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Film Communication with Ryan Coogler
Partnered with Kodak, Sinners director Ryan Coogler made a fantastic educational YouTube video about film formats and aspect ratios, which you can watch below:
“Sinners,” however, was shot on what Coogler calls “the big boy format,” 65mm.
“The same material as this, as a Super 8 right here, but just wider, so obviously even more resolution, even shallower depth of field, and these perforations have a particular meaning cause we shot the film using two different camera systems, one proprietary to Panavision — it’s called Ultra Panavision 70, used on films like ‘Ben-Hur and most recently ‘The Hateful Eight’ — but another format we use is IMAX film cameras.”
Whereas Ultra Panavision 70 allows for more width of frame, IMAX film cameras produce greater height Coogler explained, and since “Sinners” is the first film to utilize both, it will literally be one of the biggest films to ever be put to the screen.
I love this because I think people in the business and cinephiles typically overestimate how educated general audiences are on these matters, and frankly the business did the moviegoing public no favors with the 2010s-era glut of unnecessary 3-D releases. During this time period, going out to the movies would include a fat $2-4 surcharge per ticket for — aside from the Avatar films, Werner Herzog’s Cave of Forgotten Dreams, and a few select others — 3-D retrofits that turned out dark and ugly. As Roger Ebert wrote:
Ask yourself this question: Have you ever watched a 2-D movie and wished it were in 3-D? Remember that boulder rolling behind Indiana Jones in “Raiders of the Lost Ark?” Better in 3-D? No, it would have been worse. Would have been a tragedy. The 3-D process is like a zombie, a vampire, or a 17-year cicada: seemingly dead, but crawling out alive after a lapse of years. We need a wooden stake.
Unlike 3-D, the value of large format presentations is immediately apparent to the casual moviegoer. I’ve seen everything from Dunkirk to The Hunger Games: Catching Fire in IMAX, and it is always incredible, even if the movie isn’t! Coogler’s simple, helpful breakdown of these formats is welcome.
On the topic of video essay breakdowns, less welcome to me is the choice to use what sounds like AI voiceover in this otherwise-fun StudioBinder video about cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki:
I have no deep insight to how these videos are produced, but it’s deeply dispiriting to me when I hear this stuff in the wild. It immediately lowers the production value for me because it’s a strange-sounding voice with consistently-incorrect intonation and emphases. Boo!
The Power of The Pitt
Your perspicacious pal is pretty Pitt-pilled, partners! The Max ER-adjacent weekly show has found both critical and audience success, and I’ve certainly enjoyed checking in to this fictional emergency department on a weekly basis! This is coming from someone whose medical parents would laugh at ER each week back in the 90s.
Obviously I’m not the only one with this thought, but the reasons for its success are not exactly elusive: it’s a 15 episode long season on a weekly release schedule utilizing the forms of classic network TV over 2010s-style prestige. It even has a second season planned for release in January!
This is, of course, a stealth entry in my regular series “We Already Have a Business Model,” where we sit back and amusedly observe the streamers reinventing the TV business they have destroyed. A Vulture writeup of the success of the show says it all:
As satisfied as Max execs are to have launched a new hit show, the success so far of The Pitt also validates the somewhat risky decision to take a chance on a linear network-style procedural — something which, until recently, the conventional wisdom held wouldn’t work in streaming. Execs were so hyperfocused on finding “noisy” shows and concepts that could get people to become subscribers, they didn’t also try to find shows that could keep audiences watching — or, in industry parlance, “engaged” — for months at a time.
That’s the executive mindset in a nutshell!
Kernels (3 links worth making popcorn for)
Here’s a round-up of cool and interesting links about Hollywood and technology:
Lighter cameras are fueling the rise of intricate TV oners. (link)
The Russos tried to revolutionize streaming, so what happened? (link)
What’s the better TV purchase: QLED or OLED? (link)