Director Shunji Iwai speaks -the change in the search for film look, and what it feels like 8K images

Astrodesign will be on June 13th and 14th. We held the "ASTRODESIGN Private Show 2019", an exhibition of our own products centered on 8K video technology, at the head office building. Here, we will report on the seminar "Shooting people in 8K" held at the venue with film director and filmmaker Shunji Iwai.

Photo provided by Astro Design

Director Iwai has many fans who are fascinated by his unique look and visual beauty. > is also known for At the beginning of the event, the 8K work "beautiful" shot with Sharp's 8K camcorder 8C-B60A was screened on an 8K projector. After that, there was a talk session about the memories of the looks that Director Iwai got from the original experience of video production, the transition of the film look that he has pursued in his own work, and his thoughts on 8K video.

8mm film is original experience. Pursuing a Film Look in Video

Director Iwai says that the 8mm film he used in his independent films when he was a student was his original experience in video production.

"It's not 8K, it's 8mm (laughs). When I was a student, I started with a really rough film, and at first it was a film called Fujika's Single8, but other independent filmmakers were fine. When I saw a picture taken, I thought, 'What's the difference? ', but everyone was using Kodak film, and I thought, 'Ah, Kodak is so beautiful.'

After that, he became a professional and started working mainly on music videos. He said that he was rarely allowed to shoot on film when the budget was tight, and that he often shot with a video camera. At that time there was no HD, and most of the recording was done with NTSC (480i) video cameras.

“Even though I was shooting with a video camera, I was trying to find a way to get closer to film images. There was, but after using 16mm and 35mm, I realized that as the film got bigger and bigger, the particles didn't come out."

CineAlta, the first digital cinema camera

⬆HDW-F900, the first model of Sony's digital cinema camera brand "CineAlta"

"In the meantime, HD came out, and in the year 2000, Sony developed a camera called CineAlta (HDW-F900). It was used in Star Wars: Episode 1: The Phantom Menace (1999), and the third one was handed over to the cinematographer in Europe, and the fourth one was acquired by our cinematographer, Mr. Shinoda*1. That's how I started experimenting, and it felt so good that I introduced it in the movie "All About Lily Chou-Chou" (2001).At first, I was planning to shoot on film, but it turned out to be a graphic movie. So I thought this kind of camera might be better than film.”

*1. Photographer Noboru Shinoda. A famous cameraman who is indispensable for Iwai's works. Passed away in 2004.

Recorded with a digital cinema camera, at the time it had to be converted to film in order to be shown in theaters. In Japan, the method called "Kineko" was the mainstream, but "film recording" technology, which scans images one frame at a time, was also emerging.

“At that time, scanning a film recording of a two-hour movie cost about 60 million yen. At the time, a post-production company in the city was doing film recording for about 10 million yen, which was slightly higher than Kineko, so I went to the United States to finish it, but my skills were so good that I could distinguish it from film. "Have you ever used film since then?" "It's about moving to digital."

To capture a shallow depth of field in video

Then, I hit another wall to achieve the film look in video. It was shallow depth of field.

"When I was shooting Hana and Alice (2004), the F900 had a 1/2.3-inch sensor, so it was more like a pan-focus . At the time, I had the opportunity to talk with an engineer in Atsugi, so I thought, "At least it's as good as film." I would like to have a sensor that is the same size.” However, the engineers want to create an image in which everything is in focus, so we can't get along. So, while looking through the focusing screen of a Hasselblad still camera, I thought, "Why don't we reshoot this? The film in this camera is huge*2. It shoots with a 6x6 or 6x4.5, but it's much bigger than film. The depth of field is shallower than in movies.”

*2.Hasselblad is a camera that uses medium format film, which is larger than 35mm.

In order to obtain images with a shallow depth of field for "Hana and Alice," I remodeled the Hasselblad and forcibly attached it to the F900.

"After that, something close to the idea we had in mind came out. Did I say Pro35*3? Attach a movie lens and put an image on the rotating disc inside the adapter. The idea was to tie the image together and shoot it with CineAlta.Mochi is made by people who can make rice cakes, but I thought it was well made by people who can do it.The Pro35 is transparent when it combines images The Hasselblad focusing screen is also translucent, but if you take a picture of it as it is, you can see the particles, so I rotate it to remove it. Mr. Shinoda also went as far as making a rotating disk, but it didn't go very well.It was also a fairly large rotating disk, and when shooting started, there was a tremendous motor noise (laughs). The glass flew off, so I gave up on that method and used a different method to attach the Hassel. 2009)”

*3.These are called DOF adapters. A cinema lens can be attached, and images with a shallow depth of field can be captured by capturing the image reflected on the frosted glass rotating disc.

⬆Pro35. At that time, the video camera was useful for filming music videos and low-budget movies because it was possible to shoot images with a shallow depth of field. Other popular cameras include the Mini35 and the less expensive Red Rock Micro M2 Cinema Lens Adapter.

"Also, in Hana and Alice, I used film in slow motion. At that time, there were no digital cameras capable of shooting at a high frame rate such as 5x, so I used film. This Compared to the pseudo-film-like digital images we made for the work, the resolution was not much different.We telecined the negatives and the positives just in case, and checked the details, but in the end, we telecined them. So it's hard to tell how much difference there was in the images when they were printed on film. A little later, the Japanese Film Specialty Channel recine the Godzilla series from the negative in 4Kand that Eiji Tsuburaya envisioned that it would be crushed when it was printed. There's also a resolution gap between the print and the negative, which you can see if you go directly from the negative to 4K, so I later found out that the film had a bit more resolution than 2K. "

The Canon EOS 5D Mark II Was Shocking

⬆Launched in November 2008, the Canon EOS 5D Mark II (5DMK2) has become a hot topic among filmmakers.

“I bought a Sony compact digital camera for travel and added a 720p video function. At that time, I was in Los Angeles quite a bit, and my friends around me were buying them right away.Various demonstration videos were posted on YouTube.There was a lot of fuss.So, Canon in Japan I had the opportunity to meet him and talk to him, but the people involved in the production said, ``I get a lot of inquiries from people involved in the film industry overseas. "We developed it with the hope that it would be used as a video on a blog or something." "What"

The work I shot with the 5DMK2 was "Vampire (2011)."

"This work was challenging with a camera that had just been released, and I tried to make it using foreign actors, but when I actually tried it, there was a bad effect. Color sampling is 4. : 2: 0. I wish it was at least 4: 2: 2, but when I zoomed in, I had a hard time with jaggies on the edges of my glasses.However, the default colors of the 5DMK2 are good. On the other hand, it wasn't possible to record in RAW, sothe high and low control seemed to be over after shooting< /wbr>。It was a little difficult to correct later, but the default image was beautiful, so I think that's the aesthetic sense of the engineer."

I was hesitant to use RED at first...

⬆The RED ONE is the first cinema camera that can shoot in RAW. Released in 2007

“The RED came out shortly before the 5DMK2, and it was also a pretty revolutionary camera. I thought, 'Vampire' , I used it for some slow-motion shots, but the dark areas weren't very clear. That's why I avoided using RED for a while. wbr>There's no way it's going to be like this.When I tried to color it myself with DaVinci, there was no problem at all."RED is beautiful! At this point, I was able to figure out why RED wasn't so good.In film, the colors are decided in post-production by the colorist, and the cameraman does it directly. However, with the advent of digital, there are more and more opportunities for photographers to use DaVinci to grade.Of course, people who have never done it before. There must have been a lot of people who were unfamiliar with it.When I finished grading properly, I thought, ``RED is a good image normally. is not it"

The work that introduced RED in earnest was "Rip Van Winkle's Bride (2016)".

“At the time, it was DRAGON, right? Recently, MONSTRO, which supports 8K shooting, has been using it. The is strong in dark areas, so there is no noise. It can shoot brighter than the naked eye, and I like it because it is a camera that breaks the rules.

My current thoughts on 8K video

After screening the newly shot 8K film "beautiful" on an 8K projector, Director Iwai was asked for his impressions.

"It's different, but if you ask me if the picture is dramatically different, I think it's that kind of feeling. Although it can be said that the number of pixels is simply large. In the world of photography, old photos The cameras in museums are nowhere near 8K, and since the Meiji period, large-sized films have been used for photographs, and they have gradually become smaller, so they were originally huge. It's the same with posters and photobooks, but oil paintings are also drawn in size 100 (162.1 x 130.3cm).It was already out there in the world, and video just couldn't keep up.In that respect, it's definitely a futuristic technology. That's not the case. 8K", I don't know if it will ever be possible. But for the creators, the fact that it has become digital is a big deal. If you try to do it with film, there will be cost issues, and the camera will be bulky. I think it's a good thing that things that everyone had given up on have become easier to implement thanks to the digitalization."

Regarding 8K recorded data

"Currently, editing and exporting is heavy, but the same thing happened in the early days of HD. Since it runs normally, I think that it will eventually resolve.When you look at the data, first of all, the resolution is originally large, so it is easy to control as much as you lower it.However, the next problem is What matters is the gradation.How much information does black and white have?So, as the resolution increases to 4K and 8K, I feel that it still does not have the same gradation as film. Even if I try to forcibly pull out the black and white areas, I sometimes think, ``Oh, there's no more picture.'' I don't know exactly how much information the film has. However, as for whether it is absolutely necessary, it is not better to have it for movies and dramas normally, but it came because it was not necessary.Nevertheless, NTSC I wish I could have filmed the dramas of that time with this resolution (laughs). It's not a story, but "Fireworks, Should You See It from the Bottom or the Side?" (1993).There was a plan to shoot on film from that time, but due to various reasons, it was not realized.On film When I was filming it, I was able to remaster it in 4K digital telecine, but no matter what, I shot it in NTSC, and I regret that it ended up looking like a fossil... Watching "Kita no Kuni Kara" and so on. I wish I had shot this on film, because if I shoot "Kita no Kuni Kara" now, it will be recorded in 8K."Kita no Kuni Kara" seems to be remade from scratch by the children. I want you to do a plan."

Don't try to erase pores

"It's easy to paint your face with a color that looks like your skin tone. "The face is like a mirror."In other words, it reflects various things on the face.If it's too matte, nothing will come out.In that sense, it's called "transparency." You can do things like plugging pores in post-processing, so it doesn't matter which one.The ideal is to be able to reproduce the bare skin in the same way as the real thing.I can see the color of the veins in the face quite a bit, so this is it. Ha.The area around the eyes is a little bluish.The cheeks are a little red.Actually, during the shoot, I look closely and check to see if it's reproduced properly.There were quite a few in 2K. , Dolan's culture of painting suddenly arose, and people said, "Hi-vision shows pores, so I did it to hide them." It's been there since 2K.

I want to watch 8K on a big screen. In that case, there will be differences in shooting and editing methods

"There is no point in watching 8K video on a small screen, so the screen becomes larger. I don't think there's a need to make it too close-up or close-up.Originally, it's a TV technique.It was used when the screen was still small.However, in the case of content for viewing on smartphones I think it's effective, but when it comes to 8K, I don't want to be too distracted.Even if it's about the size of the waist, it has a strong presence, so in that sense, it's a big impact. When I come back, I don't want to put so many close-ups in the editing.That's why I haven't cut it as much as I used to.I guess I've lost the desire to do it. Otherwise, the specs would look cheap, so I think I was trying to figure out how to hide it, but with 8K, there is no need for that. Even though I took it relatively slowly, it turned out to be good.That's why Hollywood movies get long takes, and although that's a film, I tried to show the high specs of film in "Dunkirk". I think I can understand the mindset of editors like that.”

What features would you like to see in an 8K camera in the future

Is it focus? It would be nice if there was a 2K camera next to it, so we can focus later.As data.It seems that the image is no longer taken.I don't know how to monitor it at the site, but there is a 2K camera on the side, and everyone is using it. In any case, from the point of view of the site, I'm most grateful for encounters that naturally come in an easy-to-use form, just like 8K came to RED before I knew it. Even if people say, ``It's a camera that can't be carried around, but I can handle it,'' it won't become popular. I will like to try"

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Nagoya idol group OS☆U visited Astro Design's private show

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