long been at peace...and the kids are 10), but that was aimed at a younger audience. They needed something that could also appeal to teens and adults, so they replaced the director with Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois, and told them they needed to write a new story and new script, with older characters--AND they had stick to the release date, which was something like 16 months away. So, that 12 months Deakins was involved was effectively pretty much the entire development time of the film we actually got. In one of those weird twists you'd expect to find in the movies, not real life, the reason Sanders was at Dreamworks is that when John Lasseter took over Disney animation, he suggested a bunch of changes to the movie Sanders was writing and directing for Disney, "American Dog". Sanders didn't like the changes, and ended up leaving. (Some reports say Lasseter fired him). "American Dog" got a new director and writer and story and a new name, "Bolt". What it did NOT get was a new release date.
Florin_Andrei 14y ago
> One reason however that some CDs really did sound cold and clinical in the early days was because the transfers to CD were using EQ curves that toned down bass and heightened treble frequencies for pressing vinyls. It made the vinyl records more even, but it made the CDs sound weak and harsh. You seem to refer to the RIAA equalization curve. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIAA_equalization http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIAA_equalization It is true that bass is reduced and treble is increased before recording a vinyl LP, but the opposite curve is then applied when the LP is played back. The overall frequency curve of the whole chain is flat (or as close to flat as technically possible). The purpose of the whole thing was not to make "vinyl records more even". The actual reasons were: 1. Reduce noise (which is mostly located in the high frequency area, and is reduced at playback due to the complementary EQ curve) 2. Reduce the very high amplitude meandering motion of the needle that would be imposed by high-amplitude bass (thereby requiring a much wider space between neighboring grooves and reducing the total duration of the LP). Because bass is reduced while recording, the needle doesn't wander that much; at playback, bass is restored to the right level. Moreover, the RIAA curve is extremely deep. It's + or - 20 dB at either end, and that's A Whole Lot. Any CD mastered with such a curve applied at recording (but without the opposite curve applied at playback) would sound downright awful. It's not a subtle effect, it's about the same like turning bass all the way down, and treble all the way up, on a classic EQ with two knobs. That's not "cold and clinical", that's broken. Perhaps some clueless sound monkeys indeed made such an egregious error back then, on a few CDs, but the backlash was no doubt very strong. When LP fans talk about the "cold" sound of CDs, this is not what they refer to. They are talking about the lack of a certain kind of added harmonic distortions that give vinyl its specific sound, that some people apparently prefer over a clear signal, for some strange reason. Source: I'm old enough to have actually built preamps for LP players (and cassette recorders). Often my stuff was as good as high-end professional electronics, at a fraction of the cost. But it often looked like something a robotic gorilla threw up after an indigestion. > HFR may require similar "mastering" to suit the newer format better, changing filmmaking techniques that no longer apply like they did in the 24fps era. I totally agree. They use 48 fps, but the shooting and lighting techniques are the same like in the 24 fps era. Of course there seems to be a disconnect.

ChuckMcM 14y ago

This captures it concisely. There is years and years of experience lighting things to make them look good in the theatre. There is also years of experience in lighting things to make them look good on video. Unfortunately the video lighting people and the cinema lighting people aren't the same people. On a related note, I saw a clip of Patton running on a television that was doing active motion compensation filtering. It made the movie look like it was shot on video, and in that mode the various prop items stood out. In one scene the jeep in the background, and the background in general, is clearly painted on a flat surface. Without the motion compensation on that jeep looked like it could be a real jeep in the scene. Very weird effect.

jspthrowaway2 14y ago
That motion compensation that TVs do is the most egregious sin of all, and makes 48fps film pale in comparison. It's the first thing I turn off.
- encoderer 14y ago
  It is god awful. I have a sibling who seems to have, somehow, adjusted. Probably out of bias: He just dropped $1600 on that fancy 240hz TV. This is just the new new thing. I HATE watching movies at his house. It ruins them.

mturmon 14y ago

Lighting is so extraordinarily important to film shooting. Visit a set (not in a studio) and see the rumbling generators, the giant lights everywhere, and the cranes, diffusers, and reflectors needed to get the light into the scene.

tzs 14y ago
A good illustration of the importance of lighting (even though it is in a virtual world) is "How to Train Your Dragon". One of the big reasons that looked so damned good was the lighting. They brought in Roger Deakins, cinematographer for most of the Coen brother's films and many other well known films, as a visual consultant. On Deakins' forum on his web site, a puzzled reader posted asking what a cinematographer does on an animated film. Here was part of Deakins' answer: --------- My role on 'How to Train Your Dragon' was as a consultant and very much as part of a team. It is, for sure, a less personal involvement if only because of the numbers of people involved in the process. However, from an early stage I was involved in discussions about the 'look' of the film with the directors, designer and effects super. This involved all aspects of the production from the choice of lens lengths to our approach to 3D. Following that we created a template of images to reflected the arc of the film. Next we created a number of animated reference shots, which depicted the characters in various lighting situations such as a candlelit room, a foggy day in a forest and in moonlight. For the next 12 months I was working with the layout artists (who set the camera) and the lighters (who light the rendered images) to follow through on the whole process. During part of that 12 months I was shooting a (live action) film but I was kept in touch with the production through a dedicated work station. --------- Full thread here: http://www.rogerdeakins.com/forum2/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1658 http://www.rogerdeakins.com/forum2/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1... See also this NYTimes article: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/21/movies/21dragon.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/21/movies/21dragon.html?_r=0 The 12 months Deakins spent on this is a bigger fraction of the film's production time than you might expect. Normally animated movies can take 3 or 4 years, but after a couple of years production the producers of HTTYD decided that the story and characters they had would not work. They were doing a faithful reproduction of the book (in which dragons and humans have long been at peace...and the kids are 10), but that was aimed at a younger audience. They needed something that could also appeal to teens and adults, so they replaced the director with Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois, and told them they needed to write a new story and new script, with older characters--AND they had stick to the release date, which was something like 16 months away. So, that 12 months Deakins was involved was effectively pretty much the entire development time of the film we actually got. In one of those weird twists you'd expect to find in the movies, not real life, the reason Sanders was at Dreamworks is that when John Lasseter took over Disney animation, he suggested a bunch of changes to the movie Sanders was writing and directing for Disney, "American Dog". Sanders didn't like the changes, and ended up leaving. (Some reports say Lasseter fired him). "American Dog" got a new director and writer and story and a new name, "Bolt". What it did NOT get was a new release date.

Florin_Andrei 14y ago

> One reason however that some CDs really did sound cold and clinical in the early days was because the transfers to CD were using EQ curves that toned down bass and heightened treble frequencies for pressing vinyls. It made the vinyl records more even, but it made the CDs sound weak and harsh. You seem to refer to the RIAA equalization curve. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIAA_equalization http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIAA_equalization It is true that bass is reduced and treble is increased before recording a vinyl LP, but the opposite curve is then applied when the LP is played back. The overall frequency curve of the whole chain is flat (or as close to flat as technically possible). The purpose of the whole thing was not to make "vinyl records more even". The actual reasons were: 1. Reduce noise (which is mostly located in the high frequency area, and is reduced at playback due to the complementary EQ curve) 2. Reduce the very high amplitude meandering motion of the needle that would be imposed by high-amplitude bass (thereby requiring a much wider space between neighboring grooves and reducing the total duration of the LP). Because bass is reduced while recording, the needle doesn't wander that much; at playback, bass is restored to the right level. Moreover, the RIAA curve is extremely deep. It's + or - 20 dB at either end, and that's A Whole Lot. Any CD mastered with such a curve applied at recording (but without the opposite curve applied at playback) would sound downright awful. It's not a subtle effect, it's about the same like turning bass all the way down, and treble all the way up, on a classic EQ with two knobs. That's not "cold and clinical", that's broken. Perhaps some clueless sound monkeys indeed made such an egregious error back then, on a few CDs, but the backlash was no doubt very strong. When LP fans talk about the "cold" sound of CDs, this is not what they refer to. They are talking about the lack of a certain kind of added harmonic distortions that give vinyl its specific sound, that some people apparently prefer over a clear signal, for some strange reason. Source: I'm old enough to have actually built preamps for LP players (and cassette recorders). Often my stuff was as good as high-end professional electronics, at a fraction of the cost. But it often looked like something a robotic gorilla threw up after an indigestion. > HFR may require similar "mastering" to suit the newer format better, changing filmmaking techniques that no longer apply like they did in the 24fps era. I totally agree. They use 48 fps, but the shooting and lighting techniques are the same like in the 24 fps era. Of course there seems to be a disconnect.