Why Movies From The 70s & 80s Look Like This: Kodak 100T 5247

[@dirkfierce2525]

I’m sure it’s because as an 80’s kid I grew up with these movies, but this film palette and look just seems so beautiful to me.

[@MrPGC137]

I agree; a lot of modern stuff looks so washed-out, dull & boring by comparison.

[@CPPRODUCTIONS1001]

I'm a 90s and 2000s kid and it still does.

[@KandiKlover]

@@MrPGC137true, it used to only be low budget straight to tv and Hulu shows that used that sterile style of cinematography because it’s cheap and junky. But now it’s everywhere, evidence of cognitive decline and advanced brain rot being widespread.

[@KandiKlover]

No you’re right, I never grew up in those times and still have a strong preference for it, 70s and some 80s era sci-fi movies are my most favorite specifically because of this look. It lends itself well to all that wood panel interior decor and beige computers and flippy switch control panels. Rollerball was probably my favorite use of this type of film.

[@Doomreb]

@@KandiKlover Yea, it comes down to not caring and not having a heart in it. There's no more creativity. I mean there's creative people but the studios don't want creativity and the mass market no longer cares about quality anymore. There's no time to perfect anything and before a movie is released the sequel to that movie is already months into production, not to mention it's most likely a 'remake' that will do nothing but ruin the original.

[@cleon24769]

That film stock often gave the screen a "painting come to life" kind of feel. It gives those movies a kind of epic, romanticized unique vibe to it.

[@476429]

Exactly. Between the film and the directing style, movies looked more epic in that era.

[@Alias_Anybody]

I'm honestly not quite as generous. Sure, the look is iconic, but it does have obvious limitations. Everything is kind of sepia with darkened greens and yellows, therefore earth, plants and skin look equally dry and sun-toasted (which I guess complements Tatooine or the Cali desert but for example doesn't capture the fresh greens of a temperate or tropical environment at all). Light blue disappears into white and dark blue looks off. Everything that's very light (especially the sky) is just a blown out white mess without depth or details (especially not in colour) and shadows don't look natural, they are either way too dark for the ambient light level present or look unnaturally glowy (because they weren't actually dark, they illuminated it like crazy because the cam catches so little light).

[@Alfred-Neuman]

The over-usage of computers ruined everything.

[@mattm1982]

@@Alias_Anybody Sepia is a good term for it... kind of muted and bland in a way.

[@brucekuehn4031]

I worked in the Camera Dept at Warner Bros (actually The Burbank Studios as it was called then) in the 80s. Eastman came out with the new and faster 5293 in 1982 and the improved 5294 in 1983. We would use white tape to wrap 5247 magazines (exterior day) and red tape on the 5294 mags (interiors or night work). Getting the two film stocks mixed up would have been a disaster. I remember very well when John Alonzo shot Blue Thunder which was released in May of 1983. Seeing the night helicopter shots over LA, it was astounding how the city lights popped in the pitch dark. It was a welcome addition to the old 5247 stock and almost everyone went to using both. I was also fascinated watching Mr Alonzo’s experimenting with fiber optics to help light interior sets. Never would try that with 5247.

[@CameraLaw]

Hey, Bruce, It’s Jeff just saying “Hi!” TBS alumnus. Trainee class of ‘78. Worked Designing Women on C camera with Wimpy. And an 85 is 2/3rds of a stop, am I right?

[@brucekuehn4031]

@@CameraLaw Designing Women - the big old heavy Mitchell mags. When I was a Loader, they were relentless the way they came in all night! Sorry, can’t pass a filter quiz - too long.

[@jlg395]

Thanks for the tip, Bruce! I'd never even heard of Blue Thunder, but am watching it this weekend. It was actually released into theaters nine days after I was born.

[@jakublulek3261]

Interesting, Blue Thunder is one of my favourite movies and I noticed how good night cinematography is.

[@TheZooman22]

Especially since you dont get to see the final result until after development. To have to re-do the sceen had to be a hot mess.

[@CameraLaw]

As a Hollywood camera guy back then, quite honestly we thought the stock was pretty limiting. To shoot at night, we needed a battery of carbon arcs up on “parallels”, built by the grips and run by a couple electricians, which had to have their carbons “trimmed” constantly. Everyone rejoiced with each successor film stock that required less light and the invention of better HMI lighting instruments.

[@azv343]

Say it louder for the rookies in the back, the "film purists" who've never actually shot on film but bash anything digital.

[@CameraLaw]

Digital was ushered in by George Lucas when he found that he needed to digitize all his film footage to add in digital effects. Of course, it had to be a money saving rationale. Christopher Nolan and Quintin Tarantino held onto film with some stunning results, but that’s the type of power needed to be a purist.

[@RumourdProd]

That said, was never a fan of HMI color, it looked fake as hell and I could always spot it, especially when supplementing sunlight, even with gels

[@CameraLaw]

No working stiff ever got a say in the equipment rented by the company, or the film stock selected. I used whatever camera and lens was on the truck. Put on the magazines with whatever had been loaded in them. Lighting and grip crews did the same. We watched the March of Technology from a distance. And if the gig was on a television show, the gear was about two decades behind the curve. I remember being given a Mitchell and a Worrall geared head to put on a wooden baby tripod at the beach. So heavy it sunk into the sand. Finally got an apple box from the grips to stick under the legs. We got the shot. (Lorimar, Knot’s Landing)

[@RumourdProd]

@@CameraLaw No one here confused working stiffs with the DP calling the shots (literally). "That said" implied addressing the subject of the original video, and the personal opinion that the quality of harder carbon arc light lent a more realistic light than HMI, regardless of ease or choice of equipment.

[@KenoSNeal]

Excellent breakdown. I always preferred the gritty 70's/80's film look over today's slick digital look. But I never understood how they differentiated technically. Thank you for this. I wish the industry would preserve the look of classic films because they just have a better feel to them, in my opinion.

[@FlymanMS]

"Gritty" is the exact word I was looking for, thanks for saying it for me.

[@didiMao]

Gritty grains

[@Gma7788]

It's wrong information. YOU are responsible for all the colours on screen at your home cinema. YOU! You don't get to have a whinge. If the colours are the same, that's YOUR FAULT. YOU DIDN'T TUNE YOUR HOME CINEMA COLOURS. You're watching the RAW amplification version. You've got a lot of work to do, buddy. You've got hours of work adjusting the colours of your movie 🎬.

[@Nintendo_fanboy87]

​@@Gma7788 to whom are you addressing the criticism?

[@Skrenja]

​@@Gma7788Terrible bait

[@johnmoorefilm]

Superb, thank you. I was a film loader on feature films and loaded this stock thousands of times…Arri mags were always easier than Panavision mags! I remember those labels so well - doing mag scratch tests, gate tests, focus leaders, all that great stuff that’s ancient history to digital camera crews. Handling the actual camera negative in a darkroom on a camera truck always was a thrill …and yes, I did edge-fog a roll once, and yes, it was a huge action scene with hundreds of extras and stunts …with horses, of course. I was extremely tired , pulled the tape off the Panavision mag, popped the latches and lifted the cover …and I remember thinking : “Hmmm…what’s that?” because, of course, a loader never actually SEES a full 1000’ roll of exposed film …unless something has gone terribly wrong. It took under a second before the panic hit me and I pulled the cord for the light. I was in a cold sweat, I bagged and canned the roll, then had to face the music. The longest walk of my life was the walk of 200 yards from the camera truck to the first assistant (focus-puller) and I told him the worst thing a loader can tell you : I fogged a roll. He put his hand on my shoulder and thanked me for telling him. Everyone was cool, but man, that was a day. As it turned out , the roll was fine and was only barely edge fogged because the roll is wound so tight and the dark room light is dim, I dodged a bullet…god bless those tight-winding Panavision mags!

[@AzinFiro]

I felt the cold sweat just reading that.

[@Statuskuo75]

you think Arri mags were easier than PV? You have to roll through sprockets on Arri mags and build the correct loop size. PV mags don't have that. 9P configuration is nicer. PV's 99 emulsion out has the added fear of scratching.

[@cdzrocks]

My inner amateur film photographer days flashed back with that story. I'm glad it worked out in the end!

[@figmillenium]

Thanks for that TENSE story 😆😉. Glad it worked out for you

[@Henry-r2f]

Didi that once myself. You never forget it.

[@lukelarsson]

This film stock and the movies they were used on are absolutely gorgeous.

[@arricammarques1955]

16mm, 35mm & 65mm films remain the ultimate archival medium.

[@jeffHughWilliams]

I always thought as a kid growing up in the 90s that the films in the 70s just looks so more… the only word I could think of as a kid is “professional” and nowadays I’d say they had more warmth, depth and even the word fee/soul. Thanks for this video he explains the technical reason for my visual observation! Love this look!

[@RikerLovesWorf]

I love how 5247 crushes the blacks in shadow, it helps to make the film feel more focused on what’s actually being filmed.

[@cube2fox]

It's arguably unnatural though. Our eyes have a very high dynamic range, so those blacks would not have looked crushed in real life.

[@fillmorehillmore8239]

@@cube2fox Artistic vs realistic. Sometimes art is lost with the pursuit of perfection.

[@cube2fox]

@@fillmorehillmore8239 But the uniform look across several Kodak films was a technological restriction of the time (as Kodak didn't have many options), not really an artistic choice. Since then directors gained a lot of artistic freedom by being able to color grade their films like they want. But a lot of other commenters here are telling us that directors are abusing this freedom by making bad color grading decisions. Apparently everything is bad always, no matter what. :)

[@Alias_Anybody]

@@fillmorehillmore8239 But it wasn't a deliberate choice, it was a technical limitation. Having a bright blue, detailled sky, lush greens and cool, detailed shadows at the same time on a bright summer day is gorgeous. That's literally the environment where you get the most out of our eyes, we first evolved in a jungle and later a wet-Savannah-like environment after all. The permanent desert Sepia filter just doesn't do it justice.

[@craigrryan86]

​@@cube2fox Cinema doesn't really need to be "natural", especailly if the goal is to captivate the audience. Theatricality...an idea sadly lost today and mostly regarded as "cheesy", is a powerful tool to convey en emotion in a 2 dimensional medium. Just like music, it's about emotion.

[@user-kl5zd2oe3e]

I like how these earlier movies looked more natural. Not like now how everything has a filter or has the saturation cranked up.

[@leechilds3725]

Agree new films are so heavily filtered

[@michaelwills1926]

If magenta is your thing then modern movies are definitely where it’s at 😵‍💫

[@Alias_Anybody]

Maybe you grew up in a desert, but they don't look natural at all. Especially the greens and blues, sky and shadows.

[@jesustovar2549]

I'm not even from the 70s, 80s or 90s, but I love how modern some of these films still look to this day, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Apocalypse Now, The Shining, Indiana Jones, or Blade Runner which looks 20 years ahead of it's time, I love when movies from the 70s, 80s and 90s look like they were shot yesterday, that's when I say the image quality aged well, of course restoring the negatives (even for 4K transfers) might have something to do with that.

[@flipnap2112]

I saw some concert footage for Led Zeppelin and the comments were "oh man, the resolution back then looked so much better than today's potato cameras!". funny how awesome 35mm film converted to 4K looks. they might have even shot it at 72

[@skycloud4802]

I think the the extensive use of on location work, built sets, props, models, pyrotechnics, and real stunts, really make for an authentic gritty film on top. Green screen and CGI makes the films look bland and fake.

[@flipnap2112]

@@skycloud4802 for the most part I agree. but then again MUCH of "Star Wars: Phantom menace" was actual miniatures and it got ragged on.Depends on the amount of love put into it. same with VFX CG. Some shots are so good you'd never know they are CG.

[@jakublulek3261]

It was the evolution of Eastman Color that made it possible. Look at 1960s Eastman movies (Where Eagles Dare is the best example) and they look weird, even after digital restoration. Reddish tint is much more pronounced and there is a significant colour shift. Night photography suprisingly looks still pretty good, because lack of light mask most of these issues. But it seems lighting had significant effect on picture quality. Movie like Funny Face (1957, very early for Eastman) with lots of interier sets and strong, studio lighting, looks very good and pastel-vivid even before restoration, when war movie like Where Eagles Dare looks muddy and blurry.

[@Incomudro1963]

@@skycloud4802 Absolutely. Granted, much of what we saw Hollywood films wasn't "real," if you will... But settings often were. And they looked real on the screen. It's such an obvious difference between films like JAWS, Midnight Cowboy, Cookoo's Nest, Serpico, etc., vs today's films. Today's films look so unnatural.

[@NathanDrakeTheGreat]

Personally I prefer the more naturalistic tones of this era. I'm absolutely sick of the teal-and-orange look that's so rampant today, makes everything look washed out and fake. Real life doesn't have as much cyan as modern movies do.

[@Art-is-craft]

Digital today has to use tricks to try and over come the lack of colour range. One method is to use extreme contrast.

[@gunsort3242]

Awful isn't it? If Chinatown were made today it would be bled of color. I don't think that most of today's directors understand a look beyond what a graphic novel portrays. For example, I was so disappointed with the look of Man of Steel when it came out that I couldn't enjoy the film for what it was. The world is not cyan.

[@shane864]

Old men yelling at clouds. There was nothing "naturalistic" about it, it's just what you remember seeing on screen when you were young. Video looks massively better today, you're caught in the glow of nostalgia and mistaking your emotions for reality.

[@Sig509]

@@shane864 No they do not, but it is often a creative choice, like "the Mexico is orange", or "Germany is blue" ect.

[@shane864]

@@Sig509 Tell me more about how you are too young to remember the time you are denying existed

[@BobDeCaprio]

I am never going to be able to unsee the red colors in those movies

[@lucasrem]

use color corrections please, on HDR you can use any color pallet !

[@McVaio]

​@@lucasremHey, IBM!

[@bobbyscalchi4013]

REDRUM....REDRUM.... REDRUM 😂

[@dr.strangelove5708]

I can never unsee the amount of gray, black and cyan with other strange hues of blue in today's digital plastic videos!

[@Danthehorse]

​@@dr.strangelove5708it's like they all shared a preset in Sony Vegas.

[@TheJstewart2010]

I never even thought about this before, but now I understand why 70s films look the way they do. When Steven Spielberg made Duel, he said he didn't really care what kind of car the main character drove, but it had to be visible against the desert background. Now I get why he chose a bright red car. Makes perfect sense.

[@mbd501]

And Duel (1971) would've been on the one before 5247, because he said it came out in '74.

[@LarryFleetwood8675]

Speaking of Duel, did they digitally remove the white UFO that quickly shoots across the desert in one wide angle shot with Mann's red car approaching in the distance, at approx. 60 mins. or so. I only have a region2 DVD, so unsure what's on other later formats.

[@willbox8802]

​@@LarryFleetwood8675 I just fired up my VHS and can't see it around the 60 min mark - can you be more specific about which scene it follows or precedes?

[@LarryFleetwood8675]

@@willbox8802 I have the region2 DVD so it's PAL, basically which means the time differs depending on the source material used, it may be 63 on yours. It's the wide desert shot with the car in the distance, I think there's a fence and then this white orb shoots across the screen. It'll be much clearer on a DVD, though. I wouldn't put it past them to have erased it for later releases, thinking it's a smudge or something we know how they think in filmmaking today where nothing is left to chance and shots cleaned up, I'd imagine something like this might be seen as an anomaly to be removed because it's irrelevant to the plot even though it's on the actual screen.

[@willbox8802]

@@LarryFleetwood8675 Thanks, I can't seem to find it at all. I prefer the 4:3 of Duel as the dvd/blu versions are all cropped. I have a HD version of the 4:3 though, so I will check that later.

[@mistersharkfilms]

Excellent analysis. Films today do have an over reliance on digital grading - Altering the colour completely in post instead of shooting it correctly. The natural look of the 5247 is iconic and really does look more cinematic than today. Also, the use of key lighting, even in daytime scenes is lacking today. Even if it was more difficult for the camera dept. it just looks way more cinematic than shooting everything with available natural light.

[@Korn1holio]

I agree with you, and digital grading looks like crap. I honestly couldn't put my finger on why most modern movies looked crappier and crappier to my eyes, and then I noticed this atrocious color grading that somebody had accurately nicknamed "The Intangible Sludge".

[@mistersharkfilms]

@@Korn1holio Yep. Even 35mm film is overly graded now when it's so unnecessary. There's a common yellow "wash" over so many contemporary films, including even Tarantino's movies. Compare the looks of 'Once upon a Time in Hollywood' to 'Reservoir Dogs' and 'Pulp Fiction'. All of those movies are shot on 35, but the former movies look so much nicer.

[@LinkinMark1994]

@@mistersharkfilms don't you mean the latter?

[@davidmullen7829]

The first version of 5247 along with a new ECN2 processing in 1974 was disliked by Hollywood cinematographers who felt it was too contrasty compared to 5254 and didn’t push-process as well (a common technique at the time). So Kodak sold both 5247 and 5254 in Hollywood, though this meant some labs had to be converted for the new process and others kept the old process set-up. In Europe and the U.K., there was no choice but to switch to 5247 though you could still find labs to process 5254 (Kubrick was shooting “Barry Lyndon” long enough on 5254 that the lab still had to keep an ECN 1 processor going.) In mid-1976, Kodak released an improved 5247 and obsoleted 5254. “Star Wars” started filming in the spring of 1976 and mostly used the early 5247 but “Close Encounters” probably mostly used the newer 5247, plus their 65mm VFX photography had to use 5254 because Kodak wasn’t selling 5247 yet in 65mm. Kodak kept tweaking 5247 over the years before it was obsoleted around 1994. John Toll shot the day exterior work of “Legends of the Fall” on 5247 but had to switch to EXR 5248 for “Braveheart” the next year.

[@1accon]

Fascinating. Thanks for commenting Mr. David M.

[@qv81]

I never thought about it, but for some reason these movies gave me some nostalgia, even the ones I didn't watch back then. Now I know, thank you.

[@ManvasPachenko]

Not to mention that they didn't shoot against green screen or fill the frame with blatant CGI. I like the older look to movies. I watched DOG DAY AFTERNOON (1975) a few days ago, I love how that film looks

[@garethjohnstone9282]

I love watching shows like Quincy ME and others from that era. There was something warm about the tones. Outdoor scenes looked so summery!

[@LarryFleetwood8675]

Yes, nobody in the industry gave it a thought to retool everything in post what the camera caught was what you got nothing could be digitally removed or corrected later. We got reality back then, we get illusions now.

[@newgravityfilms]

Yes!

[@iskandartaib]

If you went to university in the late 70s to early 80s there were ads tacked to the bulletin boards in the classrooms - you could send off for "free" rolls of film. They'd come in the mail, you'd shoot them and mail them back in a mailer together with a check and you'd get back a set of prints and a box of slides. Prices weren't bad, but it wasn't super cheap either. This was re-spooled 5247 - apparently there were companies who were buying up unused stock from film productions, cheap, re-spooling them into 35mm film cassettes and selling it off through various channels, including the fliers tacked to university bulletin boards and ads in photo magazines. Since, among other things, the stock had the REM jet backing, ordinary film processors would not touch the stuff, and you were locked into sending it back to the original vendor for processing. I suspect the same companies that were processing film for movie studios also processed the still film - from what I've read the common way of doing it was splicing many rolls together and running the spliced rolls through the processor, much like Kodak did with Kodachrome. I remember shooting a couple rolls of the stuff.

[@TheBlindingwhite]

I still have an undeveloped roll from Seattle Film works that is this stuff.

[@iskandartaib]

@@TheBlindingwhite Oh yeah! That was the name of the outfit.. Seattle Film Works. One thing I remember was that the roll didn't have the normal shaped "tongue" to engage the take-up spool, they just cut the film at an angle.

[@TheBlindingwhite]

@@iskandartaib Yep. I checked a few years ago, there was still one place developing the rolls. Thecamerashop is the name of the place. I moved and didn't the roll developed. Been a few more years, I should go ahead and give it a try.

[@tlatosmd]

I marvel to think you got *BOTH* prints *AND* slides from the same stock.

[@iskandartaib]

@@tlatosmd Yeah, you could get either one or both.. the slides cost just a little extra IIRC. It makes sense, the film was designed with a movie positive as the end product in mind anyway. And you did get negatives too..

[@Mims.Entertainment]

I looked at your comments and enjoyed what others have said about that bygone era. I also shot 5247 and the 16mm version of that great stock. To this day we will be watching an old film of that era and I will comment to my wife: "Hmmm 5247". She will say: "What?". And I say: Nothing, missing what film did that video will never achieve. So thank you for this post, it is great that you are showing this to a new generation of film goers. [On The Beastmaster (1983) I got to work with John Alcott D.P. (Oscar winner) and learned so much from watching him with extremely low (torch light) set ups. Amazing man!]

[@flipnap2112]

few years ago I picked up a super 8 and a 16mm K3 from the Ukraine. Though it's expensive to process and digitize, theres NOTHING like film. I shot some footage at a company holiday and everyone was like "what is THAT!? Why's it making so much noise!?" ha ha.. So glad Kodak is still making film these days. a being able to color grade in Resolve is a Godsend. I remember shooting commercials in the early 80's on a bolex windup 16mm. They were a few hundred bucks (if that). Saw one on sale last year for 3200 bucks. Thats about the value of Gold. crazy

[@thedevilsadvocate5210]

The Beastmaster was a classic

[@thecandyman9308]

Man, thank you for your work. Wish they still made them like that anymore.

[@betomena1]

I freak’n love this video, its the type of video I didn’t know I needed but completley geeked out on. I too, grew up as a kid in the 70’s and a teen in the 80’s and loved the look of my favorite films from that era “The Empire Strikes Back”, “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”, “Jaws”, “Raiders of the Lost Ark”, etc. Some of the technical specs for this film stock that kinda blew me away were that its dynamic range was at around 10 stops and my Canon C200; when shooting in raw with C-Log 2, is rated at 15 stops but I’ve seen real world tests showing it is more like around 11-12 stops of dynamic range but the point being is that I own a digital cinema camera that is comparable in dynamic range to 35mm negative cameras from the era when I was a kid… mind blown... though of coarse, roll off not as good still as an Arri Alexa and I am also a fan. But the other thing that blew me away was that 5247 film stock’s highest exposure rating was at a mere 100 EI or 100 ISO digital equivilant, and my C200’s base ISO is 800 (though I shoot at ISO 640 because it produces way less digital noise but still retains 80% of the dyamic range in the highlights) which means I also don’t need to shoot with giant, super hot, and ultra expensive studio lights. This really makes me appreciate my C200 and it inspires me to keep pushing its potential. What a world we live in with so many wonderful and affordable cinematic tools at our disposal! Bravo for your awesome work, love your channel!

[@Albee213]

Was that the sequel?

[@andrewmurray1550]

Fourth kind? LOL you mean THIRD kind. There was never any such "close encounters" sequel - not by Speilberg anyway.

[@jakewestbrook3214]

if there's one thing I've noticed, it's that film captures greens beautifully while digital greens always look super artificial

[@NarrowGaugeFilmsLLC]

All the colors pop more with film because each color channel has its own filtration layer and dyes which react differently than a simple CMOS imager.

[@arricammarques1955]

Photo chemical film process Vrs electronic CMOS sensor.

[@jakublulek3261]

Eastman was always strong with vivid colours, even very early stock makes movies look pastel-like. But movie also used to be much more colourful...

[@ConvexSpade]

This may be because digital camera sensors typically use a Bayer filter, which have a lot more green pixels than red and blue.

[@culttelevision]

I love the look. It was also the stock used on most 1970s and 80s TV series we all grew up with including Knight Rider, Columbo, The A-Team, Magnum etc etc. I'd love to recreate that look but it's hard.

[@LarryFleetwood8675]

There's a newer film called The Love Witch (2016) which aims for a '70s look in colors, pacing, etc. Also the (by some dreaded) Psycho remake in a way did this too, I love it I'm a sucker for bright natural colors but it was made in a time (1998) before the present post-craze.

[@culttelevision]

@@LarryFleetwood8675 Yeah I saw that as i'm writing a soundtrack for a similar film . They nailed it by using original film stocks and careful attention the vintage lighting styles. I remember asking Sidney Hayers about it late in his life (1997) as he did a number of episodes of Knight Rider , Magnum and The Fall Guy . It was the look of that era. It's its own thing now which I love.

[@UndertakingCinema]

'47 is my favorite film stock of all-time. Thanks for doing a video about it. When I made House on Haunted Hill (1999) this was the look I was going for. '47 stock had already been discontinued so I had to have to the current stock "flashed" before we shot with it to get a a smoother look. Kodak should absolutely bring this stock back. The best movies ever looked was when the capture was on film and post was digital.

[@chris_jorge]

You were the cinematographer?!

[@UndertakingCinema]

@@chris_jorge No, I was the director but I worked closely with Rick Bota who did a great job. I do have a background in cinematography. At the time Kodak kept coming out with new stock which were always advertised as "higher contrast" Exactly what I didn't want.

[@ArnoldTohtFan]

​@@UndertakingCinema Were you the cinematographer for _Ghost Ship_ as well? I really like that one. The secret to a good looking movie is really very simple. Never colour grade, and don't go in for any of this virtual production crap. Unfortunately, nobody in Hollywood is capable of following these two simple rules. We don't have any genuine filmmakers anymore. The entire process, from beginning to end, is synthetic.

[@DyenamicFilms]

House on Haunted Hill with Famke Janssen? The first movie I ever worked on was Famke's debut film. I was a camera intern. Great experience.

[@chris_jorge]

@@UndertakingCinema wow that's incredible! we need you to do an interview with in depth cine!

[@tubecorr]

Great informative video. Another fun fact about the processing is that the remjet layer gets removed by jets of water. That's how it gets its name. This happens before the ECN-2 process.

[@immaculatesocks]

Your assessment of the dynamic range of 5247 is incorrect. 7-9 stops being onscreen was the result of the print stock, not the negative. They were shot by the DPs back then with the assumption that they would only be seen on print stocks, so often when they remaster them, they try to mimic its look on a print stock. But a scan of the negative would yield 12-13 stops of dynamic range. DPs shooting film nowadays know that they’re capturing 13+ stops and are doing so with the intent to use more than 9 stops in the final image, because the grade will be done from a neg scan, and aren’t limited by a print stock.

[@davidswanson5669]

Ok so then was the 7-9 stops, on the print, a limitation of print stock at the time? Was that a limit that applied also to photography in general?

[@immaculatesocks]

@@davidswanson5669 Yes. There were ways to get more dynamic range into the positive (print stock falls in the positive category) like lab flashing, but it was an added cost so it wasn’t used very often. Also with still photo, print paper usually would display 8-10 stops from the negative. Generally, DPs just lit for it and most liked the deep rich blacks that were an involuntary byproduct. If you were on a film set in h the analog days, the lighting would look low contrast to your eye, but it on screen it would look “natural.”

[@TheFlamingPike]

This is a very cool video because it talks about something everybody "knows" it exists but don't know anything about it, just that the films back then looked different, so this video is very, very informative. Films prior to the digital era were a work of art even before images would be on them. I became passionate with this subject since I first saw Baraka which was shot on a 70mm film which could be compared to 12k resolution today!

[@namco003]

I always thought the look of movies changed, but I wasn't sure why that was growing up. This makes way more sense to me in my 50s. As a lover of 70/80s movies, I'm so used to seeing old film stock, that seeing how ridiculously clear movies are now throws me off a bit. Recently got a copy of a 35mm rip of the original Star Wars and Return of the Jedi in 4K, and man oh man, I never knew how much film grain makes a difference

[@johnwatson3948]

Brings back memories of film school in the 70’s-80’s - all we used was the 16mm version of 5247, called 7247.

[@Gma7788]

Wrong. It DOESN'T bring back memories. YOU are the person who's responsible for adjusting all the colours of your home cinema movies. If you fail to adjust your movie 🎬 then THAT'S YOUR PROBLEM. It takes hours to adjust all the colours of your movie. All the DVDs 📀 are starting off with RAW colours. You're the person who's responsible for adjusting the reds, greens, yellows, whites, etc... You don't talk sh it to me.

[@kubrickenigma7977]

​@@Gma7788 Lighten up, Francis.

[@kmlgraph]

@@Gma7788 Had a bit too much to drink today, have we?

[@flipnap2112]

@@Gma7788 pfff ha ha. what does this even mean?

[@midnight_lens]

Still love the old 70's and 80's film look, feel more grounded and rough around edges, I still appreciate lots of things about digital filmmaking, but sometimes it feels too clinical for some films

[@The_CGA]

Agree For my own work I have found a shortcut to creating images within that “roughness” (obviously not good for projects with lots of post) is to just film in 1080. I know wolfcrow is kinda a comedy channel now, but a few years back he seriously suggested just filming in 1080 to get a vintage look and …. Yeah, it does

[@KenoSNeal]

@@The_CGA I don't know about the wolfcrow channel but I think there is a lot of truth to that statement. Even though I shoot on digital cameras such as the Olympus and Canon, I have found so many similarities to the film look while shooting 1080 in natural light (daylight & night) mainly because my cameras don't produce clean low-light images, particularly at night. The dark shadows and grainy noise is as close to the film look as you can probably get with today's modern cameras.

[@kamandi1362]

I saw a 35mm print of Close Encounters a couple of months ago and it looked gorgeous, much better than the digital version in your clips. And yes, it wasn’t as grainy as you might think.

[@Gma7788]

The fact is, the old movies can be adjusted to look totally brand new. You can also adjust them to look vibrant and look nothing like the old version. You can darken the remastered version and watch that version too. You CAN adjust the old movie to look a thousand different ways.

[@CornishCreamtea07]

While I get what you are saying, this video is less film vs digital and more 70s film stock vs modern film stock.

[@electriceyepictures4805]

Loved this video. Very informative. This stock with anamorphic lens is such a beautiful look - so many of my favourite films shot on 5247

[@ojtheaviator1795]

You make some great points, but it's worth pointing out that the clip from Dune 2 at 12:51 is not in fact primarily a digital color grade, but rather, an IR sensitive camera sensor! I'm sure they still used digital software to adjust it, but the scene was shot with a special digital sensor which is sensitive to light well past the visible spectrum into the IR, and then they probably used a physical IR filter such as a 750nm or 840nm filter, to only capture IR. A great modern example of changing the physical equipment ('film stock' if you will) to get your look!

[@Hotshotter3000]

Thank you! I always said that I liked the special look of 80s movies. I could not quite describe what it is about them that was different. But you did it for me. It was the film all along!

[@hitthestreetsphoto1253]

That was not Annie Hall (1977). That was Radio Days (1987) 0:53. Annie Hall was shot on 5254. The series 600 came out in August 1976 and obsoleted 5254 after a two-year overlap. "Annie Hall" was released in the spring of 1977 but was shot a year before that so it was most likely shot on 5254, not 5247.

[@Ghost_That_Walks]

Thank you for this video! I've tried to explain this topic to so many people over the years only to receive a blank stare in response. You really do need the visual component for it to make sense! 😃👍

[@otakudoomer646]

Love the break down and how much thought was put into each circumstance of the films usage

[@marcwielage92]

Important note: the o.p. is judging what 5247 looks like based on the SCANS. The problem with that is a) the scan could be flawed, b) the film being scanned may be an IP or an IN made from 5247, which won't reflect the stock itself; and more importantly c) you're judging color based on whoever color-corrected the scan. There's more to it than that. 5247 has a dozen different looks. Note there was also different kinds of 5247 -- they changed it a few times, based on criticism from filmmakers like George Lucas (who hated the stock).

[@anonanon7822]

Or prints made from negatives, which may look different depending on film being printed on and technique and so on. I really don’t believe that negative films have “a look”

[@marcwielage92]

@@anonanon7822 Well... ALL prints are made from negatives. But are they internegatives? Are they dupe negatives? Are they camera negatives? None of them are exactly the same. My point is that a projected print may not look like the video transfer (and vice versa). We TRY to make them look in that ballpark during digital mastering, but it's never exact. There's a lot of subjectivity and experience involved.

[@anonanon7822]

@@marcwielage92 That’s my point, due to bazillion ways of printing neg it’s hard to say that some stock has “look”. Stock + printed material - yes(let’s say - this stock printed on that print film, or in case of photographs - this stock printed on this paper and so on), but neg stock itself - no. Slide film on the other hand…… (but there’s almost no movies shoot on slide film)

[@marcwielage92]

@@anonanon7822 Although it is possible to shoot on reversal. I think we're in agreement that there is no one single look of film, and that's a big problem with people who create "film look LUTs" and things like that.

[@tlatosmd]

If so, then why do all the various examples from so many different films look so much alike? And entirely unlike films from the 60s or the 90s. Not identical, but close enough you can tell it's the stock. Of course, lighting on the set plays a big part as well, but ASA and other qualities of the stock also draw certain limits upon how you can and should light.

[@danpalooza]

a note about the dynamic range of that 100T film stock, The negative was optically printed onto a print stock that had a lot of contrast and is responsible for most the dynamic range you're referencing. It's like the equivalent of a LUT we use now on log footage.

[@OriginalGrasshopper]

Films from the 1970’s and 80’s were so much more pleasing to the eye than today’s digitally enhanced stuff.

[@aavvcc]

I totally agree. Films from that era looked inviting and warm, regardless of the type of film it was. Today I feel the film tones are sterile and cold, almost like being in a hospital.

[@TK199999]

I would also argue that modern tv and films have this idea that digital picture and displays are perfect. While in reality they all have limitations and biases based on makers/technology. The differences in LCD, LED and OLED display alone makers in picture quality/image appearance is staggering at time. Not to mention the differences in digital cameras and film editing and color correct/balance software. In the end directors edit and color correct/balance their pictures based on the displayed and software they used in their local editing room. While in the 'old days' especially in tv, it was well known that film to tv conversion and especially color tv models had limitations. Of either design, age, cost range (ie basic verses high end models) and makers. So they shot their shows understanding this and used colors (using primary colors and avoiding patterns and colors that wouldn't 'read' right' on camera), lighting and filming style (types of close ups, fixed camera, panning shots ect) to maximize their minimums so to speak and create the best image for widest range of tv's of the time. A good example of this is the old 60's Star Trek, after the remaster which rescanned the old negatives and cleaned it all up more than a ton color correction. Really pops and looks amazing on modern flat screen LED tv's, since it shows the same limitations of tv's today and old CRT color tv's even from later 60's are still around. So the 'old tricks' still work and work well.

[@brucekuehn4031]

@@TK199999 I was in the Camera Local 659 and back then theatrical features and TV - same equipment, same film. The DPs in TV were often doing features 20, 30, even 40 yrs before. Crews - no cellphones, but big feature guys were happy to pick up a day or two on TV if they had a call on their answering machines. Big difference - screen size the audience was watching on (more medium shots and closeups for TV) and brightness (some people had crappy old TVs). And, of course, time - TV you had to really crank it out.

[@kirkanos3968]

Can't watch CGI crap unless i want a headache.

[@OscarCrease-nd6js]

It's true, and to me it's similar to the way vinyl is more pleasing to the ear than music in digital formats. When streaming music or listening to CDs I'm much more likely to experience "audio fatigue" than with vinyl.

[@UmbrellaGent]

Would love to see a video breaking down the specifics, the process behind the look of Lawrence of Arabia and/or other films with similar aesthetics like Doctor Zhivago.

[@dr.strangelove5708]

I think Lawrence of Arabia was one of the first films to have a high enough resolution film stock to notice the details that well, I would love to know what that was filmed on. Also the original widescreeen version is very tepid compared to the scan and pan, usually this would not be an improvement but this is a very strange exception.

[@craigrryan86]

An entirely analog process, helmed by masters of their craft, and a lot of money. Scouting, knowing where the sun would be, how to expose for a print (not the negative). What stock the print would be...etc. Cinematographers used to be like mysterious wizards with a lot of their own tricks and specialties. Cinematography was like cooking. If you knew the recipe, you could go bold and change it up.

[@UmbrellaGent]

@craigrryan86 Would you have any resources regarding the difference between exposing for the negative vs for the print?

[@xsleep1]

In the late 70s through the 80s I used to get 5247 for my still photography from a place in Eugene. It was good because I got back a set of slides (5247 to 5247) and the uncut roll of negatives. If I want any of them printed they looked so much better (mostly better contrast) than printing from Kodachrome or Ektachrome slides. Years later I digitized the rolls of negatives with a Nikon 4000 with an adapter that would load the entire roll of 36. Once I set it up it would crank them out without much intervention. Much better than scanning slides where the slide feeder tended to jam occasionally.

[@falls2488]

i always loved the look of movies from the 70s and early 80s, now i know what film was used. thnx.

[@DynastyUK]

The hard light is more important than the stock I feel. If I remember correctly for Indianna Jones they lit it exactly the same as they would an older black and white movie. Nowadays it's lit as if they are coming from real light sources. Nice video though

[@SilentAttackTV]

I'm sure you've seen it, but Cinemastix made a video called "when the director is reeeally good at their job" about how Steven Soderbergh took Indiana Jones and removed the audio, made it black and white, and used music from The Network and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, essentially turning it into a black-and-white film just for fun and practice. Apparently Douglas Slocombe, the cinematographer that worked on Indiana Jones used to work on black-and-white movies in the past. Maybe that's why the movie looks so grand and film-like. Lots of contrast, lots of shadows, lots of extra light that wouldn't really be natural but looks very good.

[@RumourdProd]

Quite right. And even though Spielberg and kaminski sat and watched the original 3, in order to preserve continuity of look with Crystal Skull, Janusz simply couldn't resist using soft light and ruining it.

[@snapsnappist4529]

@@SilentAttackTV That is a fascinating point. Now that I come to think of it, if I was to take a modern colour movie and desaturate it to black and white, it would look muddy and flat. I just checked out the b/w edit of Raiders on Soderblog, and sure enough, it was shot and lit like a black and white movie. It reminds me of something like Kubrick's The Killing - all light and shadow. Interestingly, both Kubrick and Slocombe were photojournalists working in black and white before they moved into motion pictures.

[@LarryFleetwood8675]

@@RumourdProd Sadly, the last Indy looks even worse than Crystal Skull. Spielberg is not innocent himself, all his films post-2004 look awful like everything else these days even his first Indy he oversaturated for Blu-ray.

[@dahan419]

Thanks for the breakdown. I love the look of film versus color graded digital even more now.

[@nyobunknown6983]

Great video. I learned a lot about shooting movies with film that I never knew before.

[@fernandooliveiralino]

I think that the reason why so many people resonate with the look of this period is that the massive amount of detail in more recent cinematography can be overkill on an unconscious level. Working folks are not as attentive to detail in their day to day as some recent cinematography is. It would be exhausting. We need to be aberrative in the way we look at things. And the aberrations in the looks of this period tend to be more in tune with eyesight and human consciousness. Sometimes I see trailers of stuff coming out these days that I'm like, "How many people in the world actually see the world - or dream - like this? Seriously!"

[@FlymanMS]

Exactly, sometimes less is more.

[@rippingmyheartwassoeasy]

The films that came before the latter half of the 80s until now had a dream like visual quality to them. I'm not saying all of the films but many. One of my favorite films that has that dream like visual aesthetic would be Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stokers Dracula.

[@thebod1]

I would like to add two things done today: digital editing and the overuse of hand held camera work. Because of AVID film pacing is cut too quick, whereas older movies cut on a Moviola breathe more and let the acting flow. And can someone please bring a tripod or dolly track to the set?

[@brucekuehn4031]

I agree with your appraisal . When an audience watches a film, they are following a story. Guy walks in the front door, kisses his wife, and then the kids come in and greet their father. We don’t really care about the texture of the fabric on the couch or the grain of the wood floors. And I thought those films were (and still are) quite beautifully shot. I love watching films from those years!

[@milosmilosmilos]

At the same time, watching movies used to compete against extreme boredom, and these days it competes with the constant feed of dopamine. Imagine having the Godfather released today, with its pacing and length. In order to get people to leave homes and pay for a night at the movies (or even to grab their attention for a few hours) you have to outdo the intensity and appeal of SoMe, video games, easily available porn, dating apps etc. This is, in my theory, one of the reasons why Marvel did so well for a while and why the budgets keep blowing up and up. It's also the reason why "less is more" doesn't really apply in today's climate.

[@theseanwardshow]

Amazing breakdown.

[@VariTimo]

Comparing this stock to modern stocks that went through a DI is pretty pointless. Because movies back then were all finished photochemically. If you want to see how modern stocks actually compare to it, you need to look at movies that were actually printed on print stock with analog color timing. Like Nolan’s or PTA’s films. While the print stock also effects the look quite considerably many of the modern digital versions of these old movies are based on the Technicolor dye transfer prints, since they have kept better compared to the Eastmancolor prints of the time. Modern Kodak Vision 2383 was actually designed by Kodak, to give a similar look to Technicolor dye transfer prints. And one of the modern photochemically finished movies, Inherent Vice actually comes pretty close to the 5247 look because it’s been lit, exposed, and color times to evoke that aesthetic.

[@kemalettinsrt]

you think he cares about facts? its youtube bro just dont skip the sponsor part and buy his merch please.

[@dsfs17987]

IMHO the point was to explain the differences between "then" and "now", and why today there is a lot more variation - which I think isn't necessarily a good thing, because it can be quite distracting and prone to be overused, overemphasized not to mention that even though the technology improved, like increased dynamic range that adds more detail, it may not add anything to the viewing experience, because again - more detail = distraction, while the picture frame does look closer to real life when examined, that is not how human perceives motion picture - we focus on important bits, moving things, not examine if the clouds in the sky are not blown out

[@Prens1]

@@kemalettinsrt burada sinematografi ile ilgilenen bir türk'e rastlayacağımı hiç düşünmezdim. güzel bir tesadüf.

[@kemalettinsrt]

@@Prens1 bu kanallari siktiret bunlar bos bilgiler soylediklerinin cogu da gotten uydurma kardesim.Git american cinematographer ac oku film izle daha iyi.Burada herif 10-20dk video yapip bir seyler satip sponsor izletme pesinde.

[@tlatosmd]

Nolan is a terrible reference. His idea about the "film look" is entirely locked on what a used, worn-out release copy made by cheap contact printing looks like after decades of continuous screenings. For that purpose, he *ALWAYS* makes a 6th or 8th generation contact-print copy, gives it a slight flicker, and purposefully adds a lot of dust, dirt, faded milky black levels and faded colors ("teal look", "velvety raised blacks"). It's as stupid as all those people who think that a "warm analogue sound" would be found in vinyl crackle, tape hiss, and DC/resistance hum, rather than the characteristically saturated slight distortion you get from slightly over-amping on tube amps and analogue tape, which is entirely unlike digital clipping.

[@theovolz3073]

I _love_ the colours that some 70’s movies had. _Suspiria_ is a good example of this and is one of my favourite films.

[@hiair]

Movies look more diverse now? What do you mean? EVERYTHING IS TEAL AND ORANGE. Filmmakers forgot that the color wheel is only a reference and NOT A RULE.

[@lchambers56]

I kind of tend to agree with you. Most films today seem to have a very similar look to them, and not in a good way. Very bland, lifeless.

[@borntoclimb7116]

​@@lchambers56 they use filters

[@verdigrau]

I guess the explanation for this is that modern filmmakers have more color palettes to choose from than before, but most of them just go with teal and orange or a dark grey, monochrome look.

[@mikehunt4986]

@@verdigrau Which is incredibly fucking dumb. Why do they do that if they have so many options at their disposal? Just one of the many reasons i hate modern cinema.

[@snapsnappist4529]

@@mikehunt4986 Same as digital audio. When CDs came out in the 1980s, they had enormous dynamic range (so big that you could damage your speakers by playing the 1812 Overture at too high a volume). So what did the record compalnies do with this incredible technological development? Filtered every new album thorough a limiter that crushed the dynamic range down to nothing. Insanely stupid.

[@lchambers56]

Last year, I had a mini 80's movie marathon and I noticed that while the films varied in subject and tone, they all had a very similar look to them. I guess this is what I was picking up on. Thanks for the great, informative video!

[@LarryFleetwood8675]

It was the normal look of all films back then, a visual real life authenticity that's missing in most movies these days.

[@11C1P]

I grew up in 70's & 80's going to a movie pretty much every weekend back then & got to see a LOT of those old great movies & they look a LOT better than the new stuff.

[@BrightBlueJim]

Technical correction: the anti-halation layer in cinema film stocks is necessary because the film is going through the camera much faster than in still cameras, but not directly. Both cinema and still film cameras both have pressure plates that hold the film against the gate to precisely position the film emulsion at the camera's focal plane, but the difference being that in still cameras, these are painted black so that light that passes through the film doesn't reflect off of the pressure plate and expose the film from the back side, which if allowed to happen would result in soft outlines on the image exposed from the back side, an effect that is called "halation", meaning that bright spots in the image end up with halos around them. Therefore the black pressure plates. But due to the faster movement of film through cinema cameras, any black coating on the pressure plate in the camera would quickly get worn down as thousands of feet of film go through the camera, leaving shiny spots where the paint is gone. So instead, pressure plates on cinema cameras are unpainted, and the back side of the film itself is coated black. To provide an alternate way of preventing halation. Thus, "anti-halation" coatings.

[@davidmullen7829]

Since density during development is controlled by time and/or temperature, you can imagine the issues with contrast with early ECN2 - Kodak wanted to reduce time but probably had to compensate by increasing temperature. And the first version of 5247 didn’t push-process well, picking up green in the blacks. Kodak’s advice was “so don’t push it!” which did not go over well among Hollywood cinematographers.

[@geologyjoerocks]

Great video! I was born in 1979 so I’ve seen that transition, although I’ve never really paid much attention to it until now. I do like the way the film looked back then, and wouldn’t want to see much “correction” of the old films in terms or remasters. It’s a vibe and I love it

[@LarryFleetwood8675]

Yes, it's unfortunate that the studios cater to this nonsense now Warner Bros are big culprits there the way they destroyed the two first Dirty Harry films.

[@07wrxtr1]

I like older films because they are not over edited and the sound doesn’t have you reaching for the remote as often… We recently watched Psycho and were blown away

[@BukanIbuMu]

Yep. I really don't get the point of a large audio dynamic range in modern films.

[@brucekuehn4031]

Streaming today, why are we always having to rewind and put up subtitles just to hear what the characters are saying to each other? Don’t have to do that with the older films. Could it also be the actors back then who knew how to speak clearly and be heard?

[@volentimeh]

@@brucekuehn4031 Inbetween the original sound mix through the basterdized compression of streaming and how its processed in your hardware it's amazing anyone can hear anything at all, it's easy to mess up..

[@matthewpaul6904]

What an unbelievable video! Now that you pointed it out, I can't unsee it and that makes perfect sense. You have a new subscriber!

[@FlymanMS]

I think strong contrast and highlights often helps us to see the actor's facial expressions better and you can use it to focus viewer's attention. Maybe this is why modern movies, while having more diverse color tone pallet, tend to look more "even" and less highlighted.

[@brianredban9393]

I love the way movies looked back than more than movies today. I wonder if it would be possible to do a film like that today

[@earljohnson8851]

Incredible post thank you for this

[@aaronjclarke1973]

Thanks for uploading. I was obsessed with colour reproduction in motion picture films when I was young. I wanted films to accurately reproduce colour. In the early 1990s I read about how to manufacture colour film from a book published by Kodak. In 1995 I gave Kodak compounds (colour couplers and spectral sensitising dyes) which had a provisional patent in Australia. I dreamt up these compounds not knowing if they would work.

[@FELiPES101]

I always wondered why I liked the look of my dads movies better than modern movies.

[@EE12CSVT]

6:40 5247 is recognisable as the dim whites and light greys had a slight blue cast to them. It's something I used to emulate in Photoshop.

[@frankbonarrigo6086]

2001 space odyssey is the most beautiful film I’ve ever seen.What ever that was filmed on is my favorite

[@stevejanowiak1982]

Great video. I’ve been on my soapbox for years with this one. I’m 56 and I swear to all that’s holy that it is almost impossible to watch anything today because I can’t stand the brightness and colorfulness and over clarity and boringness. There is ZERO depth in today’s movies/tv shows. The grit and grain and darkness and washed out colors of the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s made the experience so much more believable and real. Can you imagine Apocalypse Now shot on the digital crap today? Would be horrible!

[@LarryFleetwood8675]

Absolutely, good scripts are hard to come by these days. What happened to the simple A - Z thriller story that still worked in the '90s and even early 2000s, then something changed and subplots and twists became all the rage along with trends of muted and drab uniformed color schemes, it just made everything unwatchable. Hollywood only has itself to blame for its dire straits today, if they don't return to past formulas and technical means it's all over for them, because even the people they do make movies for are getting tired of it all now.

[@aavvcc]

💯

[@teleaddict23]

I have always loved the classic film look of old movies, especially on blu ray. The colours are beautiful, something that modern movies can’t match. There is far too much digital editing on modern movies. Sometimes less is more.

[@RebeccaTurner-ny1xx]

Your generalisation suggests only that you haven't watched many recent films. Their editing styles are as disparate as any older era.

[@arricammarques1955]

65mm film offers amazing film quality.

[@WhyToob]

@@RebeccaTurner-ny1xx Not trying to start a disagreement, but I'm not sure if teleaddict23 actually meant to say there is far too much digital "cutting" on modern movies. Perhaps he/she was, but given that the comment is mostly addressing colors, I wonder if too much digital PROCESSING or colorizing was actually being referred to. Anyway, if by "digital editing" actual CUTTING was meant, I might have to agree that quite a few recent films seem over-cut to me. I do watch a lot of recent films (but admit that my preference might be for older), and you are certainly correct that there are countless styles of editing. I'm sure we could both name movies that make good use of long duration shots and languid pacing, but I feel there might be a leaning toward a LOT of cuts in many of today's films, perhaps enough to call it a trend. If we're comparing eras, and if I'm correct at all, I would guess that this could be the simple result of it being so much easier today to edit digitally (and non-destructively) than to actually cut celluloid. Just being freed from the worry of having to possibly reconstitute an initially, poorly edited scene, allows for more experimentation and, I suspect, the inclusion of more shots. Personally, I love this particular improvement that nonlinear editing has brought to the moviemaking process. However, I wonder if more at play is the wide use of multi-camera shooting today, as opposed to single-cam. I could imagine that having so much scene coverage might tempt an editor to use far more shots than in previous eras, perhaps too many? I guess I am thinking now of films intended to be fast paced. Fight scenes and car chases should benefit from rapid cutting but heavens! I confess, I sometimes lose my bearings watching many of these scenes. In fact, I can get ripped away from the tension and thematic mood, and if that is the result of over-editing, then I would have to agree that sometimes less would be more. Of course, there are many, many excellent scenes where it is the rapid cutting that really serves up the tension. Still, there are also examples of films (particularly those heavily reliant on shaky, handheld) that will cut to so many angles, even during a conversation, that I'm not sure the actors' performances are even given their due. I feel this is more a modern phenomenon than not. Well, that's way more than 2 cents, and I could be wrong. I really enjoyed this KZbin post, btw.

[@RebeccaTurner-ny1xx]

@@WhyToob I think I agree. "I sometimes lose my bearings watching many of these scenes" is true of many badly-directed and badly-choreographed action scenes in very bad films. The entire oeuvre of Michael Bay springs to mind but many other more respected directors are at fault. The fight scenes in Ridley Scott's _Gladiator_ are almost unwatchable owing to their cutting technique, and that goes back to 1999. The intent is to impress and excite, not to be narratively coherent. Viewers should vote with our feet and favour better-cut films.

[@WhyToob]

@@RebeccaTurner-ny1xx Thank you for your reply, and I concur with your observations and examples, and the suggestion that "we should vote with our feet." There's a lot of great material out there (so much made for cable TV and streaming) that I'm not sure why I genuinely worry about the state and style of storytelling. Perhaps what really concerns me is the future of the film industry with respect to theaters. I don't know. Too much money being spent on too many "blockbusters" designed to impress and excite (as you so aptly say) and not able to transport, which is what I really need from the movie experience. Regardless, on that sad note, I appreciate your brain. Best wishes!

[@CaptainNow2]

That was an absolute joy to watch. I always wondered why movies looked so good back then and now I know. Liked and subbed. I think this smile on my face might just last all day :)

[@Dexter649]

Im from 2003 and i love this kind of stuff way better than the digital crap!

[@Nex5Network]

Love the breakdown of 5247! Being a child of the 80's and 90's, I think it's always in my subconscious when I'm grading. Now I know a little more about my influences!

[@DyenamicFilms]

One of the best looking films I saw on blu ray is Hitchcock's The Trouble With Harry. Picture quality blew me away. That movie looks way better than movies shot on digital today (and film for that matter) and it was made in the 50's. I know it's shot in Vistavision, but I'm wondering what filmstock they used. It looks much better than North by Northwest (which is also Vistavision). I've been rewatching older films I haven't seen in a long while from the 70's and 80's that I first saw in the theater or on video back then and man, do I miss that look after watching a bunch of more recent movies shot on digital. Nothing beats the dreamlike, silky, creamy look of film (I don't know how else to describe it). I also love the pacing and even the analog sound of the movies of the 70's and 80's. There really is more of a "warmth" to the sound and dialogue tracks. Not every sound on the soundtrack is crystal clear like today. It was so refreshing (re)watching them.

[@brucekuehn4031]

This is more about visuals, but sound now is horrible! I realize my hearing range may be declining with age, but streaming older movies we don’t have to turn on the captions to understand what characters are saying.

[@tlatosmd]

"North by Northwest" and "The Trouble with Harry" were both shot in Technicolor.

[@davidmullen7829]

@@tlatosmd No, they were both shot on Eastmancolor negative 5248 (25 ASA tungsten) in the larger 8-perf 35mm VistaVision format and released in Technicolor dye transfer prints.

[@davidmullen7829]

5248 25 ASA tungsten-balance. The first Kodak color negative movie film was 5247 (not the same stock released in the 1970s) in 1950 and was 16 ASA daylight-balance. It was supposed to compete with 3-strip Technicolor in speed and color balance. Then in 1952, Technicolor changed their camera system to be closer to 25 ASA and tungsten-balance for the movie "The Greatest Show on Earth" (because fire safety laws outlawed the use of daylight carbon arc lamps in a circus tent so the movie had to be lit with tungsten lamps) and Kodak followed with 5248 (not the same stock released in the early 1990s) that was also 25 ASA tungsten-balance. Then in 1959, Kodak came out with 5250, 50 ASA, first used on movies like "Spartacus". A few movies in Hollywood in the early 1950s were also shot on Ansco color negative film, such as MGM's "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" and "Lust for Life". 3-strip Technicolor cameras were obsoleted in 1955.

[@tlatosmd]

@@davidmullen7829 I blame IMDB for gross misinformation, I guess. Anyways, VistaVision is mainly an aspect ratio for me. What I mean is the stock. And during the last few days it's occured to me that probably even most Technicolor films of the 30s and 40s were most likely shot on Kodak B/W stocks already. Who knows? We cetainly need new videos on that!

[@Vahmrick60]

I used 7247 16mm version in the 70s and early 80s. The other choice back then for 16mm production (for 16mm distribution) was 7252 Ektachrome Commercial which had a different look and was easier to handle in the lab because it was reversal , but was very slow, only 25 for tungsten and 16 daylight with an 85 filter.

[@ilaion11]

I disagree with your statement that old stocks are only retaining 7-8 stops of light when in fact it was the digitization that limited the DR to 7-8 stops, and sometimes, the positive print and the scan of it for DVD and tape. Most old stocks were fully capable of retaining 11-12 stops of dynamic range, but part of shadows and highlights details were lost during processing.

[@RumourdProd]

Yeah, the video maker seems to forget that a proper 4K scan off the OCN is sublime with dynamic range.

[@ilaion11]

@@RumourdProd even a proper 4K scan of the projection positive would reveal in some cases 12 stops of DR. That is why the old analog way of projecting film is still the most organic and pleasurable way of watching films.

[@NarrowGaugeFilmsLLC]

There is plenty of DR in modern film scans. This isn’t the 90s or early 2000s with telecines and such.

[@ilaion11]

@@NarrowGaugeFilmsLLC yes, there is! I was talking about 90s and 2000s scans...

[@lloydhinshelwood]

In music production mixing I often think in the rule of thirds as the listener is only taking in three pieces of information at one time this might explain why I prefer the look and feel of these old films as they have a limiting colour palette fantastic video!

[@AlfredoRoccia]

I still think a good way to spot movies shot on film nowadays is to look at the shadows. No matter the modern film dynamic range, digital will always deal better with shadows. On the other hand, nothing can deal with light details more than film. See for instance rocket liftoff blasting lights from the 60s compared to modern launches, just no detail at all.

[@tompoynton]

Do shadows have to always be “dealt with better”? Using a technically “better” technology is still an aesthetic choice, to that call it better is still highly subjective. Better in a technological sense maybe, but that doesn’t mean it’s better in an artistic sense.

[@AlfredoRoccia]

@@tompoynton yeah, I meant technically. Then everyone does what they like.

[@ajdc88]

THIS IS SO IMPORTANT THANK YOU

[@shaunlaisfilm]

Interesting content. I don't know if it was the film stock or just the style of a small group of cinematographers who handled these Hollywood productions. As a 100% film photographer, I do know that one could use techniques with light & wet lab chemistry to make a roll of film go outside the standard look of what that film is marketed under.

[@Art-is-craft]

Film is a photochemical effect and its colour transfer range is orders of magnitude better than digital film. As a medium it allows for far greater creativity than any other approach.

[@shaunlaisfilm]

@@Art-is-craftgood day, I hope that all is well. I am a darkroom film photographer, that is (film) the only format that I use, (I started photography in 1990). Yes, you are correct about the photo chemistry process. However, color film processing & B/W film processing are completely different. Even the agitation has different outcomes. Color film is about the distribution of saturation & B/W is about the tonal ranges. I have not ever owned a digital still photography camera so my insight about it is slim, leaving my contrasting of the two formats, film biased.

[@Art-is-craft]

@@shaunlaisfilm The real bottle neck is the theatres with digital projection. I have even seen digital master movies that were transferred to film and they looked superior. There is something about their colour balance that is subtle and warm.

[@shaunlaisfilm]

@@Art-is-craftthe last motion picture that I watched in a movie theater was Robert Bresson's 'Au Hasard Balthazar' inside of Metrograph: a cinema house in New York that play films on a film projector. As you know the well-made 'Au Hasard Balthazar' is in B/W but those flickers that came across the silver screen a few times, just made the organic experience of watching filmmaking on film, humbling. I am sure that digital projection is on a sharp & clear mission, but there is just this visual trait in film projection that connects to the story, the history of cinema.

[@Art-is-craft]

@@shaunlaisfilm I do not think digital projection is very good. I am one of those people that can see the pixels on screen as 8 million pixels is not enough.

[@gsm156]

Thank you so much for all of this work and sharing. I have really enjoyed this and while I had a basic understanding of film development I had no idea of the processing complexities involved.

[@UXXV]

Love the creamy look of these examples.

[@METAL1ON]

Very interesting this. It is something I would never have thought to challenge since I have no understanding of how media worked back then but watching this shows and explains a lot thank you.

[@richardstirling5799]

Back then everything looked like 5247; today it all looks like Arri log edited on davinci resolve

[@Jddoes3D]

And when they shoot film, they still make it look like digital. I don't get it why modern films look as if they were using a cheap DSLR.

[@Monoville]

@@Jddoes3D They look like that to us because we just grew up seeing films shot on film and processed a certain way. Just like 48fps is technically better/smoother than 24fps but looks worse to us because we're used to the dreamy look of 24fps. Modern films don't look objectively worse, they're just missing the "negative" elements (gate weave, bloom, excess grain, limited colour range, etc) which we associate with cinema. That's why people use software like Dehancer to give digital films and photographs that old grainy film stock look.

[@tyjuarez]

@@Jddoes3D After the trend of super saturated and crushed looks in the 2000s, colorists are really cautious about getting rid of any of the dynamic range in the image, even if its unnecessary information. the "Straight out of the camera LOG" look has become the norm, especially with HDR being an emergent technology that no one quite knows how to use correctly. One recent exception is the John Wick series, which has a healthy amount of inky blacks and saturated colors.

[@richardstirling5799]

on Hulu almost every commercial has the same color palette (teal!) making them all look like oversaturated candy

[@ZiddersRooFurry]

@@tyjuarez John Wick looks amazing. It really does look like a great mix of old and new.

[@GeoFry3]

I grew up shooting black and white and then color, and then finally switching to digital. (Photography). I don't miss film. It was a pain in the ass. There is not many historical films that can't be replicated with digital tools.

[@ivarwind]

Nice video! Just a few corrections, though. First, completely factual, the anti-halation layer isn't there to absorb scratches, though depending on how it's incorporated, that may be a side effect for people who don't know how to handle it. It's there to absorb light that passes through the emulsion layers, so it doesn't get reflected back through the emulsion which would result in reduced contrast and especially in bright points getting little halos (halation). During processing it's either washed away or made transparent. It's also common in film for stills use. Properly handled cine film in properly maintained equipment should not get scratched in the image forming area. Second, maybe more a matter of terminology: I wouldn't say a film with a higher EI absorbs more light, rather it needs less light for the same result, so it needs less light during exposure. At the chemical level, this may well be because it absorbs a higher percentage of photons (before they're absorbed by the anti-halation layer) - or it may be that each photon causes greater change, I simply haven't studied the chemical reactions enough to have a clue - but the practical effect in any case, is that higher EI means you have to expose it to *less* light to get the same exposure. Exposing it to more light to absorb will give you a serious case of overexposure. Third, certainly personal opinion, but I'm not the only one: This may be because I have seen a lot of old movies also other than 80s Hollywood, but I do not see greater variation in look in modern cinema, quite the contrary, as exemplified brilliantly by the examples you include of the "more diverse range of looks" of modern movies, that get nowhere near the diversity you illustrate for just the single Kodak stock that is the subject of the video. (Maybe you just do tongue in cheek with a very straight voice) Digital colour grading may *allow* for all sorts of different looks in post, but I guess the sum total of present day colour graders just have less collective imagination than the cinefilm engineers, DPs, directors, and labs of the past, because they routinely make most modern movies look almost exactly the same. The sickly green of The Matrix for instance (and in particular because it's easy to identify), has infected sci-fi, action, crime, and fantasy, as well as a lot of movies in other genres to such an extent that even a movie like the new Dune, while going to great lengths to achieve a different palette for the daylight desert and flamefilled nighttime shots, still falls back on flat semimonochromatic variations of sickly green and other sickly hues for most of the interiors and nighttime shots. Even the latest installment of the Blade Runner Cuts has adopted hospital green grading in place of the original steel blue, much to its demise. It's! So! Dull! (Not Dune in particular, but all of modern colour grading) Of course it makes hiding green screen reflections easier - an excellent illustration of how a particular technological detail can completely dominate an entire field of (supposedly) artistic expression.

[@LarryFleetwood8675]

Remember when every new movie that came out had to look green thanks to The Matrix, that wasn't a very long lasting trend though it soon went into teal but I much prefer green there, I mean I hate both but one is worse than the other... lol

[@rajendrabiswas]

I love the look of old film stocks..I mean the 90s movies and the perfume commercial has a unique look and effect on skin and sky..now that I see I even feel the film stock of 2005 era was unique ... but todays youth are so lucky to emulate all this in click of button.

[@noman6041]

And that's why movies from the 70's and 80's looked SO MUCH BETTER than the films of today. And they will ALWAYS look better. And it's also one of the problems with modern film-making..when a director makes a film that takes place in the 70's or 80's, it is still shot on modern film, and that's why that era cannot be recaptured properly. It seems to me that if you're going to make a 'retro' movie that takes place in that era, you should shoot it on the old style of film to give it that perfect retro feel. The 70's and 80's film style will ALWAYS be SUPERIOR to anything today.

[@LarryFleetwood8675]

So true, yes. It makes no sense to make a movie set in say the '70s, yet have it resemble any other modern film case in point The Irishman. That's why such period films fail, they should look like '70s films in order for the viewer to feel it and thus enjoy it more without post-production distractions. Imagine, say Donnie Brasco (1997) had been made today or even in the mid-2000s when this industry madness was in full swing, how terrible it'd look.

[@mvyper]

I've always liked that warm shade of color that those movies and photos were recognizable for. I've never known why, but I could totally tell that they had a very recognizable quality to them.

[@lievenvv]

Why do you say modern films have more variety - it's 90% orange & teal 😭

[@Digmen1]

Yes I dont know why modern movies all seem to be bluish or brownish - why?

[@Varnicus]

I came here to say this. I'm so sick of teal color grading :(

[@deanolium]

It's the issue of having too much choice, so way too many films so go the easy way and copy each other's look. Orange and Teal to make skin tones pop for action films. Murky green for horror films to make things look dank. It's all a bit overdone and overly obvious. I do love the feel of these old film stocks, though filming now is so much easier and cheaper.

[@hagnerplaylists]

I consider E.T. the extraterrestrial among the most beautiful movie ever made in regards to photography. I love that look.

[@SenthilSukumaran]

Really good video. To my eye, despite the massive amount of increased flexibility in modern digital capture technology, I still am yet to see any modern feature production look as pleasing to the eye as all this stuff from the 70's, 80's and especially 90's. Whatever film stock Fincher was using in Fight Club just looks extraordinary when it comes to handling of colour and contrast. I would love to see you cover that era of film stock in similar fashion to this. Or even to directly tackle Fight Club itself and deconstruct what gives it such a good look.

[@Fedorevsky]

Fight Club was shot on Eastman EXR 100T 5248/7248 Neg. Film, Kodak Vision 250D 5246/7246 Neg. Film and Kodak Vision 500T 5279 Neg. Film and printed on Kodak Vision Color 2383/3383.

[@3c3c3c]

@@martydmc12you have to pay 10.000$ a year for a membership into Information guild of Hollywood aka IGH, there they can provide you with all the info about a certain movie or production

[@PurpleMetal75]

​@@martydmc12For me, it's the technical specs section on every IMDb page. I just used it a few days ago to look up what kinds of lenses were used for some of my favorite cinematography in movies (Turns out that it's a tie between Panavision Primos and Super Speeds). I don't know how accurate it is, but it does count as a good place to start.

[@Fedorevsky]

@@martydmc12 There's a webpage called "ShotOnWhat?"

[@XoneIsACoolDude]

@@martydmc12 i usually find it by looking at the technical specs sections of a film on IMBD

[@richardcutts196]

There were three popular brands of film back then. Fuji, Agfa, and Kodak they each had looks that reflected the country/regional preferences they came from. I never used Agfa, but the Fuji, to me at least, had a more liquid look to it's colors especially in low light.

[@MaxximumRage]

I prefer the movies of yesterday in the 80's. They just look better.

[@thedylanconen]

This was a great video, thank you! I think it's great that more people than ever before are able to access film as an artform, and the advancments in technology are definitley a positve. However, I do think it would still be awesome to be able to shoot on film stock. I love the look and texture of older films where this was really thought about, and when someone has the resources to work well with film in the present day it is like magic.

[@wessexfox5197]

Petition to get Hollywood to film movies in this type of film

[@jamesheartney9546]

Any cinematographer who wants this look can just dial it in. No need to use actual film (with all its expense and limitations).

[@hatmanbuilder]

They will still ruin it afterwards with their "cool color filters"

[@mardus_ee]

Hollywood could still do it, but this type of film would be expensive and more time-consuming, as would be processing and post-production.

[@anthonygray333]

This throws me back to the mid 70’s and tinkering with my Kodachrome and Ektachrome films in my Argus 736 Super 8 Movie Camera! Most cool. Thanks!

[@crawfb]

Surprised to learn that Kubrick used the same film stock as everyone else. I always thought his movies had a different look; higher resolution, better colour saturation, etc. Also, didn't he pioneer low-light 'candle-lit' cinematography in 'Barry Lyndon'?

[@reeyees50]

Thats the camera lense, not the film stock that makes the big difference

[@deanolium]

@@reeyees50 Camera lens, framing, lighting, and so on. He had a great team around him and enough pull to be able to craft each shot just right, when most other films had a tight deadline, so many shots ended up being standard formula. I dread to think how much film he actually pulled through the camera and how expensive it would've been. No idea if he actually got all the footage developed, or just the reels with the takes he liked...

[@tlatosmd]

Just like he'd done with "A Clockwork Orange", Kubrick shot "Barry Lyndon" on the older 5254 (100T, ECN-1, sold 1968-1977). While 5247 (100T, ECN-2, sold 1974-c. 1994) was originally released in 1974, it was still flawed in being way too contrasty for filmmakers at that point and Kodak took until mid-1976 to upgrade it to its classic look seen here. The greater details in Kubrick films is due to his use of ultra-wide angle lenses (the same kind soon also used by Terry Gilliam), which allow you to go much closer to your subject on comparable field sizes than when using longer lenses. Not only does that give the stock a much better chance at resolving every single skin pore, but it also emphasizes your subject much more in relative size compared to the background.

[@tritonplayz1020]

Hey hey Rochester native here its Eastman Kodak let me say it again Eastman Kodak! The business was built by George Eastman as the Eastman Kodak Co.

[@theowlfromduolingo7982]

5:11 no, it doesn't gather 5x times more light. It's about 2 1/4 stops more sensitive which means a little more than 4x times more sensitive.

[@cicolas_nage]

in trying to be smart you outed yourself as a dumby. yes, 500ISO is 5x more sensitive than 100ISO, and yes, that does equal ~2.3 stops. each ISO doubling = 1 stop brighter

[@Tony__S]

5x *is* that little more than 4x. This channel actually got this part right. 800asa is 8x as sensitive as 100asa. 3 stops = 8x.

[@pixelpreaching]

That's still 5x, but it is incorrect that they "absorb more light" as the video does. They would gather LESS light, as proper exposure would mean you're shooting at a lower T-stop or have an ND filter. Lower ISOs in sensors and lower ASA film gather MORE light, not less, than higher ones.

[@Tony__S]

​@@pixelpreaching You're deadass wrong lol. there's something fucked about camera nerds online where they have to correct others on every technicality. Like if you didn't jump in nobody would know you're a smart and special boy? So you just gotta open your big mouth about things you know nothing about... When you say 100ISO/100ASA gathers more light - that's wrong. Film doesn't gather light at all, it just records it. And all film absorbs all the light that falls on it - or else where does the light go? The ASA suggests a density curve of that recording. 500ASA is 5x as sensitive, you can get to normal densities after developing with 1/5 the light. If you don't know what density is, and it seems like you don't, go shoot some film, and stop making things up about it.

[@pixelpreaching]

@@Tony__S lolololol. You can substitute whatever word you want - collects, records, absorbs, doesn't matter. You clearly don't understand actually physics of film (or silicon substrates if digital) and light. A medium - film or digital - can only ABSORB as much light as passes through the lens. That's the maximum amount it possibly can. If you meter for and exposure for, say, 400 ASA vs 100 ASA, you are going to let 1/4 the light in (either via the T-stop, shutter, or ND filter). The ONLY way you could ABSORB as much light as 100 ASA is if you overexposed by two stops. Have you ever heard of full well capacity on a digital sensor? The idea is no different with film. Also you literally said it receives "1/5 the light," completely contradicting your own bitching. Also, yes, you correct people on technicalities when it is literally a video and channel ABOUT TECHNICAL SHIT. And again, lol at your dumbass comment.

[@mouthend]

Thanks for this wonderful explanation! The incredible detail of modern digital images actually reduced the impact of movies for me. They look more real than real if you know what I mean which automatically translates to 'faked' in my mind which in turn creates an additional barrier to my suspension-of-disbelief. It happens without any deliberate thought. I have recently been re-watching a pile of films from the 60s and 70s where the prints were usually a bit fuzzy ... or 'gritty looking' ... maybe washed-out etc. That made it feel like you were 'looking into' a world, a time or a place .. it created 'distance' between the viewer and the events they were viewing and that distance makes it somehow easier to accept the extraordinary as : yeah, no way those things could happen in my town but in that time and place maybe they could. I am struggling to explain what I mean but basically I am saying that making us feel like we are right there in the action has not led to an improved experience for me. Perhaps a good parallel would be how overuse of CGI immediately turns a lot of people off ... its cheap, lazy and often used instead of a plot so another incredible technology improvement that has actually degraded the overall experience of watching films. Not a great explanation but people who like El Topo might get what I mean ... no way I would ever want to see a re-make of that ... its a window into the weirdest time and place imaginable with the shaky flute score and probably cheaper film stock actually adding to the experience.

[@LarryFleetwood8675]

I got it and agree. ;)

[@cliffsofmoherfilmreviews]

Is there any way to recreate that look nowadays with colour grading digitally?

[@SHDEdits]

yes

[@LaurieRobey]

Take a look at The Holdovers.

[@robertulrich3964]

resolve's new "color slice" tool.

[@LarryFleetwood8675]

@@LaurieRobey There's some orange issues even with that one.

[@TheRimeOfTheAncientMariner]

Very interesting! And yet, the older movies are much better than most modern ones ;-)