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Cinematography of “Andor”

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Re: Cinematography of “Andor”

#371

Post by sho_hn »

jimbokun wrote: post #332
sho_hn wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say this is giving the Anakin trilogy an unfair shake: While I don't enjoy watching the prequels much for being clumsy films, you have to hand it to Lucas for trying to significantly expand his space opera by adding in galactical politics, etc. Any thrust to make Star Wars about ideology and governance (and specifically parliamentary democracy vs. facism) really came from the prequels, and arguably you couldn't h…

I don't think any of the politics from the prequel trilogy lands. It's too cartoony for that. Whereas Senator Mothma's story arc had me engrossed from beginning to end. From the complexities of a Senator's social life, to her financial difficulties, to the medieval like politics of marrying off her daughter for the sake of a political and financial alliance, to her risking more and more, to her brave and powerful spe…

Sure, the execution was crappy - but he chose to make one of his new main characters a Senator, had the Senate as a set piece, etc.

Re: Cinematography of “Andor”

#372

Post by iainmerrick »

jimbokun wrote: post #341
iainmerrick wrote: post #65

To address this interview specifically, rather than just gushing about how great Andor is-- One point Nuyens makes in a few different ways is that they used a variety of tools and techniques at every stage. People often have simplistic, extreme viewpoints like "modern CGI can do anything" or "CGI looks fake and weightless, practical effects are better". But here's somebody with a big part in making a fantastic-lookin…

Watching it I felt like watching something that had been filmed on location, even though I knew that was impossible. Like they actually took the actors to Coruscant to shoot scenes. Felt so much more lived in than Coruscant in the prequels.

One of the big Senate buildings is apparently the Prince Felipe Science Museum in Valencia. The real thing looks incredible.

"Lived in" is absolutely right. That's something people always praised about the original movies, but that was about the smokey dive bars, messy aircraft hangars and broken-down machinery. Getting that lived-in feel for massive Imperial buildings and cities is a great new twist on it.

Re: Cinematography of “Andor”

#373

Post by JohnBooty »

crazygringo wrote: post #291
xorcist wrote: post #132

What I don't understand is how film crews can work together when they are larger than two pizza teams? And when they want to change something, it's almost like they just do it? Surely they have to file a ticket with the Product Owner first? And why don't they wait until the current sprint is done before doing things that clearly belongs to the next one? Why do the producer run around speaking in precise terms when he…

Perhaps you're confusing planning with execution. All the things you're describing -- in the spirit of tickets, sprints, etc. -- do happen. They're called pre-production. It takes years (months if you're lucky) to set up how everything will run on set. Producers have a huge list of actionables (tickets), and there is constant iteration (sprints) of parts of the script, of what the film's visual look will be, the tone…

Great post.

Also, unlike software engineering, the film industry has been around for 100+ years. They've figured stuff out.

(We could say software engineering has been around for 50+ years, but I think that in its modern form it's probably more like 20 years. Highly subjective statement, I know.)

Re: Cinematography of “Andor”

#374

Post by enopod_ »

Cinematography looks great indeed, framing, composition, depth of field, lighting, all outstanding. But the colors? It all looks quite sallow to me, the colors are boring. I am colorblind (protanopia), so to me colors _do_ look a little sallow, but I'm used to it, I don't know anything else. But when a movie or tv show looks like this, it makes the whole thing super boring to look at. Little contrast, bleached, like they pulled the saturation bar waaay much to the left. It's a pitty, because strong colors can also transport emotions. I'm not asking for Teletubbies-style coloring here, but a tad more here and there would have been very nice.

Re: Cinematography of “Andor”

#375

Post by JohnBooty »

goalieca wrote: post #159
munificent wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A big part of the difference is the timelines and scale. When you ship a piece of software, it's often expected to be usable by a million people reliably for years. In film and video production, you're duct taping shit together to get it to stay in one piece just long enough to get the shot and get the film out the door. You're fixing shit in post because you were in a hurry on set. It's a sort of barely controlled c…

The shot, once made, is forever unless you do an expensive reshoot. Software bugs happen and people have low expectations for bugs even in highly scaling software like YouTube.

I don't want to go down too much of a rabbit hole talking about an analogy, but boy this analogy seems off!

They do multiple, sometimes dozens, of takes for most shots.

Re: Cinematography of “Andor”

#376

Post by JohnBooty »

bsder wrote: post #277
esafak wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haven't you heard of "We'll fix it in post"? Given the way things are, whole movies are going to be made in post...

Which is ironic given how much of the original Star Wars was fixed in post: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFMyMxMYDNk

Wonderful documentary, super recommended watching.

Though, nit pick -- when people say "fix it in post", they're not usually talking about editing.

Editing is an expected, normal, traditional part of the art of filmmaking. You're not changing or fixing the shots themselves; you are cutting and pasting footage sequentially to tell a coherent and compelling story. The YT you linked is a masterful example of how Star Wars was saved through this sort of editing.

"Fix it in post" refers more to making sloppy shots full of errors and then correcting those errors later with CGI.

Does that make sense? The art of stitching shots together, versus shooting crappy shots and CGIing them later.

Re: Cinematography of “Andor”

#378

Post by JohnBooty »

sho_hn wrote: post #179
lucideer wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not part of the main storyline of Luke's journey as an individual & the Jedi order but it is a very big part of one of the main storylines of a ragtag bunch of rebels sticking it to the empire. A storyline which I'd argue was strongest in A New Hope & the initial trilogy & was weakened by the increased focus on individual storylines in the anakin & rey trilogies.

I'd say this is giving the Anakin trilogy an unfair shake: While I don't enjoy watching the prequels much for being clumsy films, you have to hand it to Lucas for trying to significantly expand his space opera by adding in galactical politics, etc. Any thrust to make Star Wars about ideology and governance (and specifically parliamentary democracy vs. facism) really came from the prequels, and arguably you couldn't h…

    you have to hand it to Lucas for trying to 
    significantly expand his space opera by adding 
    in galactical politics
No, absolutely zero credit.

While "evil guy corrupting a democracy" is certainly a noble and relevant thing to explore, the prequels don't explore that in any useful or fun or insightful way. It's literally just an excuse for pew pew pew lasers and spaceships and laser swords.

(Remarkably, they also make the democracy, and the Jedi who defend it, seem almost universally super boring and dumb and uncool. Making Jedi uncool is some kind of special achievement...)

Even as a real-world allegory, it sucks.

The bad guys in real life aren't even remotely like the Sith, who are physically twisted freaks that are explicitly like "yep! we're evil!"

Real-life bad guys are often good looking and most of them think they're actually doing the right thing.

Re: Cinematography of “Andor”

#379

Post by whywhywhywhy »

xorcist wrote: post #132

What I don't understand is how film crews can work together when they are larger than two pizza teams? And when they want to change something, it's almost like they just do it? Surely they have to file a ticket with the Product Owner first? And why don't they wait until the current sprint is done before doing things that clearly belongs to the next one? Why do the producer run around speaking in precise terms when he…

You joke but if you're filming in a part of the world with unions then there are a whole other ball of bureaucracy and silliness that gets in the way of just getting the shot that makes tickets, stories and standups seem smooth sailing.

Re: Cinematography of “Andor”

#380

Post by JohnBooty »

jimbokun wrote: post #330
lucideer wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not part of the main storyline of Luke's journey as an individual & the Jedi order but it is a very big part of one of the main storylines of a ragtag bunch of rebels sticking it to the empire. A storyline which I'd argue was strongest in A New Hope & the initial trilogy & was weakened by the increased focus on individual storylines in the anakin & rey trilogies.

Andor and Rogue One are better prequels than the prequel trilogy in that they better match the tone of the original Star Wars and do a better job filling in the parts of the back story viewers care about. How did the Rebellion start? How was it organized? What led to building the Death Star? How did they get the plans to give to Leia to give to Luke? The only part of the prequel trilogy relevant to the story in A New…

If the prequels taught me anything, it's that these questions are usually better left unanswered.

What's cool about the Force isn't the mechanics of how it works. What's cool about the Force is that it's a mystical thing that's everywhere, binding all living things together.

And we honestly don't need to know how the Rebellion started. It doesn't matter! They are the good guys, and they are messy but kind and loving and cool and they are rebelling against the cold and mean (but also sometimes cool) bad guys. In fact, the more dumb shit I know about them the less I can project myself onto them and see myself in their eyes. Because I have rebelled against mean authoritarian shit before, or at least dreamed of it, but I have never been involved with trade disputes or galactic senates or weird old religions.

This is true IMO 99.99% of the time.

Shockingly to me, Rogue One and Andor are so well done that they are exceptions to the rule.

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