Honestly every modern Marvel movie 🫣 Yesterday I rewatched The Batman, and honestly the gritty look alone makes it so much better than anything by Marvel from the last 20 years for me.
Exactly! I was thinking this for a long time now. Somewhere between 2012 to 2016 almost every movie and serial I saw became "sterilized" of the film grains and the golden aura. I find these films increasingly hitting more blue light to my eyes. A major aesthetics let down for me.
The question is "what modern movies doesn't look too clean" ? I'd say over the past 15 years I've only seen a handful of blockbusters in cinema that don't look too clean and somehow fake. You've already named a lot of them in your video. Dune, The Batman, Oppenheimer, ... Negative examples: Jurassic World series, Star Wars sequels, Indiana Jones, 90% of modern romcoms and comedys. They all feel fake and their look completely destroys immersion for me. Movies from the 80s, 90s and early 2000s had a much better look. But I guess the same can be said about pop-music nowadays. Great video and analysis by the way! I really enjoyed it and I hope that we get a revival of filmmakers and movies (and music) that try to achieve an authentic look.
@@Divine.Sinner I actually really enjoyed because of that. The "clean" looking scenes looked like authentic pure nature before the fronline has shifted there yet. Then the actual stationary frontline was gritty and dirty as should an old trench be.
My friends and I rewatched the LotR trilogy recently (we do it at least once a year). And one thing that always stands out to me is how messy everyone's hair is. Beards aren't trimmed perfectly. Loose strands stick out and cross over people's faces or get caught in the corners of their mouth. It's a small thing, but it makes everyone just fit so much better.
Exactly! They travel through the mud and wilderness rarely showering, and that is reflected in how they look, their faces, their clothing. Then when they reach a rest stop on the journey, they get cleaned up again. I like that it feels gritty and realistic to what travelers facing battles now and then would actually look like.
I think the 90s and early 2000s hit a sweet spot with not only how they were filmed but the right mixture of movie makeup and CGI. Movies now look like video games.
Exactly. That’s why I don’t watch many films lately… well, lately means probably around 14 years… wverything looks so pristine and fake with modern shots, so boring and even disgusting
Very well said. This topic is my issue with Jurassic Park vs Jurassic World. Although both use digitally created dinos, the Jurassic World dinos are soooo clean it's distracting. They don't feel like they live in the same space with the human performers.
They fit within the frame with the actors pretty well the issue we are seeing is back then they would get a flawed film plate & match the CGI to that hiding it behind grain & rain elements. Today the image is so clean even without CGI it looks fake so you then add CGI and your brain is telling you “this is fake” especially when they use drones to make the camera move in impossible ways. Back then the camera was grounded you could feel the weight of the camera op behind it. Today with techno cranes & remote heads we lose that human control. It becomes too perfect as if flying around a video game. On a technical level the textures on the CGI dinosaurs in the first movie aren’t detailed but it doesn’t really matter because everything else is real & it’s hidden behind real rain elements & by the time you see it close it’s a real textured animatronic.
@@ImaginationVFXhouseI think the major difference between Jurassic Park and the more recent Jurassic films was that JP didn’t rely on CGI at all. The CGI shots were relatively quick and overall, makes up a tiny percentage of the film (only 6 minutes total!) in comparison to Jurassic World or any modern film, which will shove the CGI in your face for the whole picture. good points about the camera assistance. Movies in the late 90’s were starting to use these extremely smooth camera movements in mixed CGI scenes that we see today, Fight Club being a great example. But from Jurassic Park to even the Lord of the Rings trilogy, you have old school steadicam shots (which were still shakier than modern gimbals), jib and crane shots that sweep around but still have that wonderfully manual look where the pan/tilt and tracking are occasionally out of sync that I wish CGI crane shots would emulate, and then of course the increasingly out of favor handheld shot. Less so in JP, but there’s a lot of it in the LotR trilogy that I wished Jackson would keep doing in the Hobbit.
I saw the abusive predator masquerading as the flash and immediately lost interest in the video. He’s living proof of the hypocrisy of Hollywood and “SJW” wannabes
Older movies were careful with how they integrated cgi shots into the films because they were aware of technical limitation. They also had more time to work on each shot because the movies weren’t 95% cgi like they are now
It's crazy how good that shot of Aragorn in the thumbnail looks. Everything about it. The pose, Viggo's face, the lighting, the framing, the rainy look. That frame is perfect.
It's actually the lighting they had to use for film that look you're talking about With digital they always use soft lighting but with film they really had to light the scene that's why you see so much texture
@@POW.CREEPER sie haben die Aufmerksamkeitsspanne einer Eintagsfliege. Alle 5 Sekunden ein Hook oder sie sind weg - das Leben funktioniert aber anders.
Ironically the non-editing of this video with completely random and narratively unconnected ... stuff every two seconds is insufferable. The voice over is really nice though. But it highlights that they had no idea what to show. So this is not a video, it's a audio podcast with random flashes in the background.
Interesting that you briefly mentioned Barbie, which I think actually benefits from being as clean as possible. Sometimes clean can be the right choice.
@@candacepenny9082 nobody ever said the opposite. What are you guys talking about? Of course there’s a time and place for clean and nobody said Barbie is too clean and nobody implied that it should’ve been gritty.
@@MaxIronsThird yeah. I think people just want to find something to say that’s different from the video that they believe is a good point. You don’t need to make a point and imply someone claimed the opposite or implied the opposite. Nobody said it’s bad and nobody said clean as bad.
One thing I think a lot of 2000's movies like LOTR, Harry Potter, and Pirates of the Carribean did well in was use a mix of practical and visual effects, so it allowed them to look very grounded and realistic for certain scenes but utilize their VFX for some of the more fantastical elements of the story. It really helped draw a line between fantasy and reality and is a much better use of effects when compared to today's use of blue/greenscreens.
Thing is its more than that. Like fine detailing in davy jones tentacles. He is still the most realistic cgi character that exists. Only ones comparable are James Cameron Avatar.
Yeah sometimes the CGI background and the foreground actors have a mismatch in lighting, that makes it even more obvious they're standing in front of the green screen. The Volume was supposed to fix this problem but I don't think it has. The light from The Volume reflects off the back of the actors so it looks like they're standing in from of an LCD screen.
@@CindyalibasterNolan is one of the best directors currently but he should stop lying about not using special effects. In Oppenheimer, he failed to give credit to the visual effects team and lied about the movie having zero digital visual effects. It's a pretty asshole attitude. I'm a fan of his work but he was an asshole in this.
I loved that LOTR feels so otherwordly yet at the same time so real and natural like I can still imagine myself in Middle-Earth, it's just the right balance of earthly dark colors and some recognizable colors so that it doesn't looks flawless but just right.
Did you notice in LotR trilogy that camera moves almost 90% of the time? It was Peter Jackson's choice especially on wide shots so we can absorb the beauty of those places, like eg New Zealand
I remember going to the cinema to watch Empire Strikes Back, and one thing struck me afterwards. The hangar where the rebels were working on their spacecraft and other military machines was dirty, which you should expect if you have ever visited a real workshop. I loved it.
Sometimes I wonder what it feels to be someone in the 80s watching star wars. because I couldn't watch old star wars they look really old . And I can tolerate that usually. But not with movies that needs heavy effects
I always loved how everything in Star Wars is all grimy, dirty, and used. Like everything seems futuristic to us with spaceships, lasers, and robots, but at the same time to the people in the universe, the Millennium Falcon is basically just an antique delivery truck. Nothing special there, just an old pile of junk.
Game of Thrones earlier seasons were so immersive for this very reason, but even later into the show with bigger budgets and quality of cameras, they managed to keep some grit which I appreciated.
Games of Thrones' writing and direction may have taken a nosedive. But the cinematography, score, and costume design remained top notch... for the most part.
This is something that I started to notice a few years ago, mainly on Netflix. Some movies just looked fake to me, and I had no desire to watch them. It kind of reminds me of those "fresh-off-the-conveyor-belt" christmas movies, where everything looks too perfect.
Yes exactly. Just this week I started the Netflix Last Airbender adaptation (I love Avatar, I can’t not watch this) and I’ve been trying to find words to describe why everything feels so “off” in every Netflix and Disney production, and this is it! Too clean, too crisp, always perfect lighting/makeup/grooming, ah! TH-cam must have heard me complaining
stole my words dude. Thats what I've been saying to my friends that videos seems like "factory made", its like Netflix has some tailormade template/machine which pumps out videos
It's because everything is now done with CG. What used to be filmed on location, or on fully realized sets is now created using green screen. Even much of the attire characters are wearing is CG. It's just cheaper to do it this way.
I've noticed this fake look, frankly, since around the middle of the 2000's. I've always attributed it to the fact that things aren't shot on film anymore. (Yes, I know that even this video downplays this factor.) Yet whenever I've suggested this, it usually gets dismissed with an "okay boomer" like condescension. Meanwhile, new movie after new movie come out, and they barely register with audiences, and they can't quite place their finger on why.
You pointing out how “The Batman” does NOT look clean like most modern movies is so important. It’s one of the reasons it resonated so much after seeing it in theaters that first time. It felt like a movie that we had been starved of in the last 10-20 years
@@boboboy8189 I’m not talking about clean in terms of themes, I’m talking about how it looks dirty and filmed in ways that don’t look “perfect”. It’s not something that really compares to comics, ya know? Totally different medium
@@TemperVoid i understand its different medium but i saw plenty of self proclaimed batman fans said the visual looks like in the comic but i disagree. Yes the color are much more colorful in comic but its still have realism on each panel while the batman movie despite its looks "dirty", its felt something is "off". Its looks top clean compare to Matt reeves previous movies
@@boboboy8189 I’m not comparing it to other Batman mediums though, I’m talking about movies in general. The comics are completely separate here. Movies compared to movies. The movie is dirty compared to other movies. I’m sure the comic is what you’re saying it is but that’s not relevant to my point lol
I love it when I'm made aware of something that sub-consciously I've felt, but never fully realised. That 'perfect'/'clean' look to modern films really does almost instinctively make me regard what I'm watching as sometimes inauthentic, but other times just simply less seriously (which isn't necessarily bad as sometimes I do just want easy-watching). All comes down to immersion as you mention.
@@alatielinara undeniably. But what is also relevant is if it's appropriate or not. The Hobbit should not be viewed as equivalent in intent to LotR. The Hobbit is a children's story full of embellishment told by the main character. LotR is an adult story told by the author. TO BE CLEAR, that doesn't excuse the clusterfuck that was a large part of The Hobbit... but it is still relevant. The Hobbit feels like it should be exaggerated and mildly unreal feeling, because it is a tall tell. Not an untrue one, but... maybe less than perfectly accurate in its retelling.
And yet David Fincher's movies are almost always at the front end of great looking films and they all look pristine and clean, at least the ones after Fight Club. So does Avatar. Dunkirk is another. Interstellar. The Dark Knight Rises. Life of Pi. The Favorite. Barbie recently. I could go on and on and on. The video makes absolutely no sense when you think about it. The problem is too many movies looking like they have the same color grade. It's just not about clean vs dirty like this video makes it to be.
@@Skumtomten1 messaging is more important than quality storytelling now. Have to have diverse director with no experience directing. Also need activist writers writing it!
it has bothered me SOOO MUCHHHH!!! Its so CLEAN! So perfect, every hair in place, colors vibrant, clothes ironed, perfect. This happens a lot with netflix. I mever really thought about how it would involve the cameras and that though, so this video is so interesting to me!! I rlly like that vintage look from old movies
So true. I've been calling this clean look the "netflix look" because I couldn't really pinpoint what bothered me so much but it was in all netflix shows that i saw. But now its like everybody does it and the new disney+ shows are just as bad
Seems to happen the high the budget of the production. Look at Game of Thrones, Seasons 1-3 and a bit of 4 have a much more grounded, messy and dirty look to everything. More use of natural harsher light and less control over it that I feel really helps sell this dirty messy and realist fantasy world. Cut to season 7 and 8 and everything is so nicely lit (Save the long night...) with soft edge lighting and highlight roll off and its just so clean. I much prefer the original look of seasons 1-4. The same can be said for Stranger Things and tons of other shows, not just on Netflix
it hasnt bothered me a bit. the secret is i dont watch these ugly movies. why would someone watch a movie with bad cinematography? probably the rest is bad aswel. (most times it is)
My professor of Illumination said once "asian movies are different in terms of lighting, we, in occident, are used to add as many llights as possible and then remove them, Asians usually starts with 0 and only add the needed few, the less the better" Since then i've watched many asian movies and now, watching this video, i can only thing he was SO right.
We experience this in animation too! Everything has to be clean, crisp, perfect, no errors in model.... and so much character is lost for it. Thanks for putting this together!
Exactly, just look at stylised animation from disney- or my favourite example is The Iron Giant. Every character has a unique build, facial structure... so much character is brought by that
For real. I always cringe when I render out clean and sharp looking renders just to throw on some film print emulation and grain + blur, to make it less cg haha
@@Alienkiwi730 Every time i watch the intro of Se7en, I'm baffled how that can be from the mid 90s. Fincher simply set a visual trend that started really catching on in the early 2000s, when it became the norm, I know. But that doesn't stop me from being amazed every single time.
The inverse is also true. There are some photographers and cinematographers that chase the film and "dirty" look so much that it really becomes where the subject IS the grain, and actual objects and people in the shot are just added effects. Story and composition is ALWAYS number 1.
On the other. other hand, some of those folks are solely there to create material photography. They're exploring how to creatively use grain, light, optics, etc in wild ways to create unseen before effects. Sure, they probably go overboard, but it's when we aren't afraid of pushing boundaries that we discover new techniques. I've seen many of the kind of folks you are referring to keep doing their thing and everyone ignores them (cause it seems weird/bad) until one day their experimentation yields something incredible and all of the sudden there is a ton of interest in their work. Sometimes it pays a lot to colour outside the lines.
@@funknick No yeah I get you. But I'm referring more specifically to certain groups that think FILM GRAIN = GOOD PHOTOGRAPHY/CINEMATOGRAPHY. They aren't actually experimenting with anything or pushing any boundaries. They get a new film camera and suddenly think their content is on another level.
Experimentation and creativity are great, but like the original comment said, only if used in conjunction with the story. In the video when he compares The Batman to Barbie and says Batman looks better, maybe he's right, but Barbie sort out that clean aesthetic because of its subject matter
A point that I wanted to make in a similar way. The video essayist here paints things a little too much in black and white for me. I would even go so far as to say, that for some films, not all but some, a razor-sharp, super clean image is the right choice. The project, the story, the vision should be decisive. For example, I think a film like The Flash or Barbie, no matter what you otherwise think of these works as a whole, rightly have this perfect, crisp look. Many other blockbusters would have done better with different looks, but not these two. It is always a question of what you want to convey and how. Simply saying A is bad and B is good, is too easy, I think.
"Don't be afraid to not be perfect". We are currently living in a generation searching for perfection in every aspect of the life, Body, Hair, Face, voice, looks, movies, series, videogames, technology, and every aspect of the existence. The searching of perfection is why we not are perfect, beacause perfection doesn't exist.
I feel like actually going outside and filming with actual physical scenery and a myriad of extras rather than simulating everything from within a studio such as "the volume" really makes the result so much better. This is what sets those masterpieces of the past apart from anything from the last decade and the coming future.
This has very little to do with specific techniques or VFX, but those are just the tangible things people like to point to when they're not capable of analyzing something abstract like "the soul" of a movie. This video could've been a great discussion about visual style and communication through cinematography, but it kinda just fell into this flat "clean is bad dirty is good - buy my course." Sales pitch.
@@Martel4 might I suggest the "No CGI is just Invisible CGI" video series from "The movie Rabbit hole" channel. He'll explain to you what's wrong with what you just said.
We again came to a similar result: As photography is not merely about capturing what the eye sees but is about capturing emotions, cinema is not about displaying the cleanest images too.
I think "capturing emotions" is a really bad way to look at cinematography or photography, or really any artistic endeavor. Consider it more like a language. You're communicating an idea with your creative choices. The response to that idea can be fueled by an emotion, but the emotion itself is not cemented on the frame. Emotions are far too subjective to ever be the thing you're attempting to convey specifically. That's a low brow, amateurish approach. An acting teacher would give the advice "Play the action, not the emotion." Because playing an emotion will always come off as dishonest and forced. The same concepts apply to most artforms. For example, If you're trying to film a funeral scene and your goal is to "make it look sad " you've already failed. Now if your goal is to communicate the idea of loss and disruption, for example, that's a much better starting point for creating something actually compelling. You can then elaborate on what you're trying to "say" based on the character's motivations and the larger context of the story, but if all you're focused on doing is "capturing the emotion," you will always fail and then you'll have no foundation to build on.
@@BigDaddyWesHah, that's why I sometimes consider language to be... limiting. What you've described in the second paragraph as the right way to do it is what I could see as the meaning of "capturing the emotion". Funny how words twist once they enter the mind...
I cannot overstate how happy I am you mentioned lenses and lighting as part of this clean vs dirty debate. So often the conversation becomes about the overuse of CGI or how digital is inferior to film, but imperfect lenses with character and not imperfect lighting are the big difference makers here. And of course the overly clean look can work, Barbie and Midsommar certainly benefit from a clean look because it fits their world in story. But I could not agree more that when artists are able to commit to making their work imperfect, film or otherwise, often that's what makes their art timeless
@@whodat4ever80 There are people who aren't fans of every Batman movies. I personally hated the last sequel of the dark Knight series because of frequent and too fast alternating between scenes, it seemed too hastily made to meet the deadline somehow.
It is so refreshing to see someone point out exactly what I have been silently enraged about in my head for years... I have often thought, "will movies ever look the way they did before?" My biggest problem with the "clean look" is it feels almost too similar to the real world that it takes you out of the story completely, and it results in a major lack of escapism, which is a primary driving force in people to want to watch movies. It gives every movie the exact same "visual tone/theme" and it looks cheesy above all. Love the video! :)
@@ANTIStraussian The average television of the 80s and 90s looks like a masterpiece compared to the best movies of today. Fuck that, the average COMMERCIAL from then has more filmmaking bona fides than today’s movies.
Don’t think it’s universally great advice. Because that’s what Scorsese did with Killers of the Flower Moon. And as a result that movie is not as good as it could have been. There needs to be balance
That was Kathleen Kennedy's motto. We all see how that turned out for star wars. Do not call them audiences. Do not call them fans. Call them *customers* . You are not entitled to their nor their time. If you don't make a product that enough customers want to pay you for, then you won't have a long career.
For real tho, that's pretty bad advice tho because on a basic level you HAVE to align greatly with what people want for a stable cash flow from a tentpole to fund smaller passion projects and the like and even big tent pole gambles. The advice should actually be to actually listen to what people want and remove any filters getting in the way of a good clear signal.
@@macmcleod1188and that's how we get those clean artificial movies the video mentions. Just do product (TM) that appeals to loads of people instead of taking risks with genuine art. I'll take a flawed but genuine movie over bland perfection any day. I want human art, not board room product.
I think it’s so interesting that dirtying the lens with blood, water etc. helps with immersion, when you would think being aware of the camera as a viewer would do the opposite!
No because it makes us feel like it's in our eyes or on us in some way or as if there is an actual camera man filming the event like a documentary in some cases.
Totally agree. She's basically in the Regency equivalent of Barbie World - she's so sure of herself because she's never had to deal with any real conflict. Then, in the picnic scene, the overbearing sunlight makes her poor choice of words seem even more awkward.
Came here to say this! The clean look can be great too, if that's the style you're going with and if it fits the movie you're working on. For Emma it's perfect.
Phew okay I'm glad more people are on the same page with this. You're so right. Emma is not a dark, broody story!! Every frame of Emma felt like a cute pastel drawing to me. Shadows would've just made it look off.
@@j...gI still feel like the lighting was way too bright and artificial though. I remember when I was sitting in the theater I felt like I needed to wear sunglasses. The screen lit up the entire theater. You can capture the light, airiness, pastels, etc. without being overly bright.
@@ImNotCallingYouALiar Aww why are you singling me out😭No, but in all seriousness, I'm not an expert and I didn't get to see the film in theaters, so there's not much I can speak to about that. I just think this was a creative way to film a movie. Besides, every other movie is me squinting through a black screen trying to discern which blob is speaking!
I’m so glad someone said it. So many filmmakers now a days make the mistake of over-lighting a scene instead of prioritizing the tone, atmosphere, and immersion of a scene.
Let’s be fair, the actors probably sue millions USD off film-makers for dirty set and clothes anyway now 🤷♀️ The modern culture is so off. Also too dim scene for safety.
YES OH MY GOD, I was so thrilled when i saw the thumbnail of this video. I've been saying something like this for years but it's rly hard to articulate. I'm always telling my friends something like "i feel like the new cameras are too good, there's no noise, everything feels clean and fake". I usually get a kinda blank look and i don't blame them because i'm not good at articulating it. Now i can just send them this video. LOTR or Jurassic Park are usually the examples i bring up as well. I actually feel so validated rn.
You hit the nail on the head good sir have an upvote. All these sheep just gobble up this crap not thinking any of. Just take a look at Blade Runner or the original Alien. You could almost smell the sweat and dirt. Skin had textures during close ups. Seriously take a look now here at the trailer and then compare it to something like Glass Onion. Or show your friends. I will wait happily for a reply. Would like to hear how they react. For anyone interested while not being the only factor I would search for the aritcle "Orange And Teal - Hollywood please stop this madness". Not only does the always the same color grading leave no room to make a film look unique but also this obsession with applying filters and to post process everything no room for texture. Did anyone notice that thanks to color grading blood now looks pink??? And the faces of the actors look like oranges (Transformers) without any pores or texture at all.
The biggest mistake with Jurassic Park was transfering it to digital, the 35mm version of it is so magical and the film aspect plus the CGI makes everything more alive, it's so beautiful, but then you see those digitalized versions Universal did and it's just like they took most of the movie's life away
I think Denis Villeneuve films have had this look for a while now. Sicario, Prisoners, Bladerunner 2049 and even Dune had this textured lived in feeling to their look.
@@kingkiller5325 they definitely have a more textured feeling than most and I do really like that, dune does a lot in a few scenes too. But the Batman does take that to an extreme that Villeneuve hasn’t gone to much.
I knew something was throwing me off, but yeah it really is the cleanliness of film. My brain registers that Iron Man's suit in its first film is way better looking then any of the suits that comes after, despite the higher budget. It's because that suit actually got dirty.
As an enthusiast photographer, this is fantastically well spoken. I can't tell you the amount of time I would take a photo, adjust local lighting, take it again, change something again. With each and every photo giving a slightly different feel. Do you want the image to pop, saturate the color, do you want a different mood, add a different color filter. It could honestly be considered an arcane craft with how much you can affect a scene by changing relatively minute detail.
The video is also interesting for me as an enthusiast that took a photography course recently. The perfectly lit and later "realistically" edited photos my teacher made me take all felt flat and boring, while most of the photos he deemed as incorrect and "fake" were the ones people were most impressed by.
Have you got a mirrorless system? I find it super rewarding to stick adapted vintage lenses on it. Imperfect glass makes for much more interesting photos.
I worked at a VFX company for 20+ years, and at the end of the pipeline they would often get a note to "dirty it up", sometimes to match the plate better, other times to disguise imperfections in the effects themselves, lol. Common feedback on shots that were too clean was "It's perfect, but it'll have to do."
The film makers should have done that during the shoot, through lighting and cinematography, and not leave it during the post. That's one of the biggest problems in the industry right now. Directors are flying by the seat of their pants instead of finalizing those decisions in pre-production.
This is so inspiring. So many time I've, as you stated, thought a film looked "too good". Like too perfect. Everything soft and perfect and completely awful. You've put into words exactly what I've been thinking and I really appreciate that. You've inspired me and im excited to "dirty" my shots more now because now I know that's what makes the camera feel integrated in the world. The films I love all do this but it's never been explicitly pointed out to me.
in high school art class, we are taught to very rarely center the focus in the middle of the piece. this single lesson has changed the way i watch filmed media of any kind. off-centered focal points, actors moving on and off camera while the camera remains static, long shots, using the camera as a paintbrush the way wes anderson does, LONG SHOTS, ect. are all components shared by the greatest films we've been blessed with so far. approach filmaking like a series of paintings and your project will benefit greatly!!!!
I hadn't thought about the center focus before, but that sounds like a great piece of advice. On the other hand, Wes Anderson's camera positioning seems to buck it. The perfect geometric alignment of his shots is conspicuous enough to break immersion. That works well for his stories, which tend to have a fairy tale feel--but they certainly make the shots look more clean and less real.
@@DB-pn3yb so if you slow down and breathe a moment you'll realize that i'm not claiming anything to be "bad" and simply that a central focus is something to "rarely" use in an art piece. does that mean it is never applicable? absolutely not. art is art, friend. the only "bad" movies are ones that don't understand that
The pursuit of perfect visuals, perfect looking people, extreme video clarity to 'pop' just waters down the things that matter and make it worth watching to begin with!!
For anyone interested while not being the only factor I would search for the aritcle "Orange And Teal - Hollywood please stop this madness". Not only does the always the same color grading leave no room to make a film look unique but also this obsession with applying filters and to post process everything no room for texture. Did anyone notice that thanks to color grading blood now looks pink??? And the faces of the actors look like oranges (Transformers) without any pores or texture at all.
One of the things I loved most about Tron: Legacy was the difference between the sleek, clean 3D lines of the Grid, and the "imperfect" real world. The Grid is cool looking, but it's a little _too_ clean. I love the sunrise scene at the end of the film. Even though it's not a particularly spectacular sunrise, it just feels _real,_ and that drives home the film's point about the folly of chasing perfection.
I think the best parts of the film visually are actually the scenes that take place outside the grid. For all the praise the CGI gets, the simple shots of the real world convey a gritty “meaningfulness” that the grid can’t measure up to. Also they are just plain beautiful.
In terms of lighting this reminds me of the quote "Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."
7:03 I'd argue that the vibe works really well for Emma though. The entire film has this painterly pastel look that really works. The very controlled, bright and soft almost unreal lightning perfectly complements the pastel aesthethic and really brings this upity air that really captures the themes of Austen. It works that every individual frame looks like a Regency painting, it's one of the elements that made me like that film so much.
@@comfortm1506 Yeah... I feel this video is a little weak. I think there's an argument to be had here for the industry, maybe: but the comparisons and examples chosen to make the argument are very poor and obviously a personal and/or effective aesthetic choice for some. For some of these films, I think it makes them quite striking. Emma is certainly intentional, as is All Quiet on the Western Front. I personally think the clean, almost sterile cinematography in the latter makes it a *more* effective film-the contrast away from the subject matter is both palpable and uncomfortable.
There is pastel and then there is pastel if you applied a cheap instragram filter to it. It just looks plasticky and outright horrendous. I can barely watch things like Glass Onion or Argylle. Nothing looks like real footage. All looks animated although there are real objects and sets in those movies.
yeah as much as i appreciated this video, it feels like he was a bit too biased. The batman reminds me a bit of the michael bay transformers movies, where being dimly lit and having action be "realistic" can have a disorienting effect. There should be a balance. Good lighting ≠ little lighting for example
There's so much more charm, sincerity and personality in 90's films. Even the quality of romcoms back then feel more genuine and believable than today's Oscar picks. films nowadays just FEEL like films. not experiences.
The Rings of Power is hyper clean to the point where I cant take it seriously. After a ferocious battle, they all have perfectly clean uniform, styled hair, and no signs of exhaustion. Its just too sterile for me to enjoy it
@aaaaaa Here's one thing that made it "woke": the writers don't understand what makes a woman character strong, so they turned Galadriel into a astoundingly annoying _bully_ with godmod turned on, and made every male around her incompetent, weak and/or shortsighted so that she could look stronger. Is that actual "wokeness?" No. It's a MOR0NIC _imitation_ of "woke" that you see from Hollywood today. These people were too st-pid to understand that a likable protagonist has weaknesses that actually make the character have to work around them. This IS a disease, but not a political one. It's an ARTISTIC disease. Take Mulan, for example. Mulan had to EARN her power in the animated film. She struggled, and overcame. Not so much in the live action remake. THIS IS A PROBLEM. Not for political reasons, but because THESE CHARACTERS ACTUALLY, LITERALLY SUCK. No one wants an unstoppable protagonist with no weaknesses. And these st-pid writers didn't know how to do that, because they thought a woman with weakness wasn't a "strong woman," so they went ahead and made Galadriel an unstoppable bully so she can "have a weakness," even though her bullying just kept working out in her favor. THIS IS @SS WRITING. And I haven't even got to the ludicrous plot choices of the show _(like her jumping overboard, or entirely changing her motivations, or mixing the timelines, or destroying dwarf culture and lore, etc)._ Is having a Black elf a problem? No! Why? Because there were Black people in the lore, and there is precedent for elves pairing with humans. Elrond is part human. So why couldn't there be Black elves? (side note, Arondir is the only elf in the whole damned show that acts like an elf; that's how bad this show is). That's not the problem. Having Black elves is not "woke" in the sense of "woke" where it ruins cinema. No. The "woke" part that hurt this stupid show is the writers' juvenile understanding of what makes a strong woman, and a strong woman character. So when people say wokeness ruined it, they're _right_ if they mean the cheap imitation of woke that Hollywood goes for these days. EDIT: but just to be clear, what made this show stink more than anything was the absurdly terribad writing. The dialogue sounding like an AI's attempt to imitate Tolkien, the lore changes, the RIDICULOUS implausibility, and so on.
Nah, the hobbits and wizard etc did not look clean at all. The elves were ultra clean, but isn't that the whole point of elves? They want us to feel like they are elves, not human. I want that eerie cleanliness-feeling from elves, but maybe that's just me.
Because of the costs these days with film versus digital it means that those who use film have to have the talent to justify it so current movies using film are being used by those who know what they're doing. There are older terrible movies using film, but they're forgotten these days because who wants to remember poor results?
Yep. As a photographer, the problem with digital technology is usually that it "steers" photographers in a certain way and they're not only not trying to avoid it, but actually go all in, embracing various "cheap" manipulation techniques and digital enhancements instead of just...well, doing photography... Or, as Ian Malcolm says in Jurassic Park, your scientists were so obsessed with whether they could that they forgot to stop and think about whether they should.
It's so important. I'm an illustrator and I apply this to everything I do. People love flaw even if they don't know it consciously, it makes things feel real. Flaw is story.
I would tweak the wording a bit, what I feel is lacking in modern films is intentionality. Even when the authentic and real isn't there, it can still feel intentional. That someone wanted it to be that way. In Marvel and their imitators, there is no intentionality. I never get the sense that big desicions are taken by the people in charge. It's always the safe choice, the one that leaves things open most for tinkering in post. And a shot is worked on until every part of the executive is happy and then just left there. You sit through a 3 hour epic vfx extravaganza and feel like noone wanted to show anything.
You're right on one part, some of the filmmakers have grea control over the vfx but the fact that so much of the film is vfx makes it not their initial intentions.
They are lacking _humanity._ 99% of what is produced now is algorithmically-optimized, social media-anticipatory, digitally-warped pablum. This applies even to "indie®™" stuff. The artist isnt dead, they were never even there.
I'm an audio and music guy. So none of this crossed my mind too strongly. When I think about things, my brain likes to associate the memory with a colour, shape, and emotion. The Batman makes me feel claustrophobic, dark, cold, black, orange, and feels homely. I fkn love it, and it's what drives me to watch the film. I honestly didn't put this much weight on the concepts you talked about. Excellent fkn video
Alien (1979) is a perfect example of a film that definitely has a style, feels like a different world, but also feels absolutely real at the same time. It has a distinct look, but doesn't look manipulated or artificial.
Films from the early 2000's such as Man on Fire look so visually immersing and grimy that it reflects the kind of world the story unfolding takes place in, they're my favourite.
As someone who briefly learned Blender and how to create 3D spaces from scratch, I've always had a deep appreciation for people who can use dirt/dust/wore decals in a 3D space to make it look more realistic. You can quickly tell an experienced vs beginner 3D artist just by how symmetrical/perfect a scene is and how they deal with imperfections (unless the scene is meant to be perfect, like 2001 Space Odessey White Room). I've worked in software development mostly and what I've found is in general, solid colors are your enemy. If you want something to look good, you need contrast, gradients, dirt marks, ANYTHING. Just don't settle for plain solid colors everywhere.
3D is why movies suck now and the same goes with art. You can tell which artist know how to draw using perspective and which can't. Then they wonder why AI is taking over. Thankfully there's still foreign media that isn't afraid to use live effects. LOTR trilogy stands the test the time for a reason.
Camera quality was far superior. For majority of filmmaking films were shot on…well actual FILMS. Digital cameras are so much inferior. They only became popular because they’re cheaper, not better.
I would make an argument that Barbie worked with that super clean style, because in the real world scenes, they dirtied up the frame & even went for the shaky cam in a few sections. It gave the film a very distinct style that Gerwig masterfully made authentic and fake at the same time.
It absolutely does work if there's a *reason* for it to be unnaturally abnormal. Barbie as a product already exists in that uncanny valley, so it makes perfect sense to our brains for the movie to appear that way too. I'd argue that the VISUALS of Rings of Power, at least the elf portions, are okay because of that reasons. Elves should be near-ethereal in their spectacle. The rest of it... yeah that's a whole other discussion. It's like how I despise flashiness for the sake of flashiness and massive bloom and motion blur and all that... but in movies like Speed Racer... that stuff is absolutely called for.
I became extra aware of this when I saw The Hobbit (part 1/3) in theaters, and in contrast to the beautifully atmospheric Lord of the Rings movies, it looked like a video game. Even cinematic video games now can look more tangibly atmospheric than that. The sharp clean super saturated ultra smooth 48fps deep focus look just didn't match my idea of a fairy tale set in Middle Earth. Would have expected it to look MORE softly vintage than the LOTR trilogy.
I feel like that's part of my issue with the Rings of Power as well, it's all polish no substance. Everything felt like a deliberate creative choice called out loud, when in LOTR all the details blend seamlessly together as if this was a real world that lived and breathed with centuries of history leading up to it. Same with game of thrones from the first season compared to the last, same with Andor compared to pretty much any other Disney Star Wars series.
its so refreshing actually hearing someone talk about an art subject while being ablt to explain thetehnal details, the lense explanation was much appreciated. alot of the time videos like this usualy end up just being a circle jerk about obvious things people already know, glad i actualy learned something from this video.
The difference of having a plan and using CG sparsely to realize it, and having a script with a rough idea for the scene and using greenscreen to figure it out afterwards.
Ultimately the reason is that VFX (until recently crossed fingers) is the only part of Hollywood that isn't giga-unionized due to its relative infancy. So they'll push literally everything they can to VFX in order to cheap out. Even though practical might make a better shot, they'd have to pay the people doing it better and not work them to the bone, so they don't do it.
agree with you on everything you said. love shooting on vintage lenses - not only they are relatively affordable, but also help to add so much texture to the frame
I love the look of All Quiet on The Western Front. The cleanliness of the sky and the crispness of the images of the soldiers with their dirty and bloody faces, their hands, the grunge of the trench, all of that is the focus of the movie, not the bigger world. The outer world is pristine, but these men fight for yards of muddy fields.
I agree. The movie would be more dramatic if shot with a different style. The cleanliness they chose instead makes you feel more connected/closer in time to the events and theres already a dime a dozen of gritty war movies. The sharp and often zoomed out pictures highlight how small and meaningless the deaths of humans are in war. The first time I watched the movie I had to take a break after seeing the opening because of how real and terrible it felt.
That was also the intention of the original novel. To highlight the insanity of it all by contrasting the very real horrors on the front with the banality of how it's planned and talked about at home. It should look almost like a documentary tbh. "Another 10k dead, nothing remarkable"
@@tacticalneubThe filmmaker and cinematographer wanted to do that Dune process to print it on film and whatnot but they didn't have the money. Could've been so awesome.
This show blew me away! About 2 years ago I had a discussion with a photographer who asked me at a baptism why I don't clean my lenses. I told him that I deliberately keep my lenses dirty and dusty so that they create a natural look in the video, which is rarely asked for in photos. He couldn't understand it. I saw that he was using zoom lenses from aperture 3.5. My lenses are old lenses with aperture 1.4 and 30mm focal length. One 50mm lens even with aperture 1.1. Long story short: I love these impurities in the videos. And my customers are delighted. One once said: Your films look so warm and organic. That was a huge compliment for my work.
One of my favorite movies of all time is 28 Days Later. That movie is a visual mess by today's standards but you see everything you need to see and the low resolution somehow makes it more authentic.
Love this video… definitely feel that films have gotten lost in the “picture quality” instead of realism and adding the character into the scene to suck in the audience
For 1971's Fiddler on the Roof they took a silk stocking, stretched it over the lens, and filmed the entire movie through it. It brought an ever so slight color cast and softness to the look.
@TheBakuganmaster99 Art and aesthetics move like a pendulum. If gritty is in for 30 years, eventually clean will start to look new and appealing. There’s no less artistic merit of modern movies compared to 80s movies.
@@bshhhhhhh Thats a wrong opinion. I was talking about realism, not aesthetic. If a person spends 3 days in a forest, they will end up looking dirty and sweaty. Thats missing from modern movies. There is no real indication of suffering.
As a VFX artist I am glad that it wasn't another video blaming bad storytelling and poor choices by directors on us. Would like to add something to the Batman topic which indeed is beautiful and made consequently despite the troubled (Covid) production. As much as the studio is keen on selling the narrative that the car chase was as practical as it gets it was mostly rebuilt in post and extended/enhanced heavily. Major VFX house spent significant effort on replicating the on-lens water effects with the particular lens to match the overall look too. If you can't tell that it wasn't practical, it is job well done! Sadly, their work is not public.
It doesn't begin with choice. The choice is based on your intention as a filmmaker/storyteller/dp and what you are trying to tell the audience. It all starts with intention.
This is why I always believe that noise isn’t necessarily a negative factor. It all boils down to the artist’s skill in wielding the camera. I’ve witnessed old movies with dreadful camera quality when compared to today’s standards, yet they manage to evoke an immersive and authentic experience. 🎥✨
Real 4k restorations from film look better than 99% of new 4k transfers. Lawrence of Arabia looks absolutely spectacular and that move is 60+ years old. Christopher Nolan, Tarantino, and Villeneuve are the best film makers because they understand FILM, and it's importance to the process, even if they are shooting digitally.
@@vb8428 I honestly think the problem (if you want to call it that) is more complex than just “film vs. digital”. I don’t think the recording medium is necessarily the issue here, but more so the heavy reliance on digital effects and post-processing. Personally, I prefer real sets and practical effects to the green screen shots where everything but the actor, or sometimes even the actor himself, looks like a video game. But the real problem arises when the latter is elevated to being a goal in and of itself. I know it’s not possible in each and every circumstance, but for crying out loud, let’s get back to making movies which have a story to tell, and not merely try to visually impress us with a deluge of CGI. It’s gotten so boring at this point. Nolan uses CGI where he has no choice and practical effects where possible. Either way, his stories are compelling and so are the visuals. The same could be said for Villeneuve, who does a lot more digitally.
Films that look too perfect can be off-putting because nobody sees perfectly. We all have different perspectives and imperfections in our eyes. Combine that with the extra sensensual dynamic of feeling, smelling, tasting. All of those sensations add to our experience. Whereas watching a can be distant without depth interaction in order to give a person enough chance to shed the disbelief.
Fun fact on 10:30 - in Children of Men blood splatter on the lance was not intentional and hit it accidentally, but Alfonso Cuarón decided to leave it in the movie to enhance the presence effect. It was a good move though, I really appreciate he did it eventually.
I love imperfections, they make a movie feel like its your own unique style. The fight to keep going higher in resolution just feels like you're trying to to hard. Just because your film is in Hd4k doesn't mean its worth watching, if you can't even write a good story with it as well.
Just watched True Lies that featured the first serious use of CGI and green screen. Mind blown. How come, in 30 years time we went backwards in realism?! This superclean CGI makes Melier’s work look more realistic.
@@pro-seriesfabrication3810I loved the Batman and I agree, but the title said modern movies not modern superhero movies. Again it’s just a slight nitpick, I enjoyed the video regardless
I agree, In some circumstances the dark setting was absolutely appropriate, and I understand metaphorically the "city is always in darkness" due to the crime and corruption in the city. However, there's no reason every single scene needs to be that dim. For example, CSI is not going to work and look for evidence in a room they can't see in. In a 3-hour movie, over one hour is raining. Darkness and rain can effectively set the tone, but they were over-used IMO and eventually took away from the realism.
The Batman is the most cinematic movie I’ve seen come out in the last few years. I have relatively no knowledge of film making but the art is so striking that even a person like me can see it.
It speaks so much to how amazing Greg Fraiser is for the fact that the good examples talked about in this video are mainly The Batman and Dune, both of which he was the Director of Photography for
This is a lesson I had to learn in writing, too. A technically flawless passage often lacks personality and fades from memory as soon as you move on from it. A personal style is made of the mistakes you can't help but make, because they enhance your voice and creative identity.
I love early 2000s films. Not only because of the graininess of the film, but also because props and set designs really paid attention to show character. Little Miss Sunshine is a great example
I guess a lot of this stuff is a matter of taste. He kept on comparing it to other films and talking about how much better The Batman looked, and honestly I just don't agree. Too dark, for a start.
Lol just no. It's way too dark, shots are way too long, the LED panels were obvious, and he stucked a blinding light right at the camera like 5 times whi h is already jarring but twice as bad when it then cuts to pitch black.
@@malachilining2730 idk maybe you should have your vision checked or something. I could see everything just fine. There was a lot of deliberately obscure moments, where the camera would hide things from the audience and leave a lot to your imagination. But that’s a deliberate creative choice that for me enhanced the experience.
What modern movies have you noticed looking way too "clean"?
1917 for me. something about that movie looks weird to me
Honestly every modern Marvel movie 🫣 Yesterday I rewatched The Batman, and honestly the gritty look alone makes it so much better than anything by Marvel from the last 20 years for me.
Exactly! I was thinking this for a long time now. Somewhere between 2012 to 2016 almost every movie and serial I saw became "sterilized" of the film grains and the golden aura.
I find these films increasingly hitting more blue light to my eyes. A major aesthetics let down for me.
The question is "what modern movies doesn't look too clean" ?
I'd say over the past 15 years I've only seen a handful of blockbusters in cinema that don't look too clean and somehow fake.
You've already named a lot of them in your video. Dune, The Batman, Oppenheimer, ...
Negative examples: Jurassic World series, Star Wars sequels, Indiana Jones, 90% of modern romcoms and comedys.
They all feel fake and their look completely destroys immersion for me. Movies from the 80s, 90s and early 2000s had a much better look. But I guess the same can be said about pop-music nowadays.
Great video and analysis by the way! I really enjoyed it and I hope that we get a revival of filmmakers and movies (and music) that try to achieve an authentic look.
@@Divine.Sinner I actually really enjoyed because of that. The "clean" looking scenes looked like authentic pure nature before the fronline has shifted there yet. Then the actual stationary frontline was gritty and dirty as should an old trench be.
My friends and I rewatched the LotR trilogy recently (we do it at least once a year). And one thing that always stands out to me is how messy everyone's hair is. Beards aren't trimmed perfectly. Loose strands stick out and cross over people's faces or get caught in the corners of their mouth. It's a small thing, but it makes everyone just fit so much better.
Exactly! They travel through the mud and wilderness rarely showering, and that is reflected in how they look, their faces, their clothing. Then when they reach a rest stop on the journey, they get cleaned up again. I like that it feels gritty and realistic to what travelers facing battles now and then would actually look like.
Wait! You do this too? I've re-watched them once a year ever since like 2010. Hmu and we'll have a sick ass viewing party.
@@salmonella7993 A lot of us do it..
Once every few months, I will not accept any lesser frequency.@@salmonella7993
Yep everything is far too WOKE now. Care more about looks and pandering to "Identity" than anything else, especially making GOOD Movies. 👎
I think the 90s and early 2000s hit a sweet spot with not only how they were filmed but the right mixture of movie makeup and CGI. Movies now look like video games.
Talking about practical effects. 80s movies are good looking. Like different horror movies or movies like Escape from New York.
Yeah watching a movie these days is like watching a really good long cut scene. It's all a cartoon now. And it shows.
Now now, let's not be so broad in our disdain. I'd narrow it down to Rise of Kong cutscene.
Exactly. That’s why I don’t watch many films lately… well, lately means probably around 14 years… wverything looks so pristine and fake with modern shots, so boring and even disgusting
Yes.
Very well said. This topic is my issue with Jurassic Park vs Jurassic World. Although both use digitally created dinos, the Jurassic World dinos are soooo clean it's distracting. They don't feel like they live in the same space with the human performers.
They fit within the frame with the actors pretty well the issue we are seeing is back then they would get a flawed film plate & match the CGI to that hiding it behind grain & rain elements. Today the image is so clean even without CGI it looks fake so you then add CGI and your brain is telling you “this is fake” especially when they use drones to make the camera move in impossible ways. Back then the camera was grounded you could feel the weight of the camera op behind it. Today with techno cranes & remote heads we lose that human control. It becomes too perfect as if flying around a video game. On a technical level the textures on the CGI dinosaurs in the first movie aren’t detailed but it doesn’t really matter because everything else is real & it’s hidden behind real rain elements & by the time you see it close it’s a real textured animatronic.
@@ImaginationVFXhouseI think the major difference between Jurassic Park and the more recent Jurassic films was that JP didn’t rely on CGI at all. The CGI shots were relatively quick and overall, makes up a tiny percentage of the film (only 6 minutes total!) in comparison to Jurassic World or any modern film, which will shove the CGI in your face for the whole picture. good points about the camera assistance. Movies in the late 90’s were starting to use these extremely smooth camera movements in mixed CGI scenes that we see today, Fight Club being a great example. But from Jurassic Park to even the Lord of the Rings trilogy, you have old school steadicam shots (which were still shakier than modern gimbals), jib and crane shots that sweep around but still have that wonderfully manual look where the pan/tilt and tracking are occasionally out of sync that I wish CGI crane shots would emulate, and then of course the increasingly out of favor handheld shot. Less so in JP, but there’s a lot of it in the LotR trilogy that I wished Jackson would keep doing in the Hobbit.
I saw the abusive predator masquerading as the flash and immediately lost interest in the video. He’s living proof of the hypocrisy of Hollywood and “SJW” wannabes
The funny part is Jurassic World is also captured primarily on 35mm film rather than digital.
Older movies were careful with how they integrated cgi shots into the films because they were aware of technical limitation. They also had more time to work on each shot because the movies weren’t 95% cgi like they are now
It's crazy how good that shot of Aragorn in the thumbnail looks. Everything about it. The pose, Viggo's face, the lighting, the framing, the rainy look. That frame is perfect.
All the new movies, especially Marvel movies, look like TV ads to me. Bring back filming techniques from the past.
It's actually the lighting they had to use for film that look you're talking about
With digital they always use soft lighting but with film they really had to light the scene that's why you see so much texture
I swear movies from the early 2000 looks so natural than todays. Films.
THAT is the point! The "new look" isn't organic. It looks like computergames. 😂
@@POW.CREEPER sie haben die Aufmerksamkeitsspanne einer Eintagsfliege. Alle 5 Sekunden ein Hook oder sie sind weg - das Leben funktioniert aber anders.
I am infertile from eating scented candles. The
Check out 70s and 80s movies.
Ironically the non-editing of this video with completely random and narratively unconnected ... stuff every two seconds is insufferable.
The voice over is really nice though. But it highlights that they had no idea what to show.
So this is not a video, it's a audio podcast with random flashes in the background.
Interesting that you briefly mentioned Barbie, which I think actually benefits from being as clean as possible. Sometimes clean can be the right choice.
Glad someone agrees! I immediately thought its inclusion wasn’t fair in that comparison. Barbie Land is fake and so it makes sense.
And for "real world" sequences in the film, "@@candacepenny9082"?!?
He never said Barbie looked bad
@@candacepenny9082 nobody ever said the opposite. What are you guys talking about? Of course there’s a time and place for clean and nobody said Barbie is too clean and nobody implied that it should’ve been gritty.
@@MaxIronsThird yeah. I think people just want to find something to say that’s different from the video that they believe is a good point. You don’t need to make a point and imply someone claimed the opposite or implied the opposite. Nobody said it’s bad and nobody said clean as bad.
One thing I think a lot of 2000's movies like LOTR, Harry Potter, and Pirates of the Carribean did well in was use a mix of practical and visual effects, so it allowed them to look very grounded and realistic for certain scenes but utilize their VFX for some of the more fantastical elements of the story. It really helped draw a line between fantasy and reality and is a much better use of effects when compared to today's use of blue/greenscreens.
Thing is its more than that. Like fine detailing in davy jones tentacles. He is still the most realistic cgi character that exists. Only ones comparable are James Cameron Avatar.
That's why I love directors such as Christopher Nolan who continue with this process
A huge percentage of films still use practical and visual effects. Good series on it th-cam.com/video/7ttG90raCNo/w-d-xo.html
Yeah sometimes the CGI background and the foreground actors have a mismatch in lighting, that makes it even more obvious they're standing in front of the green screen. The Volume was supposed to fix this problem but I don't think it has. The light from The Volume reflects off the back of the actors so it looks like they're standing in from of an LCD screen.
@@CindyalibasterNolan is one of the best directors currently but he should stop lying about not using special effects. In Oppenheimer, he failed to give credit to the visual effects team and lied about the movie having zero digital visual effects. It's a pretty asshole attitude. I'm a fan of his work but he was an asshole in this.
I loved that LOTR feels so otherwordly yet at the same time so real and natural like I can still imagine myself in Middle-Earth, it's just the right balance of earthly dark colors and some recognizable colors so that it doesn't looks flawless but just right.
Did you notice in LotR trilogy that camera moves almost 90% of the time? It was Peter Jackson's choice especially on wide shots so we can absorb the beauty of those places, like eg New Zealand
I remember going to the cinema to watch Empire Strikes Back, and one thing struck me afterwards. The hangar where the rebels were working on their spacecraft and other military machines was dirty, which you should expect if you have ever visited a real workshop. I loved it.
That was a strength of the art direction for the original trilogy.
That's what I've always loved about the OT sets and props. They look real, lived-in.
Sometimes I wonder what it feels to be someone in the 80s watching star wars. because I couldn't watch old star wars they look really old . And I can tolerate that usually. But not with movies that needs heavy effects
I always loved how everything in Star Wars is all grimy, dirty, and used. Like everything seems futuristic to us with spaceships, lasers, and robots, but at the same time to the people in the universe, the Millennium Falcon is basically just an antique delivery truck. Nothing special there, just an old pile of junk.
@@luigi55125 This!
Game of Thrones earlier seasons were so immersive for this very reason, but even later into the show with bigger budgets and quality of cameras, they managed to keep some grit which I appreciated.
Most overrated show of all time. Piece of shit. Only morons can enjoy such dumb shit
HBO in general is good at this. The Wire, Rome, The Sopranos, Chernobyl--it's all made to look very real
HBO is one of the goats of immersion. Their adaptation of the last of us is one of the best too
True Detective season 1
Games of Thrones' writing and direction may have taken a nosedive. But the cinematography, score, and costume design remained top notch... for the most part.
This is something that I started to notice a few years ago, mainly on Netflix. Some movies just looked fake to me, and I had no desire to watch them. It kind of reminds me of those "fresh-off-the-conveyor-belt" christmas movies, where everything looks too perfect.
Yes exactly. Just this week I started the Netflix Last Airbender adaptation (I love Avatar, I can’t not watch this) and I’ve been trying to find words to describe why everything feels so “off” in every Netflix and Disney production, and this is it! Too clean, too crisp, always perfect lighting/makeup/grooming, ah! TH-cam must have heard me complaining
stole my words dude. Thats what I've been saying to my friends that videos seems like "factory made", its like Netflix has some tailormade template/machine which pumps out videos
It's because everything is now done with CG. What used to be filmed on location, or on fully realized sets is now created using green screen. Even much of the attire characters are wearing is CG. It's just cheaper to do it this way.
Like when they go on a dirty desert journey and come out white teeth Clean clothes fresh hair cuts etc. Lol
I've noticed this fake look, frankly, since around the middle of the 2000's. I've always attributed it to the fact that things aren't shot on film anymore. (Yes, I know that even this video downplays this factor.) Yet whenever I've suggested this, it usually gets dismissed with an "okay boomer" like condescension. Meanwhile, new movie after new movie come out, and they barely register with audiences, and they can't quite place their finger on why.
You pointing out how “The Batman” does NOT look clean like most modern movies is so important. It’s one of the reasons it resonated so much after seeing it in theaters that first time. It felt like a movie that we had been starved of in the last 10-20 years
If you read batman comic, the movie still looks clean
@@boboboy8189 I’m not talking about clean in terms of themes, I’m talking about how it looks dirty and filmed in ways that don’t look “perfect”. It’s not something that really compares to comics, ya know? Totally different medium
@@TemperVoid i understand its different medium but i saw plenty of self proclaimed batman fans said the visual looks like in the comic but i disagree. Yes the color are much more colorful in comic but its still have realism on each panel while the batman movie despite its looks "dirty", its felt something is "off". Its looks top clean compare to Matt reeves previous movies
@@boboboy8189 Yeah but... that's not the point...
@@boboboy8189 I’m not comparing it to other Batman mediums though, I’m talking about movies in general. The comics are completely separate here. Movies compared to movies. The movie is dirty compared to other movies. I’m sure the comic is what you’re saying it is but that’s not relevant to my point lol
I love it when I'm made aware of something that sub-consciously I've felt, but never fully realised. That 'perfect'/'clean' look to modern films really does almost instinctively make me regard what I'm watching as sometimes inauthentic, but other times just simply less seriously (which isn't necessarily bad as sometimes I do just want easy-watching). All comes down to immersion as you mention.
"You may not have realized it, but your brain did" - Mr. Plinkett
it is really visible if you compare LOTR vs Hobbit and any Hobbit dwarf vs Gimli.
@@alatielinara undeniably. But what is also relevant is if it's appropriate or not.
The Hobbit should not be viewed as equivalent in intent to LotR.
The Hobbit is a children's story full of embellishment told by the main character.
LotR is an adult story told by the author.
TO BE CLEAR, that doesn't excuse the clusterfuck that was a large part of The Hobbit... but it is still relevant.
The Hobbit feels like it should be exaggerated and mildly unreal feeling, because it is a tall tell. Not an untrue one, but... maybe less than perfectly accurate in its retelling.
True perfection has to be imperfect thats why its beautiful
And yet David Fincher's movies are almost always at the front end of great looking films and they all look pristine and clean, at least the ones after Fight Club. So does Avatar. Dunkirk is another. Interstellar. The Dark Knight Rises. Life of Pi. The Favorite. Barbie recently.
I could go on and on and on. The video makes absolutely no sense when you think about it. The problem is too many movies looking like they have the same color grade. It's just not about clean vs dirty like this video makes it to be.
Lord of the Rings and the Pirates of the Caribbean movies are great examples of how much better movies used to look
LotR was perfect. Every bit of it
And just how much better movies used to be. XD
Almost everything has gotten worse the past 15 years
@@Skumtomten1 messaging is more important than quality storytelling now. Have to have diverse director with no experience directing. Also need activist writers writing it!
Harry Potter as well, but not Fantastic Beast
it has bothered me SOOO MUCHHHH!!! Its so CLEAN! So perfect, every hair in place, colors vibrant, clothes ironed, perfect. This happens a lot with netflix. I mever really thought about how it would involve the cameras and that though, so this video is so interesting to me!! I rlly like that vintage look from old movies
So true. I've been calling this clean look the "netflix look" because I couldn't really pinpoint what bothered me so much but it was in all netflix shows that i saw. But now its like everybody does it and the new disney+ shows are just as bad
@@leeknowspudding0 same, I also called like that
Seems to happen the high the budget of the production. Look at Game of Thrones, Seasons 1-3 and a bit of 4 have a much more grounded, messy and dirty look to everything. More use of natural harsher light and less control over it that I feel really helps sell this dirty messy and realist fantasy world. Cut to season 7 and 8 and everything is so nicely lit (Save the long night...) with soft edge lighting and highlight roll off and its just so clean. I much prefer the original look of seasons 1-4. The same can be said for Stranger Things and tons of other shows, not just on Netflix
it hasnt bothered me a bit. the secret is i dont watch these ugly movies. why would someone watch a movie with bad cinematography? probably the rest is bad aswel. (most times it is)
I felt that way since the 2000s as a kid. Probably because I watched alot of old movies on random channels over the weekends
My professor of Illumination said once "asian movies are different in terms of lighting, we, in occident, are used to add as many llights as possible and then remove them, Asians usually starts with 0 and only add the needed few, the less the better"
Since then i've watched many asian movies and now, watching this video, i can only thing he was SO right.
Can you recommend some?
If you love actions movies watch the Raid @michelangeloboldri9893
@@michelangeloboldri9893any Stephen Chow movie. no shit. hes a Hong Kong film legend.
@@emperor8716 I’ll check him out
@@emperor8716 thanks
We experience this in animation too! Everything has to be clean, crisp, perfect, no errors in model.... and so much character is lost for it. Thanks for putting this together!
Imperfections in art is completely different, unless the animation is hyper real
I feel like the animation fights back in some ways with new trend for more.... "hand drawn" looks.
The worst case is the cartoons, now, every character seems like a sausage with legs and arms, smooth and clean.
Exactly, just look at stylised animation from disney- or my favourite example is The Iron Giant. Every character has a unique build, facial structure... so much character is brought by that
For real. I always cringe when I render out clean and sharp looking renders just to throw on some film print emulation and grain + blur, to make it less cg haha
I love how David Fincher’s old and new movies alike look objectively “perfect” and “sterile” and “clean” yet 100% authentic.
Se7en looks amazing for its time. Looks like it came out in 2001
His current film is like this, the guy hasn't given up on his style man.
Well Alien 3 is kinda dirty to me.
@@giveall9695 it is admittedly Fincher’s weakest work reason being insufferable working conditions.
@@Alienkiwi730 Every time i watch the intro of Se7en, I'm baffled how that can be from the mid 90s. Fincher simply set a visual trend that started really catching on in the early 2000s, when it became the norm, I know. But that doesn't stop me from being amazed every single time.
The inverse is also true. There are some photographers and cinematographers that chase the film and "dirty" look so much that it really becomes where the subject IS the grain, and actual objects and people in the shot are just added effects. Story and composition is ALWAYS number 1.
On the other. other hand, some of those folks are solely there to create material photography. They're exploring how to creatively use grain, light, optics, etc in wild ways to create unseen before effects. Sure, they probably go overboard, but it's when we aren't afraid of pushing boundaries that we discover new techniques. I've seen many of the kind of folks you are referring to keep doing their thing and everyone ignores them (cause it seems weird/bad) until one day their experimentation yields something incredible and all of the sudden there is a ton of interest in their work.
Sometimes it pays a lot to colour outside the lines.
@@funknick No yeah I get you. But I'm referring more specifically to certain groups that think FILM GRAIN = GOOD PHOTOGRAPHY/CINEMATOGRAPHY. They aren't actually experimenting with anything or pushing any boundaries. They get a new film camera and suddenly think their content is on another level.
Experimentation and creativity are great, but like the original comment said, only if used in conjunction with the story.
In the video when he compares The Batman to Barbie and says Batman looks better, maybe he's right, but Barbie sort out that clean aesthetic because of its subject matter
A point that I wanted to make in a similar way. The video essayist here paints things a little too much in black and white for me.
I would even go so far as to say, that for some films, not all but some, a razor-sharp, super clean image is the right choice.
The project, the story, the vision should be decisive.
For example, I think a film like The Flash or Barbie, no matter what you otherwise think of these works as a whole, rightly have this perfect, crisp look.
Many other blockbusters would have done better with different looks, but not these two.
It is always a question of what you want to convey and how.
Simply saying A is bad and B is good, is too easy, I think.
Never seen a single example of this. Genuinely asking what is one such film that falls under this?
"Don't be afraid to not be perfect". We are currently living in a generation searching for perfection in every aspect of the life, Body, Hair, Face, voice, looks, movies, series, videogames, technology, and every aspect of the existence. The searching of perfection is why we not are perfect, beacause perfection doesn't exist.
I feel like actually going outside and filming with actual physical scenery and a myriad of extras rather than simulating everything from within a studio such as "the volume" really makes the result so much better. This is what sets those masterpieces of the past apart from anything from the last decade and the coming future.
Some people still respect practical effects and things being done "in camera." Like Christopher Nolan.
I hate this clean look, it's not immersive, and it removes from the entire experience...
@celticajayk oh yeah for sure! I didn't even think about that aspect before, but it's a really good point.
This has very little to do with specific techniques or VFX, but those are just the tangible things people like to point to when they're not capable of analyzing something abstract like "the soul" of a movie.
This video could've been a great discussion about visual style and communication through cinematography, but it kinda just fell into this flat "clean is bad dirty is good - buy my course." Sales pitch.
@@Martel4 might I suggest the "No CGI is just Invisible CGI" video series from "The movie Rabbit hole" channel. He'll explain to you what's wrong with what you just said.
We again came to a similar result: As photography is not merely about capturing what the eye sees but is about capturing emotions, cinema is not about displaying the cleanest images too.
I think "capturing emotions" is a really bad way to look at cinematography or photography, or really any artistic endeavor.
Consider it more like a language. You're communicating an idea with your creative choices. The response to that idea can be fueled by an emotion, but the emotion itself is not cemented on the frame. Emotions are far too subjective to ever be the thing you're attempting to convey specifically. That's a low brow, amateurish approach. An acting teacher would give the advice "Play the action, not the emotion." Because playing an emotion will always come off as dishonest and forced. The same concepts apply to most artforms.
For example, If you're trying to film a funeral scene and your goal is to "make it look sad " you've already failed. Now if your goal is to communicate the idea of loss and disruption, for example, that's a much better starting point for creating something actually compelling. You can then elaborate on what you're trying to "say" based on the character's motivations and the larger context of the story, but if all you're focused on doing is "capturing the emotion," you will always fail and then you'll have no foundation to build on.
@@BigDaddyWesHah, that's why I sometimes consider language to be... limiting. What you've described in the second paragraph as the right way to do it is what I could see as the meaning of "capturing the emotion". Funny how words twist once they enter the mind...
No fucking shit? A movie is supposed to be art. How you frame and direct a shot is what we call filmmaking.
I cannot overstate how happy I am you mentioned lenses and lighting as part of this clean vs dirty debate. So often the conversation becomes about the overuse of CGI or how digital is inferior to film, but imperfect lenses with character and not imperfect lighting are the big difference makers here. And of course the overly clean look can work, Barbie and Midsommar certainly benefit from a clean look because it fits their world in story. But I could not agree more that when artists are able to commit to making their work imperfect, film or otherwise, often that's what makes their art timeless
Yes. What precious little story there is in Barbie, the visual design elements certainly compliment.
@siddharthsriram2685just trying to be different
@siddharthsriram2685the writing was mediocre, the screenplay was perfect.
No he isn't. He is right.@@whodat4ever80
@@whodat4ever80 There are people who aren't fans of every Batman movies. I personally hated the last sequel of the dark Knight series because of frequent and too fast alternating between scenes, it seemed too hastily made to meet the deadline somehow.
It is so refreshing to see someone point out exactly what I have been silently enraged about in my head for years... I have often thought, "will movies ever look the way they did before?" My biggest problem with the "clean look" is it feels almost too similar to the real world that it takes you out of the story completely, and it results in a major lack of escapism, which is a primary driving force in people to want to watch movies. It gives every movie the exact same "visual tone/theme" and it looks cheesy above all. Love the video! :)
Too much cherry picking and confirmation bias for my tastes.
Why do these okay movies not look as good as the best movies of all time from the past 😂😂
@ANTIStraussian Mate, it's true. Maybe your bias is that you like crap.
@@ANTIStraussian The average television of the 80s and 90s looks like a masterpiece compared to the best movies of today. Fuck that, the average COMMERCIAL from then has more filmmaking bona fides than today’s movies.
@@UnchainedEruption 80s and 90s tv sucked, don't you watch A24 movies?
I'm so happy to have found my crowd - I've been silently enraged for so long too
When it comes to art in any form, imperfection is perfection.
Ecaxtly
It's not imperfect tho, it's just natural.
@@thedislikebutton1907 yup
@@thedislikebutton1907 That's what nature is though, it's imperfection, from the perspective of humans who usually strive for perfection
Nobody told us EDM producers that, and no one told Jazz that, but nice try.
“Make movies that you want to see, not what you think the audience wants.” That’s great advice
Executive producers sweating*
Don’t think it’s universally great advice. Because that’s what Scorsese did with Killers of the Flower Moon. And as a result that movie is not as good as it could have been. There needs to be balance
That was Kathleen Kennedy's motto. We all see how that turned out for star wars.
Do not call them audiences. Do not call them fans.
Call them *customers* .
You are not entitled to their nor their time. If you don't make a product that enough customers want to pay you for, then you won't have a long career.
For real tho, that's pretty bad advice tho because on a basic level you HAVE to align greatly with what people want for a stable cash flow from a tentpole to fund smaller passion projects and the like and even big tent pole gambles. The advice should actually be to actually listen to what people want and remove any filters getting in the way of a good clear signal.
@@macmcleod1188and that's how we get those clean artificial movies the video mentions. Just do product (TM) that appeals to loads of people instead of taking risks with genuine art.
I'll take a flawed but genuine movie over bland perfection any day. I want human art, not board room product.
FINALLY, someone is daring to articulate my rage about how i feel on modern cinemas! Man, you're my hero!
I think it’s so interesting that dirtying the lens with blood, water etc. helps with immersion, when you would think being aware of the camera as a viewer would do the opposite!
No because it makes us feel like it's in our eyes or on us in some way or as if there is an actual camera man filming the event like a documentary in some cases.
@@Jhakaro Oh, that makes sense. It’s still fascinating to me because we can obviously tell it’s a lens, but our subconscious doesn’t seem to care :)
Nah I think that's distracting and breaking the fourth wall
I wear glasses that are constantly smudged /catching droplets of rain, so it's even more immersive haha
@@lily-lily-okay hahahahaha,But, so am I🤣
tbf, I think emma's clean camera work fit with the film. At least for the first half, it fits with her idealism and the need to be perfect
Totally agree. She's basically in the Regency equivalent of Barbie World - she's so sure of herself because she's never had to deal with any real conflict. Then, in the picnic scene, the overbearing sunlight makes her poor choice of words seem even more awkward.
Came here to say this! The clean look can be great too, if that's the style you're going with and if it fits the movie you're working on. For Emma it's perfect.
Phew okay I'm glad more people are on the same page with this. You're so right. Emma is not a dark, broody story!! Every frame of Emma felt like a cute pastel drawing to me. Shadows would've just made it look off.
@@j...gI still feel like the lighting was way too bright and artificial though. I remember when I was sitting in the theater I felt like I needed to wear sunglasses. The screen lit up the entire theater. You can capture the light, airiness, pastels, etc. without being overly bright.
@@ImNotCallingYouALiar Aww why are you singling me out😭No, but in all seriousness, I'm not an expert and I didn't get to see the film in theaters, so there's not much I can speak to about that. I just think this was a creative way to film a movie. Besides, every other movie is me squinting through a black screen trying to discern which blob is speaking!
I’m so glad someone said it. So many filmmakers now a days make the mistake of over-lighting a scene instead of prioritizing the tone, atmosphere, and immersion of a scene.
Let’s be fair, the actors probably sue millions USD off film-makers for dirty set and clothes anyway now 🤷♀️
The modern culture is so off.
Also too dim scene for safety.
I'm sure he pronounced "The Batman" more than 1000 times
no, nonsense comment
YES OH MY GOD, I was so thrilled when i saw the thumbnail of this video. I've been saying something like this for years but it's rly hard to articulate. I'm always telling my friends something like "i feel like the new cameras are too good, there's no noise, everything feels clean and fake". I usually get a kinda blank look and i don't blame them because i'm not good at articulating it. Now i can just send them this video.
LOTR or Jurassic Park are usually the examples i bring up as well.
I actually feel so validated rn.
You hit the nail on the head good sir have an upvote. All these sheep just gobble up this crap not thinking any of. Just take a look at Blade Runner or the original Alien. You could almost smell the sweat and dirt. Skin had textures during close ups. Seriously take a look now here at the trailer and then compare it to something like Glass Onion. Or show your friends. I will wait happily for a reply. Would like to hear how they react.
For anyone interested while not being the only factor I would search for the aritcle "Orange And Teal - Hollywood please stop this madness". Not only does the always the same color grading leave no room to make a film look unique but also this obsession with applying filters and to post process everything no room for texture. Did anyone notice that thanks to color grading blood now looks pink??? And the faces of the actors look like oranges (Transformers) without any pores or texture at all.
I've recently rewatched Alien and it's such a good example! i'll check out that article as well thanks for the recommendation. @@EbonyPope
SAMEEEEEEE! This has put it into words so perfectly. Next time I'm just gonna show people this video!!
well i mean.. its not the cameras at all lol
The biggest mistake with Jurassic Park was transfering it to digital, the 35mm version of it is so magical and the film aspect plus the CGI makes everything more alive, it's so beautiful, but then you see those digitalized versions Universal did and it's just like they took most of the movie's life away
Love how he slipped in Andor at least twice in this video, despite it obviously not being a movie. It’s really just that good.
And 1899. Also a gorgeous TV show. Though Dark, from the same creators, is even better. Greatest series ever imo. Andor no.2 for now.
He slipped two many TV shows on either side of examples.
@@maazkalim Because TV shows are also filmmaking. He talks about movies but he wanted to make a point.
That's because Andor is the best-looking piece of Star Wars media to date
@@pseudonymousbeing987 the ending of DARK felt kinda like a cop out to me though. But yeah that, Andor and Arcane are masterpieces imo
The batman is one of the few movies of recent to have this cool textured look that is not the usual sterile digital look.
😂
😂
What’s so funny? Marvel movies literally look like an Amazon commercial.
I think Denis Villeneuve films have had this look for a while now.
Sicario, Prisoners, Bladerunner 2049 and even Dune had this textured lived in feeling to their look.
@@kingkiller5325 they definitely have a more textured feeling than most and I do really like that, dune does a lot in a few scenes too. But the Batman does take that to an extreme that Villeneuve hasn’t gone to much.
I think the 90s are such a happy medium, alot of films from that time look modern and still hold up while not looking overly clean
THANK YOUUUUU. Jeez this new “clean”/overlit trend has been driving me nuts. It just doesn’t look as good as the gritty footage of older days
I knew something was throwing me off, but yeah it really is the cleanliness of film. My brain registers that Iron Man's suit in its first film is way better looking then any of the suits that comes after, despite the higher budget. It's because that suit actually got dirty.
Don't get me wrong, it also drives me bonkers when I can't see what's happening on screen because it's too dark...
As an enthusiast photographer, this is fantastically well spoken. I can't tell you the amount of time I would take a photo, adjust local lighting, take it again, change something again. With each and every photo giving a slightly different feel. Do you want the image to pop, saturate the color, do you want a different mood, add a different color filter. It could honestly be considered an arcane craft with how much you can affect a scene by changing relatively minute detail.
The video is also interesting for me as an enthusiast that took a photography course recently.
The perfectly lit and later "realistically" edited photos my teacher made me take all felt flat and boring, while most of the photos he deemed as incorrect and "fake" were the ones people were most impressed by.
"Needs more contrast"
Have you got a mirrorless system? I find it super rewarding to stick adapted vintage lenses on it. Imperfect glass makes for much more interesting photos.
I worked at a VFX company for 20+ years, and at the end of the pipeline they would often get a note to "dirty it up", sometimes to match the plate better, other times to disguise imperfections in the effects themselves, lol. Common feedback on shots that were too clean was "It's perfect, but it'll have to do."
The film makers should have done that during the shoot, through lighting and cinematography, and not leave it during the post. That's one of the biggest problems in the industry right now. Directors are flying by the seat of their pants instead of finalizing those decisions in pre-production.
This is so inspiring. So many time I've, as you stated, thought a film looked "too good". Like too perfect. Everything soft and perfect and completely awful. You've put into words exactly what I've been thinking and I really appreciate that. You've inspired me and im excited to "dirty" my shots more now because now I know that's what makes the camera feel integrated in the world. The films I love all do this but it's never been explicitly pointed out to me.
in high school art class, we are taught to very rarely center the focus in the middle of the piece. this single lesson has changed the way i watch filmed media of any kind.
off-centered focal points, actors moving on and off camera while the camera remains static, long shots, using the camera as a paintbrush the way wes anderson does, LONG SHOTS, ect. are all components shared by the greatest films we've been blessed with so far.
approach filmaking like a series of paintings and your project will benefit greatly!!!!
I am a fuckin sucker for extended shots
I hadn't thought about the center focus before, but that sounds like a great piece of advice.
On the other hand, Wes Anderson's camera positioning seems to buck it. The perfect geometric alignment of his shots is conspicuous enough to break immersion. That works well for his stories, which tend to have a fairy tale feel--but they certainly make the shots look more clean and less real.
@mvmlego1212 true, his works are typically fanciful and pastel, i love it 🥰
@@DB-pn3yb so if you slow down and breathe a moment you'll realize that i'm not claiming anything to be "bad" and simply that a central focus is something to "rarely" use in an art piece. does that mean it is never applicable? absolutely not. art is art, friend. the only "bad" movies are ones that don't understand that
The pursuit of perfect visuals, perfect looking people, extreme video clarity to 'pop' just waters down the things that matter and make it worth watching to begin with!!
gives uncanny valley vibes tbh
For anyone interested while not being the only factor I would search for the aritcle "Orange And Teal - Hollywood please stop this madness". Not only does the always the same color grading leave no room to make a film look unique but also this obsession with applying filters and to post process everything no room for texture. Did anyone notice that thanks to color grading blood now looks pink??? And the faces of the actors look like oranges (Transformers) without any pores or texture at all.
perfect looking people but at the same time the people are uglier than ever
I miss when most hollywood stars were attractive
One of the things I loved most about Tron: Legacy was the difference between the sleek, clean 3D lines of the Grid, and the "imperfect" real world. The Grid is cool looking, but it's a little _too_ clean. I love the sunrise scene at the end of the film. Even though it's not a particularly spectacular sunrise, it just feels _real,_ and that drives home the film's point about the folly of chasing perfection.
True. Although I really enjoyed the “fake” world of Tron too.
I love that movie so much. The world, music, and atmosphere feels so appealing and beautiful to me.
I think the best parts of the film visually are actually the scenes that take place outside the grid. For all the praise the CGI gets, the simple shots of the real world convey a gritty “meaningfulness” that the grid can’t measure up to. Also they are just plain beautiful.
@@mr.ballstone1914 Yes! That's exactly how I feel.
Underrated movie
In terms of lighting this reminds me of the quote "Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."
7:03 I'd argue that the vibe works really well for Emma though. The entire film has this painterly pastel look that really works. The very controlled, bright and soft almost unreal lightning perfectly complements the pastel aesthethic and really brings this upity air that really captures the themes of Austen. It works that every individual frame looks like a Regency painting, it's one of the elements that made me like that film so much.
Same here, it always looked to me like moving regency paintings, so assumed that's what they were going for. It's very fitting for Emma
the person who made the video fails to make good points bc they keep comparing everything to the batman lmao
@@comfortm1506 Yeah... I feel this video is a little weak. I think there's an argument to be had here for the industry, maybe: but the comparisons and examples chosen to make the argument are very poor and obviously a personal and/or effective aesthetic choice for some. For some of these films, I think it makes them quite striking. Emma is certainly intentional, as is All Quiet on the Western Front. I personally think the clean, almost sterile cinematography in the latter makes it a *more* effective film-the contrast away from the subject matter is both palpable and uncomfortable.
Ye like that look for emma is purposeful, everything isn’t Batman 😭
There is pastel and then there is pastel if you applied a cheap instragram filter to it. It just looks plasticky and outright horrendous. I can barely watch things like Glass Onion or Argylle. Nothing looks like real footage. All looks animated although there are real objects and sets in those movies.
Take a shot every time he says "The Batman"
fucking hell was looking for this comment
Yeah .... Because THE BATMAN deserves it........
yeah as much as i appreciated this video, it feels like he was a bit too biased. The batman reminds me a bit of the michael bay transformers movies, where being dimly lit and having action be "realistic" can have a disorienting effect. There should be a balance. Good lighting ≠ little lighting for example
slept after the first 30 mins, its so slow and boring, you can't change me@@kalaneethiganeson6438
Batman is horible and looks, feels so fake. Nolan had made the best version of it. Sorry!
I always prefer the look of 90 film over today movie.
The old movie has it charm.
Exactly. Even new Dune is way to clean and sterile.
@@ZvilgantisKailisNot at all
Me too.
@ZvilgantisKailis Dune looks like a clean modern comic to me. I like seeing Dune on my Hdcrt Projector 1080i tv. That balances that.
There's so much more charm, sincerity and personality in 90's films. Even the quality of romcoms back then feel more genuine and believable than today's Oscar picks. films nowadays just FEEL like films. not experiences.
Man, you just said something I felt, but couldn't express for years.
The Rings of Power is hyper clean to the point where I cant take it seriously. After a ferocious battle, they all have perfectly clean uniform, styled hair, and no signs of exhaustion. Its just too sterile for me to enjoy it
@@JTguitarlessonswhat made it “woke”
@@JTguitarlessons Is woke in the room with you now?
Also the writing is trash.
@aaaaaa Here's one thing that made it "woke": the writers don't understand what makes a woman character strong, so they turned Galadriel into a astoundingly annoying _bully_ with godmod turned on, and made every male around her incompetent, weak and/or shortsighted so that she could look stronger. Is that actual "wokeness?" No. It's a MOR0NIC _imitation_ of "woke" that you see from Hollywood today. These people were too st-pid to understand that a likable protagonist has weaknesses that actually make the character have to work around them. This IS a disease, but not a political one. It's an ARTISTIC disease.
Take Mulan, for example. Mulan had to EARN her power in the animated film. She struggled, and overcame. Not so much in the live action remake. THIS IS A PROBLEM. Not for political reasons, but because THESE CHARACTERS ACTUALLY, LITERALLY SUCK. No one wants an unstoppable protagonist with no weaknesses. And these st-pid writers didn't know how to do that, because they thought a woman with weakness wasn't a "strong woman," so they went ahead and made Galadriel an unstoppable bully so she can "have a weakness," even though her bullying just kept working out in her favor.
THIS IS @SS WRITING. And I haven't even got to the ludicrous plot choices of the show _(like her jumping overboard, or entirely changing her motivations, or mixing the timelines, or destroying dwarf culture and lore, etc)._ Is having a Black elf a problem? No! Why? Because there were Black people in the lore, and there is precedent for elves pairing with humans. Elrond is part human. So why couldn't there be Black elves? (side note, Arondir is the only elf in the whole damned show that acts like an elf; that's how bad this show is).
That's not the problem. Having Black elves is not "woke" in the sense of "woke" where it ruins cinema. No. The "woke" part that hurt this stupid show is the writers' juvenile understanding of what makes a strong woman, and a strong woman character. So when people say wokeness ruined it, they're _right_ if they mean the cheap imitation of woke that Hollywood goes for these days.
EDIT: but just to be clear, what made this show stink more than anything was the absurdly terribad writing. The dialogue sounding like an AI's attempt to imitate Tolkien, the lore changes, the RIDICULOUS implausibility, and so on.
Nah, the hobbits and wizard etc did not look clean at all. The elves were ultra clean, but isn't that the whole point of elves? They want us to feel like they are elves, not human. I want that eerie cleanliness-feeling from elves, but maybe that's just me.
Digital Technology in itself is not a problem. It's how you use it. Remember that movies shot on Film can also look terrible.
Because of the costs these days with film versus digital it means that those who use film have to have the talent to justify it so current movies using film are being used by those who know what they're doing.
There are older terrible movies using film, but they're forgotten these days because who wants to remember poor results?
Yep. As a photographer, the problem with digital technology is usually that it "steers" photographers in a certain way and they're not only not trying to avoid it, but actually go all in, embracing various "cheap" manipulation techniques and digital enhancements instead of just...well, doing photography... Or, as Ian Malcolm says in Jurassic Park, your scientists were so obsessed with whether they could that they forgot to stop and think about whether they should.
ya, grain is fine but too much grain is a problem.
@@xGaLoSxsome digital films nowadays add far too much grain in post as well.
@@Case_ Que hundreds of over processed landscape shots loaded every week on 500px...
"Dont be afraid to not be perfect" - That's the message. Thanks for this great video making it finally understandable for me
It's so important. I'm an illustrator and I apply this to everything I do. People love flaw even if they don't know it consciously, it makes things feel real. Flaw is story.
im no filmmaker, but this really explains why i artistically like some movies and shows, while other just dont stick, like 90% of netflix's catalogue
I would tweak the wording a bit, what I feel is lacking in modern films is intentionality. Even when the authentic and real isn't there, it can still feel intentional. That someone wanted it to be that way. In Marvel and their imitators, there is no intentionality. I never get the sense that big desicions are taken by the people in charge. It's always the safe choice, the one that leaves things open most for tinkering in post. And a shot is worked on until every part of the executive is happy and then just left there. You sit through a 3 hour epic vfx extravaganza and feel like noone wanted to show anything.
“every part of the executive”?!?
You're right on one part, some of the filmmakers have grea control over the vfx but the fact that so much of the film is vfx makes it not their initial intentions.
They are lacking _humanity._
99% of what is produced now is algorithmically-optimized, social media-anticipatory, digitally-warped pablum. This applies even to "indie®™" stuff.
The artist isnt dead, they were never even there.
I'm an audio and music guy. So none of this crossed my mind too strongly. When I think about things, my brain likes to associate the memory with a colour, shape, and emotion. The Batman makes me feel claustrophobic, dark, cold, black, orange, and feels homely. I fkn love it, and it's what drives me to watch the film. I honestly didn't put this much weight on the concepts you talked about. Excellent fkn video
Ok
YEEES! Nobody understood me when i was saying that. Grainy footage looks much more realistic as you don't see the crystal clear flaws!
I find that the borders around the movie and the filter thats put on the movie is paramount
Alien (1979) is a perfect example of a film that definitely has a style, feels like a different world, but also feels absolutely real at the same time.
It has a distinct look, but doesn't look manipulated or artificial.
Films from the early 2000's such as Man on Fire look so visually immersing and grimy that it reflects the kind of world the story unfolding takes place in, they're my favourite.
Yeah this was Tony Scott's movies signature style. Love it so much. RIP Tony
Man on fire is a banger.
SUCH a great movie
@@jraffxx tony scott is a severely underrated legend
i love the style of tony scott
As someone who briefly learned Blender and how to create 3D spaces from scratch, I've always had a deep appreciation for people who can use dirt/dust/wore decals in a 3D space to make it look more realistic. You can quickly tell an experienced vs beginner 3D artist just by how symmetrical/perfect a scene is and how they deal with imperfections (unless the scene is meant to be perfect, like 2001 Space Odessey White Room). I've worked in software development mostly and what I've found is in general, solid colors are your enemy. If you want something to look good, you need contrast, gradients, dirt marks, ANYTHING. Just don't settle for plain solid colors everywhere.
3D is why movies suck now and the same goes with art. You can tell which artist know how to draw using perspective and which can't. Then they wonder why AI is taking over. Thankfully there's still foreign media that isn't afraid to use live effects. LOTR trilogy stands the test the time for a reason.
@@grimsonforce7504 That's a completly stupid and industry ignorant take
@@Lequinox123Man about to have his mind blown when he realizes how long CGI has been used for
Thats why old movies were so iconic, the camera quality was not that good but it was realistic and so real, not fake like todays
Camera quality was far superior. For majority of filmmaking films were shot on…well actual FILMS. Digital cameras are so much inferior. They only became popular because they’re cheaper, not better.
The more you light perfectly and without shadows the more everything looks like a telenovela
dont diss out telenovelas. the classic ones look a lot better than modern 300 milliion dollar hollywood productions with a billionth of the budget
@@bahshaschill
I would make an argument that Barbie worked with that super clean style, because in the real world scenes, they dirtied up the frame & even went for the shaky cam in a few sections. It gave the film a very distinct style that Gerwig masterfully made authentic and fake at the same time.
It absolutely does work if there's a *reason* for it to be unnaturally abnormal. Barbie as a product already exists in that uncanny valley, so it makes perfect sense to our brains for the movie to appear that way too.
I'd argue that the VISUALS of Rings of Power, at least the elf portions, are okay because of that reasons. Elves should be near-ethereal in their spectacle.
The rest of it... yeah that's a whole other discussion.
It's like how I despise flashiness for the sake of flashiness and massive bloom and motion blur and all that... but in movies like Speed Racer... that stuff is absolutely called for.
I became extra aware of this when I saw The Hobbit (part 1/3) in theaters,
and in contrast to the beautifully atmospheric Lord of the Rings movies,
it looked like a video game.
Even cinematic video games now can look more tangibly atmospheric than that.
The sharp clean super saturated ultra smooth 48fps deep focus look just didn't match my idea of a fairy tale set in Middle Earth.
Would have expected it to look MORE softly vintage than the LOTR trilogy.
watching in 30fps it looked much better.
I feel like that's part of my issue with the Rings of Power as well, it's all polish no substance. Everything felt like a deliberate creative choice called out loud, when in LOTR all the details blend seamlessly together as if this was a real world that lived and breathed with centuries of history leading up to it. Same with game of thrones from the first season compared to the last, same with Andor compared to pretty much any other Disney Star Wars series.
@@gibn1542 that's because it isnt Tolkien. To think first time showrunners could create a show to his level is insane.
Ye
The Battle of the Five armies is literally the worst movie I’ve ever watched. I’ve seen video game cutscenes that look more realistic.
its so refreshing actually hearing someone talk about an art subject while being ablt to explain thetehnal details, the lense explanation was much appreciated. alot of the time videos like this usualy end up just being a circle jerk about obvious things people already know, glad i actualy learned something from this video.
The difference of having a plan and using CG sparsely to realize it,
and having a script with a rough idea for the scene and using greenscreen to figure it out afterwards.
Ultimately the reason is that VFX (until recently crossed fingers) is the only part of Hollywood that isn't giga-unionized due to its relative infancy. So they'll push literally everything they can to VFX in order to cheap out. Even though practical might make a better shot, they'd have to pay the people doing it better and not work them to the bone, so they don't do it.
@@TheShicksinator ironically CGI has become one of the most expensive parts about making movies nowadays
@@kalodawg8297 but still cheaper than the combination of practical and CGI that would produce the best product due to the labor cost of the former.
@@TheShicksinator It is obvious that you have no experience of working in the film industry.
@@garrett2439 Speak for yourself
agree with you on everything you said. love shooting on vintage lenses - not only they are relatively affordable, but also help to add so much texture to the frame
I love the look of All Quiet on The Western Front. The cleanliness of the sky and the crispness of the images of the soldiers with their dirty and bloody faces, their hands, the grunge of the trench, all of that is the focus of the movie, not the bigger world. The outer world is pristine, but these men fight for yards of muddy fields.
I agree. The movie would be more dramatic if shot with a different style. The cleanliness they chose instead makes you feel more connected/closer in time to the events and theres already a dime a dozen of gritty war movies. The sharp and often zoomed out pictures highlight how small and meaningless the deaths of humans are in war. The first time I watched the movie I had to take a break after seeing the opening because of how real and terrible it felt.
That was also the intention of the original novel. To highlight the insanity of it all by contrasting the very real horrors on the front with the banality of how it's planned and talked about at home. It should look almost like a documentary tbh. "Another 10k dead, nothing remarkable"
@@tacticalneubThe filmmaker and cinematographer wanted to do that Dune process to print it on film and whatnot but they didn't have the money. Could've been so awesome.
I agree. That was a bad example of using a dirty lens. I like the way it was shot.
It was a BS movie with a braindead plot - the final attack which was just over dramatisation for nothing
This show blew me away! About 2 years ago I had a discussion with a photographer who asked me at a baptism why I don't clean my lenses. I told him that I deliberately keep my lenses dirty and dusty so that they create a natural look in the video, which is rarely asked for in photos. He couldn't understand it. I saw that he was using zoom lenses from aperture 3.5. My lenses are old lenses with aperture 1.4 and 30mm focal length. One 50mm lens even with aperture 1.1. Long story short: I love these impurities in the videos. And my customers are delighted. One once said: Your films look so warm and organic. That was a huge compliment for my work.
One of my favorite movies of all time is 28 Days Later. That movie is a visual mess by today's standards but you see everything you need to see and the low resolution somehow makes it more authentic.
also the soundtrack was fantastic
@@Hawk7886 Can't go wrong with Godspeed You! Black Emperor
Love this video… definitely feel that films have gotten lost in the “picture quality” instead of realism and adding the character into the scene to suck in the audience
For 1971's Fiddler on the Roof they took a silk stocking, stretched it over the lens, and filmed the entire movie through it. It brought an ever so slight color cast and softness to the look.
Cool, I never heard this before
Braveheart looks and feels real to me. It has the ring of truth in visuals like few movies I have seen.
THANK YOUUUUU. Jeez this new “clean”/overlit trend has been driving me nuts. It just doesn’t look as good as the gritty footage of older days 🔥
yeah like technicolor
@@bshhhhhhh No, not technicolor. We're talking about film from 80s, 90s and 2000s
@TheBakuganmaster99 Art and aesthetics move like a pendulum. If gritty is in for 30 years, eventually clean will start to look new and appealing. There’s no less artistic merit of modern movies compared to 80s movies.
@@bshhhhhhh Thats a wrong opinion. I was talking about realism, not aesthetic. If a person spends 3 days in a forest, they will end up looking dirty and sweaty. Thats missing from modern movies. There is no real indication of suffering.
@@TheBakuganmaster99 I didn’t give an opinion, and I honestly don’t care what you were talking about. Hope this helps.
As a VFX artist I am glad that it wasn't another video blaming bad storytelling and poor choices by directors on us.
Would like to add something to the Batman topic which indeed is beautiful and made consequently despite the troubled (Covid) production. As much as the studio is keen on selling the narrative that the car chase was as practical as it gets it was mostly rebuilt in post and extended/enhanced heavily. Major VFX house spent significant effort on replicating the on-lens water effects with the particular lens to match the overall look too. If you can't tell that it wasn't practical, it is job well done! Sadly, their work is not public.
I have been complaining about big budget glossy movie so thank you for explaining this so well
One of the reasons I really like movies from the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s. The more gritty they are, the more I like ‘em. They feel real.
The Holdovers was a great example of digitally shot film that was made to look like 70s film stock.
The Holdovers is such a great movie. I hope Paul Giamatti wins Best Actor for it.
@@jacobmonks3722 I loved it, one of my favorites this year. I’d be happy with him or Cillian Murphy winning
0:10 this shot is so bad
They probs ship him a 4k camera and told him to figure out a way to shoot this while not breaking coivid curfew
YES!
It doesn't begin with choice. The choice is based on your intention as a filmmaker/storyteller/dp and what you are trying to tell the audience. It all starts with intention.
This is why I always believe that noise isn’t necessarily a negative factor. It all boils down to the artist’s skill in wielding the camera. I’ve witnessed old movies with dreadful camera quality when compared to today’s standards, yet they manage to evoke an immersive and authentic experience. 🎥✨
Real 4k restorations from film look better than 99% of new 4k transfers. Lawrence of Arabia looks absolutely spectacular and that move is 60+ years old. Christopher Nolan, Tarantino, and Villeneuve are the best film makers because they understand FILM, and it's importance to the process, even if they are shooting digitally.
Nolan and Tarantino are very much NOT shooting digitally actually. That’s what sets them apart from the pack.
@@markvandenberg4606 Nolan shot some scenes digitally for Interstellar. Tarantino will always shoot on film, they're keeping kodak in business. lol.
Spielberg's films look so much more like film than even those 2 whose recent films look so pristine because of the film stock they use.
@@vb8428 I honestly think the problem (if you want to call it that) is more complex than just “film vs. digital”. I don’t think the recording medium is necessarily the issue here, but more so the heavy reliance on digital effects and post-processing. Personally, I prefer real sets and practical effects to the green screen shots where everything but the actor, or sometimes even the actor himself, looks like a video game. But the real problem arises when the latter is elevated to being a goal in and of itself. I know it’s not possible in each and every circumstance, but for crying out loud, let’s get back to making movies which have a story to tell, and not merely try to visually impress us with a deluge of CGI. It’s gotten so boring at this point. Nolan uses CGI where he has no choice and practical effects where possible. Either way, his stories are compelling and so are the visuals. The same could be said for Villeneuve, who does a lot more digitally.
Now if only Nolan could learn about human emotion and Tarantino could stop hating his audience, they'd be worth more than camerawork.
At last someone talked about this topic. I am not a vfx artist and I didn't know the correct word to explain someone this topic but you did it.
You should change this title to "Why Modern Movies Looks So CLEAN Compared to The Batman.
Bro gotta chill with the epic music, had me almost crying at the end of the video
😂I
Just watched LOTR and my goodness it looks Soo beautiful, exquisitely done, acting is 100... Imperfections are what make the film look beautiful
Films that look too perfect can be off-putting because nobody sees perfectly. We all have different perspectives and imperfections in our eyes. Combine that with the extra sensensual dynamic of feeling, smelling, tasting. All of those sensations add to our experience. Whereas watching a can be distant without depth interaction in order to give a person enough chance to shed the disbelief.
Fun fact on 10:30 - in Children of Men blood splatter on the lance was not intentional and hit it accidentally, but Alfonso Cuarón decided to leave it in the movie to enhance the presence effect. It was a good move though, I really appreciate he did it eventually.
@@12xenn45 Children of Men WAS a masterpiece when it came out and it still is today
@@12xenn45 Children of Men makes the vast majority of what comes out today look like a Marvel movie, what the fuck are you saying.
Not my favorite movie, but Children of Men might have the best cinematography ever put to screen
I remember how that blood splatter took me by surprise. Made that whole scene feel really serious.
collateral is one of, if not the first digitally filmed major picture, and it looks fantastic.
I love imperfections, they make a movie feel like its your own unique style. The fight to keep going higher in resolution just feels like you're trying to to hard. Just because your film is in Hd4k doesn't mean its worth watching, if you can't even write a good story with it as well.
I was speechless...what an extraordinary presentation. These points of view must be rescued to continue having good films.
Uh-huh?!?
Just watched True Lies that featured the first serious use of CGI and green screen. Mind blown. How come, in 30 years time we went backwards in realism?! This superclean CGI makes Melier’s work look more realistic.
The 4k?
@@vb8428 No. Just HD.
I was wondering about this a couple of days ago, not knowing what exactly to search for and this pops up in my recommended. Nice.
Drinking game - take a shot every time this guy mentions the Batman
While I agree with his examples, the narrator had a heavy bias on the Batman, I would’ve loved to see more examples from other movies
Your probably just another marvel fanboy
Not a bias so much as it's one of the only big budget superhero movies as of late to film in this manner.
@@pro-seriesfabrication3810I loved the Batman and I agree, but the title said modern movies not modern superhero movies. Again it’s just a slight nitpick, I enjoyed the video regardless
I agree, In some circumstances the dark setting was absolutely appropriate, and I understand metaphorically the "city is always in darkness" due to the crime and corruption in the city. However, there's no reason every single scene needs to be that dim. For example, CSI is not going to work and look for evidence in a room they can't see in. In a 3-hour movie, over one hour is raining. Darkness and rain can effectively set the tone, but they were over-used IMO and eventually took away from the realism.
@@pro-seriesfabrication3810the Batman wasn’t a superhero movie. It was just a movie.
The Batman is the most cinematic movie I’ve seen come out in the last few years. I have relatively no knowledge of film making but the art is so striking that even a person like me can see it.
It speaks so much to how amazing Greg Fraiser is for the fact that the good examples talked about in this video are mainly The Batman and Dune, both of which he was the Director of Photography for
People criticize Reeve's Batman but we can all agree that it's cinematogrpahy were was brilliantly executed.
This is a lesson I had to learn in writing, too. A technically flawless passage often lacks personality and fades from memory as soon as you move on from it. A personal style is made of the mistakes you can't help but make, because they enhance your voice and creative identity.
I love early 2000s films. Not only because of the graininess of the film, but also because props and set designs really paid attention to show character. Little Miss Sunshine is a great example
I’m so glad you brought up The Batman. That has far and away the best cinematography of any big release I’ve seen in decades
greig fraser man...
Uhhh… have you seen literally any Nolan movie?
I guess a lot of this stuff is a matter of taste. He kept on comparing it to other films and talking about how much better The Batman looked, and honestly I just don't agree. Too dark, for a start.
Lol just no. It's way too dark, shots are way too long, the LED panels were obvious, and he stucked a blinding light right at the camera like 5 times whi h is already jarring but twice as bad when it then cuts to pitch black.
@@malachilining2730 idk maybe you should have your vision checked or something. I could see everything just fine. There was a lot of deliberately obscure moments, where the camera would hide things from the audience and leave a lot to your imagination. But that’s a deliberate creative choice that for me enhanced the experience.