Marvel's The Avengers - Page 5

Avengers had an atrocious post converted 3D. It was a complete nonsense. Either Cameron should do all post 3D conversion, or Hollywood should stick to native 3D.

Avengers was also shot with the hideous 2.8K Arri Alexa camera. In this day and age, it should be a crime not to use the Red Epic (5K). Arri Alexa is the second ugliest picture producing camera system in the history of motion picture, next to the Sony F950 (Avatar, Star Wars prequels, etc.) which was truly disgusting.

How is it "hideous"?
I daresay the DPs know these cameras better than you do, and the Alexa seems to taken over a huge chunk of the digital cinematography market share since it came out. I suspect there's a good reason for this.

Avengers looked fantastic in 2D. I don't have much use for 3D. Coraline and Avatar made some good use of it, but my reaction never goes beyond 'neat!'. It's still a gimmick, and not essential to the story.

Drive says **** you.

You guys joked! Right? Drive was a HIDEOUS looking movie.

DRIVE looked sensational.

AVENGERS was nice looking on 2D and I refused to see it in 3D. Creative lighting was not an AVENGERS thing though.

I don't get that at all. Did it actually affect your ability to enjoy the movie? Even if I knew the details of every camera you mentioned, I have a hard time imagining I could think of Drive as hideous looking.

Nonsense. Haven't seen the BD (well I saw it on a laptop but that doesnt really count) but it looked great in digital projection. Avengers I saw in lousy, dim projection but it looked fine as well. I haven't seen one cinematographer say the Alexa is a bad camera. I have seen one 9-time Oscar nominated cinematographer say it's the best digital movie camera to date, however!

In my opinion of course

I'd like to hear more about your opinion. Can you elaborate? Is it just that camera X is known to be awesome, and camera Y sucks, therefore everything shot on them appears accordingly?

We saw Avengers 5 times theatrically, all 2-D. Three times it was gorgeously projected, twice it was dim and dull. I expect, like Avatar, that the Blu-ray will exceed the theatrical experience.

Greg, it's definitely not the XY scenario. I equally despise just about all digital cameras (Sony F950, Sony CineAlta F35, Arri Alexa, etc.), except for the Red Epic and maybe the Red One. Here's why and of course this is purely my opinion: The picture is extremely flat. Not one ounce of even the slightest depth, or 3D effect. Noisy. Low dynamic range. Full of artifacts. Dark scenes are simply atrocious. Mostly incorrect shutter speed of 1/50 (50Hz in Europe), or 1/60 in the U.S. Super low resolution. Even a garbage 35mm film stock is six times higher. In conclusion, virtually ZERO film like quality.

These cameras produce such a flat, uninspiring, boring, and not interesting visual experience that it's like listening to Pink Floyd: Afterwards, one immediately wants to commit suicide from severe depression.

The ugliest movies in cinematic history are the Star Wars prequels and everything shot by Mann after Ali. Nothing even comes close. And I'm including Uwe Boll's films here and any B movie with a budget greater than 10K that was shot on film. But George Lucas was a pioneer, so I won't hate on him. Same goes for James Cameron, my all time favorite director and an inspiration. Mann on the other hand should have a psych evaluation.

Prometheus was starting to resemble film (Red Epic was used). Also take a look at The Hobbit's trailer (Red Epic again). There's a reason why Fincher waited years before attempting to shoot digital and he chose the Red One. There's also a reason why Cameron has purchased 50 Red Epic cameras for Avatar 2 and 3. And of course there's also a reason why Tarantino and Spielberg still love film.
Edited by NagysAudio - 8/7/12 at 10:45pm

lol, you just exactly described how I feel about almost everything shot on the Red.
For my money, the films shot on the Panavision Genesis tend to have the most filmic look but that camera is pretty obsolete at this point.

Soderbergh used some new anamorphic lenses with the RED ONE to shoot Haywire, and I loved the results. Traditional anamorphic bokeh + 4.5K digital clarity = win.

With any luck. Deakins is well overdue for an Oscar.

Also in my opinion the Alexa looks better than the Red cameras despite having a lower resolution.

Oooh, I didn't know that Skyfall was shot on the Alexa. Bond's finally going digital, I thought there'd be more fanfare.

With all the talk about camera's used, which I know nothing about, the funny thing to me is that I thought The Avengers looked great. In fact, as I've mentioned elsewhere in the forum, of the 3D movies I've seen, this one was far and away the best, albeit this was my first IMAX experience. I also saw it two other times in "regular 3D", which basically was the equivalent of other "regular" 3D presentations I've seen and in 2D, which again looked fantastic. IMO, they'd have to be trying for this to not come out as reference grade on BD.

I saw it in regular 2D at a 2K digital screening, and it looked terrific. I'll be watching the 3D version first off when the uber-boxset arrives, though.

What d'ya mean, "some shots"? The movie was finished at 2K and shot predominantly on the sub-3K Alexa, the whole thing was an upscale if you saw it on a 4K projector.

Matter of fact, the projectors at my local are all 4K Sonys now, so I was actually watching the upscaled version too!

Nein, mein herr. A 4K workflow is still very expensive, so 2K is pretty much the standard at the moment. Sony love a bit of 4K though, Fincher managed to finagle a 4K finish on Dragon Tattoo.

Most of the screens at my local cinema are also equipped with Sony 4K projectors. And let me just say this: THEY ARE FABULOUS!
Edited by NagysAudio - 8/8/12 at 5:35pm

Yes indeed. Who'd have thought that Adam Sandler's That's My Boy needed a 4K finish? Ask Sony.