it's often crazy to put on a foreign film and see vibrant colors. it's almost like a religious experience. who knew green looked like green? american color graders are just like 'lets turn the brightness down to barely being able to see anything on the screen.'
I think they do that to cover for shitty CGI. Can't tell its shit if you can't see it.
Yet the director most famous for his muted colors, Christopher Nolan (who is red green colorblind and intentionally avoids color), is also famous for refusing to use CGI when practical effects are available.
I don't think one dude is a good example when talking about trends. Nolan is an outlier in more ways than one.
If anything other directors are copying him without understanding why it works in his films and not in every film.
Does it work though? For being the first film shot totally in Imax, The Odyssey was kind of dull to look at.
The Odyssey was kind of dull to look at.
It's a movie where the stills/screenshots aren't that visually interesting but that the actual video (accompanied by a killer score/soundtrack) is somehow visually stunning. Agamemnon's armor draws the eye in every scene it's in (especially the opening of Troy's gates), the giant Laestrygonians seemed terrifyingly strong and powerful, the visuals of Odysseus's men slurping down Circe's soup, all had visual qualities that make an indelible impression.
And obviously the dull, darkly lit, grayed out scene of the dead characters talking to Odysseus from beyond the grave really sells that scene, too.
Maybe I don't have a subtle enough eye.
But still, there could have been some spectacle.
Like the scene where Zeus is destroying the ship, and for some reason he does it with rain and wind? And this was changed from the original story, where Zeus strikes with, obviously, a gigantic fucking lightning bolt. Is there some artistic reason for this that I missed? I know Nolan hates CGI, but come on.
I enjoyed the movie well enough, but it never wowed me.
At the same time, I'm wondering how prominent of a trend it is. There have been a few recent examples of big budget movies that have made use of high saturation bright colors: the 2 Wicked movies, Project Hail Mary's key scenes, the Avatar movies, Barbie, the Spider Man movies, etc.
Obviously kids movies and animated movies have always been colorful, but we're also in an era where many studios are competing for kid eyeballs: Disney/Pixar of course, but also Sony (Kpop Demon Hunters, Hotel Transylvania, Spiderverse), Dreamworks (the Shrek universe, Kung Fu Panda, How to Train Your Dragon, Wild Robot), Illumination (Minions/Despicable Me Franchise, Mario, Sing), Paramount (Sonic, Paw Patrol, Spongebob), and the occasional independent (like Flow coming out of Latvia and winning an Oscar for best animated film). So it seems also that there's plenty of work being done in bright colorful spaces.
Yeah I watched supergirl at home and it really showed off my tv's ability to pair vibrant colors with deep blacks
I don’t think it’s just that. I’ve noticed this in a lot of the dramedies as well, and I’m reasonably sure they’re not using CGI for scenes of characters chatting in a room.
“Hero” was so mindblowing when it came out!
Ironically, that movie purposefully used color themes to convey the mood of each scene.
I'd settle for muted colors if things were lit at all at this point. So many movies feel like they filmed in an abandoned warehouse at midnight with all the lights turned off.
A movie video essayist I watch did a good video I share with non cinema folks about the lack of colors in marvel movies.
You might enjoy it: Why do Marvel movies look kind of ugly?
New Star Trek manages to look dark even with tons of lights for the lensflares. Because nothing says „space“ and „modern“ like working in a dim, depressing space while simultaneously getting blinded by half a dozen lights strategically placed at eye height.
Oh don't get me started on lensflares or motion blur. So many people think we need to keep them in order to know we're watching a movie because "that's how it's always been". I don't get why limited technology of the past should be the standard. Should we go back to black and white only again? Why do we have sound? Never used to. You had an organist to tell you you're in a movie.
I always think about old school star wars for space. There is not a single doubt in my mind they're in space during those fighter battles, but I can see everything without getting blinded or having to strain.
Motion blur is necessary for movies. They don't run at 60fps, they run at 24fps. They would feel stuttery if they didn't have motion blur. That's why even computer animated movies have fake motion blur added to them.
Except they could run at 60+ fps. I watched The Hobbit in High Frame Rate and it was glorious. It didn't take off because too many people complained of it not looking like a movie. The exact same complaints they had when movies switched to HD. Only this time the complaints sunk it for the most part instead of studios taking the time to adjust to new production methods. We get like one HFR movie a year now.
The issue is the fake CGI motion blur. It’s overdone. It’s not at all natural the way real motion blur on a film camera is.
I blame the digital workflows where everything is shot in RAW at high shutter speed and then digitally motion blurred and colour graded all to crap. Watch old movies that were shot on film and they look a million times better than the brown haze we got with Dune.
Oh don’t get me started on lensflares or motion blur. So many people think we need to keep them in order to know we’re watching a movie because “that’s how it’s always been”.
Motion blur only started cropping up in action movies in the 90s to hide bad choreography and lens flare is just something a few directors started doing in the 2000s. Tons of well lit and colorful movies have existed since movies started to be filmed in color and there are plenty without either of those two things.
Anyone who thinks that is 'how it has always been' is extrapolating it from a few directors and their blockbuster movies.
Watch Gone With the Wind and suffer the consequences of being disappointed by the lighting in almost every modern movie.
Or a lot of the Hitchcock movies. They portray so much with how they play with light.
The new Spider-Man was mostly CG-ed Glasgow but they actually went to some lengths to light it properly. It’s literally night and day compared to the last 10 years.
Oh yeah, the new Spider-Man was beautiful. That's definitely a good modern example showing you can be moody and depressed without just being black darkness
Cool. Patrick is the reason I finally subscribed to Nebula for his Star Wars Christmas Special, and I've stuck around ever since.
I thought the main point of OLED was blacker blacks. But, I don't have one.
And, yes, the trend of applying an overall color and contrast wash to different scenes in a movie, and entire movies, has gone too far.
Yes, the blacks are blacker, but the colors are more vibrant in contrast. I love it for video games. Animations in general are better and so are sports. They hide the good settings when you get the tv though. *The reds have more variety, they're not only purple based.
Red and Green is danger
Lol Christmas is dangerous
It's even more stupid when you consider the availability of HDR and Dolby Vision.
Suddenly you have access to high quality color mapping features thst formerly relied on you using expensive film to ensure you get all the colors you want, both pre and post processing.
But then you just take a dump all over it with an awful color grade that makes using HDR almost pointless.
I went with TCL MiniLED which has awesome contrast and deep blacks due to their newer backlight tech so it's essentially a poor man's OLED, and the films that actually used HDR/DV to their advantage look absolutely stunning. MI7's opening with the submarine looks awesome with the contrast of the characters and their deep red and green displays illuminating the scene.
I haven't heard the TCL miniLED. I'll look into it. I saved up for OLED and then Best Buy had an awesome sale that they didn't want to honor when I came to pick it up. I see now that Costco has the same price for bigger tvs. I'm guessing it's because they have competition now? This was 4 years ago or something too that best buy tried to screw me. They honored it in the end, but there was a lot of hulabaloo going on with management.
There's a whole separate subcategory of this complaint titled, "Color Grading Fucking Up Re-Releases."
I think one of the LoTR editions is grossly color-graded, and streaming Buffy The Vampire Slayer will give you color grading in conflict with the narrative, but you'll likely be too distracted by the bizarre framing to notice.
Ah, I love how incredibly stupid and careless the Buffy "remaster" was made. Let me talk about that in two pictures:
Hell, why not show parts of the set, including the crew. Color grading was completely skipped for some scenes, which derails the whole narrative, as they're now seemingly taking place during day, for example. It's amazing.
It is something to behold... briefly, before popping in the DVD.
Why would anyone do this‽ The show was so good about visual tone even while being extremely campy. What next, fixing "The Body" by adding in the background music that it's missing‽
Pazuzu rose to the position of chief post-editing demon around 2015 when Takihi, "the demon who eats beautiful actresses' clothing" retired/was cancelled under mysterious circumstances. His most ardent worshippers refer to this event as "Gamergate"
Slight digression: "The demon that eats colors" would be an interesting addition to Magic: The Gathering, if it doesn't exist already in some form
I saw Rebel One in theaters. The inky blacks of space were turned into a staticky grey, which I didn't notice until the end of the movie when they got back to the beautiful anthracite that is the entire reason I want to see things happen in outer space.
People tweeting stuff. We allow tweets from anyone.
RULES:
