Rakesh Malik wrote:No one is suggesting that it be discarded, but the obsession with it is completely silly and pointless.
Why do you think it is an obsession? I think a good story-teller will choose his camera on the content. Some films like Ben Hur and Star Wars do require the 70 mm look.
Rakesh Malik wrote:Not because Vista Vision and 135 formats don't have their uses, but because most of the dSLR video users just used them to make their backgrounds more out of focus rather than improve the quality of their work.
Aah! Ok. But I have seen plenty of cinematographers using s-35 format talking about which lenses to use, which lens will give a creamy background, which lens will give a pleasant bokeh, why cinemascope image is outstanding, blah blah blah... How about that? In cinema, it's the image which stares at your face. I find nothing wrong in these. And yes, I agree most of the DSLR video users need to improve the quality of their work. Same is true about most of the S35 video users.
Rakesh Malik wrote:Larger formats are nice, but hardly necessary. Just look at Blade Runner 2049. Roger Deakins and Denis Villeneuve selected Alexas for that -- not Alexa 65, even though they had that option (and did test it, according to Deakins).
This necessity depends on the subject and narrative. Some extra-ordinary films demanded 70 mm filming. Even during that time, some films were deliberately shot in 16 mm for stylistic reasons
Rakesh Malik wrote:The "shallow depth of field = more cinematic" crowd is very misguided. There is no such formula. It's just as pointless as the Fool of Thirds... dogmatically adhering to such silliness leads to generic images that look like all the other Fool of Thirds cultists' and stifles art.
I see. Let's talk about art then. Let's look at some paintings from the renaissance era. We tend to see that the "subject" tends to come out from the background. So, the background of a portrait is always blurred. In other words, the "shallow depth of field" applied to visual art too. Rakesh, tell me honestly, don't you separate your characters from the background in a talkie scene, while you are shooting? Don't you try and cut the lights on the background wall? Don't you try that again in post? Every cinematographer does. And why do they do it? Because they want the characters to stand out from the background. In FF you can separate the characters more easily. If you don't want to do it, it's your take. Yes, there is no such formula as I have explained earlier. People choose things as per the demand of the narrative. There's no strict rule of thirds too. That's a western composition theory. Oriental visual art form relied on central composition -- you can see that from the Mughal paintings to Kurosawa's films.
Rakesh Malik wrote:Besides, Red's Vista Vision cameras cost $80,000. Arri's 135 "large format" camera costs $90,000.
Fuji's medium format camera that's actually close in size to Vista Vision costs $6500, and can only do stills and HD video. Think about it... it's not a trivial engineering challenge, and while I think that BMD COULD pull it off engineering wise, I do not think that BMD could justify it from a business point of view right now, given the price points that it's targeting. Right now, a full frame BMD camera would most likely be out of the price range of BMD's customer base.
BMD has always surprised us. I am waiting for one more surprise. That's about all
Rakesh Malik wrote:But it will never change the fact that the best camera is the one you already have, not the one you can't afford.
I beg to differ. The camera I own is not the best camera. The camera I aspire for, is the best.
Rakesh Malik wrote:If you can't make great content with an UMP or UM 4.6K, then you won't be able to make great content with a Monstro VV or Alexa 65 either.
Agreed. You can make great content with DSLRs and iphones too.
FILMWALLAH.
DR Studio. Mac M1 Studio Ultra 64 GB Ram, T7 for Resolve Cache
UMP G2, BMD Pocket 6K, Canon R5 C
Zeiss CP.3 15, 25, 50, 85. Zeiss Contax 25, 35, 50, 85, 135.