Star Wars: Episode VII to be shot on 35mm film and use less CGI - Polidicks

[QUOTE=hypno-toad;41989799]Not entirely sure what the bias against CG is all about. Requires just as much artistry and skill and generally looks as good (if not a bit different) Mind you there is something really cool about the model scenes in bladerunner and shit, but it's nothing to berate CGI for.[/QUOTE] I don't dislike CGi because I see it as less of an art, I dislike it because it doesn't [I]feel[/I] real. Alien's sets felt infinitely more believable than any scene from the prequel trilogy.

After these films, PLEASE redo the prequels.

[QUOTE=robotnik185;41989952]Thing is, as advanced as CGI is at the moment, you can still see that something's not quite right about the 3D stuff. There's no better way to make something believable by making it physical, not digital. [/QUOTE] Not exactly, as many physical sets and models use artificial materials and are not built to scale. They suffer the same issues as CG; trying to create an illusion of a setting or object by using an object that is not physically the same. Poor camerawork and lighting can ruin the illusion, much the same as CGI. [QUOTE=Skyward;41990011]I don't dislike CGi because I see it as less of an art, I dislike it because it doesn't [I]feel[/I] real. Alien's sets felt infinitely more believable than any scene from the prequel trilogy.[/QUOTE] That's often the partiular film qaulity, if those sets had been shot in 720/1080p and viewed on an HDTV they'd probably look pretty fake. The same could have been done with CGI and if shot at the same resolution with the same film artifacts, it probably would have looked the same. There is, admittedly an inehrent "cgi look" but it's generally caused more by bad rendering and material work, which is an issue any medium can suffer. People often just select the absolute best model work in older movies, and set that as an imaginary and exaggerated standard when it is in fact, an unfair budget comaprison.

The Walking Dead is a great example of practical and CGI working together. [video=youtube;IoJW1hs967I]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoJW1hs967I[/video]

Working in tandem probably is the best method, yeah.

Star Wars on film instead of digital!? Safe to say, Abrams you are the man.

Producers said the same shit about "The Thing" to lure in fans, anyone remember that beautiful event? Honestly I don't give a shit about the CGI, the CGI would have felt less crap if the acting and story wasn't god awful horrid.

CGI is great and so is animatronics if you combine the two you get the strengths of both and the weaknesses of neither

Fucking good. The amount of digital movies at the moment is actually starting to grate me.

I don't think there is any need to shoot on film when you have red's epic dragon. (watch before arguing) [video=vimeo;71666317]http://vimeo.com/71666317[/video]

[QUOTE=Megalan;41991417]I don't think there is any need to shoot on film when you have red's epic dragon. (watch before arguing) [video=vimeo;71666317]http://vimeo.com/71666317[/video][/QUOTE] That's what they used to film Into Darkness's Imax scenes.

CGI really fucked the prequel Star Wars movies bad also, 35mm film. Benefits over digital?

The problem with CGI IMO is usually always the lighting. So much effort has to be done to get the lighting to match the scene perfectly, and if its not perfect, it will feel obviously out of place.

[QUOTE=J!NX;41992602]CGI really fucked the prequel Star Wars movies bad also, 35mm film. Benefits over digital?[/QUOTE] don't really think there is much, digital vs film are basiclly the same these days. TBH the real problem with the prequels is that they were for the most part all shot inside pure green cubes of soundstages, so the actors were like "um what am i doing now? oh i'm riding a speederbike thingy" when they were just sitting on a box and had george lucas going "now your riding a bike and your looking kinda awsome doing it" thankfully motion capture has gotten to the point where movies like star trek can go to actual locations with semi-real props and do the things they want to do then make them look really real in editing instead of completely generating the films on CGI. Also part of me thinks it was Lucas's ego that really overdid the CGI, like it was something new but at the time it clearly was a mistake to do it and film fully in CGI but he wanted to be a pioneer in what became a bad idea.

[QUOTE=RichyZ;41992909]even if the thing (2011) was bad, at least it can be preserved and upscaled better in the future when people want to see shit cg remakes of good movies[/QUOTE] The worst thing about that movie is that after they hired the company who did the physical effects to make everything and do all the animatronics, they just outright said "nope not good enough we're just gonna layer it all in CGI." Luckily, said company has decided to make a movie as a literal "Fuck you" to the people who made/ruined The Thing 2011. The kickstarter got funded just hours before it finished. [url]http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1117671683/harbinger-down-a-practical-creature-fx-film[/url] [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPbolNt-Vmg[/media] That footage in the intro is proof of concept footage, final movie will look miles better.

[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;41988626]Latitude is a film, or photography term. It refers to the amount of stops of light into the "whites" and into the blacks you go into. Film has a much higher latitude into the whites than any digital camera that I'm aware of(this will eventually change I'm sure) standard 35mm film has a lattitude of 14.5. The Scarlet(Successor to the RED camera) has a latitude of 13.5, or 18 with HDRX, but this is artificial and [i]can[/i] show through in motion pictures. as far as resolution goes, there isn't a huge difference in high end film, and high end digital photography/cinematography [/QUOTE] I work with a camera called the Sony F65, it shoots in 8k with 14 stops of dynamic range with a wider colour gamut and better signal to noise ratio than film. It's better or comparable to film in every technical respect - but we don't bother with anything above 4k. It all comes down to artistic choice in the end. Data wrangling the thing is a nightmare, and that's offset when you use film, you move digital later down in the pipeline.

[QUOTE=Starpluck;41985277]I am not enthusiast, but you can achieve much higher qualities of resolution with film. With film you can upgrade it's quality as we advance in output capability (i.e. 4K resolution), whereas with digital, you're stuck with that resolution forever. That's why we are able to get new HD remakes of old film movies. This wont be possible with digital movies made at our time, at the future.[/QUOTE] Not really. Film scanners have existed that can make film into ~4000 x 6000 pixels for well over a decade. What hasn't existed are screens that can display this output, storage formats that can effectively hold the format and an actual market. 70mm film is technically quadruple (IIRC) the resolution, and watching a film like Lawrence of Arabia shows just how amazing it looks. They're not filming in 70mm because its known to cost an insane amount of money. I have to say its a stupid move because the workflow with film will probably cost a lot more than any digital format nowadays; by filming on digital they aren't signing away their ability to not use digital effects the entire time. If they were shooting in digital it would mean much more flexibility because the cameras are smaller for the most part and I believe can film continuously for much longer. Digital film cameras are at the point where there is almost no point in using conventional film unless the director just wants to be edgy; yes you can see a difference side by side, but not to the point where it will make a difference in cinemas. There are also some film formats that are pretty difficult to replicate on digital, but lets face it, its a fucking Star Wars movie, not some sort of drama or arty film, its going to be gunfights and space battles most of the time. And unless they're going extremely old school with things like space battles, then they're going to be using green screen like 95% of the time. It more just sounds like a marketing move to try and show people they're going back to the old Star Wars ways (judging by this thread I'd say its working).

[QUOTE=Starpluck;41985277]I am not enthusiast, but you can achieve much higher qualities of resolution with film. With film you can upgrade it's quality as we advance in output capability (i.e. 4K resolution), whereas with digital, you're stuck with that resolution forever. That's why we are able to get new HD remakes of old film movies. This wont be possible with digital movies made at our time, at the future.[/QUOTE] Same thing with WW2 photos and similar for instance. The film used on those cameras is actually really high res and allows for really high res pictures. Digital has only now caught up.

What's wrong with CGI? I find CGI very fascinating, of how you can change almost whole perspective of the world in computers. Less CGI means more physical work on objects.

[QUOTE=Kill coDer;41993629]I work with a camera called the Sony F65, it shoots in 8k with 14 stops of dynamic range with a wider colour gamut and better signal to noise ratio than film. It's better or comparable to film in every technical respect - but we don't bother with anything above 4k. It all comes down to artistic choice in the end. Data wrangling the thing is a nightmare, and that's offset when you use film, you move digital later down in the pipeline.[/QUOTE] I've never worked with the F65 before, I didn't know it had such a large dynamic range. Is that pushed electronically at all is or that just a natural range? 4:4:4 colour compression is pretty common these days on high end cameras but for my eyes, film still brings together the same quality of colour together. Going more than 4k right now is pointless/impossible/to much to handle because as you're said, shooting 4K and having to deal with all that footage is a massive job as it is, stepping that to the next stage is something we're not really ready for on a data management scale. On industry sets, the large DIT stations set up for these purposes are pretty damn intimidating. But yeah, everything goes digital later on. I'm more of a fan of film from an artistry perspective, it doesn't hold any qualities that are more impressive than high end digital cameras but it just has a certain look I feel is great. [editline]28th August 2013[/editline] [QUOTE=showtek;41995817]What's wrong with CGI? I find CGI very fascinating, of how you can change almost whole perspective of the world in computers. Less CGI means more physical work on objects.[/QUOTE] Good CGI requires real life sets anyways to sell it. [editline]28th August 2013[/editline] [QUOTE=nigerianprince;41993646] Digital film cameras are at the point where there is almost no point in using conventional film unless the director just wants to be edgy; yes you can see a difference side by side, but not to the point where it will make a difference in cinemas. There are also some film formats that are pretty difficult to replicate on digital, but lets face it, its a fucking Star Wars movie, not some sort of drama or arty film, its going to be gunfights and space battles most of the time. And unless they're going extremely old school with things like space battles, then they're going to be using green screen like 95% of the time. It more just sounds like a marketing move to try and show people they're going back to the old Star Wars ways (judging by this thread I'd say its working).[/QUOTE] You're wrong if you think that's the only reason someone would work with film. It's a dying experience and working with it is on the way out. I've only done two full scale shows that used film, those are probably going to be the last film shows I work on because it's going away. Wanting to work with that material isn't edgy or anything, it's just a desire. Digital and Film are equals at this point in a lot of ways but it's just simply fun to work with film. tedious as all fuck, but fun. it changes the attitude of sets and shows entirely. Digital is a endless shooting fest where you never "really" have to face the idea you don't have enough footage to keep shooting because you're digital, you'll just delete some stuff. My point is anyways, that it's not just to be "edgy" and that's a bad way to look at it.

[QUOTE=PowerBall v1;41985825]Cgi or not Plz just give starwars a good story and I'll be happy[/QUOTE] To bad they're going there own way instead of following the Thrawn trilogy or even the X-wing book, action, plot, romance, everything you need.

[QUOTE=Cloak Raider;41985111]what the fuck is star wars going to become a thing that was great, turned shit, and then suddenly just returned from the dead on a burning chariot of film excellence[/QUOTE] Let's not get too hyped here We still now jack shit about the scenario apart from the fact the main characters will be rather young (according to the casting criterias that were posted a while ago) and that the old actors will be there. What killed star wars 1 through 3 isn't the CGI but the shitty story. If the movies had been made entirely with practical effects and shot on 55mm too they wouldn't have been that much better. [editline]30th August 2013[/editline] [QUOTE=showtek;41995817]What's wrong with CGI? I find CGI very fascinating, of how you can change almost whole perspective of the world in computers. Less CGI means more physical work on objects.[/QUOTE] You need a good mix of both to sell it well. Reminds me of Oblivion and how to shoot scenes in that tower they have in the sky they actually shot panoramic footage from a position way above the cloud line at multiple weathers and times of the day then created the whole set for the tower and set up special projectors that projected appropriate footage of the clouds on white cloth to fit the scene rather than have some basic blue screen. Any seam was then removed with computer alteration and the result looks really freakin good. Oblivion had a surprising amount of practical effects and ingenuity. One of the reasons they hired Tom Cruise was because he's really fond of doing his stunts himself so he was actually put in physically difficult situations so he could get in character more and give it a more genuine look.