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Cinematography of “Andor”

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Re: Cinematography of “Andor”

#381

Post by JohnBooty »

ghaff wrote: post #272
toyg wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But there is no conflict, no interest, in exploring a building site. What are you going to talk about, contractors installing pipes? How they get the best canteen food? It's actually better for the Death Star to be unseen, so that its full horror can only be imagined - and hence, becoming greater - in our minds.

And as has been explored the economics don’t really make sense.

Yeah. For that level of resources they probably could have just had ten Star Destroyers orbiting every known inhabited planet.

But real-world warfare history is full of these expensive disasters that, in hindsight, were spectacularly dumb ideas.

I don't think the Death Star was meant to be practical. More of a terror weapon or trump card, akin in some ways to nuclear weapons whose true value transcends their practical value. The destruction of Alderaan felt like an allegory for Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Re: Cinematography of “Andor”

#382

Post by djaychela »

piyuv wrote: post #131
parsimo2010 wrote: post #124

Andor is shot beautifully but it has a major issue that has plagued an increasing amount of shows recently. It is way too dark. The creators knew it was going straight to streaming and was never shown in theaters. I can’t watch the show in the daytime because even with my blinds down and curtains drawn the window in my living room washes out half of the scenes. Some very important things happened in the dark (it bein…

Agreed. Real PITA with OLED tv’s. Musicians listen to their tracks in car stereos, directors should do what you suggest

Not seen any of these issues on my oled and have watched in full daylight.

Re: Cinematography of “Andor”

#383

Post by andrepd »

DavidPiper wrote: post #307
andrepd wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Massive real sets with CGI enhancements; sometimes green screens This is the definition of the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy, and they're still some of the best-looking films I've ever seen, far surpassing the modern UE slop.

The Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy is well-known for being peak CGI Artist overtime and burnout. Don't have the source handy right now, but At World's End in particular was allegedly an absolute meat grinder for the CG folks for years. That said, I do agree, they made something truly incredible that has stood the test of time. And I wish we could have more of it (but I'll also take better working conditions every d…

Oh yeah yeah, I'm a massive fan of the trilogy so I've gone through all the BTS and staff interviews and whatnot. The consensus among the vfx artists is that yeah, while Davy Jones looks great due to its mix of procedural + handmade animation, it's also completely impractical to do; it was hundreds and hundreds of hours for each few seconds of Davy Jones' tentacles to be perfect.

Re: Cinematography of “Andor”

#384

Post by wizardforhire »

majkinetor wrote: post #244
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…

Entertainment is not critical.

I think in the interest of hn pedantry we need some pushback on what our threshold is for what is critical or not? Lives on the line? Cleary critical! Anything after this is up for debate. Lots of money at risk? Maybe. Lots of people being affected? Maybe Lots of people losing their jobs? Maybe A company going out of business? Maybe

While most things in entertainment do not pass the first test. There are plenty of examples that absolutely pass all of the others.

I only say most because there are numerous circumstances where in the entertainment industries where maybe not always the final product but definitely during production where lives are on the line.

I have a problem with defining things as critical or not because you have no idea what your products or solutions may end up being used for. If things are being used by people in a production capacity and the collective stake of the success or failure of the endeavor rests upon the tools and solutions performing as designed then one could argue these are critical. But to whom? When designers don't see their solutions as critical it breeds laziness and pushes the responsibility for auditing onto the user who most likely doesn't even know to audit because they were sold a solution and made the mistake of taking a vendors word. Which maybe we should all be tearing down all of our electronics and reverse engineering all of our software so that we can have some semblance of functionality… And I know plenty of studios which do just this down to tearing down and making all and I do mean all of their cables because for them one stray bit of interference is critical. Why are they in this position? Because nothing and no one in tech or any other industry can be trusted. And when your career and reputation, and livelihood is on the line then everything starts to look critical. Maybe its only the livelihood of one? But to them its critical.

Re: Cinematography of “Andor”

#385

Post by greedo »

JohnBooty wrote: post #376
bsder wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Wa…

I would expand it a bit past CGI. It can include using a less interesting shot but adding ADR to it, filling in a gap between scenes etc.

Re: Cinematography of “Andor”

#386

Post by greedo »

khazhoux wrote: post #358
mhh__ wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Software projects don't usually have the luxury of a violent but intuitive dictator running the thing. Obviously a mega budget tv show is going to be run from afar most of the time. Software can be like this, e.g. if you were building a small team to do something you cared about it would probably be more like a 3* kitchen than support team inside IBM or something.

The producer runs the show, not the director

It's much, much more collaborative than that. The role of a producer can be limited to managing the financial side of the production. Or they can be involved with coordinating the production itself. The director has the most say over what is shot, how it's edited, what the score should be like. A good producer can help make a film excellent, but if you have a bad director, or the "wrong" director, then nothing the producer does will fix that issue.

Of course there are also Executive producers who are far far up the financial food chain of a movie, and sometimes these titles are also just vanity plates for the production.

As an example of the value of a good/great producer, look at Gary Kurtz. He was essential for both Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back, but wasn't part of the team for Return of the Jedi. In my opinion, that's one of the reasons that ROTJ is the worst of the three films. Lucas didn't have someone pushing back against his worse tendencies.

For an example of the wrong director, look no further than Rogue One. While it's very difficult to sus out what was wrong with Gareth Edwards directing, Tony Gilroy was brought in to fix the film. Both are appropriately quiet about what the changes were, what was re-shot (simple professional courtesy), but the result is a film that (while I love it) is just slightly off.

Re: Cinematography of “Andor”

#387

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: Cinematography of “Andor”

#388

Post by alextingle »

sho_hn wrote: post #371
jimbokun wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

One of the original movie's main characters was a senator. It's hardly original.

Re: Cinematography of “Andor”

#389

Post by imglorp »

fernandopj wrote: post #166
meowface wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On one hand I want to say "fuck it, let them have whatever the fuck they want", given they should've known how well-received the show is by critics and viewers alike and how they should consider it basically the savior of the Star Wars brand. On the other hand, I guess it's still a business, at the end of the day.

Andor S2 was around $350M and most likely paid for itself and some. [1] > On the other hand, I guess it's still a business, at the end of the day. You're right, in the sense that Andor was an exception regarding every other SW show on Disney+ for the past 4 years. All had high production costs and seems like Andor is the only one which recouped itself. Acolyte was a spectacular viewship failure. So the business logic…

How exactly does a streaming show pay? Is it measured in new subscriptions when viewers hear the buzz and sign up to the service due to that show? Otherwise, the users stream it, or don't, they pay the same either way.

The inverse question too: why do streaming platforms cancel popular shows? Watcher count doesn't seem to be the metric I think it is.

Re: Cinematography of “Andor”

#390

Post by alextingle »

JohnBooty wrote: post #381
ghaff wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And as has been explored the economics don’t really make sense.

Yeah. For that level of resources they probably could have just had ten Star Destroyers orbiting every known inhabited planet. But real-world warfare history is full of these expensive disasters that, in hindsight, were spectacularly dumb ideas. I don't think the Death Star was meant to be practical. More of a terror weapon or trump card, akin in some ways to nuclear weapons whose true value transcends their practica…

The US Navy has aircraft carriers, which are every bit as ridiculous as a Death Star. They are utterly useless against well armed opponents.

But they still got built, for good political, and psychological reasons that have nothing to do with cost effectiveness.

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