(Video) ASC interview: Pfister
Awesome find, thanks for posting this! 
Great interview! Thanks!
Interesting interview. Although I'm a little taken aback that he'd campaign for the use of 16mm over digital. I mean for an artistic choice I don't see the issue with it (i.e Black Swan), but it simply doesn't capture an image that can compete with the high end digital cameras (ALEXA, RED One MX, RED EPIC, or even the F35...). I also find his comments about latitude interesting. Roger Deakin's feels strongly the the Arri ALEXA give him more latitude than film (Although he's referring to S35 as opposed to Anamorphic 35); I'd love to see a dialogue between these two cinematographers. I personally have always regarded film as having more latitude, but Roger Deakin's thoughts on the ALEXA definitely make me question the film vs digital latitude issue.
Great to hear his thoughts as always, thanks for sharing Dragon.
Great to hear his thoughts as always, thanks for sharing Dragon.
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Wally Pfister is out of his fucking mind. Plain and simple. Love the man's work, but he's completely off on this one. If I can get a RED One up and running and feed a signal to video village with my eyes closed, there is no reason his team of "professionals" can't.
Digital formats blow film out of the water in terms of low light capabilities. It handles shadows better... period. You can squeeze a lot more information out of those darker areas. Highlights he's totally spot on, they clip, especially on cameras like the 5D. ALEXA is MUCH better at handling highlights, but even a 5D MK2 outclasses a 35mm camera in the shadows and examples like he used "candle light". They were fooling around with the Phantom on INCEPTION which is known for it's weaknesses in handling highlights, maybe they should have went with the Weisscam. Then I'm sure he would have complained about the bit depth.
It sounds like the man hasn't got a handle on the tech and it's all too foreign to him. He likes film, because that's what he's comfortable with and that's fine. There's no need to spew stuff that isn't really true though. I knew he was nuts when he said The Social Network should have been shot on film. LOL. Social Network couldn't look like it does and have been shot like it was if it was shot on film.
Digital formats blow film out of the water in terms of low light capabilities. It handles shadows better... period. You can squeeze a lot more information out of those darker areas. Highlights he's totally spot on, they clip, especially on cameras like the 5D. ALEXA is MUCH better at handling highlights, but even a 5D MK2 outclasses a 35mm camera in the shadows and examples like he used "candle light". They were fooling around with the Phantom on INCEPTION which is known for it's weaknesses in handling highlights, maybe they should have went with the Weisscam. Then I'm sure he would have complained about the bit depth.
It sounds like the man hasn't got a handle on the tech and it's all too foreign to him. He likes film, because that's what he's comfortable with and that's fine. There's no need to spew stuff that isn't really true though. I knew he was nuts when he said The Social Network should have been shot on film. LOL. Social Network couldn't look like it does and have been shot like it was if it was shot on film.
That struck me as well. Digital is known for it's superiority in low light performance. That candle light example has always been used as showcase for the MX and HDSLR's low light capabilities, never film...RomanM wrote:Digital formats blow film out of the water in terms of low light capabilities. It handles shadows better... period. You can squeeze a lot more information out of those darker areas. Highlights he's totally spot on, they clip, especially on cameras like the 5D. ALEXA is MUCH better at handling highlights, but even a 5D MK2 outclasses a 35mm camera in the shadows and examples like he used "candle light". They were fooling around with the Phantom on INCEPTION which is known for it's weaknesses in handling highlights, maybe they should have went with the Weisscam. Then I'm sure he would have complained about the bit depth.
I knew he was nuts when he said The Social Network should have been shot on film. LOL. Social Network couldn't look like it does and have been shot like it was if it was shot on film.
And I was equally as surprised when he talked about The Social Network on that radio program. It would be a completely different looking film without the MX. The low light stuff would have been grainy as shit if not impossible. I also don't know what he's talking about when he says it takes longer to light digitally... Cronenweth said they averaged 25 minutes of set up for each scenes lighting; which is incredibly fast...
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When a pro talks about the time to make a camera "work" he doesn't mean getting just some kind of image recorded - it's about getting an image that holds up with the intended look. When he says the Phantom was tricky and time consuming to use, he didn't meant pushing the "Record"-button...
We should also not forget that Mr. Pfister is used to see his results as a nice 1st gen-print, not some crappy 35mm-cinema-print or Warner-transfer we usually end up seeing...
"Inception" was meant to look natural and realistic, getting rid of the specific "RED"/"Digital"-look is very difficult with RED - even with the MX. "The Social Network" didn't look as well as film (but it was clearly the best looking "RED-film", IMHO), the high-contrast scenes (which only were a minority in the film, luckily) just fell apart. Film tops out with low grain (at least in 35mm) at about 500ASA - but at T1.3 the scenes in "TSN" would have been perfectly possible and the scenes would hold up much nicer tonality. Modern digital cameras are faster with little noise, but they don't necessarily hold shadow-detail better because negative film has to be exposed differently (for the shadows - not highlights), then the shadows hold up nicely and the highlight-rendering remains unsurpassed (well, the ALEXA is close).
I saw "Inception" in IMAX on 70mm, it simply blew "TSN" (with any kind of projection) away, technically. Especially the "brownish" interior scenes which both films incorporated (not exactly my cup of tea) showed the difference and the image was soft (28m wide screen) but detailed. "STN" was clean, but not detailed beyond HD. But to be honest, the blu-ray of "STN" looks better than the rather poor transfer (soft and waxy - not nearly as crisp as "the International" or even older films like "Se7en") from "Inception", IMHO.
Mr. Pfister should push for 65mm or IMAX, which is another league anyway!
We should also not forget that Mr. Pfister is used to see his results as a nice 1st gen-print, not some crappy 35mm-cinema-print or Warner-transfer we usually end up seeing...
"Inception" was meant to look natural and realistic, getting rid of the specific "RED"/"Digital"-look is very difficult with RED - even with the MX. "The Social Network" didn't look as well as film (but it was clearly the best looking "RED-film", IMHO), the high-contrast scenes (which only were a minority in the film, luckily) just fell apart. Film tops out with low grain (at least in 35mm) at about 500ASA - but at T1.3 the scenes in "TSN" would have been perfectly possible and the scenes would hold up much nicer tonality. Modern digital cameras are faster with little noise, but they don't necessarily hold shadow-detail better because negative film has to be exposed differently (for the shadows - not highlights), then the shadows hold up nicely and the highlight-rendering remains unsurpassed (well, the ALEXA is close).
I saw "Inception" in IMAX on 70mm, it simply blew "TSN" (with any kind of projection) away, technically. Especially the "brownish" interior scenes which both films incorporated (not exactly my cup of tea) showed the difference and the image was soft (28m wide screen) but detailed. "STN" was clean, but not detailed beyond HD. But to be honest, the blu-ray of "STN" looks better than the rather poor transfer (soft and waxy - not nearly as crisp as "the International" or even older films like "Se7en") from "Inception", IMHO.
Mr. Pfister should push for 65mm or IMAX, which is another league anyway!
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georgla wrote:When a pro talks about the time to make a camera "work" he doesn't mean getting just some kind of image recorded - it's about getting an image that holds up with the intended look. When he says the Phantom was tricky and time consuming to use, he didn't meant pushing the "Record"-button...
We should also not forget that Mr. Pfister is used to see his results as a nice 1st gen-print, not some crappy 35mm-cinema-print or Warner-transfer we usually end up seeing...
"Inception" was meant to look natural and realistic, getting rid of the specific "RED"/"Digital"-look is very difficult with RED - even with the MX. "The Social Network" didn't look as well as film (but it was clearly the best looking "RED-film", IMHO), the high-contrast scenes (which only were a minority in the film, luckily) just fell apart. Film tops out with low grain (at least in 35mm) at about 500ASA - but at T1.3 the scenes in "TSN" would have been perfectly possible and the scenes would hold up much nicer tonality. Modern digital cameras are faster with little noise, but they don't necessarily hold shadow-detail better because negative film has to be exposed differently (for the shadows - not highlights), then the shadows hold up nicely and the highlight-rendering remains unsurpassed (well, the ALEXA is close).
I saw "Inception" in IMAX on 70mm, it simply blew "TSN" (with any kind of projection) away, technically. Especially the "brownish" interior scenes which both films incorporated (not exactly my cup of tea) showed the difference and the image was soft (28m wide screen) but detailed. "STN" was clean, but not detailed beyond HD. But to be honest, the blu-ray of "STN" looks better than the rather poor transfer (soft and waxy - not nearly as crisp as "the International" or even older films like "Se7en") from "Inception", IMHO.
Mr. Pfister should push for 65mm or IMAX, which is another league anyway!
Pfister was clearly having issues not only getting an image he wanted, but he even mentions things like feeding video village and having DITs struggle over recording images. I'm not making this up you saw the video.
Naturalism if anything is easier to achieve using digital than it is using film. The real world sad to say, looks a lot closer to Public Enemies than it does to INCEPTION. If they were shooting on RED Pfister wouldn't see his results on a shitty warner print or a 35mm cinema print. He would see the RAW files shooting right out of a 4K SONY projector. The same way we watch them in theaters now. TSN is a 800ASA T1.3 film, with the 25-30 minute lighting set ups, it is something that simply couldn't be shot how it was as fast as it was on film. Fincher and Cronenweth obviously feel that way and it isn't like they haven't shot film before.
I saw INCEPTION IMAX blow up as well and can honestly say I thought the Social Network was a more interesting film to look at. The RED brought out so much detail in the environment, I could almost smell those Harvard inspired sets. The textures on the walls and surfaces felt oh so real. It's an incredible looking film. I also don't understand your point of "more detailed beyond HD"
It sounds like we're going to end up agreeing to disagree on this topic.
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Finchers loves digital, he even used a 2/3"-CCD-video-camera to replace 35mm anamorphic - which is as very... let's say a brave technical decision even from looking at the specs alone.
"Public Enemies" is full of digital artifacts which resemble the "look" we know from reality-TV or documentations - but todays film allows for the widest range of "looks" (due to tonality, dynamic range, latitude, lack of sampling issues - but combined with digital scanning and processing) - it can look warm or cool, harsh or soft - all RED-movies (or Genesis, D21) share a certain "signature".
Pfister mentioned several issues, I don't know the Phantom well and if there are problems even with monitoring but the issues with getting the image right, handling of the camera itself (a RED is not even sealed, it uses consumer-grade controls - it's not a rugged ARRI) are well known with digital. Recording an uncompressed signal isn't even possible witout cables (although SR-cards will propably change that). A film-set is not an office, computers that crash, overheat or cannot take physical punishment don't belong there.
The latest generation of digital cinema cameras has vastly improved (Genesis, D21 and RED were barely usable beyond 400ASA) and especially the ALEXA stands out - but even ARRI mostly sees it as an alternative for Super16 (their marketing in the US has to be more aggressive due to RED-marketing), because for them 35mm is a 4k+-medium (6k scan, 4k DI, no color interpolation, no OLPF - possible with ARRI-tools for over 5 years) -it's fine for cinema, but not 35mm.
I hated the way "TSN" looked, it could have been filmed by many directors, it wouldn't have needed Fincher, IMHO. Especially the underexposed, brownish interiors didn't seem to use elaborate lighting - doesn't surprise me that it was quick to shoot (the film itself was awfully expensive, it was more expensive than "the Prestige" - which looked much better, IMHO). I guess you're right, we will disagree about that.
Clean but not very detailed and clipped highlights:
http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film3/blu-ray_ ... ray_10.jpg
Clean not very detailed but "flat" faces, crushed shadows:
http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film3/blu-ray_ ... -ray_8.jpg
Of course, these are JPGs, but they show pretty well how the film looked like in the theater as well. They're downsampled from 4k (interpolated) to 1080p - and oversampling is crucial in professional digital cinematography - the detail-loss is negligible in most cases (while on 35mm it is not).
I prefer that look when it comes to being realistic:
http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film2/DVDRevie ... al%206.jpg
Most film prints and even the DIs and tranfers from film are weak, but don't blame the acquisition-medium.
"Public Enemies" is full of digital artifacts which resemble the "look" we know from reality-TV or documentations - but todays film allows for the widest range of "looks" (due to tonality, dynamic range, latitude, lack of sampling issues - but combined with digital scanning and processing) - it can look warm or cool, harsh or soft - all RED-movies (or Genesis, D21) share a certain "signature".
Pfister mentioned several issues, I don't know the Phantom well and if there are problems even with monitoring but the issues with getting the image right, handling of the camera itself (a RED is not even sealed, it uses consumer-grade controls - it's not a rugged ARRI) are well known with digital. Recording an uncompressed signal isn't even possible witout cables (although SR-cards will propably change that). A film-set is not an office, computers that crash, overheat or cannot take physical punishment don't belong there.
The latest generation of digital cinema cameras has vastly improved (Genesis, D21 and RED were barely usable beyond 400ASA) and especially the ALEXA stands out - but even ARRI mostly sees it as an alternative for Super16 (their marketing in the US has to be more aggressive due to RED-marketing), because for them 35mm is a 4k+-medium (6k scan, 4k DI, no color interpolation, no OLPF - possible with ARRI-tools for over 5 years) -it's fine for cinema, but not 35mm.
I hated the way "TSN" looked, it could have been filmed by many directors, it wouldn't have needed Fincher, IMHO. Especially the underexposed, brownish interiors didn't seem to use elaborate lighting - doesn't surprise me that it was quick to shoot (the film itself was awfully expensive, it was more expensive than "the Prestige" - which looked much better, IMHO). I guess you're right, we will disagree about that.
Clean but not very detailed and clipped highlights:
http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film3/blu-ray_ ... ray_10.jpg
Clean not very detailed but "flat" faces, crushed shadows:
http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film3/blu-ray_ ... -ray_8.jpg
Of course, these are JPGs, but they show pretty well how the film looked like in the theater as well. They're downsampled from 4k (interpolated) to 1080p - and oversampling is crucial in professional digital cinematography - the detail-loss is negligible in most cases (while on 35mm it is not).
I prefer that look when it comes to being realistic:
http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film2/DVDRevie ... al%206.jpg
Most film prints and even the DIs and tranfers from film are weak, but don't blame the acquisition-medium.
You're definitely in the minority on The Social Network georgia. I for one loved the look and think it's one of the most beautifully lit and composed films of the year, and it, you know, getting an undisputed Oscar nomination (in both cinematography and direction) backs up that I'm not alone in thinking that.
Comments like this: "but don't blame the acquisition-medium" literally have nothing to do with anything Roman's said. Neither I nor Roman have tried to argue that current digital formats are superior to film, although S35 scanned at 4K has the same measured resolution as RAW RED One footage, and the EPIC blows the ONE out of the water in, well, everything, including resolution, so the argument could be made S35 has been past by digital. But, of course in terms of latitude (arguably with the ALEXA according to Deakins), actual resolution, and overall image quality Anamorphic 35 is the king of practical formats. What Roman is saying is that despite that, the RED One MX records images at a very high quality that achieves the look, color, low light performance and functionality that Fincher and company wanted. And obviously many people feel as though he and Cronenweth succeeded.
This conversation about The Social Network is one of stylistic merits which we are going to have to agree to disagree on, not about the technical merits of digtial and film. We know Anamorphic (at 4/6K) still has the highest image quality; it's fairly common knowledge and no-one here is arguing against that so save your breath with the basic technical information you seem so eagerly needing to spread at every opportunity around this board.
Comments like this: "but don't blame the acquisition-medium" literally have nothing to do with anything Roman's said. Neither I nor Roman have tried to argue that current digital formats are superior to film, although S35 scanned at 4K has the same measured resolution as RAW RED One footage, and the EPIC blows the ONE out of the water in, well, everything, including resolution, so the argument could be made S35 has been past by digital. But, of course in terms of latitude (arguably with the ALEXA according to Deakins), actual resolution, and overall image quality Anamorphic 35 is the king of practical formats. What Roman is saying is that despite that, the RED One MX records images at a very high quality that achieves the look, color, low light performance and functionality that Fincher and company wanted. And obviously many people feel as though he and Cronenweth succeeded.
This conversation about The Social Network is one of stylistic merits which we are going to have to agree to disagree on, not about the technical merits of digtial and film. We know Anamorphic (at 4/6K) still has the highest image quality; it's fairly common knowledge and no-one here is arguing against that so save your breath with the basic technical information you seem so eagerly needing to spread at every opportunity around this board.
