What is Digg?Sponsored by Travelzoo
$52 and Up—Airlines Slash Fares On Peak Holiday Flights. view!
travelzoo.com - This year, waiting until the last minute is NOT the best strategy. See why.
138 Comments
- Urusai, on 10/10/2007, -3/+35First Transformers, now Speed Racer...I'm looking forward to Peter Jackson doing a Smurf movie.
- DelSolMan, on 10/10/2007, -10/+42So this will look like something shot with no depth of field like a pocket digital camera in movie mode?
- kevinkace, on 10/10/2007, -5/+33I think someone did this once...
Oh ya! 60 years in only (one of) the most important films in the history of cinematography: Citizen Kane.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen_Kane
"The most innovative technical aspect of Citizen Kane is the extended use of deep focus.[citation needed] In nearly every scene in the film, the foreground, background and everything in between are all in sharp focus. This was done by renowned cinematographer Gregg Toland through his experimentation with lenses and lighting."
Buried - DapperDave, on 10/10/2007, -4/+31Um...maybe I'm missing something...isn't this the same as shooting with a very small aperture (i.e. a high f-stop)?
- jstohler, on 10/10/2007, -3/+26The better question is not: Are they doing it? But, what will it add to the movie-going experience?
- noblepenguin, on 10/10/2007, -0/+22One might argue that they still don't.
- Mudger, on 10/10/2007, -5/+25Confirmed: Speed Racer to be rated G, nerd community pissed!
- gwhardyiv, on 10/10/2007, -3/+19"The Wachowski's have said that they don't do movies unless they can achieve something great each time."
Did I miss something? - brundlefly76, on 10/10/2007, -3/+18"The Wachowski's have said that they don't do movies unless they can achieve something great each time"
I guess they made this pact *after* the Matrix sequels.. - kindrobot, on 10/10/2007, -0/+15Hrm. Well, Kubrick's 2001 was rated G. Planet of the Apes was G. I imagine it will not be a huge issue. They're making a film that kids will be able to go see, so why not?
But I agree, it won't be true to the source material unless we get bullet time nude scenes with Trixie and Racer X's slow motion decapitation. - anagoge, on 10/10/2007, -1/+15I for one welcome our new overlays.
- unrequited, on 10/10/2007, -3/+17Wachowski Brother AND SISTER:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wachowski_brothers#Transgender_claims
I don't know why they keep on glossing over this fact, like Hollywood of all places would be intolerant of non-mainstream behavior. - Niten, on 10/10/2007, -0/+14Don't you mean smurfing a Smurf?
- CSBolger, on 10/10/2007, -2/+12Yeah, this was done in the 1950's. The Searchers, a movie from 1956 featuring John Wayne, among others, featured an equal depth-of-field. Nothing revolutionary.
- mos6507, on 10/10/2007, -1/+10Those movies were a little too disturbing to be rated G. They didn't know how to rate movies back then.
- thomble, on 10/10/2007, -2/+10Obviously, Susan Sarandon knows nothing about optics. This effect is easily achieved with cameras (both still and motion) by reducing the size of the aperture. The only caveat is that more light or faster film is needed to produce an image. I imagine that modern digital movie cameras have very sensitive CCDs that can easily produce a long focal length.
A short focal length in an image creates focus for the viewer, and skilled cinematographers use various camera settings to help create a scene. This itself is an art. If the Wachowski Brothers use infinite focal length for the duration of the film, it won't be a technical achievement. It will simply be boring. - djphatjive, on 10/10/2007, -3/+11I love the Wachowski brothers, errrr um brother and sisters.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wachowski_brothers - lkv87, on 10/10/2007, -2/+9Depth of field is not a bad thing. It isolates your subject and draws the viewers eye to it; why would you want to remove that ?
Example: http://img297.imageshack.us/img297/5844/dofor1.jpg - phatfish, on 10/10/2007, -0/+7Orson Wells had the background and foreground in focus in Citizen Kane, circa 1941 (along with many other camera effects new at the time) . He was the revolutionary one, not the ***** Wachowski brothers. Kids...
- ClOlD, on 10/10/2007, -1/+8Maybe because gender has nothing to do with filmmaking talent?
- da_bradler, on 10/10/2007, -1/+7depends how close(the subject is and the background is), depends on the lens, depends on the film(sensor) size, depends on the field of view.
also you can only have an F stop of around 22 before you start seeing a serious lose in quality from defraction. I personaly think it could look pretty cool depending on how they do it. if it's a tight shot of an actors face and the background is still in focus it would look really weird. - kindrobot, on 10/10/2007, -4/+10That's FIXED focus. It's VERY different.
- anagoge, on 10/10/2007, -1/+6And I'm looking forward to doing a Smurf.
- lharrod, on 10/10/2007, -1/+6There's always those dickwads that log onto a forum just to say "who cares?" and I ask myself why did they click on this forum, log on, and post a comment in the first place. If you don't like Speed Racer, why read and comment about it?
- justinroman, on 10/10/2007, -2/+7The article doesn't explain how this would be significantly different than the classic "deep focus" technique popularized by Gregg Toland in shooting Citizen Kane. It also used a compositing technique to combine multiple sources into a completely in-focus final image.
And anyway, it's pretty trivial to get an entire frame in focus provided you have enough light on the scene. Longer shots with basically everything in focus was standard Hollywood technique throughout the 50s and 60s. Just today I was watching The Gunfight at OK Corral and everything was in focus everywhere. It's only with the recent increasing speed of cutting, increased use of closeups, etc., (what David Bordwell calls "intensified continuity" style) that nearly every shot has limited depth of field.
Anyway, I look forward to the Wachowski's next project, where perhaps they can invent the pan or the cut. - jerbaker, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5That has nothing to do with aperture or focus and everything to do with focal length.
- mrgreen4242, on 10/10/2007, -1/+5Movie ratings were weird back then. There's a movie from the 70's that my wife remembers watching as a kid that has a pretty vivid masturbation scene and it was rated G. In any case, a G rating doesn't mean it will be BAD, it just means there will be no swearing, no partial nudity, and very minimal violence. The story could still be good, but I suppose we'll have to wait and see.
As for this new film technique... well, the only thing I can compare it to is actors in front of a green screen with the footage behind them shot with a different focus... looks bad. We'll see, this effect with highly touched up colors and whatnot could look good, like the Disney version of Sin City maybe. - jeanlucc, on 10/10/2007, -1/+5Obviously having two areas of focus is different from having one big area in focus.
- jerbaker, on 10/10/2007, -0/+31) Fixed focus has nothing to do with it.
2) I don't know of many pocket cameras with fixed focus anyway, do you?
3) The effect is achieved with small apertures.
4) I don't know what's different about having the background and foreground in focus and having the background and foreground in focus. - shortarabguy, on 10/10/2007, -1/+4It's still a surprise, I think. They sent Susan Sarandon, the obvious tech guru of the film, to explain something to us which would astound us if we knew what the hell it was. Unfortunately, we were told very little more than "every color that wasn't in the Matrix will be in this movie," so we'll be seeing a lot of non-green colors. Other than that, who knows?
- Lacero, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3Could it be light field photography, aka plenoptics?
http://graphics.stanford.edu/papers/lfcamera/ - lharrod, on 10/10/2007, -2/+5Yeah, I have to go with everyone else on this. A "G" then is totally different than a "G" today, just like an "R" then is nowhere near an "R" today. It's strange. A "G" back then might be a PG-13 or even and "R" today, but an "R" back then might be a PG-13 today. The MPAA is corrupt and pointless in its current structure.
- VtmnR, on 10/10/2007, -4/+7Dude, prepare to get buried.
- chipwar, on 10/10/2007, -1/+4WTF are they talking about, everything in focus?
Orson Welles invented "deep focus" with his DP on Citizen Kane.
Getting everything in focus is not a big deal.
I think what she probably means is that there's a very constricted focal length - where the people and the backgrounds are mushed together.
This is why you don't get technical information about new camera systems from the woman who plays the "mom" in the movie. - DagMX, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3A wide angle lens does not have everything in focus. Only things in the correct focal plane area will be in focus.
On this system, there will be two focal plane areas so two areas will be in focus. - rebopper, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3Verne Troyer?
- WhiskeyWrites, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2I'm wondering if trying to go against the trend is why they would be doing something like this. Thouhg I still think there is probably more to it. This may be a little like someone coming from the Matrix set and saying they were doing "some new thing with a bunch of still cameras". It sounds pretty unimpressive but the actual effect was stunning (for the time).
- tpodr, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2This has been my thinking too. Reading the Wikipedia article on Light Field Imaging, I learned the 'bullet time' effect is also considered a LF technique.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_field - n8r0n, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2That song is by Alpha Team. Not Aphex Twin.
- kindrobot, on 10/10/2007, -1/+3Who said it was a bad thing?
- neodorian, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Or they weren't as worried about a kid seeing a movie that might make them think a little. Not everyone thinks movies need to be candy-coated for kids. It's no wonder they grow up with a skewed impression of the world.
- inactive, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2I get the sense that it lets them record the background independently of the foreground allowing them to manipulate each one separate from the other.
- kindrobot, on 10/10/2007, -1/+3As said elsewhere, he did not layer full shots, he used mattes and split screen technique along with optics to correct distortions. This is different.
- wiggles, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2A good director can direct around an actor's inability to act -- see Keanu Reeves in The Matrix.
- KarateMedia, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2jerbaker -- I think da bradler is trying to refer to light sensitivity - and getting his CCD size and film speeds confused. Digital cameras with larger CCDs function better in low light than cameras with smaller CCDs. This somewhat correlates to film speed (not film size) - the higher the film speed/ISO rating, the more light sensitive the stock is.
Using a high f-stop to achieve a greater depth of field requires more light than if using a lower stop. The amount of extra light needed can be reduced if the film/sensor is more sensitive to light. Hence higher film speeds or larger CCDs would be needed. This is very important if you don't want your actors sweating profusely throughout a scene, or if you plan on shooting outside with limited additional lighting. (or if you have limited access to lights in general, can't afford the power bill, etc etc etc...) - torrentado, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Yup! It's called Deep Focus...
All you fanboys need to study film history and respect the real masters in Cinema! - HappyScrappy, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Actually, the popularized the ones with motion in them. The still-frame version was done for a Timex Ironman commercial well before the Wachowski's popularized bullet time.
Both use very similar setups to accomplish. - beckspace, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2not if the subject is too close of the lens, on 35mm. But smaller formats can behave like that, like cell cameras, which have very little ccds
I dont get it. I mean it can be done in post, in the 70's it would be very fresh. But now any filmmaker have the tools to do that without alien technology. Even the poster used Sin City as example, with wide close-ups and something in the background in focus. Heck, now I remember, Tarantino did it in Reservoir Dogs with photographic filters, the result was quite good, you have to freeze frame to see the line separating both depth of fields
Now, tell me, whats the real race they're going to shoot? I mean, Mach 5 will jump, right? It will be a lot of CG to be in focus. Is style, nothing revolutionary, imo.
I'm waiting for Mr.Cameron to put some real revolution over style. Something to urge us to go to the theater, instead of watching it on a ipod - echostudios, on 10/10/2007, -4/+6Anyone else hoping that there aren't any dominatrices on set to ruin the film?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilsa_Strix - tubalcane, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2You're right that depth of field does not change but in order to get the same field of vision with a smaller sensor you use a shorter lens which affects the depth of field. A 135mm lens is a common "normal" lens on 4"x5" large format. An 80mm length is the common "normal" lens on 6cm x 6cm medium format. A 50mm is the normal on 35mm film. These all have roughly equivalent fields of vision but very different depths of field.
-
Show 51 - 100 of 138 discussions
Browsing Digg on your phone just got easier with our enhancements to the 
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is 