review of new john couger feature shot on super 8

[grainy]

Here's a shakily-written review on a brand new feature documentary about the 80's roots rock singer John (couger) mellencamp.
http://www.slantmagazine.com/film/revie ... t-you/5985
The comments on super 8 as a format seem kind of obligatory. I actually have my doubts that there's nothing about it that's unique to super 8 -- "intimacy" is not the only quality on its pallette.
That said, I am not a fan of the singer and the filmmakers seem, from the review, like incompitants.
I think they were trying to emulate Neil Young's (and Stewart Copeland's) more successful forays as Super 8 rock-docs.
G

[Scotness]

Ouch - just read it - that's a pretty damning review of the two film makers - hopefully it's not as bad as the article makes it out to be! It'd be interesting to know some of the technical stats - what camera, what stock, how many carts shot - what transfer etc

Thanks for posting though - good to see another Super 8 feature out there at least

Scot

[Scotness]

Here's a bit more:

Homepage:
http://www.mellencamp.com/news.html?n_id=1324

A little on the making -- Pro 8 did the transfer - and perhaps it was their camera packages too
http://schedule.sxsw.com/events/event_FP990125

Scot

[grainy]

thanks for posting the links. The clip is interesting.
Some of the blue-skied outdoor shots look great, but if it were me I would've stayed away from color interiors where there's no control of the lighting. B&W would've worked just as well and looked better.
(of course, I'm not a Professional fashion photographer)
I wonder if the muddiness of the interiors is what the review was talking about in terms of the medium.
G

[carllooper]

It would be good to see a decent copy of the film (be it digital or analog).

When small gauge film, such as Super8, is transferred properly it looks beautiful. The problem for small gauge film is not the film medium as such, but the amazingly shoddy transfers of such that occur. The crappy transfers become equated with the film medium.

This can lead to the misperception that the film medium is shit.

There is this mistaken entrenched belief that because small gauge film has less bandwidth than larger gauge film, that the transfer system should therefore use a smaller bandwidth.

I don't know if this analogy is correct but it feels like buying a potatoe that hasn't been washed and arguing it should be washed less than one that's been purchased pre-washed.

When you project original film though a projector and compare it side by side with a typical transfer, the original looks stunning, so much better than the transfer. The evidence of one's eyeballs tells you this. The obvious solution is to do a transfer that captures more of the information that is obviously there in the original film. You don't need to be a rocket scientist in order to reach this conclusion. You only need to be a rocket scientist if you want to legitimate a crappier transfer.

When you look at the video (of the film) on the web page you can imagine what the original looks like, ie. that it would look a whole lot better. But that's because you are familiar with what the small gauge medium does look like. You see through the shoddy transfer. To the untrained eye they don't have that imagination. They can't compensate for the crappy transfer.

I'm of the thinking that small gauge film needs to be transferred with even greater bandwidth than the transfer of large gauge film (that unwashed potatoes require more washing than prewashed potatoes). The counter-intuitive rule being proposed here is that the smaller the film format the more bandwidth (per image frame) is required in the transfer. This is, of course, the complete opposite of what conventional wisdom dictates. But I am just totally unsatisfied with what conventional wisdom is currently giving us that I'm quite happy proposing an otherwise preposterous rule.



The way I see it, is that when we read an image our brains are decoding what is otherwise represented in the image. With smaller gauge images we see more grain. Conventional wisdom is that grain is just noise, that this is a property of the materials and of no importance, ie. that were you to use a higher resolution scan it would simply resolve more noise. That the signal would not be any better. But I disagree.

I think that what we see as grain/noise is not sitting at some fixed threshold in the materials as such but is created (as a by product) by the brain during decoding of the image. The brain somehow divides the image into signal (recognition) on the one hand and noise (unrecognition) on the other. A higher resolution scan (in terms of both space and bits per pixel) would simply provide more information with which the brain can work. While the result appears noisier that would be because the brain has recognised more of the signal in the image, but produced more noise (the unrecognised) as a result.

However since grain/noise is ALSO something that many appreciate as a quality of small gauge film (or otherwise think they appreciate), the production of more of it is not a problem. In fact it would be a bonus. So the fact that a higher definition scan would reproduce more of it would become another reason for higher definition scans with respect to small format film.

Now that doesn't mean the alternative, of adding noise/grain to a given signal, would obtain the same result. That's the big mistake of so called "film look" algorithms. It's based on an incorrect theory regarding why grain is appreciated.

Adding noise removes information.

A higher definition scan doesn't do that. It doesn't add noise. It adds information. The brain also adapts to what it is seeing. It is capable of turning down the noise, with the noise tending to evaporate. Many have experienced this effect. They see the grain but after a while they don't. They see the signal. The more information captured in a scan, the more signal they will see.

I have no doubt that in the future, machines (algorithms) will be able to do the same thing. It won't be through crude methods such as low definition scans. Or adding noise! It will be through high definition scans and clever algorithms that can see through the grain, just like our brains.

[Nicholas Kovats]

Most impressive analysis, Carl. I am looking forward to your work/tests on my forthcoming scanned material.