found an old message

at michaeldvd in response to a review of AOTC.

i don't agree any more with many of my conclusions. i think that both 35mm and 16mm (especially super) have advantages as an acquisition format over HD. A complete film post path looks amazing... but its a matter of context. Personally, I do think that TPM and AOTC suffered visually because of their post paths (and the fact that lucas is a hack) BUT it is that post path which makes HD sensible. Side by side, I think TPM and AOTC are very similar in image quality.

But I should let you read my original, highly wanky, message -- here's an edited extract (edited cause i took out stupid bits):

I'm astounded by how many critics bash AOTC as having 'bad photography' and the obvious cause being HD. These critics seem to have no real understanding of both film or HD (or video in general). Ebert is a prime example. Dean is another.

Its a well established fact that certain scenes in TPM were shot on HD as a 'proof of concept' and intercut with the 35mm negative (which itself, I believe, was a 2K laser out... not a 4k). Can you spot which scenes they are? Or is the transfer of TPM such a 'travesty' that you can't tell? Could you tell in the cinema? Nope. I have my suspicions as to which scenes they are but I don't know for sure. Lucasfilm have kept their respective mouths closed over the issue - mostly to demonstrate the overinflated expertise of 'film critics'.

There were some problems with the 35mm print of AOTC in the cinemas. In particular, I'm thinking of the scene in Padme's chambers before the chase through Corscuant. There was a *lot* of noise in the CUs of Obiwan. It wasn't grain. It was noise. Apparently the story is that Lucas pulled the CU from a LS (possibly a MS). This is quite easy to do in telecine with film and the increased "resolution" of film allows such shot extraction to hold up well - on 35mm at least and with a well exposed slow speed stock. I've seen such extreme shot extractions from Super16mm and they look fuckinging awful.

But on the whole, I thought the digital images held up well. The kind of 'blurriness' of which Dean complain's in the speeder-chase ISN'T a product of HD acquisition, its a biproduct of the 'motion blur' algorithims used by ILM on their CGI. The motion blur of film is a product of shutter speed and its 'progressive' nature. HD has managed to mirror the properties of film very closely.

The lower resolution of HD is noticeable in longer shots. There's just a slight lack of sharpness in the background objects - but usually this is not important with an appropriate depth of field. Fact is, most visual effects films are scanned in and lasered out at 2K - and they loose much of their ' 4000 line resolution' in that process. Yes, it helps having more resolution when going in to the process than when going out. I'll admit that AOTC did look slightly soft on larger screens than on smaller screens. Alex Proyas saw AOTC and thought it looked soft, so has decided to stick to 35mm for the time being.

Me?

I've saw Panavision's HD vs Film tests about two years ago... here's what I wrote to TFN:

Nonetheless, we sat through an hour or so of test footage (including Tattersdale's own) and some pieces produced on HD. Its worth noting that what we saw projected was finished *on* film. We did see footage on the HD monitors but that is a different species entirely.

One of the tests Panavision Australia assembled was a (mostly) direct comparison between HD and Film. They had shot a 'complex scene' (with various taxing visual elements) simultaneously with a 35mm camera and a HD camera.

The film test was shot on Kodak Vision 5274 [200 ASA Tungsten Stock for the uninitiated] and then 'finished' in a variety of methods. The first we saw was a dupe struck directly off the camera neg, the second was a 'release print' (a dupe struck off an interpos print), the second was a 2k print.

The HD test was shot on a CineAlta, and was lasered out to two different stocks: a Vision Stock [probably 2383 Colour Print] and a Premiere Stock [still Kodak - not sure of the number].

The camera-dupe was the best image by far. Beautiful colour rendition, sharp, fine details etc. Second was the HD lasered to the Premiere stock, third was the HD lasered to the Vision stock. Both were sharp and clean, they just lacked the 'magic' of the camera negative. I'll explain why in a moment. I preferred the Premiere print because Premiere has less contrast than Vision, and video is a high-contrast format by nature. Fourth was the Release Dupe (from the film source). It was washed out and soft. Last was the 2k film blowup. Yuk.

Film projection is the (still) the mainstay of cinemas. Therefore, I suspect HD will NOT be lasered to film stock to create every release print. Rather, it'll be used to create the interpos for release prints. In which case, the HD release prints will be similar, quality wise, to film release prints. Of course, how good will depend on the lasering system used and the skill of the colourist. :)
Its worth noting that it took ILM quite a while to get a colour grade that pleased Lucas and Tattersdale.

Thats one of the advantages of film - its colour rendition is incredible. Most stocks tend to not be so good on the blues (if you know the curve filters from Photoshop, the Blue channel is slightly 'less' compared to the red and green) BUT its not a compressed format. HD is 4:2:2 and there is only so much you can push that down; although I believe Lucasfilm took uncompressed 4:4:4 footage straight to hard drive.

In the end, film has some advantages as an ACQUISITION format over HD. Frankly, I don't see much point posting in film these days. Its a f***ing nightmare for the VE people and with the rise of digital intermediates its becoming cost ineffecient. I'd shoot 35mm, scan to HD, edit that way.

But, as Robert Rodergieuz has said, AOTC is the worst HD will ever look. Ep3 is going to be shot on HD cameras with 10 megapixels CCDs (5 times the amount of pixels in the CineAlta - which is a camera not a process) hopefully they'll output the footage at 1920p to hard drives or some such. Its resolution is 1920x810, a slight improvement. The other alternative is the Thompson Viper Filmstream. The Viper - all ready in production - is 8 Mpixels, with a 1920x1080 2.37:1 image.

So. In conclusion. I think *HDCam* (if you want to call anything a process rather than a format in video, thats what lucas used) has some problems. Its far better than Super16mm. Its far better than 35mm from (say) 20 years ago. Its not as good as 35mm now. But the differences are mostly small and most people are deluding themselves if they say they noticed -continously- the ineffeciencies of HD in AOTC (as opposed to TPM which is the best comparison given its heavy visual effects load).

But then again, I'm growing jaded and cynical of all the DVD Reviewers who seem to think that cause they had a big TV (or projector) and a surround sound system that by god they actually understand filmmaking both creatively and technically.