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The contagious visual blandness of Netflix

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Re: The contagious visual blandness of Netflix

#51
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.

> Later franchise shows that were shot in digital simply cannot be released in HD as there is no HD source material.

This is a persistent myth, but false. DS9 and Voyager were shot on film, like TNG and TOS. TOS was also edited on film, TNG and later were scanned and edited on videotape. This makes it much more work to remaster TNG and later shows for HD, which was done for TNG but not later shows because the TNG sales plus the perception that the other shows wwre less popular and would sell less made it not worthwhile from a business perspective.

Re: The contagious visual blandness of Netflix

#52

Personally it's poor writing & bad camera work that bugs me more than anything. Sure this digital style is apparent, but I guess it doesn't fundamentally ruin a movie for me (whereas the other two factors do).

There seems to be a major difference between Netflix US and their international productions. The later European one are, IMHO, somewhere between good and great in writing, production, acting. Those are usually done by Netflix and some local partner.

Every once in a while I come across a Netflix US thing, and it feels like having grabed something of a direct-to-DVD sale...

Re: The contagious visual blandness of Netflix

#53
post #20

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'm not sure what you think "objective" means, but typically it means independent of experience. When you say "objective improvement," in what sense, independent of experience, is higher frame rate better? Obviously there are 2x the visual data because there are 2x the frames, but that's borderline tautological.

Re: The contagious visual blandness of Netflix

#54
post #16
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?

If a movie production wants a digitally produced thing to look like film, they can do that, to a degree that you can't tell the difference. So no, film doesn't look better than digital.

Re: The contagious visual blandness of Netflix

#55
post #9
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 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…

I'm skeptical, too, since a lot of things shot on film still went through a digital intermediate.

I think this is more about overall production aesthetic/budget/execution, than a film v. digital.

Re: The contagious visual blandness of Netflix

#56
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Netflix added more than 7 million new subscribers in the last 3 months, bringing the number of households to over 230 million worldwide. And that's just people who are paying . Many people share their accounts so we can assume another few million people who regularly watch but don't pay. https://variety.com/2023/tv/news/netflix-subscribers-earning...

But if you look at the chart two years, you'll see how even if it's building up, it's still a steep drop compared to their high point circa in 2021.

Re: The contagious visual blandness of Netflix

#57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of this is true, nor does it need to be. As my photography professor says, “digital is better, but I don’t want better.” Roma is as beautiful as anything shot on film, Amelie from 1995 is as teal-orange medium-shot photo filter as anything on Netflix. The Crown is often beautiful because of impressive practical lighting effects. [EDIT: Amelie is from 2001, I mixed up the date with the same director’s City of Los…

Amélie is from 2001, not 1995. Interestingly, it is one of the first films that was colour corrected completely digitally. This is also why the movie's colour palette is so striking. Not necessarily to everyone's taste, but I really found it to 'pop' in the cinema.

Sorry, I was also thinking of the same director’s City of Lost Children, which is 1995 and still has a teal/orange aesthetic. (Apologies to the French for using the translated titles.)

It looks like City of Lost Children was graded by Yvan Lucas via an analog process called ENR. Subsequently, Amelie was the first digital coloring he did, and, since it was before LUTs, his analog experience was crucial.

https://www.digitalmediaworld.tv/post/2917-colourist-yvan-lu...

Re: The contagious visual blandness of Netflix

#59
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

[deleted]

Re: The contagious visual blandness of Netflix

#60
I recall thinking about this recently when watching a Netflix series. I'm far from a TV/film production connoisseur, but there's something about the aesthetic that makes it stand out. I wouldn't say it's better or worse, just different. With most things related to design, I'm sure the trends will shift over time as a means of differentiation. Perhaps, once AI video generation becomes more standard, we'll see entirely new production styles.
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