THE BACKLOT
By Michael Coate
If you spend a lot of time watching movies and
television with a critical eye, you probably think you have a good idea
of what a high-quality image looks like. Well, think again…because
cinematographer Bill Bennett, ASC has just reset the bar!
Bennett, known affectionately by his peers as “The Car Guy” for his
extensive résumé of TV commercials featuring slickly-photographed
automobiles, recently shot a demonstration film which has been titled
“As Good As It Gets.” The six-minute demo, captured in 65-millimeter(!),
features breathtaking imagery of two young women trekking through the
desert landscapes of Death Valley and the lush forests of the Sierra
Nevada mountains. The film also features a drive through Los Angeles.
Originally shown at a film format seminar at UCLA in 2006, “As Good As
It Gets” was privately screened on April 11 at the American
Cinematheque’s Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood to a gathering of
filmmakers, film-format enthusiasts and a journalist or two.
Among the attendees impressed by the demonstration was cinematographer
M. David Mullen, ASC (“The Astronaut Farmer,” “Akeelah And The Bee”).
“The simple truth is that Bill Bennett’s demo proves that oversampling
works,” Mullen said. “It also makes you realize that we still have the
technology to return cinema to the grandeur of 1960s epics like
‘Lawrence Of Arabia’ and ‘2001,’ when movies floored you with their
technical quality on the big screen.”
“This looked TERRIFIC!!!,” remarked film historian Rick Mitchell, who
also was in attendance. “The detail you could see was breathtaking.
Little grain was visible, and I was sitting in the seventh row!"
So could this lead to a new feature shot in 65mm? “Maybe...if some
contemporary filmmakers with TRUE VISION can be gotten to see this test
film,” says Mitchell.
Following the screening, Bennett agreed to do an interview. The
conversation, of course, is no substitute for actually viewing the film,
but offers some insight into how and why the demo was made.
MICHAEL COATE, FROM SCRIPT TO DVD: How did you become
involved with this project?
BILL BENNETT, ASC: I was having a meeting with Franz
Krauz, CEO of Arnold & Richter, the parent company of Arriflex, at their
offices in Munich, Germany, in the spring of ’06. During that
discussion, he asked me if I would shoot this demo.
FSTDVD: What is the objective of the demo?
BENNETT: During my discussion with Franz, we were
talking about what we felt was a continuous decline over the past 30
years of the quality of images seen in the typical cinema, along with
the fact that new digital camera and projector manufacturers were
claiming that the images from their products were truly excellent.
Franz and I felt that we needed to shoot some material in the 65mm/5
perf format, using the latest modern film stocks, to “reset the bar” as
far as high image quality is concerned. It has been many years since
audiences have been able to view 70mm images that were shot in the ultra
high resolution 65mm format.
We also wanted to have a source of high quality images to blend into 4k
DI [Digital Intermediate] workflow streams, to prove the following:
Assuming that you are doing a DI for your movie, and you are shooting in
35mm, you gain a lot more detail in your wide establishing shots if you
shoot those shots in 65mm, scan them at 8k or 6k, downsample them to 4k,
and blend them into your DI with your 35mm dialogue and close-up shots.
We proved that at the November screening at UCLA, where we showed the
same scene, shot in both 65mm and 35mm. In wide shots, the 65mm
contained much more detail, when compared to the same scene shot in
35mm. In the close-ups, there was not as much of a noticeable
difference, proving that you don’t need to shoot your entire movie in
65mm, just the wide shots, then blend them all together in your DI, to
achieve a much better audience experience.
Recently, “The New World” (photographed by “Chivo” Emmanuel Lubezki,
AMC, ASC), “We Fight To Be Free” (by Kees van Oostrum, ASC), and “The
Prestige” (by Wally Pfister, ASC), all used 65mm for some of their wide
shots, and incorporated it into their 35mm close-up photography.
Another objective of the project was to provide very high quality images
in 8k for testing of digital projectors, DI workflow, compression
algorithms, etc. To date, Sony, E-Film, Adobe, and Dolby Labs have been
using the material for that purpose, and more are requesting access to
the material.
FSTDVD: How were the locations selected?
BENNETT: I spent some time analyzing the wide shots in
one of my favorite movies, “Lawrence Of Arabia,” which was shot in
65mm/5 perf. That movie was set in the desert where there was little
atmospheric haze, allowing the camera to see for miles into the
distance. I also noticed that director David Lean and cinematographer
Freddie Young, BSC would often dolly side to side during their wide
shots, while choosing locations and prop positions so that there were
many layers to the shot leading off into the distance.
I followed that lead, shooting in the [California] high desert locations
around Lone Pine, the Alabama Hills and Death Valley, as well as at
10,000 feet up in the Sierras. Like Lean and Freddie, I would dolly left
to right during the shot, while choosing locations with many layers of
depth, extending for miles off into the distance.
FSTDVD: How was this project funded?
BENNETT: Arriflex in Germany was the primary sponsor,
paying for production costs, as well as providing all the cameras and
lenses. Arri Film and Digital in Munich did the scanning and the first
DI, seen in November of ’06 at UCLA. Kodak was a significant sponsor in
providing all the film stock. And FotoKem was also a significant
sponsor, providing processing of all the negative, telecine for dailies,
and scanning at 8k for the upcoming DI they are finishing in their
facility.
E-Film and Deluxe Digital contributed by converting the DI done in
Munich to the file projected on the Sony 4k projector at UCLA in
November.
Many other companies contributed much to the production and finishing of
the project. Sony provided the projector for the November screening.
Server manufacturers provided the servers for that screening, etc.
FSTDVD: What cameras were used on the shoot?
BENNETT: The 65mm/5 perf camera was an Arriflex 765,
using Zeiss Super PL mount lenses. The 35mm/4 perf camera was an
Arriflex 435 Xtreme, using Zeiss UltraPrime spherical and Zeiss
Arriscope Anamorphic lenses.
FSTDVD: What film stock(s) did you select?
BENNETT: We primarily utilized Kodak 5201, 50D, with
some use of 5205, 250D, and one shot at night using 5218, 500T.
FSTDVD: At what frame rate was the film shot and
projected?
BENNETT: Most of the demo was shot at 24 frames per
second. The young woman on the rock with the cloth blowing overhead was
shot at 60fps on all cameras. All the projection was at 24fps.
FSTDVD: What was the post-production workflow for this
project?
BENNETT: First we processed the negative at FotoKem in
Burbank, then we did a telecine of all the material there as well. I did
an offline edit on my Macintosh using Final Cut Pro. We did an assembly
of the HD telecine master from that offline, to use as a reference for
the final DI. Then, that DI was done at Arri Digital Film in Munich
where they scanned everything, both the 65mm and the 35mm material at
6k, then downsampled to 4k for the DI. They did a film-out in two ways.
First they created an internegative in the ArriLaser, which they printed
to the 35mm release print stock. Then they did something never done
before: they struck a 35mm release print directly in the ArriLaser, and
projected that in the projector. It was startling to see how much
resolution is lost in the contact printing of the internegative to the
release print stock, as the “direct print” was very sharp.
The DI was projected using a 4k Sony projector, and the 35mm anamorphic
prints were shown with a 35mm projector in the theatre.
The 70mm film print was contact printed directly from the camera
original 65mm negative, and projected in 70mm in the theatre.
FotoKem is working on a new DI that contains more shots, where they are
scanning all the 65mm material at 8k, instead of the previous 6k, with
the 35mm material scanned at 6k. We hope to show that DI around the time
of Cine Gear.
FSTDVD: To whom has the demo been screened?
BENNETT: There was the first screening at UCLA in
November of ’06, where we showed the material in 4k digital projection,
35mm anamorphic film projection, and 70mm film projection. The next
screening was in England a month ago at a wide screen convention held
annually [at the National Media Museum in Bradford], where they showed
the 35mm and the 70mm prints. The latest screening was the one you saw
at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood. In each case, we invited people in
the industry who were interested in seeing this sort of comparison. We
plan to show it again just prior to the upcoming Cine Gear Expo [June
21-24].
FSTDVD: In what way would the film industry and
moviegoers benefit from seeing films made in 65/70mm?
BENNETT: Vastly increased resolution and color depth on
the screen. When we showed the 70mm print last November to the audience
that had already seen the same shots in 4k digital projection and 35mm
anamorphic film projection, they were blown away by the quality of the
70mm print. In fact, the audience asked to see the 70mm print a second
time. I invited members of the audience who were sitting in the back to
come sit on the floor in front of the first row to better see the image
quality. Vilmos Zsigmond, ASC [“Close Encounters Of The Third Kind,”
“The Deer Hunter,” “The Black Dahlia”] was sitting in the first row.
After the screening, he came up to me and thanked me for shooting and
showing the 70mm print, and he said that he had forgotten just how good
it can look. That to me was the ultimate payoff for the whole thing,
that someone as highly gifted as Mr. Zsigmond would recognize why we did
it and totally appreciated it
For more about Bill Bennett, ASC, see:
www.wfb4.com
IMAGE: Courtesy of Bill Bennett, ASC
Originally posted here on May 8, 2007