Villeneuve's Dune: Digital LF to 35mm Film to Digital

I love films and going to the movies, and love equally knowing what goes into the making of films, especially the ones I've enjoyed or plan to see. I know film makers still use actual film, in many cases but the lengths they go to often seems to exceed any expectation. The end results of course, will be with us forever. Fun stuff, to be sure.

 

https://ymcinema.com/2021/12/03/dune-was-shot-on-alexa-lf-transferred-to-35mm-film-then-scanned-back-to-digital/

LF in this case means not bigger than photographic full frame 35 mm format.

I'm probably considered a heathen but all the films I've seen in decades have been on a TV screen. This reminds me of the days when I was still watching VHS and my son was telling me I needed to get a DVD player. My argument was that a rubbish film was still a rubbish film whatever you watched it on and a good film was good even with the limitations of the tech. I enjoyed the David Lynch version of Dune but now I'm led to believe it was rubbish! what I will say is the book was better, much better pictures.

Really interesting process. I wonder how and at what step or steps in the process they did their color grading.

I'm probably considered a heathen but all the films I've seen in decades have been on a TV screen. This reminds me of the days when I was still watching VHS and my son was telling me I needed to get a DVD player. My argument was that a rubbish film was still a rubbish film whatever you watched it on and a good film was good even with the limitations of the tech. I enjoyed the David Lynch version of Dune but now I'm led to believe it was rubbish! what I will say is the book was better, much better pictures.

 

I’ve never seen the original David Lynch adaptation of Dune. Reading today about it, he has said he considers it a failure. That said, the film has long since attained cult status, and I will see it some day before too long. The new Dune is indeed lush, now I need to re-view it. I hope to get into the theater to see it again- the first time I viewed it some weeks ago was on a friend’s screen- he has a massive high end projector and a video/movie screening “facility” at his home with a high end audio system. Actually far better than any theater experience!

 

And with that I will say some films are best seen on a large screen and some are made specifically for the large screen- Mr Villeneuve has said that Dune was purpose made for large screen format.

 

@qg…. Hmmm I thought “LF” in this instance meant large format- they speak about IMAX and IMAX cameras in the article. I’ll have to re-read it to see in what context IMAX was used.

ALEXA LF FAQ

 

36.7 x 25.54 mm. Open gate. Large format for cinema perhaps.

In 16:9, it's 31.68 x 17.82 mm. Considerably smaller than photographic 35 mm full frame.

For cinematic wide screen, it's also smaller: 36.7 x 15.31 mm.

I will say some films are best seen on a large screen and some are made specifically for the large screen

I find that a good movie is a good movie no matter how I see it but agree that a good movie is often aided by being seen on a good screen with good sound. Not unlike photos. Even a lousy print of a great photo can be great, but often seeing a better print adds a lot to the experience. And seeing a really good photo under optimal lighting conditions can also be eye-opening.

 

On the other hand, with some old family snapshots, for example, I've had family members "clean up" old photos and completely lose something very special about them that the torn and faded originals had in the scrapbook.

I'm probably considered a heathen but all the films I've seen in decades have been on a TV screen. This reminds me of the days when I was still watching VHS and my son was telling me I needed to get a DVD player.

(snip)

 

VHS, especially at the lower speeds, is much lower quality (resolution) than the broadcast TV standard.

The sound track for VHS is also not all that good.

 

Sony's Beta-HiFI moved the video signal up, to allow for a higher quality FM sound track.

 

VHS couldn't move the video signal, so put the VHS HiFi sound track deeper into the tape

than the video signal. This complicated things, and makes recorders/players more expensive.

 

The S-VHS gives a higher quality video signal, though (usually) requiring higher quality tape.

SONY replied with ED-Beta, though it might have only caught on for commercial use.

(As well as I know, popular for TV broadcast use.)

 

So, yes, DVD brought higher quality video (and audio) to home users, and at reasonable

prices for disks and players. (And recorders, with recordable DVD disks.) Mostly at

the top of standard resolution (480i) video, but it really is that good. Mostly good enough,

even for HDTV users.

For years movies were shot on film, converted into digital for editing, then printed on film for distribution. Digital-Film-Digital seems like a perversion of technology. At least if the master's are preserved, sanity can be restored in the future.

For years movies were shot on film, converted into digital for editing, then printed on film for distribution. Digital-Film-Digital seems like a perversion of technology. At least if the master's are preserved, sanity can be restored in the future.

Well one thing, it will use half the film stock. I don't know if that's a big expense given the massive budget this movie had. But I think what they were saying is they didn't like the look of it on film in terms of color, all they wanted the film for was to soften edges it sounds like. They could then take the footage and color grade it and put in the effects digitally on post.

If only I could soften the edges in digital. Oh wait!

If only I could soften the edges in digital. Oh wait!

I'm just going by what I read. I'm sure you know much more about it then Villeneuve's team working with millions of dollars and the choice of just about any type of technology to get what they wanted. Pity they didn't consult with you to keep them from perverting the technology.

I'm just going by what I read. I'm sure you know much more about it then Villeneuve's team working with millions of dollars and the choice of just about any type of technology to get what they wanted. Pity they didn't consult with you to keep them from perverting the technology.

Barry, not to worry. I hear all of Hollywood is very tuned into PN for the expertise offered in our threads. They may not consult directly, but they're listening and watching behind the scenes for all the helpful hints they can get for free. ;););)

Barry, not to worry. I hear all of Hollywood is very tuned into PN for the expertise offered in our threads. They may not consult directly, but they're listening and watching behind the scenes for all the helpful hints they can get for free. ;););)

What better source could they go to?

Hey Ed, as you know I was being a bit sarcastic, and I shouldn't have personalized it like that to make the point. Please accept my apology for that.

What happens when you give an egotist access to an almost bottomless pit of money? Well, it's not going to be a sensible outcome, that's for sure.

I buy all my digitally recorded, mixed and mastered music pressed to vinyl and rip the LPs to FLAC at home - thats the only way it will sound acceptable. - well, I don't - but if you visit an audio online-community you'll discover that this is in essence what many do - along with many other strange things.

Yes, and non-initiates visiting this site would find some of the detailed discussions and practices rather eccentric or strange as well. You guys would care about their opinion of your ways of doing things about as much as they’d care about your opinion of theirs.

I buy all my digitally recorded, mixed and mastered music pressed to vinyl and rip the LPs to FLAC at home - thats the only way it will sound acceptable. - well, I don't - but if you visit an audio online-community you'll discover that this is in essence what many do - along with many other strange things.

I've been known to digitise some of my older and rarer vinyl albums to WAV files, but I've never heard of anyone ripping a CD to tape, then digitising the tape and claiming that the end result was superior to the original CD.

 

Or how about a sculptor laser scanning a bust, having a 3D printer copy made, covering the plastic copy with latex to make a mould and then casting a plaster copy?

 

That's the difference.

It's not a matter of reason, but of taste. In the music industry, software to clean and correct is just as present as software to add what cleaning software is meant to remove.

Some like it this way, some that way. To each his own. No sense in trying to make sense of that.

What happens when you give an egotist access to an almost bottomless pit of money? Well, it's not going to be a sensible outcome, that's for sure.

That's a pretty big paint brush there.

There are a surprising number of plugins which emulate tape recording, not to mention film emulation for imaging software.

 

Tape introduces third order harmonics as it approaches saturation. Zero dBU is roughly defined as the level at which distortion reaches 1%, and 3% at +4 dB.. This distortion is distinctive and non-musical, which some associate with the golden age of recording. Another characteristic of tape is the noise level, roughly 40 dB below the signal level, which rises and falls with that level. You can hear it clearly when recording the nearly pure sound of solo flute or french horn.

 

Schneider has a "White House" video filter kit to soften the wrinkles in our nation's leaders during pressers. They're widely used for news anchors as well.

 

As Will Rogers once quipped, "Things ain't as good as in the old days, and never were."

What happens when you give an egotist access to an almost bottomless pit of money? Well, it's not going to be a sensible outcome, that's for sure.

I would argue that the film intermediate process saves money, because instead of shooting on film, you just do a film-out of the final cut. The catering budget was probably much bigger than the cost of camera rental and the film-out.

 

Some recording studios, to the best of my knowledge, do everything in digital, then output to tape, then digitise that. They won't pretend that the resolution is maintained, but they will say that they prefer the way it sounds.