Nowadays, most movies are made digitally. But the experience with “Oppenheimer” will be different. That’s because Christopher Nolan’s new film is entirely analog.
For those in a hurry:
This is what explained Jay Trautman, who worked for a year as assistant editor of “Oppenheimer”. Nobody videoposted on YouTube, it details the ins and outs of producing a similar film.
film and digital
Digital cameras are great, but there’s still something special about shooting on film. Giving an authentic look to the images, there are some filmmakers who still shoot on film.
Even so, most of these films are digitally scanned, edited and corrected.
For example, Jordan Peele’s “Nope” was shot on the same IMAX cameras used in “Oppenheimer.” But the film was digitized and then finalized through a digital process.
This is similar to recording music to analog tape, then mixing it on a computer and burning it as digital files.
Next, the “Nope” team took the finished files digitally and recorded them on analog film. This has been what most filmmakers have been doing since the 1990s when digital cinema started to take off.
It’s much easier and cheaper to do things digitally. But that’s not what directors like Christopher Nolan, Paul Thomas Anderson and Quentin Tarantino do.
Nolan lawsuit over ‘Oppenheimer’
The director records, then this film is processed in the laboratory and printed on reels, as explained by Trautman.
The assistant editor also said that these impressions are converted into video for editing. But after the edit is complete, it goes to the original negative.
The color timer adjusts the timing of the print lights to balance the color and the cut negative is printed on rolls of film. This is a completely analog photochemical process.
Jay Trautman, who worked for a year as an assistant editor on “Oppenheimer”
In this case, it’s more like recording music to tape, mixing it on an analog mixer, and then turning the final product into a vinyl record. It never goes through a computer.
No wonder, the final product is a behemoth. The original rolls of the film “Oppenheimer” – the “vinyl records” that will play in just 30 cinemas around the world – are 18 km long and weigh 272 kg.
a practical matter
When recording to film, the footage must be digitized for the visual effects (those of computer graphics) and then re-recorded to film.
This is the main reason why Christopher Nolan doesn’t like to use visual effects in his productions, according to Trautman.
My preference is always to do as much camera stuff as possible.
Christopher Nolan, director of “Oppenheimer”
It’s not that the director hates CGI (acronym in English for “computer graphics”). In fact, he hates taking footage from a purely photochemical process and making it digital.
In addition, the black and white scenes of “Oppenheimer” were also shot on film. And the monochrome coloring is also “natural”. This is because they were recorded on black and white film.
However, until then, there was no black and white film for IMAX cameras. So Nolan’s team had to create it. Make a commitment to this project, right?
‘Oppenheimer’
“Oppenheimer” is a historical drama film directed by Nolan and based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning biopic “American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer,” written by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin.
Set in World War II, the feature film (three hours) follows the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy), a theoretical physicist at the University of California and director of the Los Alamos Laboratory during the Manhattan Project, whose mission was to design and build the first atomic bombs.
The plot accompanies the physicist and a group of other scientists throughout the process of developing the nuclear weapon responsible for the tragedies in the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, in 1945.
In addition to Cillian Murphy, the cast includes other well-known names. Among them are: Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Robert Downey Jr., Florence Pugh, Gary Oldman, Gustaf Skarsgård and Rami Malek.
The movie hits theaters on July 21 – coincidentally, the same day as “Barbie.” Coincidence that, together with heavy marketing campaigns, has produced many memes.
Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” post is analog and that makes a difference, first appeared on Olhar Digital.
Source: Olhar Digital
Rose James is a Gossipify movie and series reviewer known for her in-depth analysis and unique perspective on the latest releases. With a background in film studies, she provides engaging and informative reviews, and keeps readers up to date with industry trends and emerging talents.
