Why Modern Movies Look So CLEAN and How To Fix Them

Have you ever been watching the latest Hollywood Blockbuster and thought why this seems so

clean

and almost fake today? The quest for higher quality images with 4K 6K 12K cameras is all anyone talks about in digital filmmaking. Pristine, flawless images, but why do we now

look

at better images and think they

look

worse even if we can't identify why we just know something doesn't feel right? Why does 1998's Saving Private Ryan look better? than 2017's Hacksaw Ridge, why does 2000's Lord of the Rings actually look better than The Rings of Power even though he came out 20 years later or why does Batman look better than everything else?

Why do

modern

movies

look so

clean

? do audiences want perfection or do imperfections add character and authenticity or more importantly what can filmmakers do to make their films more authentic. First of all, let's delve into this topic that goes far beyond the movie. The global debate between cinema and digital. It is true that cinema and digital are both. They have totally different looks, but I've also seen digital

movies

that look like movies and I've seen movies that look digital by nature. The films are less clean and something I'm used to seeing in those amazing Masterpiece cinematic films, but in the right hands digital can blend seamlessly. or even replicate the film David Fincher, who is a master storyteller with films like Gone Girl, The Social Network, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and many more, loves working with red cameras that, over the years, have been They've gained a reputation for having a sort of digital look and I've even heard some cinematographers refuse to use

them

, but none of their films look digital in any way.

If I didn't know better, I'd say they were all shot on film because of how authentic they look so far. The Hobbit shot with the same red camera looks like a cartoon cinematographer Steve Yedlin ASC of Knives Out Looper and The Last Jedi challenges us to think of a camera not as a creator of appearances but simply as a data collection device and that the aesthetics we desire are predominantly determined. In the process of processing, by what we do with the data and not what instrument we collect it with, this shows us that capturing your story on film is not simply a beautiful authentic experience for the audience and realizing that the power of controlling how your film develops.

Ultimately, appearance is in your hands and not the tools we put in our hands, that's where we start now. You might say, well, why not just capture the cleanest, most pristine image possible to allow for maximum flexibility and publish? There are plugins and movie emulation software. that gives us tools to incorporate imperfections, so why don't we all film that way? There are elements that we cannot change in post, like the choice of camera, the choice of lens, the filters, the lighting, the atmosphere, all these things the filmmakers have to decide while filming it. It all comes down to choices, we'd say the best filmmakers who achieve classics are the ones who make bold decisions and stick with

them

.

Filmmakers like Deni Vnu and his choices in Dune or Matt Reeves' choice to practically dirty the frame in Batman, these are still Giants of the industry that we still admire, in their own words they say that their decisions could get them fired, but they stick to their decisions and sometimes win an Oscar for it. If you're starting to view your camera as a data collection device, your first choice is lenses. Filmmakers have many lens options available, but the options fall into these main factors:

modern

or classic, anamorphic, spherical or Zoom. Now there's a lot more, but that's the gist of it all: there's a growing selection of antique glass relocated to modern homes. so that metadata can be carried over to post-production, but an older set of lenses will have unique characteristics per lens and color reproductions will be different across the set.

Movies like Batman, The Hateful Eight Joker, and others specifically choose vintage glass that was actually used in films from the '60s, '70s, and '80s. Tarantino actually resurrected and adapted a vintage Ultra Panavision lens from the '60s that had not been used. used since Carum in 1966. Dead Reckoning Mission Impossible, Part 1, also used exactly the 40mm Panavision lens in its filming in Venice. It was used in the first Mission Impossible movie. Batman used Alpha anamorphic lenses that fell drastically off center focus and the edges of the lenses were soft and drew the eye to the center of the frame.

Compare this to used Prime DNA lenses. in countless productions like Rings of Power kidnap All Quiet on the Western Front Peter Pan and Wendy The Witcher men and the solo black Ant-Man and many others, you will see a big difference just from the lenses themselves, most of these examples are highly graduated and stylized, but if we look at these wide shots of All Quiet on the Western Front, there is a slight vignette of Gren's post, but underneath the color is super pristine, crisp, clean PR, something that doesn't seem to fit with a gripping story of the First World War.

The Trenches and while it is still a fantastic film, imagine if All Quiet on the Western Front was filmed as Batman, what an immersive experience it would be the dynamic range and the incredible digital sensors combined with advance and color grading allow for infinite zones and touch-ups. In today's pictures, where the images are technically perfect but really flat, many times you can tell they are in an LED-lit studio, unlike films that use natural lighting to a simpler degree. Great cinematography is all about depth and separation through lighting, the biggest mistake. I see the thinking in today's cinema that they should add more light to make the image look better and technically it looks better by not having shadows on faces or removing darker areas in scenes, but does it really make it better for us? an audience let's see Ticket to Paradise it's almost as if comfort is more important than visual results the film looks technically perfect Details in shadows and highlights exposed and graded well, but is it too perfect?

These Hollywood icons are outside in the bright sun. but they're not sweating or squinting, we don't want to pay to see unpleasant things, but it comes at a cost where we just don't believe these people are actually on an island, we can feel the negative padding that's systematically added. it creates depth as we see in Emma as we cut from this wide shot to this medium shot, the negative fill increases because the crew can now bring them closer together, we start to not feel authentic anymore and just feel fake, Batman was also very dimly lit. Dark for some audiences, but the use of lamps and lighting contributed to what really feels like a realistic Gotham City.

It was lit as if you were standing there, whether you preferred it or not. You were there, in the middle of Gotham City, a movie like Batman can't be like Gerwig's Barbie Lurman Elvis or Parker's Ticket to Paradise because of audience expectations, but you can't argue with the fact that Batman is It looked better than all those movies we all love, Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy, but compared to Batman they are still two very different pictures, which brings us to the visual effects. Modern films are generally more reliant on visual effects than the previous century of films shot on set footage with little to no VFX which allowed more decisions to be made in-camera because you re photograph the world right in front of you instead of building it up later.

Visual effects-heavy films often require basic uniform plates and modern lenses that connect digitally to the camera to provide metadata and are very effective in streamlining the process. This was very important for Rings Power and many blockbusters use countless different effects houses to meet their deadlines, so it's best not to complicate the workflow, but we can go back to Batman and condemn the latter with a lot of effects , but their vision was solidified in development and all the options drive a unified style in the design. and didn't get lost in the visual effects, Batman took a hands-on approach by shooting in the volume of the LED and trying to capture as much as possible on camera through the glass rather than adding it later over the glass.

This is a distinctive choice that technology likes. the volume can offer filmmakers to let the lens bring it all together, which begs the question of how can I make my films feel authentic, or better yet, what have filmmakers done to authenticate the world they are creating? One of the main elements of authenticity is dirtying the frame now this is a film term that means exactly what it says taking the frame and dirtying it the purpose of this is the idea of ​​putting yourself in the shoes of a character again authenticity this can actually mean dirtying the physical frame and lens or metaphorically with prop actors lighting and blocking it does not always mean interacting with the camera because generally the camera is invisible and goes unnoticed by the world and the characters.

This could be filming through something like Windows over someone's shoulder or even just adding elements. Composition-wise, this Batman scene could be a masterclass in composition and messing up the frame. This is what we're supposed to focus on, but we have an out-of-focus table at the bottom, a plant that takes up almost the entire surface. left side of the frame multiple lamps people in the background people walking in front of the camera this is not sloppy this is purposeful and authentic makes you feel like you are really there but sometimes messes up the frame it actually interacts with the camera rain splashes on the lens in Batman blood splatters in Children of Men lens flares even condensation on the lens in Revenant makes the audience realize that there is a camera capturing the moment that further connects the viewer to the world they are seeing almost you go In fact in Batman Greg Frasier put silicone on the glass and put it on the lens, this would ensure that the raindrops would actually interact and the lens itself would get smudged, there is talk of getting the frame dirty fr, sometimes the camera would get becomes a character's point of view. as we experienced in the first Mission Impossible, Batman or even being in the field again in Children of Men, the point is that as a filmmaker, don't be afraid to get messy with your framing instead of asking how can I improve this shot, ask yourself what Lights Can I turn off?

What can I add to my frame to be more authentic? How can I block this scene differently? Don't be afraid of not being perfect. What these movies have shown us is exactly what we as an audience crave, even if we don't know why a movie doesn't look good. It all comes down to authenticity and choices. Authenticity should be sought, not perfection. In short, cinema is both an art and a business, and when we say that modern films look good. Clean or fake, we are not necessarily saying they look bad, they are technically perfect, perfect, L, exposed, perfectly focused, perfectly lit, you see the big studios avoid risk and I think this plays a big role in why movies modern look like they look like Indie.

Filmmakers seem to have a vision that drives their art regardless of a big paycheck, which is why we see more soul in independent films than in big box office hits, the best examples we see of a unified Vision throughout. process to escape that clean vision. and the fake appearance starts with the Choice making a decision according to your vision and sticking to it without playing it safe, the public respects that and if you make movies that you want to see and not movies that you hope others want from you, then you can find Your audience and your film could end up cemented in film history.

If you want to learn more about how to take on your own projects and stand out from the competition, you can check out our full course tomorrow at Filmmakers Dcom. We have over 1200 training videos and over 100 hours of content on every aspect of filmmaking taught by leading professionals in the film industry with over 40,000 students around the world. A lifetime membership to our award-winning online Film Academy is just $97 if you want to participate. Take your skills to the next level, check out tomorrow filmmakers decom and learn all the skills you need to be successful and remember, don't be afraid of not being perfect