Star Wars VII

Photo Engineer · Aug 27, 2013

It has been announced that Disney is filming the new Star Wars series using Kodak 35mm film. In doing so, they hope to recapture the "ambiance" of the original films. They apparently will not be shooting any original in-camera work digitally. Thus they are abandoning the look of the last 3 films (I - III).

PE

Shawn Dougherty · Aug 27, 2013

That is most excellent news.

summicron1 · Aug 27, 2013

One can only hope the script writing is better than the last three.

toro_mike · Aug 27, 2013

A story posted on The Register
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/08/27/new_star_wars_film_to_be_shot_on_analogue_film/

MDR · Aug 27, 2013

J.J Abrahams dislikes Digital and prefers models to cgi (I agree they look better), David Mindel ASC, BSC will be the DoP I think it's funny that J.J. Abrahams the director of Star Trek is to direct a Star Wars Movie though. I hope he doesn't create an alternate Star Wars Universe like he did for Star Trek. The Films looked nice but the story was shit the artificial flare was disgusting but Abrahams seems to love it. Still superb news for Film.

toro_mike · Aug 27, 2013

Here's a more technical take on the filming of Star Trek:
http://digitalcontentproducer.com/cameras/revfeat/star_trek_abrams_0420//index1.html

Lots of stuff here about the flare technique

Interesting stuff that I hope spawns a stronger backlash against digital as both formats have their place in movie making (counter to what Hollywood brass are pushing!)

Rick A · Aug 27, 2013

Hooray to Disney for at least that. I can't say I'm interrested in seeing any more star bores movies. My daughter is a huge SW fan yet doesn't want any more either.

MDR · Aug 27, 2013

Just had a vision about the new Darth Vader and how he reveals himself to Luke. Int. Deathstar - Day/Night
Series of shots
1 Darth Vade removes his helmet

Darth Vader
(squeaky mousy voice)
Luke (heavy breathing) I am you're favorite Rodent

2 and reveals the face of Mickey Mouse

Luke
Mickey?

David Brown · Aug 27, 2013

MDR said:
J.J Abrahams ... J.J. Abrahams ... Abrahams ...

Not to be picky, but it's Abrams.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0009190/

MDR · Aug 27, 2013

Thank you for the correction don't know why I made this mistake maybe thinking to much about tanks.

winger · Aug 27, 2013

MDR said:
Thank you for the correction don't know why I made this mistake maybe thinking to much about tanks.

Well, the tanks are Abrams as well. (hubby started as a tanker D Co., 3/77th Armor, early 1990s)

And I echo the thought about the writing, but I definitely look forward to seeing them as the cgi was getting more and more annoying.

Tom1956 · Aug 27, 2013

Michael R 1974 said:
What specifically do they mean by "ambiance"?

A few years ago there was a network TV crime or FBI show (I never watched). Can't remember the name of it. It had a thin pale, blonde lead actress whose hair was always a mess, which is about all I can describe the program with. But I think it was shot in digital and it always had a blueish, cold, contrasty look--just awful. No saturation. I think it's gone off the air now maybe, but THAT is as good an examble of bad of "ambiance" as I can point out. Just a terrible program, largely because of the digital shooting (and the blonde who needed a brush).

Tom1956 · Aug 27, 2013

Never seen Star Wars. Just never was a fan.

MDR · Aug 27, 2013

As I've mentioned before Abrams is a big fan of model and yes there will be some CGI but to a lesser extent than other Sci-Fi Movies. Miniature models are still superior to cgi and the cost are almost the same. Due to the overuse of digital manipulation at the DI Stage film looks almost like digital and not vice versa (Transformers 2 is a good example). Unmanipulated film looks very different to say the RED look (Video) or Arri Alexa look (better than Video) and even a half blind monkey can spot the difference. The question is wether the moviegoers care or not.

MDR · Aug 27, 2013

winger said:
Well, the tanks are Abrams as well. (hubby started as a tanker D Co., 3/77th Armor, early 1990s)

And I echo the thought about the writing, but I definitely look forward to seeing them as the cgi was getting more and more annoying.

Sorry about the tank and name of the director

Photo Engineer · Aug 27, 2013

I wish I knew what "ambiance" meant in this context. And, "The Empire Strikes Back" used many models instead of CGI.

PE

Truzi · Aug 27, 2013

I'm not sure if I'm interested in the new Star Wars. The first three certainly were good. When the fourth (Episode 1) came out I was very disappointed. Not only were the computer graphics less realistic than models and puppets, but the cinematography seemed lacking, and the story line was very poorly executed. I didn't even watch the next ones all the way through when they hit TV - just the odd 15-minutes when channel surfing.

Although I can overlook cgi and digital to a point (a story like Star Wars does require the typical suspension of disbelief as it is), the writing and plot are what turned me off.

RattyMouse · Aug 28, 2013

That ought to be good for a few million feet of film. Good for Kodak!

GregW · Aug 28, 2013

A friend who makes models for movies told me once that they use modified hand crank silent movie era cameras to film the models some times?

perkeleellinen · Aug 28, 2013

Suppose all the film used for these movies was translated into 36exp rolls. Can anyone give an estimate of how much film will be used?

AndreasT · Aug 28, 2013

I remember in my young days, a long long time ago in a country far away I used to take a torch switch off the lights in our house and close the curtains. Battling away with the torch slicing my foes in two. Seeing each of the old movies about 30 times (I actually counted believe me). Knowing the lines by heart.
Then came along episode1.
My what crap. Then Epidisode 2. even worse. Episode3 I didn't bother to watch.
Since then Star Wars has died for me and I never ever saw the old movies either since then.
A loss certainly.

Kevin Kehler · Aug 28, 2013

perkeleellinen said:
Suppose all the film used for these movies was translated into 36exp rolls. Can anyone give an estimate of how much film will be used?

For the Hobbit trilogy, they estimated that if they had shot all of the principal photography on film instead of the digital, they would have used 24 million feet - so about 4 million rolls of 36-exposure 35mm film. This does not include reshoots, pick-ups or additional scenes not shot during the primary shooting schedule. If you are interested, there is a series of video blogs on YouTube that Peter Jackson is doing where they discuss such things, as well as all geeky things LOTR related.

So, for a single movie, about 1.3 million rolls (8 million feet) and if they make a trilogy as they intend, even more than what the Hobbit did because all three of the the Hobbit films were shot at the same time, so there was an economy that shooting three separate movies would not have. Course, they are shooting at 48 frames a second as opposed to the normal 24 fps and it is in 3-D, so my calculations might be off. I have no way of calculating the real scale.

PKM-25 · Aug 28, 2013

Just another reason for me to avoid the garbage heap of the Internet: PE takes the time to provide a post in which there is some positive news about film and then it quickly turns into a "Laxative" thread when lots of jerks show up and pick it apart....amazing.

kb3lms · Aug 28, 2013

A few years ago there was a network TV crime or FBI show (I never watched). Can't remember the name of it.... But I think it was shot in digital and it always had a blueish, cold, contrasty look--just awful. No saturation.

"Cold Case" is the program I think you mean. It's still on as reruns. You are right about the look although IDK if it was shot as digital. Whether digital or not, I think the look was intended to help communicate the cold, gritty atmosphere of Philidelphia, many areas of which I would describe as "cold."

Photo Engineer · Aug 28, 2013

Models for SFX (CGI is more properly used for Computerized SFX) are shot one frame at a time on special cameras that can precisely align each frame so that they don't produce jitter when projected as a motion picture. Lucas produced a film about this, we had a seminar at EK about it, and several magazines at that time had lengthy articles about this. Sorry that you guys missed this. One mag was American Cinematographer.

BTW, if the model is moving rapidly, then single frame is impractical and so the moving ships were shot in real time, but the large animals on Hoth were shot single frame.

PE

Star Wars VII

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