Shooting “Slumdog Millionaire”
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I don’t claim to know much about cinematography. They say when you start noticing the technical details about a film, it’s not a good film because you’re distracted from the film itself. I whole heartedly disagree. If anything, I observe the actors way more, but when a film “looks” SO DAMN GOOD, you just can’t help but wonder how they did what they did. The cat just got killed. Curiosity, thy name is the internet. Let’s surf.
The cool thing about watching Slumdog twice in one week was that the first time I watched it, I was enamored by the story and the film. The English was distracting though. Why couldn’t Danny Boyle have made it in Hindi? It’s a film I wish was made by an Indian and it’s a damn good film. But in this case the good outweighs the bad, and in my books, that’s called beer vasool. (You see, I didn’t pay both times I watched the movie, and instead I told myself it’s ok to buy a Sapporo instead.)
Back to the surfing bit.
I had heard earlier that some type of backpack rig was devised with a lightweight camera at the end of it to shoot many of the scenes in the film. After some looking around, I found the camera to be the SI-2K with a hard drive in the backpack. [courtesy: Variety.com weblogs and PFC reader Evelyn Tu]
The teaser mentioned in the link above is no longer active, but here it is:
Tell me that doesn’t look good.
We talk about how visceral a film should be. In this case, even the film’s look evoked reactions. You’ll know what I’m talking about when you watch the film. If that ain’t good cinematography, I dunno what is. All credit goes to Anthony Dod Mantle, whose only previous work I’ve seen was in The Last King of Scotland. Though I liked the film, I wasn’t a fan of the shaky Law & Order feel to the movie.
Without further adieu, I present to you, the SI-2K and the mini.
SI-2K
SI-2K mini
[Images, courtesy: Silicon Imaging]
Ever thought a DP could shoot with one hand tied behind his back? It’s possible, and the possibilities just got endless. Upon further discussion with an up and coming DP, Mr. D. Bhatavdekar — no wait, I promised him I’d conceal his name. I shall call him Mr. Durendra B. instead — he had some more tidbits to share.
DB: I just got my copy of HDVideoPro and its got a good article on shooting Slumdog. By some random quirk of fate I get it for free and while not as amazing as American Cinematographer it does sometimes provide you with some insight.
There are some pics of the gyro stabilized rig they built and it looks dope. The film is a mix of HD and Super35 so I’m curios to see how the DI looks in terms of matching the two formats to make them look indistinguishable. Deception makes a piss poor job of that while Deja Vu does the best job as far as I have seen. Those two films were a mix of 35 Anamorphic and the Genesis.
striker: the HD/S35 mix is (and i’ll call myself a layman), indistinguishable.. there are no places that i can think of where it looks more grainy than other parts of the film. the texture is seamless, but your eyes would probably catch the finer details. didn’t collateral utilize HD/S35 mix as well?
DB: Yeah it did but you could tell right away the diff in the two formats but we should also keep in mind that HD was in its infancy then and the cameras they used ie the Sony F900 aren’t top of the line beasts. It has 4:2:2 subsampling while all the state of the art cameras have 4:4:4.
You can see the diff in Miami Vice where both the Thompson Viper and Sony F900 were used with high speed shots done on film coz overcranking still remains a problem on HD. The night dock shootout was shot on the Sony coz on board Solid State Recorders weren’t available at the time for the Viper. That particular sequence in the film looks like crap. On Public Enemies I’ve heard that he’s switched to the Sony F23 so I’m dying to see how that looks. I still think that out of all the HD camera systems the Viper provides the best image. The problem with the Viper that the workflow is a major bitch. Looks fucking amazing though. The Benjamin Button trailer just blows my socks off.
Watch Slumdog Millionaire.
The subsampling bit went over my head. Someone explain. I don’t claim to know much about cinematography.
Tags: Cinematography, Slumdog Millionaire, technical
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this is the kind of article we need on pfc. . .not some noobs film review. . .thank you sir!
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completely agree with Abhay K; need more articles that tell us more about the craft of cinema and how a certain look and feel is achieved rather than snide remarks about Bollywood movies which in the end amounts to little
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Hey striker..nice read..awesome work..:) seriously..love the techno stuff here.
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Hi..great article…
gud overview of the digital cinema cameras…but i am wondering why he missed out the Red One…(or is it not as good as people say it is..??)
subsampling is the process by which color channels in digital video (SD,HD or higher) cameras are coded.
4:2:2 basically represents that the two color channels are decoded at half depth related to luminance channel. 4 is luminance(or Y)and 2:2 are the color channels..(Cb and Cr)..they both combine to form the video signal..(YCbCr..or YUV..)similar to RGB channels.
so in 4:2:2 formats..like DVCProHD, color info is half as the brightness info.
and in 4:4:4 formats..(HDCAM SR)color and brightness is encoded in full depth. 4:4:4 is the best possible video formats.
Hope this helps…
Great work with the articles…
Thanx..
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thx guys.. abhay, kv, there are plenty of craft related posts here on PFC. they just happen to be hidden deeper in PFC.. on the author list on the main page, click on sam longoria, manjeet singh, and mitch.. they can hold their own when it comes to the tech stuff and will be more than willing to answer any questions you may have.
abhay, i’m a noob too.. i just wrote an article on cameras and cinematography and i don’t know jack about it except for the little research i did. the real credit goes to mr. bhatavdekar.
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sajid, the main reason i didn’t discuss the red one is bc it wasn’t used in the shooting of slumdog, however, i did intend to include this article about the comparison between the red and SI-2K, so thx for reminding me.. the latter has apparently earned enough merit to be compared to the red, which we all thought was the next big thing..
http://www.hdforindies.com/2006/11/si-2k-vs-red-one.html
many thanks for the breakdown on subsampling.
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Good one. Thnx Striker & Mr. Bhatvadekar.
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“the latter has apparently earned enough merit to be compared to the red, which we all thought was the next big thing..”
well..i thought it was the next big thing…isnt it..?
i mean..since i dnt live in India i dnt kno about the response of the Red One in India..i am really cuiros to know abt it..
any news/hearsay..wud help..
glad to know i was of help…
regards
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sajid, yes, the red ‘was’ the next big thing.. it might still be. the only indian film so far to have been shot on the red is arun vaidyanathan’s tamil film “achumundu achumundu” starring prasanna and sneha which releases in the next few months. then there’s talk of kamal hassan using the red for one of his upcoming films as well. but from all i’ve heard there are still some problems associated with the red which are being ironed out as it’s being used. i was finding it hard to believe that something as new as the SI-2k might be enough to give the red competition, but apparently it’s earned it, so i was insinuating that SI-2k might be the next best thing. only time will tell.
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Ebert writes on it, finally:
“Danny Boyle’s “Slumdog Millionaire” hits the ground running. This is a breathless, exciting story, heartbreaking and exhilarating at the same time, about a Mumbai orphan who rises from rags to riches on the strength of his lively intelligence. The film’s universal appeal will present the real India to millions of moviegoers for the first time….”
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081111/REVIEWS/811110297
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The RED is passe now. This is what has all cinematographers licking their lips in desperation.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/livenow/2855072988/
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Is this what Pingu has on Gudi Parva?
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A bit off-topic, but since we are talking about Slumdog Millionaire I thought to bring this up. Has anyone been following this guy’s movie reviews – http://www.rottentomatoes.com/author/author-2725/ ?? You should because he is amusing! ;)
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Whoa! That guy is surely hilarious, Tejas! He hates Apatow, The Dark Knight, Ridley Scott, The Coens, Kevin Smith, Spike Lee all in one breath, even before you could think of something fancy like ‘cynic’! And that profile pic. Priceless!
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Peter Jackson and George Lucas where some of the first people to try Red One (for test shooting only). From the article that was published with those test shots…seemed like they can stop raving about Red One..
Here’s the link to some of the movies and other shows that are shot or are being shot on Red One
http://www.red.com/shot_on_red/
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My bad!!!
I meant ‘From the article that was published with those test shots…seemed like they __can’t__ stop raving about Red One..’
in the above post….
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The RED is geared towards films with less than a million budget for some reason. Out of the scores of films been shot on HD only a tiny fraction of big budget films have used the RED.
I’ve worked with the RED a lot and a couple of my friends own the packages as well. From what they tell me that coz everybody shoots on it now in the low budget genre the studios kinda look down upon it. It’s a shame really coz it delivers a great image. Doesn’t really mimic film but is actually in between 35mm and HD. It’s main problem still remains that it’s latitude is so narrow that shooting day exteriors unless it’s overcast is an absolute nightmare.
This is the best RED shot film yet I’ve seen. The DP is a really cool guy as well.
http://bulgarelli.adbeast.com/reels/sr_fb_narrative/display_full.asp?mv=1.mov&nos=6
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Danny Boyle with Slumdog Millionaire has really done it again.I saw the film and can understand why some people have a problem with the noise. I had the privilege of attending a pre-mix screening of PANDA, a French film by director Kevin Abosch. It was shot on some sort of hybrid HD/HDV and the image was pretty incredible. I thought it was shot on a RED ONE because of the resolution and low-noise.
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Striker, I’m a month late and a dollar short commenting on your excellent article. I vaguely recall that this scene looked like it was shot on video during our MIAAC Slumdog screening 5 weeks ago.
It’ll be a thrilling day when a portable video camera can deliver similar crispness and the subtle depth of field of better film cameras with finer lenses.
I want to point out though that the texture of a scene like the clip you posted seems more real and immediate partly because it has a video feel to it. Not everything should be glossy or rack-focused within an inch of perfection. I can imagine shooting this exactly the same way even when better equipment becomes available.
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Oh, but I should add that getting good range of midtones on video during a sunny day would be a bonus in most scenarios! Video is universally terrible in the middle of the day outdoors.
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I was watching the special features on Slumdog and it sure looked like they were shooting on the RED ONE.
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Hi
one qeustion
is the si-2k better in print quality
or the sony F900/3 cinealta with p+s technic pro35 adaptor
with zeiss mk3 superspeed prime lenses
for make an cine film
thanks
Kumar
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