"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
...
"Stewart Pinkerton" wrote in message
news
On Thu, 30 Sep 2004 22:26:21 +0100, Ian Molton wrote:

Keith G wrote:

what interests me is am I
the only one who is noticing the truly crap 'digital' colour in
movies these days?

No idea if its anything digital or otherwise, but whatever they
filmed the matrix on was utter garbage - you could see the grain on
the film easily.

Probably done on purpose, to give that 'film noir' look.

Agreed. Its not like they didn't have the money or technology for a
clearer picture.


I believe the Matrix films have a deliberate green tint to depict 'being
inside the Matrix' but, interestingly, filmed only on 35mm it would
appear....?? (Too much location work for 70mm I suppose?)

My problem is with the predominance of 'hazy blue, dim/dark, nearly
monochromatic' pix like:

Gothika
Northfork
Payback

....all of which we have watched lately, in that order. (There are a great
number of other flics that are much the same, but which do not come readily
to mind.)

While the deliberate 'downtoning' of Northfolk depicts well the 'bleakness'
of the situation (at the cost of some stunning views of the Montana
vastness*), it being sandwiched by the other two, simply simply invokes an
'oh gawd, not another bloody dim, Hollywood 'blue' movie here!

It would be easy to take a cheap shot here and suggest that the
hazy/grainy/'digitised' modern films (as opposed to the lurid, Technicolour
oldies) mirror the modern, mass tastes for digital/ss music over
analogue/valve, but I don't think it's as simple as that - I have no problem
with grain (or even 'noise') and certainly prefer the use of *good* CGI to
the 'wobbly models' we've seen in many older films, but I can't help feeling
that 'movie' standards are actually on the decline, like everything
else...??

Coming Soon (mebbe tonight) - Gone With The Wind! (Believe it or not I've
never seen it - it's going to be very interesting from a colour POV, if
nothing else!)

'Audio' relevance in this post? - Easy, the soundtrack in Northfork is quite
superb throughout and *must* be heard! :-)


*Seeing the bitter, bleak shots of Montana in Northfork prompts me to ask
'how can a nation that once had the utter *balls* to deal with
conditions/terrain like that evolve into the nation of loud-mouthed,
fat-arsed couch potatoes we see on the box today? (Or is it just 'poor
sampling' - I'd like to think so....)