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The contagious visual blandness of Netflix

haleynahman.substack.com

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Re: The contagious visual blandness of Netflix

#21

Post by ulizzle »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #5
indigodaddy wrote: post #3

Don’t watch Netflix movies. Watch actual lower budget/indie movies like Red Rocket that still look and feel like movies..

I think this is true for the people writing articles about "The Visual Blandness of Netflix" - which makes me wonder who they're actually writing to, beside the echo chamber. A24 is great for this crowd. But, they're already aware of it... The majority of people watch TV and movies to be mindlessly entertained, not to be enlightened by some high-form of art. Netflix and Disney+ is just fine for this crowd. You're not…

If the majority of people are just fine with watching Netflix and Disney+ how do you explain their steep drop in stocks?

Re: The contagious visual blandness of Netflix

#22

Post by jmondi »

ulizzle wrote: post #16
kqr wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm highly skeptical of the technical claims you're making here. Quality photography paper has about 10 stops of dynamic range (which is why the zone system for composition and printing goes up to X). While the negatives themselves may have slightly more dynamic range, there's also the clarkvision page[1] indicating they, in fact, have less dynamic range. This makes sense: you have less area to work with, and need to…

Do you disagree that film looks better than digital?

This is a completely subjective opinion though. One person could prefer film, and another digital. What does this prove?

Re: The contagious visual blandness of Netflix

#23

Post by [deleted] »

ulizzle wrote: post #16
kqr wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm highly skeptical of the technical claims you're making here. Quality photography paper has about 10 stops of dynamic range (which is why the zone system for composition and printing goes up to X). While the negatives themselves may have slightly more dynamic range, there's also the clarkvision page[1] indicating they, in fact, have less dynamic range. This makes sense: you have less area to work with, and need to…

Do you disagree that film looks better than digital?

[deleted]

Re: The contagious visual blandness of Netflix

#24

Post by FredPret »

dotancohen wrote: post #17
PKop wrote: post #4

It's hinted at here, but film produces a much better overall look than digital. It is just that digital is way cheaper and easier to work with. There is certainly more versatility in what you can create in post production with digital but the base look of what is captured is more beautiful on film, and this is the same with photographs. Look at high quality old images captured on film, they blow most digital images o…

Star Trek The Next Generation was famously shot on film. The HD scans are so good that the props can be seen to be fake in many places. Later franchise shows that were shot in digital simply cannot be released in HD as there is no HD source material.

So film is better than the digital from that time, but not necessarily better than today's digital

Re: The contagious visual blandness of Netflix

#25

Post by royjacobs »

dotancohen wrote: post #17
PKop wrote: post #4

It's hinted at here, but film produces a much better overall look than digital. It is just that digital is way cheaper and easier to work with. There is certainly more versatility in what you can create in post production with digital but the base look of what is captured is more beautiful on film, and this is the same with photographs. Look at high quality old images captured on film, they blow most digital images o…

Star Trek The Next Generation was famously shot on film. The HD scans are so good that the props can be seen to be fake in many places. Later franchise shows that were shot in digital simply cannot be released in HD as there is no HD source material.

This is completely incorrect. Later shows like Voyager and DS9 were also shot on film.

However, all post-production happened in standard definition, so all special effects, editing and colour correction would have to be redone, which is incredibly expensive.

They did that with TNG, but since those blurays didn't sell enough, they didn't bother doing the same for DS9/VOY.

Re: The contagious visual blandness of Netflix

#26

Post by the_af »

sho_hn wrote: post #2

I decided not to watch their Sandman adaptation despite generally positive reviews because the unmistakable and garing Netflix aesthetic of the trailers soured me on the prospect. It's like they ruined a graphic novel with an AI style transfer to "in the style of Netlix".

Sandman was a remarkably good adaptation and I enjoyed it thoroughly but... yes, it has that bland/cheap Netflix look. I think it's still worth watching though.

Re: The contagious visual blandness of Netflix

#27

Post by candiddevmike »

PKop wrote: post #4

It's hinted at here, but film produces a much better overall look than digital. It is just that digital is way cheaper and easier to work with. There is certainly more versatility in what you can create in post production with digital but the base look of what is captured is more beautiful on film, and this is the same with photographs. Look at high quality old images captured on film, they blow most digital images o…

28 Days Later was one of the first digitally shot movies and has some breathing scenes in it. I don't think digital is to blame.

Re: The contagious visual blandness of Netflix

#28

Post by DoneWithAllThat »

One aspect of this I’ve talked about before is the phenomenon of the “permanent golden hour”: what used to be a narrow sliver of time when you could get the most dramatic lighting is now easily replicated in post. So as a result tons of movies have all their outdoor shots set in this incredibly unnatural-looking light that really pulls me out of the movie. Like I remember the banker in Switzerland scenes in The Wolf of Wall Street, with the open window and it just looked so hilariously fake I thought Scorcese was doing a bit. Nope that’s just how outside scenes/shots are lit now.

Re: The contagious visual blandness of Netflix

#30

Post by stickfigure »

ulizzle wrote: post #16
kqr wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm highly skeptical of the technical claims you're making here. Quality photography paper has about 10 stops of dynamic range (which is why the zone system for composition and printing goes up to X). While the negatives themselves may have slightly more dynamic range, there's also the clarkvision page[1] indicating they, in fact, have less dynamic range. This makes sense: you have less area to work with, and need to…

Do you disagree that film looks better than digital?

I'm not sure this is a fair question. An awful lot of people seem to think that instagram filters look "better" than simple photos. Style and clarity are not necessarily congruent.

You could just as easily watch Casablanca and proclaim "black and white produces a much better overall look than color".

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