HIDEF..too good?

[RobertScorpio]

backlit artwork

Have mercy DS, kids don't know this stuff. "Matte" covers everything that FX Peeps used to do, doncha know?

Given how much discussion of VFX there is on this board, maybe a "VFX And What Ain't 101" thread would be a good idea. Then everyone would know the difference between rear projection, front projection, IntroVision, Zoptic, hanging miniatures, glass shots, matte shots, repeat-pass motion control elements, go motion, stop motion, sodium vapour process, etc., and what a translite, forced perspective set, cyclorama, etc. is, too.

The again, I ain't writing all those descriptions!

perhaps..but it is a good idea!!!

So...okay..how did they do the moving starfied in TOS????

Rob

 

[Therin of Andor]

So...okay..how did they do the moving starfied in TOS????

A rotating barrel, draped with black fabric, upon which are glued tiny squares of aluminum.

Same as on TNG. I actually have a single quarter-inch "star" from the set of TNG.

 

[Maurice]

Have mercy DS, kids don't know this stuff. "Matte" covers everything that FX Peeps used to do, doncha know?

Given how much discussion of VFX there is on this board, maybe a "VFX And What Ain't 101" thread would be a good idea. Then everyone would know the difference between rear projection, front projection, IntroVision, Zoptic, hanging miniatures, glass shots, matte shots, repeat-pass motion control elements, go motion, stop motion, sodium vapour process, etc., and what a translite, forced perspective set, cyclorama, etc. is, too.

The again, I ain't writing all those descriptions!

perhaps..but it is a good idea!!!

So...okay..how did they do the moving starfied in TOS????

Rob

Which moving starfield? The fly-through ones seen on the viewer? The ones for the exterior space shots as the ship flies by?

 

[Trevacious]

Some of you may have already seen these things, so bravo zulu to you. But now, with my 1080p and blurays, I can REALLY see these things.

You could've seen them even better at the theater in 1979, if you were really watching for them.

 

[RobertScorpio]

Is your TV one of the new 120Hz ones? If so, try to look at the movement and depth of the image. It looks like news or sports, right? I noticed it on my sister's set, not knowing that hers is 120Hz, and couldn't figure out why the image didn't look right until I saw it in a store side by side with a standard 60Hz set.

If your set is 120Hz, that may also be contributing to why you're noticing these things now.

Ziz..and everyone else..I JUST got a 1080p 240hz TV this weekend...i am ABSOLUTELY floored with how 'fake' everything looks now. I just watched KHAN with my friend, and oh my god..its like YOU ARE THERE watching them film it. I cant put in words what i mean..but when we watched IRONMAN after Khan, and since Iron man is a newer film, the images are TOO perfect. The scene inside the HUMVEE with Tony and the army dudes is SO LIFE LIKE its like you're watching it live and for some reason? It doesn't look like a movie anymore. It looks like I am watching them film a movie and I am there and..well...before you get one of these TVs I warn you...BEWARE. It is hard to put in word. GO TEST one..I spent $2800 on this TV and, well, I am kind of regretting it..BUT NO..I wont get rid of it...I'm just saying that you may want to test one out before you get one...amazing


Rob

 

[trevanian]

It's a real horrorshow out there with the 120 and 240hz sets, it is like they are all set up for showing football games with the crisp no blur stuff. I'm figuring I will have to buy a plasma AND make sure it does not have this 120 or 240 tech, which seems to ruin the whole movie experience in favor of delivering this 'real life' crap. Cameron's flick promises to make things worse in this way, as he is insanely no-blur-crazed now.

Don't these folks realize half the art is WITHIN the blur? It'd be like rephotographing everything in The Louvre and then extracting the brushstrokes via digital noise reduction (or, alternately, enhancing them to the point that you can ONLY see texture and not artwork.)

 

[trevanian]

So...okay..how did they do the moving starfied in TOS????

A rotating barrel, draped with black fabric, upon which are glued tiny squares of aluminum.

Same as on TNG. I actually have a single quarter-inch "star" from the set of TNG.

When did they ever have a TOS practical starfield on set? Maybe NEVER? The only non-optical starfield I ever recall was a static painted one over the viewscreen in DOOMSDAY MACHINE ... even the RP stuff 3rd season used optical effect stars done in the listed-below fashion.

(pretty sure he is talking about the multiplane stars, anyway, the optical ones you get by shooting several moving passes -- with zoom or dolly -- on a starfield to generate the effect put in as backgrounds.)

 

[RobertScorpio]

So...okay..how did they do the moving starfied in TOS????

A rotating barrel, draped with black fabric, upon which are glued tiny squares of aluminum.

Same as on TNG. I actually have a single quarter-inch "star" from the set of TNG.

When did they ever have a TOS practical starfield on set? Maybe NEVER? The only non-optical starfield I ever recall was a static painted one over the viewscreen in DOOMSDAY MACHINE ... even the RP stuff 3rd season used optical effect stars done in the listed-below fashion.

(pretty sure he is talking about the multiplane stars, anyway, the optical ones you get by shooting several moving passes -- with zoom or dolly -- on a starfield to generate the effect put in as backgrounds.)

yes..the optical ones...what are they passing? What is actually creating the 'stars'? And in many cases they have several layers. How did they do that without computers in the mid 60s?

Rob

 

[RobertScorpio]

It's a real horrorshow out there with the 120 and 240hz sets, it is like they are all set up for showing football games with the crisp no blur stuff. I'm figuring I will have to buy a plasma AND make sure it does not have this 120 or 240 tech, which seems to ruin the whole movie experience in favor of delivering this 'real life' crap. Cameron's flick promises to make things worse in this way, as he is insanely no-blur-crazed now.

Don't these folks realize half the art is WITHIN the blur? It'd be like rephotographing everything in The Louvre and then extracting the brushstrokes via digital noise reduction (or, alternately, enhancing them to the point that you can ONLY see texture and not artwork.)

BLUR thats the word!! Yes, when people move their heads, even in older movies like KHAN, it is just so smooth its like you're seeing it happen. I think you may have something there Trev!!!...

Rob

 

[Pindar]

I see that over the weekend I have developed an agenda and am pushing some kind of hate on hi-def based on two posts one here and one in TOS.

Anyway hi-def is excellent especially when showing something intended to be viewed hi-def.

I have watched more of the original series and it does look fantastic, the lower production values in where no man has gone before really stand out but in other episodes better finished uniforms don't have the jarring problems I had watching the pilot.

Khan a film I have seen 100's of times I would like to get on blu-ray but the new releases look horribly over processed which puts me off them.

 

[jefferiestubes8]

High Definition framerates

we watched IRONMAN after Khan, and since Iron man is a newer film, the images are TOO perfect. The scene inside the HUMVEE with Tony and the army dudes is SO LIFE LIKE its like you're watching it live and for some reason? It doesn't look like a movie anymore. It looks like I am watching them film a movie and I am there

I disagree. Iron Man was shot on
Super 35 (source format). That is film at 24fps with film grain telecined to HD video.

HD video at a higher frame rate looks more like real life so documentaries shot at 60i look much more lifelike.
When the Star Trek XI aka "Star Trek: The Future Begins" - Malaysia (English title) Blu-ray comes out I'm sure they would have shot the behind-the-scenes on-location footage at 60i or at the least 30P. It has a news-like video look to it that is much more like real life than a feature film at 24fps.
A totally different look is Saving Private Ryan (1998) which while shot on film and then desaturated the battle scenes had a shutter angle that was a faster shutter speed and froze the action between frames (without motion blur) and gave a jerky effect which is a stylized type of 24fps shooting.
Now that you have an HDTV take a look at your local HD newsbroadcast on a channel that uses 1080i (not 720p) and see the feature stories shot on location. They are not 24fps and there is a difference compared to Iron Man and it is not just the lighting.
I will admit that modern episodic television like CSI or Heroes which still shoots on 35mm uses state of the art techniques but it is still film at 24fps. Try Law & Order (the original show), Dexter, or Weeds which now shoot HD at 24fps without film grain. There is still a difference to a documentary or news at 60i. That is the main difference. Lenses and depth of field are another, lighting is another.
For comparison the competition-reality TV show Survivor is now shot at 30P on HD video. CBS' 60 Minutes also shoots at 30P. NBC Network news at 630PM [on-location feature stories] shoot at 60i. Entertainment Tonight shoots at 60i.

 

[destructive]

Don't watch the trek movies, or any other movies for that matter in 240hz blur-reduction, the TV is inserting three new frames for every one frame turning 24p into 72p, directors never intend for their movies to be seen like this, as they were not shot like this, you wouldn't pan and scan a 2.35:1 movie into a 4:3 ratio, you wouldn't watch a black and white movie in color, don't deform the frame rate of a movie or tv show

If your tv has 120hz or 240hz it can (and should) be turned off retuning your set to the traditional 60hz

 

[trevanian]

Don't watch the trek movies, or any other movies for that matter in 240hz blur-reduction, the TV is inserting three new frames for every one frame turning 24p into 72p, directors never intend for their movies to be seen like this, as they were not shot like this, you wouldn't pan and scan a 2.35:1 movie into a 4:3 ratio, you wouldn't watch a black and white movie in color, don't deform the frame rate of a movie or tv show

If your tv has 120hz or 240hz it can (and should) be turned off retuning your set to the traditional 60hz

Wow, there's an off switch for these features? Why didn't any of the salespeople or literature mention that? Even one of my editors was warning me about the 240hz thing (he has spent 2 years trying to find a new set that he can watch movies on without all this blur-reduction crap) ... I'm seriously relieved if that is the case.

 

[trevanian]

It's a real horrorshow out there with the 120 and 240hz sets, it is like they are all set up for showing football games with the crisp no blur stuff. I'm figuring I will have to buy a plasma AND make sure it does not have this 120 or 240 tech, which seems to ruin the whole movie experience in favor of delivering this 'real life' crap. Cameron's flick promises to make things worse in this way, as he is insanely no-blur-crazed now.

Don't these folks realize half the art is WITHIN the blur? It'd be like rephotographing everything in The Louvre and then extracting the brushstrokes via digital noise reduction (or, alternately, enhancing them to the point that you can ONLY see texture and not artwork.)

BLUR thats the word!! Yes, when people move their heads, even in older movies like KHAN, it is just so smooth its like you're seeing it happen. I think you may have something there Trev!!!...

Rob

To stave off the 'blur is bad' argument, I'm just going to put this little tidbit out there. I used to have a book with a John Huston interview in it, might be the DIRECTING book that AFI put out in the 70s, not sure. But he differentiated between cuts and pans on a physiological basis. He told the interviewer to look at him, then look at somebody else a ways off. He told the guy to do it a couple times. He observed the guy blink, and said, THERE, that's a cut. If you were following somebody around with your eye, it'd be like a camera pan, but there's a human based pattern to choosing to cut or pan.

Now if you apply this mindset to blur, it also works. The human eye doesn't see in perfect clarity from zero to infinity. You can trick a camera into doing something close to that, but it is artifice, often distratcting artifice. Likewise, when you're on the side of the road and somebody throws a punch at your face, you're not seeing the fist in total clarity all the way in to your nose, and certainly not seeing it that way while seeing cars driving by on the z-axis with no-blur clarity. Part of that is a matter of directing your eye to what is important, and part is just how much you can take in within your field of view.

The no-blur tv thing seems to be an attempt to do the 'you are there' of video presence coupled with an immersive deep focus kind of clarity, but it is literally just too much information. I guess it is kind of a novelty for certain images, but if you're close enough to register an immersive experience, you're probably too close to process the overdetailed images. So it kills the 'this is cinerama' effect of big tv with a lack of blur and too much clarity ... at least that's my 630am take on it, before the coffee finishes percolating.

 

[Chrisisall]

Jeeze, I'm really happy being back here in the stone age with my prehistoric 720p LED TV!

 

[Chrisisall]

He observed the guy blink, and said, THERE, that's a cut. If you were following somebody around with your eye, it'd be like a camera pan, but there's a human based pattern to choosing to cut or pan.

You wanna freak peeps out at a party? "Pan" as you look from one person to the next, with no "cuts."

 

[destructive]

I think the real purpose for these 240hz sets is to usher in a polarized forum of 3D video for the home as opposed to the old-fashioned anaglyph 3D, 120hz for each eye (each 120hz doing the 5:5 pulldown to properly display 24p for each eye, or something or other)

 

[Maurice]

yes..the optical ones...what are they passing? What is actually creating the 'stars'? And in many cases they have several layers. How did they do that without computers in the mid 60s?

Rob

Technically off-topic, but since you asked...

They're not passing anything. Moving starfields pre-cgi were typically generated by shooting a black card with either painted-on stars or holes punched through so that a backlight would show as glowing points. The camera was physically moved towards or away from the card. That gives you one layer of stars apparently moving. Composite a bunch of such passes together with staggered starting points and you build up a dimensional looking starfield.

You could shoot this either with a dolly (albeit without motion control it would be difficult to keep the speed even) or on an animation stand (where you can move the camera towards or away from the artwork frame by frame.

Watch the starfields under the start or end credits of Superman The Movie, the stars tend to cycle in "clumps", and the layers are really fairly apparent, and repeat.