Nonetheless, Willems concedes that Marvel Studios, whose films have all brought in between $260 million and $1.5 billion worldwide, has probably done market research to support their color grading decisions. ![]() Willems suggests that films like Spotlight and Sicario may be better suited to the more muted, flat visuals produced in uncompressed digital footage because their stories revolve around real worlds and events, while fantastical superhero epics should offer bright images that “pop off the screen.” This subjectivity is critical in deciding whether highly boosted, stylized imagery is more desirable than subdued, more realistic coloration for any given project. It’s more dynamic, it has more definition, and it looks like what I think a superhero movie should look like.” Comparing the before and after, he notes, “I know these are aesthetics, and thus are totally subjective, but I think that’s a much more vibrant image. In an example of his own, Willems demonstrates the key role that pure black values play in making images deep and vibrant by briefly adjusting the saturation and color levels of a short segment of Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy. The result was this washed-out, flat imagery characteristic of Marvel’s films. There was a trend in the early 2000’s of omitting the inking stage of making comics art, most notably in Salvador Larroca’s art in X-Treme X-Men. The black inking is essential because it gives contrast and definition to the image. Comic books have traditionally been drawn in three stages: a pencil design of the image is overlaid with black ink and then filled in with coloring. Willems points out that films like Pacific Rim and Mad Max: Fury Road were both shot on the Arri Alexa and look cinematographically fantastic because the darkest parts of the images you see on screen have been reduced to pure black during color grading, making the surrounding colors pop.Ī great illustrative example for the mechanics of Marvel’s color problem given in the video is the process of creating comics artwork. Many people will argue that digital cinematography can look just as good as film. The result is that they’re left with grey, flat, dull images which are, in Willems’ opinion, unbefitting to the superhero blockbuster aesthetic. Strange which was released last month, is that they don’t use color grading effectively to boost the digital footage captured by the Arri Alexa. However, Willems explains in his video that the problem with Marvel’s latest eleven films, including Dr. Because of this, state-of-the-art digital cameras aim to capture as much information as possible so that the finished product is the highest possible quality after color grading. First applied to an entire feature film for O Brother, Where Art Thou? in 2000, the process of color grading, or the digital manipulation of the tones and colors of raw footage, lessens the quality of the image. After switching from film to digital upon completing their fourth film, Thor, Marvel Studios have predominantly used the Arri Alexa, which together with the RED series cameras comprise the industry standard for high-end digital cinema.Ĭapturing such a large range of information is desirable specifically so that when you color grade the movie in post-production there’s still a large spectrum of color tones left over in the finished images after manipulation. Log images shot by digital cameras look like this because they contain a ton of information, have far less contrast, and acquire far greater dynamic range. In contrast, when shooting digital, as virtually every filmmaker in the industry does today, the images are captured in log format which produces a grey, milky image that lacks pure black sections. When shooting film, you start with a blank negative and specific parts are exposed to light during filming, leaving sections that will become pure black during processing. The problem begins with the difference between the ways that film and digital cinema cameras capture images. It’s a great scene-but that’s really ugly. Why do all Marvel movies look like muddy concrete? Look at that. Ever wondered why Marvel’s notoriously action-packed films portray the explosive visuals of superheroism in dull, flat, milky cinematic color schemes? In a new YouTube video essay titled Why Do Marvel’s Movies Look Kind of Ugly?, Patrick Willems (creator of the YouTube hit What if Wes Anderson Directed X-Men?) explains the reasons behind this phenomenon, and offers insight into the challenges of digital cinematography.
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