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The contagious visual blandness of Netflix

haleynahman.substack.com

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Re: The contagious visual blandness of Netflix

#81

Post by fullstop »

mort96 wrote: post #20
gigaparsec wrote: post #11

The number one thing that bothers me the most in the "netflix aesthetic" is the weird looking background bokeh that every scene seems to have. It looks like a cheap gaussian blur filter applied in post production and adds to the fakeness. This is probably due to the optics in some of the latest Red digital cameras, but it's still not convincing. Kinda like 48 vs 24 FPS.

I will never accept the hate for 48 FPS. 24 FPS looks like garbage. Panning shots are a stuttery mess. 24 FPS looks somewhat okay when the camera is still and only the people in it are moving, but the ridiculous choppiness ruins any moment with camera movement. A higher refresh rate is simply an objective improvement. I don't care that you associate it with bad soap operas.

> 24 FPS looks like garbage. Panning shots are a stuttery mess.

This depends on the TV, of course, but I prefer 24 FPS over the soap opera effect.

Re: The contagious visual blandness of Netflix

#82

Post by epolanski »

DoneWithAllThat wrote: post #28

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…

The Wolf of Wall Street is a movie that would surprise most people by how much special effects it has:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pocfRVAH9yU

Re: The contagious visual blandness of Netflix

#84

Post by mattkrause »

miohtama wrote: post #35
ulizzle wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you disagree that film looks better than digital?

There is nothing film can do that digital photography cannot do today. Any claims of film superiority must be based on subjective interpretation and existing familiarity with film like look. Digital cinema can 100% emulate film like look if they wish to add rendering artifacts.

I liked the argument in the article: film “works” because it can do a bit less: it adds enough hassle that the rest of the production (e.g., lighting) is done more carefully, and thus the whole thing comes out better.

Re: The contagious visual blandness of Netflix

#85

Post by drexlspivey »

masurus wrote: post #73
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…

Film has become vastly inferior to digital both in stills and cinema if we're talking about technical aspects like dynamic range and colour accuracy. The problem is, just like with CGI which has gotten pretty good at modelling light transport, it feels off because it's too clean and clear. Digital it's too good at capturing reality. Film introduces a bunch of artefacts and limitations that 'look' nicer than accuratel…

Can you do an 8K remaster of a movie shot in 4K digital? With film you can just rescan the negative with a higher resolution.

Re: The contagious visual blandness of Netflix

#86

Post by arcanemachiner »

jblakey wrote: post #78

On a related note, why is Netflix's interface so locked down? Why would it be bad for me to turn off autoplay for trailers? Why can't I say "never show me this show again, I'm never going to watch it"? And why, in this age of AI, and they still putting white text over a white background? That last one, especially, made me say "do people at Netflix eat their own dogfood"?

On my laptop, I was able to disable autoplay for the trailers. IIRC it's in your profile settings.

Re: The contagious visual blandness of Netflix

#87

Post by kqr »

ulizzle wrote: post #64
miohtama wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is nothing film can do that digital photography cannot do today. Any claims of film superiority must be based on subjective interpretation and existing familiarity with film like look. Digital cinema can 100% emulate film like look if they wish to add rendering artifacts.

Why is digital trying to look more like film instead of the other way around?

Basically all of film innovation history has been about constantly trying to look more like digital.

Re: The contagious visual blandness of Netflix

#88

Post by iconosynclast »

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…

I'm pretty sure at this point high end digital cinema cameras can straight up outperform film in all but the most extreme cases (like giant IMAX negatives maybe) but that's also a much more recent development than most people would think.

More freedom in post allows more freedom to do things audience may or may not like but I don't think it's technical limitations holding things back anymore.

Similarly I'm a bit dubious on the LED lighting comment by the anonymous redditor. Yes LED color rendering used to be pretty horrible but these days it really doesn't have to be. all the major LED manufactures have high end white parts for color critical applications and even color mixing is actually good now with the advent of phosphor converted broad spectrum colored LEDs.

All this stuff increases the available creative space but at the same time it might not be easier to find the good stuff in a larger space

Re: The contagious visual blandness of Netflix

#89

Post by royjacobs »

ulizzle wrote: post #64
miohtama wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is nothing film can do that digital photography cannot do today. Any claims of film superiority must be based on subjective interpretation and existing familiarity with film like look. Digital cinema can 100% emulate film like look if they wish to add rendering artifacts.

Why is digital trying to look more like film instead of the other way around?

Because sometimes digital footage has to be matched to film. Alternatively, some directors enjoy film artifacts just like some people enjoy analog distortion artefacts in audio.

Additionally, you seem to be asking a lot of leading questions but not volunteering any opinions of your own. Is there something you'd like to share?

Re: The contagious visual blandness of Netflix

#90

Post by Nursie »

matt-attack wrote: post #71
mort96 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will never accept the hate for 48 FPS. 24 FPS looks like garbage. Panning shots are a stuttery mess. 24 FPS looks somewhat okay when the camera is still and only the people in it are moving, but the ridiculous choppiness ruins any moment with camera movement. A higher refresh rate is simply an objective improvement. I don't care that you associate it with bad soap operas.

What you're saying is equivalent to: "Impressionism is objectively worse than realism. Look at a Van Gogh painting, there's hardly any detail. It looks coarse, and grainy and the brush strokes are so wide I can hard tell what's what. Starry Starry Night would be objectively such a better painting if he had just reach for a finer brush and included more detail. Adding more detail would have made it far more realistic,…

Cool, so people that want that effect on their movies can use it, it hardly sounds like something everyone would want every time though.

Or is impressionism the only valid art form?

Also -

> happens to be at that perfect balance between ...

Yeah na, it's just what you're used to.

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