[In progress] Zack Snyder's Justice League - Resaturated

[pipefan413]

I'm not a fan either actually I just find this general trend toward less color and contrast in movies nowadays very annoying personally. And it's absolutely not just a Snyder or DC thing exclusively.

Ha!

Yeah, it's not just him.

The "black and white version" thing is also a kind of funny trend that's happened with a few films lately that I know of, all of which I feel are more justified in that level of pretentiousness than this is. MAD MAX: FURY ROAD? Sure, it's a high contrast visual spectacle, so that works (it doesn't work universally for every shot but most of the film looks good). LOGAN? Sure, why not, it's emulating old grim Westerns, so that makes sense. PARASITE? Film festival darling, totally unsurprising (I actually saw it in B&W at its UK premiere in Glasgow). But... this? I dunno, man.

This whole grimdark superhero thing that seems to have more or less started with Nolan and been continued by Snyder with Watchmen onwards really grates on me. I love the Nolan trilogy for the most part, even though it's trying so hard to be "gritty" that it becomes comical at times, but this can't be DC's entire brand for the foreseeable future just because it worked once or twice (though Marvel seems to be evidencing the "if it ain't broke" thing by making more or less the same film over and over again with minor tweaks to the established formula on occasion). I loathed MAN OF STEEL so much because of the comically exaggerated CGI destruction and - in my opinion - fundamental misrepresentation of the Superman character that I apologised to the person I took to see it with me. Snyder got it right the first time: if you want to explore the grim reality of what it might be like if a superhero really existed in the world, you make a WATCHMEN or THE BOYS type thing, as he did to start with. But you don't mess with Superman, god dammit. Let him go and remake SPAWN or something, at least that was always going for that sorta tone in the first place; that stuff was already starting to feel dated when it was still new in the 90s...

To be fair to Snyder/Nolan though, it's much the same in DC's actual comics as well, so this just seems to be DC's entire strategy across the board. I used to work in comic shops and it was always kind of heartbreaking when you'd get parents/grandparents trying to buy stuff for their kids and saying "his favourite is Batman" or whatever and I have almost nothing to suggest because DC just stopped even trying to cater to a young audience in their comics apart from a couple of specific fringe cases. The medium is dying and it isn't going to get any kind of serious revival if they don't try to draw in new readers... but they seem not to want to cater to a younger audience for fear of alienating the neckbeard audience. You can do both, y'know? It doesn't have to be one or t'other. But I digress... what was that I said about keeping my mouth shut, again?

The problem with all these black and white versions, incidentally, is that there is a difference between lighting for colour photography and lighting for black and white photography (unless you're Jack Asher and intentionally light everything as if it's being shot in B&W) and you can't always make up for the difference in a digital regrade. It's definitely apparent in PARASITE and on occasion in MAD MAX: FURY ROAD as well. I haven't seen "LOGAN: NOIR" as I believe it's called, so I can't comment on that one.

[Stamper]

Noir only works if you shot a film entirely with natural light, as, you wouldn't have put the light differently between color and BW LOL.

It works indeed half the time with Mad Max Fury Road, that is because the movie is so processed with different parts of the frame isolated, that you can't adjust it all correctly. Some shots are ugly over sharpened, it's just awful.

With Logan, the opening night sequence ruins it for me, it looks like video, in color or BW (they opened the shutter too much to let the light in, which gives this video look in the night scenes). I don't get the praise for the film, it's really badly shot and lighted either way.

[pipefan413]

It works indeed half the time with Mad Max Fury Road, that is because the movie is so processed with different parts of the frame isolated, that you can't adjust it all correctly. Some shots are ugly over sharpened

I never thought about it that way; I didn't have the critical eye then that I do now. I was just conscious of certain shots not having stark enough contrast for the B&W to look like it was designed to look that way, and there was at least one moment in the film that relies quite heavily on colour that totally lost impact without it. I was less aware of things like sharpening and selective digital fixes and compositing etc.

Even now, I think I'm blissfully ignorant of at least some things, and honestly I sometimes wish I could go back to not noticing things like edge enhancement ahaha. THE X-FILES on Amazon Prime is borderline unwatchable due to edge enhancement at times. I think it was worse in the earlier seasons, either that or I've just had a good run of recent episodes that coincidentally don't have as many noticeable artefacts from it...

[deleted user]

I have to say I'm not a fan of this B&W conversion fad either. If they had actually shot separate shots for B&W then ok but that would be like creating a whole additional movie. The things that make a color image good are just fundamentally different to what makes a B&W image good imo. In that short Twitter teaser, there's maybe one single shot that looks really convincing in B&W, where their two dark silhouettes stand against the background. And assuming that this is the best out of all the scenes (why else would they pick it?), it's gonna be nothing special overall. Maybe it would work in HDR on an OLED though ... hard to say.

Personally I was convinced neither by Mad Max Fury Road nor Logan, though admittedly I've never seen the full movie of the latter and I didn't finish watching the B&W version of the former. Mad Max did it a bit better, yeah, but there too it felt like waiting for a shot to look good by pure coincidence.

If you compare these conversions to some classics actually shot on B&W, like Metropolis or Citizen Kane, this stuff just looks amateurish.

[tjmackey]

the black & white trend is hilarious, but I don't mind it as long as the original version of the movie is easily accessible

I thought it worked nicely for THE MIST

I thought FURY ROAD's B&W version actually made the film feel a little less cartoony and a bit more sinister

I couldn't even bother with LOGAN's attempt at it It just felt like a desaturated TV.

PARASITE isn't one I've really sat down and watched yet.

I don't mind the practice at all in terms of filmmakers I like getting to scratch a particular creative/aesthetic itch. They've earned the chance to just play around, and it's not as if I had to pay extra to get to see it (since they're usually included with purchase) As far as I'm concerned, some of these attempts are a fun opportunity to get a sense of what a filmmaker is driven by. Even if the final effect isn't totally convincing, it doesn't offend me.

[pipefan413]

the black & white trend is hilarious, but I don't mind it as long as the original version of the movie is easily accessible

I thought it worked nicely for THE MIST

I thought FURY ROAD's B&W version actually made the film feel a little less cartoony and a bit more sinister

I couldn't even bother with LOGAN's attempt at it  It just felt like a desaturated TV.

PARASITE isn't one I've really sat down and watched yet. 

I don't mind the practice at all in terms of filmmakers I like getting to scratch a particular creative/aesthetic itch.  They've earned the chance to just play around, and it's not as if I had to pay extra to get to see it (since they're usually included with purchase)  As far as I'm concerned, some of these attempts are a fun opportunity to get a sense of what a filmmaker is driven by.  Even if the final effect isn't totally convincing, it doesn't offend me.

Nah, I totally agree. Like I said: it amuses me, it doesn't offend me, hahah. As long as they're not replacing the originally released version, I'm all for experimentation. It just struck me as *extra* entertaining in this particular case. On the subject of which, this should probably get back on topic.

[tjmackey]

I'm actually looking forward to enjoying the conceptual silliness of the JUSTICE IS GRAY!!! version of snydercut

The whole enterprise is an example of pure indulgence, so I'm enjoying it as such. I looked forward to and loved the use of 4:3 from the beginning, but it's still a wonderfully silly affectation via someone like Snyder. A black and white version is just MORE of that (even though I think there's a lot of the movie that will look very nice in B&W)

[interaser]

Check this tweet, maybe will help you a little for proper colors they had planned initially.
https://twitter.com/kryptoncaged/status/...89474?s=20

[PDB]

Let's get back on subject, this thread is about Franky's project. The color vs gray discussion can be done in the regular JL thread.

[Franky]

Check this tweet, maybe will help you a little for proper colors they had planned initially.
https://twitter.com/kryptoncaged/status/...89474?s=20

That's interesting, I think I'll do a similar comparison with my version, just for funsies. Doing a new encode now with slightly less exaggerated saturation, should be done later today.