Because they didn't care one jot about picture quality. That's the only reason I can think of. Why else does it look like the sharpness is turned up full? We all know that when taking DV to film you turn the sharpness right down. We also know to shoot true 16x9 or with an anamorphic adapter to miximize picture quality.
I must disagree strongly with you here. Why do you say they
didn't care? How can most people making movies not care?
(especially these kind of movies, and I am talking about directors,
cinematographers and camera operaters here)

Personally I always shoot in 4:3 and then go 16:9 (masking)
in post. Why? Because I want to have the possability to move
the picture up and down underneath the bars in post.
In post with all the work being done (editing, effects etc.) you
can choose to do framing a bit different. Or sometimes it is hard
to frame 100% accuarate when filming.

I do agree mostly with your sharpness comment, but it ain't a
hard formula! It is still an asthetic thing. Some people like more
or less sharpness then others!

Also not everybody can afford anamorphic adaptors (I don't think
I know of one person here on the boards that has posted they
are using one) not to mention other troubles this introduces
(like zooming). Ofcourse they probably had the money to get
these on 28 days later, but it would be way more interesting to
get a mini35 setup with some good lenses attached then.

If I'm not mistaken the people who made 28 days later wanted
to have an in your face feel to which this all helped I can imagine.

If you shoot 4x3 and crop to 16x9 in post instead of shooting anamorphic 16x9 then you're sacrificing resolution for convenience.

If you want to apply sharpness, you'd get a better result by applying it after your DV gets up-rezzed rather than before. I've seen PAL and NTSC SD put onto 35mm and HD at an SMPTE conferance I attended in Toronto and the results were vastly superior to 28 days...

Although 28 days... was shot on DV it was by no means a low budget movie. They could certainly afforded to shoot on a higher quality format and still get the ease of use and quick setups they required to make London appear deserted. I could have understood the choice of using DV if it had looked as good as I know a DV blow up can look, but for it to look so bad as to remind me of a VHS rental tape is not clever and not funny. I could also have understood if the movie was low budget, but it wasn't.

DV was used to give it the look intentionally. It was heavily processed in post also. I thought it was the best dv could offer but that's the first I've heard that it had a vhs quality to it. Haven't seen it yet myself.

My major experience with what SD can look like when put onto film was at a SMPTE confererence I attended in Toronto. One of the major players in Toronto - Command Post & Transfer / Toybox, put on a set of demonstrations of HD v Film, with both film and HD projection. To establish a base-line they also showed examples of SD video transferred to film. The quality of the SD transfers ranged a fair bit, and they were showing how both resolution (PAL v NTSC) and frame rate (25, 30, 60) make a difference, and the various techniques (from speeding up the footage, to using motion interpolation).

That is why I don't think 28 days... is not an example of the best DV to film transfer, but rather one of the worst, in both terms of resolution, and the excessive sharpness made it almost un-watchable in the cinema. Rental VHS is renowned for having really bad sharpness lines around everything in the picture (to help it stand up to the abuse of rental so the 100th person can still sort of make out a picture) and is often very noisey. 28 days... had very bad sharpness lines and was very noisey.

So, the DVD of "28 Days Later" is now available. I watched it and paid attention to the image quality. As many of you commented before, the edges looked funny. Is the DVD a DV->film->DVD transfer or DV->DVD ? If it's DV->DVD, is the film grain simulation done in post? It didn't seem particularly consistent from scene to scene. Sometimes it looked good, but overall, it seemed artificial.

Overall, I haven't seen many good film grain simulations. I'm
thinking about experimenting with coding this sort of image processing.

<<<-- Originally posted by Graeme Nattress : Because they didn't care one jot about picture quality. -->>>

What?

The deal is, they were going after a particular kind of look. The end result doesn't jive with everyone's idea of a high quality image, that's what Graeme is saying, at least not in his opinion.

I thought 28 Days looked sketchy on the big screen in the theaters, but looks fine on the small screen from my DVD player. Just my own opinion, though.

I agree Chris. On the big screen it was very grainy and saturated. They also shot with a high shutter speed.

On my DVD layer it looks amazing.

I saw the film in a theatre and really liked it, have not seen the DVD. I think Chris sums it up pretty well though, they wanted (for whatever reason) a certain "look". But I also find this kind of ironic. Much of the talk around here centers on how to make DV look more like film. In this case I feel they wanted to make film look more like DV! They had a large enough budget to shoot on film if desired, or they could have shot on HD, or even with better quality 16:9 DV. But for artistic reasons they chose to use the XL-1. It was a pretty gutsy thing to do, gave the film a very distinctive appearance, and I applaud them for having the nerve to pull it off!

I recently saw the movie on DVD and thought it looked very nice.
Didn't notice much video look at all.

Just watched 28 days later on DVD as i have been hanging out on it for ages, because its shot on XL1s. But the end result is not xl1s- its xl1s on 35mm.

Its almost like "reverse AGUS 35" (not really but you no what i mean).

Im annoyed because they always claim its shot on DV, same with Full frontal, but its almost as if your putting an xl1 on the end of a panavision.

All this bs marketing in the magazines about it, what they dont tell is the 35mm part, and im sure if you bought the cam on the promise of this ,(without any knowledge of DV) and then shot the film and didnt look like "full frontal" , you could sue the ASS of canon! (well atleast in america maybe).

Anyway,i think they should say "shot on dv35" or something like that instead of saying DV because it aint.


I Welcome any responses on this subject,( and i understand about magic bullet etc et,)

CHeers,
Ben Gurvich

I'm a bit confused as to what point you have a problem with.
Wasn't it shot on XL1S with the 35mm adapter? If so it is still
shot on DV. Only with a different lens system. To the best of
my knowledge it was still SD resolution and all.

Can you elaborate a bit better and stick to facts (instead of
emotion)? I'm confused.

yes but when u transfer it to film, it becomes film, and the dvd tranfer is off the negative right, so it takes on the motion of film and grain.


so in the end it looks like film becuase it is on film.

The bigger difference is a lot of time/money/effort was spent in post-processing of the xl1s image. Transferring to 35mm should not be a complaint.

I wish people would get over this 'grain' thing with film. It's like saying you need to add noise and artifacts for an image to be video.

Regardless of what you want to call it, the image was ultimately captured on a DV tape...shot on DV...end of story. This has nothing to do with the lenses used on the camera or how the final product is being projected.

The picture, in the film you are describing looks the way it does due to better quality of lenses and professional lighting.

The transfer to film does not add the almighty "film look". If you went out into your back yard and shot with a standard, out of the box, Canon XL-1s package and transfered it to film, that is exactly what you are going to get.

The transfer to 35mm is needed because the huge majority of theaters across the country are still projecting film, not video. It would be silly for a Director or Studio to refuse to transfer to film as it would severely affect the almighty PROFIT MARGIN.

So, take a deep breath, and enjoy the movie!

RB

dont u feel once its transferred onto film, it take on the film like moving qualites of the shot?

also id be very interested to seeing the online edit before going out 35mm.


(the good thing about rodriguez is he gives u the HD file not the 35mm print transferred onto film. so u can really see how good HD is)

I was impressed as all hell with the end result.

It really showed what you could do with DV and specifically the XL1s.

that it was transfered over onto film is a minor point to me.

It was made on a "consumer" DV camera, not a 4:2:2 high end DV camera and it was made for, in what hollywood would consider, a low budget.

28 Days Later had some funky DV artifacting and soft wide shots in the first half (the city scenes) when I saw it on the big screen, but I was still impressed with what standard-def DV could accomplish. The point is, the aquisition was all DV. Thankfully it didn't look anything like the DV parts of Full Frontal -- Soderbergh really dumbed it down, it looked horrible, kind of like VHS-C especially compared to the other 65% of the scenes shot in Panavision.

28 Days Later was not made with Panavision glass nor did they use the P+S Technik Mini35. Still thought it looked great for what it was, though.

28 days later moves like film. Magic bullet is good but i reckon coming of 35mm telecine adds the motion fixing to it, infact i know it helps cause i have seen it myself, in my own experience. Also transferring to 35mm makes it 24p more film like motion.

I challenge someone to post something on the xl1s that looks as good as "28 days later",

The examples on here ive seen are close, infact there pretty damn good. The best i can think of is "Precursor", but it still moved like video

I'd say that I'd challenge someone to make DV look as BAD as 28days later. Look at the massive amounts of edge enhancement. Look at how badly the scaling up to film was handled - just very basic interpolation - nothing special. The quality was deliberately dirtied before transfer to 35mm to give it a "gritty" feel.

I've seen some SD to film transfers which look much superior to 28 days. To me, 28 days shows how not to transfer DV to film!

Graeme

Was the DVD of "28 Days Later" actually created from the film print? What a bizarre thing to do. Reminds of "Chuck and Buck." Great movie, but it looked abysmal in the theater, and just really God-awful terrible on video.

1: afaik, it was actually shot on (8) Canon XL1, not XL1S

2: the final look, for me, was actually pretty far from "film look." While there is grain, and a 1.85:1 aspect, in many scenes there is limited or no visible color correction. especially the scene where he first leaves the hospital and walks up to a billboard with tons of letters and photographs on it.. that scene just screams "video" to me.

3: a lot of the shiftiness in the film i believe is due not to 24p film jutter, but actually to a bad PAL to NTSC transfer. there was a lot of ghosting and shifting that is rather distracting.. the effect mimics what happens when you set the shutter less than the frame rate (i.e. 1/20th shutter on a 30fps camera).

4: this film wasnt even shot on top of the line gear.. if i recall, it was shot with standard pal XL1, and optex B4 converters. not a bad setup, but hardly mini35 with top of the line prime lenses either. for me, this is a pretty well done horror film, and a good example of using one's resources to their fullest. i loved the film.. $14 well spent.

5: i think people miss that being transferred to film, or even being 24/30p isn't the most signifigant factor of "film look." the latitude of color exposed onto film (the "s" curve) is what makes film look like it does, and the flatness of video color makes it look like video. film with good color correction looks like film because a proper stock is carefully chosen, and then a good colorist works his or her magic. simple running an XL1 onto a film print isn't going to produce the same results.. unless you really think it out.

Don't know if video-to-film gives a film look.
But film-to-video does not give a video look
-- it still looks like film.

the image was acquired digitally, therefore dv. it just so happens they telecined to film because of the theatre.
28 days rocks and i think a great triumph for dv.
i also would like to know if the dvd was straight like rodriguez does?????

<<<-- Originally posted by Adam Burtle : 5: i think people miss that being transferred to film, or even being 24/30p isn't the most signifigant factor of "film look." the latitude of color exposed onto film (the "s" curve) is what makes film look like it does, and the flatness of video color makes it look like video. -->>>

I'd have to disagree withh this point a bit. To me the single most important factor in filmlook is framerate. 24p looks like film; 60i does not. There's no going around it. If you tape the same shot using the exact same lighting, makeup, composition, and color correction, but one version is in 24p and another is in regular 60i interlaced video, you're going to end up with one looking like film and one looking like video. Someone in a previous thread said that "if you give a film camera to a 3-year-old,regardless of how poorly shot, it's footage would still look like film" (paraphrasing). I agree completely with that. The only way to fool an audience into thinking video is film is by altering the frame rate to 24p.

That said, professionally lit, composed, and color-corrected video footage will absolutely look decidedly superior to poor cinematography, no matter what the medium (film or video). I have yet to see 28 Days Later, but I'm sure it's image quality is the result of the Hollywood machine, which is very difficult to replicate on a home computer. They used professional lighting and post techniques to achieve a very specific look.

28 Days Later IS a "film shot on MiniDV with an XL1", regardless of how much post-production work, or which lenses were used. As stated above, it is a triumph for the medium of DV. Does it look as good as, say, Braveheart? Nope. But it's better than Blair Witch... ;)

Actually a lot of this ground has already been covered in several threads:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?s=&threadid=6445
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?s=&threadid=11394
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?s=&threadid=11898
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?s=&threadid=12507
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?s=&threadid=16303

Have you seen "Piñero"?

Shot on XL-1, I guess. I didn´t see the entire film, only some minutes, but it seemed much better in "film-look" than 28 Days Later.

"Don't know if video-to-film gives a film look."

Many years ago, before people worried about "film look," there was a documentary made entitled, "The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk," which was about the openly gay San Francisco Supervisor who was shot to death, along with Mayor Mascone, by a nut who was out of his mind on "Twinkies."

First of all, it is an absolutely riveting and highly entertaining documentary, but visually the thing that struck me was how it looked. Although the footage included virtually every acquisition format, including 16mm and 8mm film, along with videotape from early portable video cameras (think TK76) and 3/4" field recorders, along with 1" studio footage, everything blended seamlessly in the final film. This was the first time I was aware of the possibilities for video to film. (Earlier experiments with tape to film were pretty uninspired.) These filmmakers faced a monumenetal task of melding all this various footage and creating a film that visually flowed smoothly, and they did a remarkable job of color timing. I guess I would have to say the whole film looks like it was shot with a 16mm camera.

So, yes, video to film does create a film look. When handled properly.

Oh, and don't forget: sixty frame film is pretty much a dead issue. One reason being, it looks too much like video.

Wayne Orr

lokoing at 28 days later on dvd (pal btw) its pretty damned obvious its off the neg, and why wouldnt you? your gaining 24p which exaplains why the whole thing moves like film.


anyway my original beef is with CANON really, they have Steven Soderberg doing these adds about the XL1 that i belive are false advertising,

If you watch the making of 28 days later you can see some footage that is edited but is straight has not been transferred to film, and it makes a big difference.

And those cars they have in the car commercials have been souped up and have professional drivers on a closed track. If you truly buy that car thinking you are going to be driving like in the car commercials without doing a thing to the car then the problem is with you as a buyer not with the marketing. Everything is marketed. It is your job as a buyer to sort out what is hype and what is not. Steve Soderberg did make a movie with the XL1. It was captured on an XL1. Every movie that ends up screened in the theatres is worked over in post. EVERY movie. To what extent and how much is up to the individual production. You have the same potential when you capture something on an XL1.

<<<-- You have the same potential when you capture something on an XL1. -->>>

Not when i dont have 35k for a transfer to film

You seriously thought Danny Boyle and Steven Soderbergh weren't going to spend at least that much money on post?

This whole thread sounds very naive.

xl1 pal right? was it 50i or 25p? if it was proscan, the "24p" wouldnt add too much motion-wise, right? i dont know pal...

sidenote- i havent watched the dvd yet, werent some of the actions scenes shot with a gl1?


Wait, Hollywood over-hyping something only subjectively true?
Stop the presses! <sarcasm-meter off the chart>
can i start a thread about jarjar binks?

<<<-- Originally posted by Keith Loh : You seriously thought Danny Boyle and Steven Soderbergh weren't going to spend at least that much money on post?
-->>>

The point is the average person isnt gonna spend that much money, and wouldnt think they had too from the advertisment.

Does the average person really spend $4000US on a MiniDV camera?

I sweated bullets when I finally plunked down my $7000 Cdn for my Canon XL1S. And this is after reading every article and review I could get my hands on.

It's advertising. Advertising never tells the whole of the story. Caveat emptor. I bought my XL1S before Danny Boyle, before Soderburg. If I did see 28 Days Later and thought it was a big ad for Canon (I didn't know at the time that it was Canon) there's no way I'd run out to buy one just from seeing that film. However, I might read what Anthony Dodd Mantle had to say in American Cinematographer (paraphrased: "I hate DV") and also learn that he had millions of dollars worth of lighting, lenses, gels and other equipment at his disposal just so they could make it look like it did. And then maybe I would inhabit DVInfo for a long time and see other clips made with it.

The XL1S is priced (new) the same as a used car. I wouldn't buy a used car sight unseen.

<<<-- Originally posted by Ben Gurvich : from the advertisment. -->>>


What advertisment?

you know the one with steven soderbergh, and hes like i couldnt have made full frontal without the xl1, (ITS PRETTY OLD)

Hi,

28 Days was part of my research for the current docudrama we're shooting on HDV with JVC HD10. I read the article about how Dod Mantle (the DP) shot on the Canon using Canon lenses. I think the mention of ND filters and underexposure is very educational.

Here's a quote from the American Cinematographer magazine article. I think the article is worth reading because of the technical details they cover.

http://www.theasc.com/magazine/july03/sub/page2.html

"Dod Mantle helped matters by securing the higher-resolving Canon EC (6-40mm) and Canon EJ (50-150mm) prime lenses to the camera bodies with Optex adapters. Even though video-lens focal lengths are measured differently than those of 35mm lenses, traditional focus-wheel systems were mounted onto the rods for the assistants, who pulled by eye. Because the XL1's viewfinder is black-and-white, Dod Mantle composed shots by looking at 9" color monitors. "It's amazing, because this little consumer camera gets built up with matte boxes and transmitters for sound," he says. "But they were still streamlined and light compared to film cameras."

Dod Mantle shot as wide open as possible with ND filters to minimize DV's seemingly infinite depth of field, and he underexposed by one to two stops to get more information on tape. (The XL1 has an exposure value of about 320 ASA without altering the shutter speed.) "

Hope this is helpful.

Ed Hill

Hi,

http://www.usa.canon.com/html/industrial_bctv/home.html

The Canon EC (Electronic Cinematography) lenses appear to be made for High Defintion video cameras.

Apparently these were the lenses that Dodd used on the Canon XL1 PAL camera.

For me I think the lighting, framing, composition and camera moves are bigger factors than just acquisition format that you use.

I look back and cringe with embarassment at a couple of the early commercials I shot years ago on 16mm film, 1" Type C video, or BetaCam and some news footage I shot on 3/4 Umatic ( a horrible format ). Even on "Pro" formats some of my work varied in quality and consistency. It wasn't the format. It was my early lack of skills 18 years ago.

I was lucky to work as a lighting grip and camera operator with some DPs, grips and videographers who were very good at lighting and shooting. So gradually I learned to do better lighting, shooting and editing. Some of the DPs or filmmakers I worked with took the same 16mm and 35mm film lighting & filter methods (for corporate and commercial film) and used that lighting on BetaCam or 1" Type C video. I don't know if it looked like film. But it did look like damn good video.

I believe that more of the "film look" and better video quality comes from learning and using film type techniques.

1) Like more control of light with lens filters, gels, diffusion, flags.

2) Better control of camera moves with tripods and dollies.

3) More use of shallow depth of field and rolling focus.

4) Composing your shots in depth with people and objects in front of your actor and behind your actor.

5) Framing your shots really tight so that only the most important action and most expressive facial features are in the shot.

I have thought about this a lot, and for me I think the way I shoot is a lot more crucial than which camera I use.

Hope this is helpful.

Ed Hill

So whats the point of all this Ben. If you shoot a movie on video you can't tranfer to film because thats cheating? How else are you going to get it in the theater? Its shot on a XL1 period. Thats the bottom line.

"Oh, and don't forget: sixty frame film is pretty much a dead issue. One reason being, it looks too much like video."

It looks amazing is what it looks. I personally can't wait for fully digitally projected 60fps movies in the theater. Slow mellow drama, sure give me 24fps. We are now in an era of super FX action packed movies in which every high motion scene is a jummpy blured mess because their tying to stuff it all in 24fps. It is stupid to think that 24fps is the be all end all of frame rates.
Ken

As stated earlier, my Real beef was with Canon's advertising.

<<<-- Originally posted by Don Berube : Well it is *officially* official, this month's issue of AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER confirms that "28 Days Later" was shot with an XL1S with an OPTEX B4-XL adaptor and some CANON EC and EJ Hi-Def primes.

Gooooo CANON!!!

We are definitely getting together one night to see the film in Hollywood sometime between June 26-30, while we are at the Entertainment Technology Show (June 27-28). We are probably meeting first for a few rounds at a place yet to be determined. The more the merrier. Stop by at the Canon booth and say hello. Would like to meet any and all DVi Wranglers who will be in the area during that time.

Looking forward,

- don -->>>

hi

i have been searching the web for the EC and EJ lenses that were shot with 28 day later and i can find nothing. could somebody point me in the right direction. do you know how much it would be for a full set.

thanks

You can see some EF lenses on the link below:

http://consumer.usa.canon.com/ir/controller?act=ProductCatIndexAct&fcategoryid=111

Rob,

I think we are talking about EC and EJ Primes here, not EF lenses...

I found this on IMDB under the trivia for 28 Days Later and I don't think it's correct...

"Boyle used the Cannon XL2 MiniDV camera, which wasn't commercially available at the time."

I was under the impression that he used XL1s PAL shot in frame mode. Does anyone care to comment?

it's not true I saw the xl1s in the making of

Actually it was the XL1, not XL1S.

There was an extensive write-up on this in American Cinematography some time ago. See also all of the various "28 Days Later" threads over in our XL1 / XL1S forum.

Chris is correct, it was the original XL1, not even the XL1s version. Shot on PAL in frame mode/16:9.

Hello Barry,
What do you mean by Frame mode? Do you mean 24p as opposed to 60i?
Also, how significant of a difference is PAL mode? How do I know if I have PAL on my XL2?

PAL is a video format. Mainly for European countries. I can almost guarantee you that your XL2 is NTSC. Frame mode is a specialty mode that mimicks the look look of 30p. And since they used a PAL XL1 (which has 25fps) they were shooting footage that looked 25p, and then all they had to do was do a slight time change to go to 24p for the final film output.