Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The contagious visual blandness of Netflix

haleynahman.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

421–430 of 479 posts

Re: The contagious visual blandness of Netflix

#421

Post by skhr0680 »

Slow_Hand wrote: post #354
kzrdude wrote: post #241

Another aspect of this is staffing. It doesn't immediately seem tech related, but it is. There's less people in the background as extras, less people making background scenes or setting up. It can mostly filled in by production technology if necessary. Some movies just seem so empty, and they look "cheap" if you see it in this angle. Some big hollywood production like for example Passengers where there are barely mor…

I often think about Die Hard With a Vengeance. The city of New York is a huge part of the movie's texture. The movie actively engages with all of the people on the street and in the cars, and who are watching from their office windows. Characters who could have very easily been left out of the movie, but their inclusion make it so much richer. You see and feel their days get ruined because of the carnage. It actually…

> LA is packed full of traffic and the story would have taken a very different (and interesting) angle if it reckoned with the fact that getting through the traffic is it's own game.

You might like “To Live and Die in LA”

Re: The contagious visual blandness of Netflix

#422

Post by duxup »

Izkata wrote: post #365
LarryMullins wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There does seem to be an absence of "angry villagers raid the wizard's tower" stories in the Star Wars universe. Missed opportunity, probably has something to do with Star Wars primarily being escapist fantasy for people who wish to be the wizard. Maybe the EU novels have such stories, but I haven't read those.

There's a scene in the original movie that kind-of explains this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zzs-OvfG8tE > "Don't try to frighten us with your sorcerer's ways, Lord Vader. Your sad devotion to that ancient religion has not helped you conjure up the stolen data tapes, or given you clairvoyance enough to find the rebels' hidden fortr-" From what I remember from wikis the EU novels expanded on this as: Jedi/Sith/fo…

It works there but the later trilogy just falls apart and makes no sense how invested everyone is in jedi-ism...

Re: The contagious visual blandness of Netflix

#423

Post by acdha »

drc500free wrote: post #260
kzrdude wrote: post #241

Another aspect of this is staffing. It doesn't immediately seem tech related, but it is. There's less people in the background as extras, less people making background scenes or setting up. It can mostly filled in by production technology if necessary. Some movies just seem so empty, and they look "cheap" if you see it in this angle. Some big hollywood production like for example Passengers where there are barely mor…

IMO, that's part of what made Game of Thrones fall off a quality cliff. It wasn't just subpar writing on the main plot lines when the source material ran out. The world itself became hollowed out, and the main characters stopped existing within an organic world. It turned into an avengers movie, where the leads were largely alone on screen only interacting with each other (except for designated Crowd Scenes).

To be fair, that was also a problem with the books: the scale was completely off in quite noticeable ways – huge armies but no mention of how they’re supplied, cities which are referred to as large but feel small in terms of logistics, etc. We’re repeatedly told winter is coming but there doesn’t seem to be much in the way of stockpiling supplies, building greenhouses, etc.?

Re: The contagious visual blandness of Netflix

#424

Post by mhh__ »

dekhn wrote: post #167
tuetuopay wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In other words: dynamic range. That late 80's film is set up at daylight in a brightly lit joint. So that cameras could actually record it. The other scene is in a dimly lit dining room with directly visible light sourcee (that don't saturate). You can bet that 80's film could not have captured this kind of low-light high-contrast scene.

Except Barry Lyndon did exactly that.

i.e. one of the greatest auteurs was able to achieve what can be done by a TikTok today (just about)

Re: The contagious visual blandness of Netflix

#425

Post by HyperSane »

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.

I agree. I truly do not understand how people accepted first sound and then color in movies but now they are completely balking at frame rates higher than the completely arbitrary and actually-too-slow 24fps. 48fps makes motion so much smoother.

Re: The contagious visual blandness of Netflix

#426

Post by OhioMan2943 »

deergomoo wrote: post #406
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.

As someone who very much likes how 24fps looks, it’s still worth noting that 24 was only chosen to balance film usage with smoothness. I’m willing to buy into the idea that lower framerates cause our brains to “fill in” details and thereby improve immersion by some impossible-to-measure metric, but let’s not pretend that’s why 24 was chosen. It was chosen because 30 or 48 or 60 would cost more to shoot. Display tech…

I also believe 24 has more "mental penetration" (excuse the wankiest term to ever be ill-conceived) by being in between a series of still images and something fluid. Maybe the same reason we were so absorbed by lower resolution games.

Re: The contagious visual blandness of Netflix

#427

Post by colanderman »

steve1977 wrote: post #344
colanderman wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me, 48 fps per se doesn't look fake -- it's the fake stuff in the shots that 48 fps reveals to be fake. The first Hobbit movie set me against 48 fps for this reason. The weapons on the characters backs bounced around as if they were made of foam -- because they presumably were made of foam. 24 fps hides this imperfection and lets your brain fill in with a more appropriate interpretation. The same bugs me about rer…

That could actually make sense. I remember I was never a fan of high frame rates, also due to the Hobbit. But I found myself filming (as in home videos) mostly in 4K/60fps now, because it just looks more realistic.

I suspect that sitcoms, YouTube stuff, home videos, etc. work better as 60 fps because the content in them is real. There aren't props, fantastical settings, or other elements requiring suspension of disbelief.

I wonder if likewise, 48 fps would work well for drama/comedy movies, where the sets and settings are realistic, vs. action/fantasy films it tends to be advertised on. I haven't knowingly seen such a movie.

Re: The contagious visual blandness of Netflix

#428

Post by IIsi50MHz »

acdha wrote: post #423
drc500free wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO, that's part of what made Game of Thrones fall off a quality cliff. It wasn't just subpar writing on the main plot lines when the source material ran out. The world itself became hollowed out, and the main characters stopped existing within an organic world. It turned into an avengers movie, where the leads were largely alone on screen only interacting with each other (except for designated Crowd Scenes).

To be fair, that was also a problem with the books: the scale was completely off in quite noticeable ways – huge armies but no mention of how they’re supplied, cities which are referred to as large but feel small in terms of logistics, etc. We’re repeatedly told winter is coming but there doesn’t seem to be much in the way of stockpiling supplies, building greenhouses, etc.?

Stocking supplies is much better conveyed in the books. Also notable that although the main map is shaped somewhat like England+Wales+Scotland, it seems to be continent scale, allowing southern parts to seemingly not even stock winter gear.

Greenhouses…would be a very rare luxury for a rich few, and would offer minimaly supplement for them; also, heating them (IRL, with coal) would be prohibitively expensive in labour, fuel, and fuel storage.

Re: The contagious visual blandness of Netflix

#429

Post by acdha »

IIsi50MHz wrote: post #428
acdha wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, that was also a problem with the books: the scale was completely off in quite noticeable ways – huge armies but no mention of how they’re supplied, cities which are referred to as large but feel small in terms of logistics, etc. We’re repeatedly told winter is coming but there doesn’t seem to be much in the way of stockpiling supplies, building greenhouses, etc.?

Stocking supplies is much better conveyed in the books. Also notable that although the main map is shaped somewhat like England+Wales+Scotland, it seems to be continent scale, allowing southern parts to seemingly not even stock winter gear. Greenhouses…would be a very rare luxury for a rich few, and would offer minimaly supplement for them; also, heating them (IRL, with coal) would be prohibitively expensive in labou…

I was referring to the books – my primary memories of ASoIF were that the level of violence should mean more desertion and economic collapse back home and unless they just magicked it away there’d nowhere near enough food to survive the promised winter. It’s not like the books didn’t have good parts but I had to consciously suspend disbelief a lot while reading it.

Greenhouses don’t require heating but it’s also a proxy for the questions about urgency: if you knew this was coming, shouldn’t you have people working on every aspect of storage, stretching growing seasons, migrating south, etc.?

Re: The contagious visual blandness of Netflix

#430

Post by wkat4242 »

kzrdude wrote: post #241

Another aspect of this is staffing. It doesn't immediately seem tech related, but it is. There's less people in the background as extras, less people making background scenes or setting up. It can mostly filled in by production technology if necessary. Some movies just seem so empty, and they look "cheap" if you see it in this angle. Some big hollywood production like for example Passengers where there are barely mor…

> Some big hollywood production like for example Passengers where there are barely more than three actors visible in the whole film.

I agree with your general comment but in Passengers it was really central to the overall plot and premise. It's not a good example of this phenomenon.

I don't think this was drive for budgetary reasons, that film clearly had a huge budget looking at the visuals.

As for money, Hollywood should be much less dependent on 'A-listers' and tap unknown talent. This will also make the 'A-listers' cheaper and stop this annoying thing where you see the same faces in every movie, often cast more for the name than for best fit to the role.

Post reply on HN