I know 100% that people will argue with me over this, but I miss when movies were professionally lit, when actors were intentionally blocked, and when more than teal, orange and beige were allowed to be on the screen.
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I know 100% that people will argue with me over this, but I miss when movies were professionally lit, when actors were intentionally blocked, and when more than teal, orange and beige were allowed to be on the screen. The medium has something to do with it--film made a lot of these things fundamentally necessary--but I think it's more complex than just that. The last few years' movies are just not pleasant to look at, with very few exceptions, and the change occurred sometime around 2015.
@Gargron
"90% of everything is crud" - SturgeonYou don't like the aesthetic, but unfair to imply it's 'unprofessional'.
Maybe you need to look elsewhere besides Hollywood. Digital production and distribution has opened up filmmaking to so many talents that couldn't afford it previously. Drama aside, nature photography and documentary can be better quality now.
The most interesting drama I've seen is no-budget Japanese films. "One Cut of the Dead", "River", "Beyond the Infinite 2 mins".
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@srtcd424 @Gargron same here. I watched Mr Burton recently and there’s a part where a young Richard Burton is left screaming on top of a Welsh hill to learn projection until it doesn’t hurt anymore.
I just got hearing aids for my mild hearing loss and sadly it’s not made a lot of difference when it comes to mumbling actors.
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@srtcd424 @Gargron same here. I watched Mr Burton recently and there’s a part where a young Richard Burton is left screaming on top of a Welsh hill to learn projection until it doesn’t hurt anymore.
I just got hearing aids for my mild hearing loss and sadly it’s not made a lot of difference when it comes to mumbling actors.
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@srtcd424 @Gargron same here. I watched Mr Burton recently and there’s a part where a young Richard Burton is left screaming on top of a Welsh hill to learn projection until it doesn’t hurt anymore.
I just got hearing aids for my mild hearing loss and sadly it’s not made a lot of difference when it comes to mumbling actors.
@Emmacox @Gargron I gave up on aids because the APD is more of a problem than the HL, and even after a couple of years of to-ing and fro-ing I couldn't get the audiologist to understand that. I've got over-ear headphones + AptX-LL transmitter/receiver with an ACTUAL PHYSICAL VOLUME CONTROL (gold dust!) which at least means I can turn up during the dialog and down during the music/sound effects
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I know 100% that people will argue with me over this, but I miss when movies were professionally lit, when actors were intentionally blocked, and when more than teal, orange and beige were allowed to be on the screen. The medium has something to do with it--film made a lot of these things fundamentally necessary--but I think it's more complex than just that. The last few years' movies are just not pleasant to look at, with very few exceptions, and the change occurred sometime around 2015.
@Gargron Absolutely! It's enshittification across various industries
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@Emmacox @Gargron I gave up on aids because the APD is more of a problem than the HL, and even after a couple of years of to-ing and fro-ing I couldn't get the audiologist to understand that. I've got over-ear headphones + AptX-LL transmitter/receiver with an ACTUAL PHYSICAL VOLUME CONTROL (gold dust!) which at least means I can turn up during the dialog and down during the music/sound effects
@srtcd424 @Gargron my hearing aids are pretty good for my needs. I have midrange hearing loss which is a nice chunk of the speech range. It’s fairly minor, but in noisy environments like a cafe, I’m practically deaf to anyone trying to speak to me.
Back on the subject of film lighting. It would be nice to see historical films set in medieval times to have other colours instead of just brown.
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I know 100% that people will argue with me over this, but I miss when movies were professionally lit, when actors were intentionally blocked, and when more than teal, orange and beige were allowed to be on the screen. The medium has something to do with it--film made a lot of these things fundamentally necessary--but I think it's more complex than just that. The last few years' movies are just not pleasant to look at, with very few exceptions, and the change occurred sometime around 2015.
@Gargron Some movies started to look like they were made by AI before they were actually made by AI
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@Gargron "Fix it in post" happened. There's less planning and more CGI.
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I know 100% that people will argue with me over this, but I miss when movies were professionally lit, when actors were intentionally blocked, and when more than teal, orange and beige were allowed to be on the screen. The medium has something to do with it--film made a lot of these things fundamentally necessary--but I think it's more complex than just that. The last few years' movies are just not pleasant to look at, with very few exceptions, and the change occurred sometime around 2015.
@Gargron You should watch "One Battle after another". Anderson does some clever tricks with color grading and blocking. The way he shows how the main character is lost is by putting him in awkward places. The color grading encodes the situation the characters are in. And he shot most of the film using VistaVision cameras and film material. It shows.
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I know 100% that people will argue with me over this, but I miss when movies were professionally lit, when actors were intentionally blocked, and when more than teal, orange and beige were allowed to be on the screen. The medium has something to do with it--film made a lot of these things fundamentally necessary--but I think it's more complex than just that. The last few years' movies are just not pleasant to look at, with very few exceptions, and the change occurred sometime around 2015.
@Gargron@mastodon.social if you understand french, I recommend this video explaining why color has disappeared since beggining of 2000s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTCVYCdWSFY
TLDR: 9/11 drama influence + beggining of filming in numeric. -
I know 100% that people will argue with me over this, but I miss when movies were professionally lit, when actors were intentionally blocked, and when more than teal, orange and beige were allowed to be on the screen. The medium has something to do with it--film made a lot of these things fundamentally necessary--but I think it's more complex than just that. The last few years' movies are just not pleasant to look at, with very few exceptions, and the change occurred sometime around 2015.
@Gargron afaik a lot of it is due to actors aging and every larger soft boxes hiding their wrinkles. If only there was a solution to this… like showing that humans age and that is ok, maybe?
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I know 100% that people will argue with me over this, but I miss when movies were professionally lit, when actors were intentionally blocked, and when more than teal, orange and beige were allowed to be on the screen. The medium has something to do with it--film made a lot of these things fundamentally necessary--but I think it's more complex than just that. The last few years' movies are just not pleasant to look at, with very few exceptions, and the change occurred sometime around 2015.
@Gargron I read a while back that the people doing it are so enamoured with their very sensitive cameras that they make scenes very dark despite the fact it becomes almost unwatchable on most displays -
@Gargron The obsession with HDR — super dark scenes to mimic realism in light levels is also annoying. It’s more difficult to enjoy what you’re watching if you’re struggling to see what’s even on the screen. I get that in real life, something might be happening in pitch black conditions but I think for cinema it’s still better to just give the suggestion of darkness rather than the complete actuality of it.
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@Gargron Gaming went through a similar pallet in the early 2000s. I’m glad that passed.
And I know how you feel. It may be part of why I like animation so much, it hasn’t been hit so hard with browning. It’s so great when a movie has colors that really pop.
Yeah a movie about a guy trapped in the middle of the Sahar or Death Valley is going to be low on color. NY, LA, Minneapolis, other real cities have colors.
@foobarsoft @Gargron yeah, I don’t miss the 360/ps3 brown era of 3D games! I’m glad gaming has mostly moved on from it.
It’s amazing how much better things look with some actual brightness and colour
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I know 100% that people will argue with me over this, but I miss when movies were professionally lit, when actors were intentionally blocked, and when more than teal, orange and beige were allowed to be on the screen. The medium has something to do with it--film made a lot of these things fundamentally necessary--but I think it's more complex than just that. The last few years' movies are just not pleasant to look at, with very few exceptions, and the change occurred sometime around 2015.
Absolutely right. The color palette to me seems murkier since the advent of digital recording and color post-processing to set entire scene "feel".
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@Gargron what about tv shows? Pluribus was one gorgeous shot after another.
@fabienmarry @gargron Speaking of TV, the cinematography (and especially blocking) in ‘Andor’ is absolutely superb
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S stefano@mastodon.bsd.cafe shared this topic
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I know 100% that people will argue with me over this, but I miss when movies were professionally lit, when actors were intentionally blocked, and when more than teal, orange and beige were allowed to be on the screen. The medium has something to do with it--film made a lot of these things fundamentally necessary--but I think it's more complex than just that. The last few years' movies are just not pleasant to look at, with very few exceptions, and the change occurred sometime around 2015.
@Gargron@mastodon.social I know someone who complains a bit about the whole lighting thing. I don't really personally like things being dark either, I've always liked weird filters and things being vibrant.
I just prefer older films though in general, I think 80s-00s were the best decades -
I know 100% that people will argue with me over this, but I miss when movies were professionally lit, when actors were intentionally blocked, and when more than teal, orange and beige were allowed to be on the screen. The medium has something to do with it--film made a lot of these things fundamentally necessary--but I think it's more complex than just that. The last few years' movies are just not pleasant to look at, with very few exceptions, and the change occurred sometime around 2015.
@Gargron A big change I don’t see other replies mentioning — LED lighting. Sets had to be more intentional with lighting because every extra light would make the set like 10° hotter.
So sets had fewer lights, making the bright areas brighter and dark areas darker in a more realistic way, and the actors sweating in the hot set made everything feel more tangible.
Now that you can throw big LED light panels around literally every corner and not worry about power or heat, everything looks perfect and flat.
Maybe another contributing factor in post-production is the LOG digital format. Nothing is ever lost. Shadows and highlights can always be crushed down. No film grain.
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@Gargron You place that cutoff remarkably late. Otherwise, who do you expect to argue? I won’t
Money is the reason. Movies have become investment vehicles, and investors want safety. Thus aiming for the biggest audiences, and most people want slop. Not just the looks, the storylines, characters, anything, aren’t much better.
Am I too cynical? Think not
Just trying to collect my thoughts to see if there is anything there.
im going to agree that most movies are slop, and movie companies are just trying to make money, but that is how its always been, the old studio system was built on having new movies to show every week and most were formulaic prior to TV and streaming. Then after the censors were kicked out they could compete on novelty, but that was only a small percentage of films, most are straightforward schlock, sequals and genre exploitation. The film companies just want to sell tickets, if some artistic expression happens in the process thats just a bonus.
I think what is happening is that the expectations are changing because of home video streaming, if you want everyday stories you can get that at home, so movies are only supposed to be the most novel, most prestigious films, or the biggest crowd pleasers, whatever gets people out of their private homes and into theatres. Christopher Nolans sound mixing choices are novel even if they arent good for filmgoers. Streaming allows films with small audiences to find them over time, but films for theatres have to be popular to justify the investment, there just arent enough people getting their entertainment from theatres to justify the investment.
Despite my mild HL and ASD-linked auditory processing problems, I have never failed to understand Judi Dench, for example!
