Today’s film-making has been revolutionized by the advent of digital technology; cinema has been transformed with the introducion of 3D movies, and to lesser extent stereoscopic conversions.
For some directors such as Peter Jackson and renowned auteur Ridley Scott, the realm of digital 3D has changed the way they shoot films, enhancing their creative vision and the movie-going experience for audiences.
However director Christopher Nolan, who revitalized the Batman franchise with his grounded depiction of the caped crusader, hasn’t jumped on the digital filmmaking bandwagon and he’s now offering some insight into why he still prefers film; especially the large IMAX format which is used to greater effect in the upcoming, The Dark Knight Rises.
Nolan recently sat down with the Directors Guild of America expressing his thoughts on 3D, why didn’t shoot Inception in IMAX, how he approaches CGI and why he’s advocate of shooting on film as opposed to digital:
For the last 10 years, I’ve felt increasing pressure to stop shooting film and start shooting video, but I’ve never understood why. It’s cheaper to work on film, it’s far better looking, it’s the technology that’s been known and understood for a hundred years, and it’s extremely reliable. I think, truthfully, it boils down to the economic interest of manufacturers and [a production] industry that makes more money through change rather than through maintaining the status quo.
With the film format in danger of becoming extinct, Nolan therefore decided to do something about it:
I’ve kept my mouth shut about this for a long time and it’s fine that everyone has a choice, but for me the choice is in real danger of disappearing. So right before Christmas I brought some filmmakers together and showed them the prologue for The Dark Knight Risesthat we shot on IMAX film, then cut from the original negative and printed. I wanted to give them a chance to see the potential, because I think IMAX is the best film format that was ever invented. It’s the gold standard and what any other technology has to match up to, but none have, in my opinion. The message I wanted to put out there was that no one is taking anyone’s digital cameras away. But if we want film to continue as an option, and someone is working on a big studio movie with the resources and the power to insist [on] film, they should say so. I felt as if I didn’t say anything, and then we started to lose that option, it would be a shame. When I look at a digitally acquired and projected image, it looks inferior against an original negative anamorphic print or an IMAX one.
While he refers to IMAX as the “gold standard” in filmmaking, why he didn’t use the format for Inception:
We didn’t shoot IMAX for Inception because we were trying to portray the reality of dreams rather than their extraordinary nature, so we used a handheld camera and shot it in a more spontaneous way. Whereas the operatic quality of The Dark Knight andThe Dark Knight Rises felt very well suited to IMAX’s larger canvas. So it’s different depending on what film you want to do. But, in each case, as a filmmaker who’s been given sizable budgets with which to work, I feel a responsibility to the audience to be shooting with the absolute highest quality technology that I can and make the film in a way that I want.
Nolan prefers to shoot visual effects in-camera as much as possible, and talked about how he approaches CGI:
The thing with computer-generated imagery is that it’s an incredibly powerful tool for making better visual effects. But I believe in an absolute difference between animation and photography. However sophisticated your computer-generated imagery is, if it’s been created from no physical elements and you haven’t shot anything, it’s going to feel like animation. There are usually two different goals in a visual effects movie. One is to fool the audience into seeing something seamless, and that’s how I try to use it. The other is to impress the audience with the amount of money spent on the spectacle of the visual effect, and that, I have no interest in.
While the studio would’ve preferred he shot The Dark Knight Rises in 3D, he explained why he’s not a fan of the format
Warner Bros. would have been very happy, but I said to the guys there that I wanted it to be stylistically consistent with the first two films and we were really going to push the IMAX thing to create a very high-quality image. I find stereoscopic imaging too small scale and intimate in its effect. 3-D is a misnomer. Films are 3-D. The whole point of photography is that it’s three-dimensional. The thing with stereoscopic imaging is it gives each audience member an individual perspective. It’s well suited to video games and other immersive technologies, but if you’re looking for an audience experience, stereoscopic is hard to embrace. I prefer the big canvas, looking up at an enormous screen and at an image that feels larger than life. When you treat that stereoscopically, and we’ve tried a lot of tests, you shrink the size so the image becomes a much smaller window in front of you.
Head over to DGA and check out the full interview, where Nolan talks about why he doesn’t use a second-unit while filming, how he’s never done reshoots, and his approach to working with actors.
via: Collider
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