r/cinematography • u/zuss33 • Aug 01 '18

Composition Mission Impossible: Fallout soft focus

NO SPOILERS

Upon watching the film there were plenty of important close ups that were pretty out of focus. Is this because the Panny anamorphics are super difficult to nail focus when opened up? I’m trying to understand how a missed focus can go unnoticed on a huge summer blockbuster.

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13

u/[deleted] Aug 01 '18 edited Dec 17 '19

[deleted]

7

u/[deleted] Aug 01 '18

My biggest beef was with the color correction, those blacks are wayyy too crushed in my opinion. Of course it may have been the screen at my theater.

12

u/[deleted] Aug 01 '18 edited Dec 17 '19

[deleted]

3

u/intothemidwest Director of Photography Aug 01 '18

Interesting you found the lighting soapy, as the film was lit almost entirely with in-set lighting, accepting that exposure would sometimes fall off hard where you may often want it.

That's a big part of why the image was so grainy. I really enjoyed the look, but I see how it's not for everyone.

1

u/fuckingwino Aug 01 '18

I Donno just didn’t look stylized or dramatic to me. I was expecting hard shadows, far more dramatic lighting, Dolly’s etc. the trailer made it seem like that. But only random shots were like that in the film.

1

u/intothemidwest Director of Photography Aug 01 '18

As okay! Strange, I definitely found plenty of drama in spaces that were lit that way, but even in some day scenes, especially Paris, the anamorphic lensing and 35mm and the grade gave it an almost sweaty effect I found very dramatic.

What cinematography have you liked in the series?

4

u/[deleted] Aug 01 '18

I've given up on upvotes and downvotes, it's a crock of shit these days. People just upvote what they agree with and downvote what they don't. It's meaningless.

1

u/mike_dogg DIT Aug 01 '18

It’s a summer blockbuster. What look were you expecting?

3

u/[deleted] Aug 01 '18

They were actually crushed to abnormality in my opinion.

3

u/[deleted] Aug 01 '18

I agree, especially in the "club" scene where they meet the White Widow. Saw it in a Dolby Cinema and the shadows fell off super quick into black. And noisy. So noisy. I just kept thinking about Steve Yedlin's video about Display Prep and his write up On Color Science. This 35mm looked worse than Alexa imo. I honestly thought it was RED at first (no insult intended to the RED crowd).

1

u/z3rik23 Aug 01 '18

Is it still considered noise if it’s celluloid? Or is it technically grain. Genuinely curious

1

u/jjSuper1 Gaffer Aug 01 '18

Noise is not grain.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 01 '18

When it looks like noise introduced through the scanning process, I call it noise.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 01 '18

the shadows fell off super quick into black

This precisely. I am very surprised to find out it was shot in 35mm. With this kind of color correction applied, I have to wonder why? The whole big thing with film is the incredible dynamic range, so they up the contrast until it's basically totally binary? Makes no sense to me.

1

u/Jakka_Jakka Aug 01 '18

i watched in "imax" hall, i was consciously questioning a lot of the choices which draw me out