I promise you every DP you would ever talk to would say that both the grain from film stock and the noise from a digital sensor are an intentional part of the look.
That might be true in a lot of cases and since I cannot slip into their minds to verify it myself, I better give them the reasonable doubt.
However “every” and “ever” are strong words, ruling out possible cases where what was chosen simply used to be the “best” (again, in technical terms) what was available at that time, eventually limited by the technical possibilities. Same is true for other quickly changing fields such as computer games.
On a professional non-documentary production, ISO (or gain in post) is picked for aesthetics. If that weren’t the case, cine cameras would have a permanently fixed ISO wherever the dynamic range is maximized.
Here, one of my favorite movies “Collateral” comes to mind. Partly shot on video, it has a relatively high noise floor compared to newer productions with Red or Arri Alexa cameras. Does it have a distinctive look? Yes! Should that be preserved? Yes! Would the makers have chosen technically even better cameras if they had them at that time (for instance to shoot with even less additional lights, have it less grainy, etc.)? I honestly don’t know. Part of the question could be answered by checking how many movies shot on video nowadays still use that Thompson Viper FilmStream.
You are confusing delivery formats and acquisition formats.
Nice “tit-for-tat response”, but actually I don’t, although vinyl records as an example are indeed not ideal in this context. I only used them because it’s by far the most glorified end user format. Although there have been more or less direct cuts on vinyl, you’re right. Tape recordings are the better example for the acquisition context.
Even as record collector myself, I’ll admit that CD/flac replicates the master version of an album more accurately than a vinyl record; of course it does.
I wonder where the dissent is, then.
That doesn’t have anything to do with an artist’s intent.
Never claimed otherwise.
The only remark I did made was that there are technical differences of acquisition formats where one may be objectively superior than the other, making no judgement of the artistic value or intend.
However, I also see some relation between technical limitations and artistic choices as they aren’t entirely independent and also the tendency for retrospective glorification which used to be a limitation.
To a big part, I’m playing the devil’s advocate here as I myself still collect LaserDiscs or adore old video games for their style.
These records you’re referring to were most likely recorded on multitrack tape which is similar to film–any artifacts that arise from recording to this format are absolutely the intent of the sound engineer.
I remember those Warner CDs (some of them with their now quite collectible “Target” design) and their disclaimer which almost sounded like an excuse that they attempted to replicate the original master tapes as closely as possible, however due to the CD’s (actually PCM’s at 16 bit) resolution, certain shortcomings of the source might be revealed. Compared to nowdays products, they often are of excellent quality and great to collect.
@blakninja
Hope you don’t mind my little distute here with rwzmjl. Coming back to The Mask, could you kindly provide an update of what of course hasn’t been filtered or altered otherwise (in best harmony with rwzmjl)? 😋