How will 4K resolution affect the James Bond series?

Absolutely_Cart

Standard definition (480p) to HD/Blu-ray (720p/1080p) was a huge jump. And 4K will be a just as big jump since it will allow for movies to display themselves on 80-100 inch televisions without any distortion. I've seen 4K TV's in person, and by god, they are truly impressive. In 5 years from now, 4K will be affordable and the new standard. Now, how will this affect the Bond series?

This incredible amount of size and detail will make cheap CGI and stunt actors all the more obvious, but it will also take many of the best natural settings and atmospheres and make you feel like you're actually there.

Here's to Bond-60 remastering all the old films in 4K.

chrisisall

Absolutely_Cart wrote:

Now, how will this affect the Bond series?

This will render ALL existing CGI not anticipating the change very badly. Basically, actually photographed stuff will look a bit better, model shots & rear screen will be more obvious, and CGI will look a good bit more cartoon-y. IMO. of course.

Absolutely_Cart

I used to think that older films won't respond to 4K as well as newer videos because they were recorded so long ago, but people have told me I was wrong.

But Goldfinger in 4K would be amazing.

Higgins

From the top off my head, the resolution of "old" movies is around 4k vertical lines, so it's pretty much along the 4k standard.

As soon as a solution is found to store and play these enormous amounts of data, we all will buy the old Bond Movies again on the new medium, which adds then to our collections of Laser Disks, VHS various Editions, DVD various Editions and Blu Ray.

I remember having heard that the remasterings for the Blu Rays have been basically done in 4k and then downgraded to 1020x1920 so the masters are already there.

I can safely say that up to AVTAK, I have every Bond Movie in at least 5 different variations.

The more interesting question will be how they will technically progress when 8k will be available 7.680 x 4.320 pix.

Moore Than

Absolutely_Cart wrote:

I used to think that older films won't respond to 4K as well as newer videos because they were recorded so long ago, but people have told me I was wrong.

But Goldfinger in 4K would be amazing.

Goldfinger was screened in 4K DCP for the first time at the Berlinale film festival in Berlin last weekend. Sir Ken Adam was the honorary guest. The Bond Bulletin posted a report.

http://thebondbulletin.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/report-goldfinger-4k-dcp-world-premiere.html#more

Absolutely_Cart

As I suspected, 4K would be the cap for many of the older films, and when 8K and 16K comes around, it will be pointless.

AlphaOmegaSin

The CGI in DAD already looks terrible )

Higgins

I am pretty sure that they'll find a way to enhance the old masters by upscaling the 4k at a later point of time

chrisisall

The average human eye won't see a difference between 4 and 8k. 8k will only have a purpose on really big screens- like movie theatre screens.

Higgins

Not sure about that, Bruce Lee.

The difference between Full HD and 4k is amazingly visible - I have no doubt that another upgrade to 8k will be also mindblowing - but maybe not on your 26'' TV

chrisisall

Higgins wrote:

Not sure about that, Bruce Lee.

The difference between Full HD and 4k is amazingly visible - I have no doubt that another upgrade to 8k will be also mindblowing - but maybe not on your 26'' TV

That's why I said 'big screen', Higgy baby. )

Higgins

Don't you....

The_Commander

As has been kind of mentioned already in this thread, all the remastering for the Bond 50 blu ray box set was done at 4k already, in that the scanning of the original print was done at 4k per frame, then stored on an archive.

We'll get to a stage before long where the old Connery classics look better than the Brosnan 90's stuff, not just because Of the CGI shenanigans but you'll actually be able to see the grain in Brosnan's wooden performances when 4k releases are made!!

Absolutely_Cart

4K will only be a noticeable improvement over HD in two instances:
[list=*]
[*]Smaller screens at a close viewing distance (a.k.a. PC monitors)[/*]
[*]Larger screens at a far viewing distance (a.k.a. 80-100 inch TV's)[/*]
[/list]

Let's remember the reason why HD was invented to succeed standard definition. Not just because it looks better and crisper, but because there was an industry trend of televisions getting larger and larger. A 480p movie on a 20-30 inch screen isn't too bad, but the distortion would have been bad on 40+ inch televisions.

Likewise, 4K is being invented for 80-100 inch televisions. Getting 4K movies on your 30-50 inch television wouldn't matter too much.

superado

I watched The Hobbit, The Battle of Five Armies in high-resolution IMAX (supposedly, the 1st movie ever in that format) and to me it gave the opposite effect of what they intended, lacking a richness to the cinematography and paradoxically, I didn't enjoy the movie visually as much as the first 2 Hobbit movies. I read somewhere why news programs, some TV shows like sit-coms and soap operas have a real life look to them vs. shows with higher production values and of course, movies. The reason is that with soap operas for example that are shot daily, they use fixed lighting for grinding out scenes in a production-line manner, vs. movies in which the camera set-up and lighting are painstakingly done for each scene. With higher-resolution, I think movies can only become visually pleasing and optimized if greater care goes into the framing of the scene.

The_Commander

superado wrote:

I watched The Hobbit, The Battle of Five Armies in high-resolution IMAX (supposedly, the 1st movie ever in that format) and to me it gave the opposite effect of what they intended, lacking a richness to the cinematography and paradoxically, I didn't enjoy the movie visually as much as the first 2 Hobbit movies. I read somewhere why news programs, some TV shows like sit-coms and soap operas have a real life look to them vs. shows with higher production values and of course, movies. The reason is that with soap operas for example that are shot daily, they use fixed lighting for grinding out scenes in a production-line manner, vs. movies in which the camera set-up and lighting are painstakingly done for each scene. With higher-resolution, I think movies can only become visually pleasing and optimized if greater care goes into the framing of the scene.

Speaking as someone who regularly works on the UK number one and world's longest running soap opera, this isn't quite true - there is a fixed grid of lights over most of the internal sets, but these are always tweaked and supplemented by auxiliary lighting as required by the Lighting Director.
It's pretty slow going for soap operas too, around 1 hour work to produce 1 minute of screen time. However, I suppose we do knock out the equivalent of a feature film each week.
The Hobbit film you refer to was also shot in 48 frames per second, as opposed to the usual 24 frames which all Blu ray conforms to (television in the UK is shown at 25 frames and in the US at 30 frames) and it was this that most people noticed.

Thunderpussy

Given the age of many of the AJB fraternity, I don't think 4k will be a problem
As with most of them, either their hearing or eyesight is going. ) in fact with
Some their cognitive ability is going, like denying the greatness of good old
Timothy Dalton!

AlphaOmegaSin

In HD, you can see every Wrinkle and Pit on TP's Face :v

Thunderpussy

" My face is as smooth as a baby's bottom !, if only the same
Could be said about my bottom! ". ( Blackadder the Third) )

Absolutely_Cart

With 4K, we'll be able to see every unibrow hair from Pierce Browsnan, every expression of apathy on George Lazy-bee, every wrinkle from Codger Moore, every bulge on Sean Fattery, and every missing hair on Timothy Baldton.

Absolutely_Cart

superado wrote:

I watched The Hobbit, The Battle of Five Armies in high-resolution IMAX (supposedly, the 1st movie ever in that format) and to me it gave the opposite effect of what they intended, lacking a richness to the cinematography and paradoxically, I didn't enjoy the movie visually as much as the first 2 Hobbit movies.

Do you think this is because of the "uncanny valley" effect?

Aka, when something abstract becomes increasingly more realistic (but still not quite real), it becomes more unsettling.

Higgins

Thunderpussy wrote:

Given the age of many of the AJB fraternity, I don't think 4k will be a problem
As with most of them, either their hearing or eyesight is going. ) in fact with
Some their cognitive ability is going, like denying the greatness of good old
Timothy Dalton!

The opposite is the case. The clearer the pic the more obvious is that he was the wrong man for the job :v

chrisisall

)

Thunderpussy

I watched a programme one night which explained new tec very easily. If
You want to know whichever format is going to succeed follow " Porn".
Betamax was a better system, but porn went vhs, so did the world.
HDD and Bluray, porn went Bluray, so in the future we get another choice
Of two systems, before buying see how many " Dirty movies" you can get
On them ! )