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Delivering 8K VFX Shots For the Dark Knight
Posted by
timothy
on Fri Jul 25, 2008 03:30 PM
from the gotta-see-it-soon dept.
from the gotta-see-it-soon dept.
agent4256 writes "Barbara Robertson over at Studio Daily put forth this article featuring the technical background for the production of The Dark Knight. With most of the film shot with IMAX cameras (producing a theoretical resolution of 18k), the studios could not handle the size. Instead, they cut the resolution by more than half, down to 8K, the maximum resolution for scanned film. 'A single 8K frame requires 200 MB of data,' Franklin says. 'So we had to upgrade our whole infrastructure. We needed faster network speeds to move data around, massively beefed up servers, and — the most important thing — a new compositing solution.' To give you an idea of how far technology has taken us: 'In 1999, when we worked on Pitch Black [released in 2000], we needed to access 2 TB of data,' Franklin says. 'This show used over 100 TB of data.'"
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Pitch Black? (Score:5, Funny)
"I said it looked clear!" "Well, what's it look like now?" "... Looks clear."
18k? 8k? (Score:2)
What is the meaning of these "k's" they are referencing here? I'm thinking it's not "kilo" in this case if 18k of them takes 200 gigs to store, unless they are using some kind of anti-compression on the data.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Note that the poster that you replied to already said kilo, and I'm pretty sure every person on this website knows what the prefix for thousand is. What we want to know is what the K is specifically, there are eighteen-thousand _______ per frame, and we want to know what the _______ is.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:18k? 8k? (Score:5, Informative)
K = thousand, and they're referring to lines of resolution.
For comparison, 1080p HDTV has 1080 lines of resolution. That IMAX camera records around 18,000 lines.
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Re:18k? 8k? (Score:4, Interesting)
With 1:1 pixels, 1080p*16/9 = 1920 horizontal. But if you're buying a camera, many "1080p" cameras record in 1440x1080 stretched to a 16:9 frame. Not that it's the big difference but was a little disappointing to find out (but I knew before purchase).
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Re:18k? 8k? (Score:4, Informative)
Either way, IMAX resolution FTW.
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Re:18k? 8k? (Score:5, Informative)
Film has a resolution, even though it isn't in the form of nice sharp-edged pixels. It's a question of how close together two objects can be and still be distinguished -- the distance is called the circle of confusion, within which the two objects are not fully distinct. Lenses, film, and printing process all play a role in the resolution of the final product. For test work, one usually uses a printed image with a very fine array of slowly converging lines, and you look for how close together the lines can get before they become indistinct. As a result, the number of (distinguishable) lines you can fit on the film is the natural way to measure its resolution. So film really does have "lines" and though they're not quite the same as in a digital system, they're remarkably close.
(Be aware there's a factor of two in there for Nyquist; a 1000 pixel wide display can only show 500 lines, obviously, and the same effect applies to analog systems.)
Of course, with better digital sensors (ie lots of megapixels), the lens quality becomes the limiting factor, and it would again make sense to speak of the imaging system in terms of lines of resolution rather than megapixels. There's a reason cheap cell phone cameras don't produce as sharp an image as a real camera with a good lens; if you want to measure the quality of the entire imaging system, you end up back with old-fashioned analog lines of resolution as one of the fundamental metrics. (Of course, there are plenty of other attributes, like various forms of noise and distortion.) If you read a good review of a digital camera, they'll point it at a test piece and measure available lines of resolution, just as they would for film.
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
A 1000 pixel display can display 500 line pairs, which is 1000 lines.
Re:18k? 8k? (Score:4, Insightful)
Because there are no physical "pixels" in analog film, you could cheat and just show a piece of film that is all black and say that it has some astronomical resolution because it is showing millions of black lines all next to eachother and even that it's resolution has a dot pitch of one molecule, but that's just engaging in pointless arguing. (I forget the logical fallacy, ad-something...)
Either way, the original point stands. No matter which of our misinformed resolution measurements we're using, IMAX is still a shockingly higher resolution than full HD; and if you've ever seen full HD up close, that's something to think about.
I guess...
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Re:18k? 8k? (Score:5, Informative)
The 'k' refers to the horizontal resolution. The vertical resolution is a given since the aspect ratio is a fixed 1.34:1.
18K means a 18000 x 13433 resolution frame.
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Re:18k? 8k? (Score:5, Informative)
You have to look at the diagram in the wikipedia article you linked. The terms 2K and 4K as used in the visual effects industry refer to frame width. 2K is 2048 wide and 4K is 4096 wide.
It is different than the terms used for HDTV, where 1080p means 1080 vertical.
(I've worked in a VFX shop)
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Wake up, mods! (Score:3, Informative)
No, GP had it right. "2K" is ~2048x1080, with some variance. With 1080 horizontal lines, and approximately 2000 (2k) horizontal pixels.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Vector_Video_Standards2.svg [wikipedia.org]
http://www.dcinematoday.com/dc/features.aspx?ID=16 [dcinematoday.com]
http://campustechnology.com/articles/45435/ [campustechnology.com]
Re:18k? 8k? (Score:5, Informative)
2k, 4k and 8k, when referred to film, are the horizontal resolution.
720p and 1080p when referred to TV sizes, refer to the vertical resolution.
Look at the image in the middle with the coloured blocks
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_cinematography [wikipedia.org] [wikipedia.org]
It shows 2K being just slightly larger than 1080p. If 2k referred to the vertical size then it would cover 4 times the area
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
an open source image editor Cinepaint [cinepaint.org] is in the middle of a rewrite to convert from GTK to FLTL, Fast Light Toolkit [fltk.org] to free up some memory and CPU cycles by using a more spartan interface. The pro's want they work to be pretty, not their software.
100TB! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:100TB! (Score:5, Funny)
I shudder to think of what 8K porn frames would be like.
Some things are just best left blurry.
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Re:100TB! (Score:5, Interesting)
Producers are taking steps to hide the imperfections. Some shots are lit differently, while some actors simply are not shot at certain angles, or are getting cosmetic surgery, or seeking expert grooming. "The biggest problem is razor burn," said Stormy Daniels, an actress, writer and director. "I'm not 100 percent sure why anyone would want to see their porn in HD."
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2TB - 100TB (Score:3, Insightful)
So it's a factor 50 in 10 years ? And we're supposed to be impressed ? That's doubling only every 7 quarters.
Wait, does that make sense? The math (Score:5, Informative)
-A single 8K frame requires 200 MB of data.
-The Dark Knight is officially listed at 2hrs 30 minutes (150 minutes= 9000seconds)
-Total usage 100 TB (5 frames a Gig, 5120 per T, 512,000+ frames)
Minimal frame rate [wikipedia.org] is ~24/s.
200 MB/frame x 9,000 sec/movie x 24 frames/second = 43200000 MB=42187.5 GB = 41.2 TB.
If the frame rate was 60 frames/second then that would be the whole film (no retakes, extras, bloopers etc).
I never realized the sheer amount of compression that is going on between the raw footage and getting it into a DVD.
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IMAX (Score:3, Informative)
Some IMAX is 48 fps. 3D IMAX can be 96 fps.
Re:Wait, does that make sense? The math (Score:4, Insightful)
I never realized the sheer amount of compression that is going on between the raw footage and getting it into a DVD.
More impressive is the IO bandwidth necessary to play back the uncompressed source in realtime.
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most of that isn't making it onto a DVD (Score:3, Interesting)
That's 8k resolution. DVD only supports 0.7K resolution.
So one of steps is to cut the image down by a factor of 10 IN BOTH DIRECTIONS.
That means 99% of the pixels are thrown away before the compression even starts.
BluRay would keep 6% of the pixels, which is a lot more, but still nothing compared to the original.
And remember the theoretical resolution of IMAX is about 5x as much again (2.3x more in each direction).
Thought it would be more, actually... (Score:5, Interesting)
Back in the mists of time, I wrote the database for the content management system that Lucas used on Star Wars I (the Phantom Menace). For reasons I won't go into, it was called 'Cakes [digitalcon...oducer.com]', but ILM rebranded it internally as Media-DB.
At the peak of filming, it was coping with 40 DTF tapes/day being ingested. A DTF held 120GB back then (I think), and they were filming for ~3 months. At the same time as ingesting, it had to stream low-res proxies of all the footage to multiple destinations (some local, some not), and deliver high-res frames across the internal network to the animators etc.
Now, I doubt it was doing 40 tapes/day solidly - it'd depend on filming, but even taking 20 tapes/day, over 3 months that comes to ~160TB (assuming a 22-working-day month).
I do have fond memories of doing the James Bond intro-sequence (The world is not enough) with Smoke & Mirrors in London. When there were thousands of frames of nearly-naked highly-attractive women having oil poured all over their bodies, the visualisation tools became... significantly more advanced at a rapid rate :-)
Simon.
IMAX - not so much (Score:3, Interesting)
TFA says:
Wikipedia says [wikipedia.org]:
TFS says:
I went to see this in IMAX, a three hour drive from here. Don't waste your time if you're thinking of doing it. It looked no better than Iron Man, which I saw in a nice new theater, non-IMAX. This wasn't IMAX at a major science center, like in NYC or Baltimore, where the screens are massive - it was in a shopping-mall IMAX where the screen was no bigger than any other in the complex. Smaller, even, I think, then their best theatre. It had a very minor curvature, I think: this isn't fill-your-visual-field like I was expecting.
Sure, the sound was punchy. But I was expecting a 60FPS 70mm 4-story extravaganza, and got a simply nice theatre, but with plenty of flicker, 35mm presentation, and no discernible benefits. It seems IMAX is following in the footsteps of THX. Moral of the story: not all IMAX theatres are created equal - check first.
I hope this will save somebody else some gas.
See it NOW, before digital projection ruins it (Score:5, Informative)
The IMAX company is currently still running most of their theaters on the 15-perf 70mm film systems, so you can still see the full 8K image to day if you want to. The problem is, they are planning to install DLP-based systems [forbes.com] that will reduce the resolution to 2K x 2K (although the article doesn't mention that). Once those are installed, you will not be able to see images like we're seeing today. The resolution will be far lower.
Even if Nolan and his team go for these kinds of high resolution images again for the next movie, there might not be any place to see it that can do it justice.
Now I know someone is going to chime in and say that film is analog, so anything digital is automatically better, but ask yourself: Would you replace a high quality analog sound system with 4-bit digital sound? That's approximately what we're talking about here. If the IMAX company were planning to tile a bunch of 2K x 2K images on the screen to produce an 8K image, or maybe use some other technology to achieve the kind of resolution they have today, then it would be a different story. But they aren't.
See it now, before they take it away.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
DLP is always 2K or less.
Re: (Score:2)
The horizontal resolution. The vertical resolution is a given since there is a fixed aspect ratio of 1.34:1.
18K means a 18000 x 13433 frame.
8K means a 8000 x 5970 frame.
Re:8K? 18K? (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:8K? 18K? (Score:5, Informative)
The reference you quote does make it clear, but you've drawn the wrong conclusion:
> 5.6K: 5616x4096; A full 5.6K was actually...
> 8K: 8192x6144; approximately ....
Thus 8K is 8192 pixels wide (not lines per frame) and 6144 pixels high. We commonly also use 2K's (2048 x 1501), 4K's (4096 x 3002), etc.
Also note that the digital professional cinema (not HDTV) industry (the world of DCI) also always uses image width rather than height to define resolutions (2K = 2048 x 1080, 4K = 4096 x 2160).
[/me = Technical Director on several digital 3D Imax films back through the late '90's -- these Hollywood guys are just now discovering stuff the rest of us have known for ages]
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You forgot a few zeros... 100 000 000 MB / 200MB = 500 000
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So, 500,000 frames in the movie. 70 fps for 120 minutes.
Re:200MB? (Score:4, Funny)
Hey, you! Did you know that you got your math wrong? I know that errors like that usually go unnoticed around here, because pedants generally don't hang out around here.
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:200MB? (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:A right-wing movie (Score:4, Insightful)
Really? You want a cookie for figuring out that the Batman is a reactionary?
-Peter
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Re:A right-wing movie (Score:5, Funny)
Except Batman doesn't inexplicably throw thousands of Robins at Catwoman after the Joker does something bad, while he sits back doing nothing
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
If there was a God, I'd thank him that I'm not you.
Re:A right-wing movie (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, no, just no. That's idiotic and is looking for deeper meaning then the meaning that is there. Have you seen the movie?
*****SPOILER ALERT***********
1. Harvey Dent attempts to torture a captured underling to get information out of him, Batman stops this, pointing out he's not going to get anything useful out of him. It was russian roulette torture, not waterboarding, but the connections should be obvious
2. Some city-wide cell-phone based surveillance system is set up by batman, and while it does work the movie makes the point that batman can't be trusted with it, he gives it to the CEO of Wayne enterprises and it gets destroyed right after the joker is caught. Again, they don't actually call it the patriot act, but the parallels are not easy to miss. Bush isn't giving the patriot act to France with the string that they destroy it once osama is caught.
3. While Batman does operate outside the law to get things done, he doesn't make that excuse to duck punishment. At the end, he actually takes on blame that shouldn't be his.
4. Batman uses his own money to fund his fight against the joker, wheras Bush spends my tax money and gives his friends tax breaks.
5. Batman refuses to kill villians and instead turns them over to the justice system. Bush attempts to kill terrorist sympathizers, and refuses to give terror suspects due process.
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Points are Incorrect (Score:5, Insightful)
Some problems. . .
1. Batman stops Harvey Dent, but then tries to extract information from the Joker by force.
2. Bush has claimed that warrant-less wiretapping was authorized by congress as part of the war effort, therefore such an authorization would end with the war.
3. If Batman doesn't duck punishment, then why doesn't he turn himself in?
4. Batman used the police force in his trap that ultimately caught the Joker, so he is not above using government money to achieve his goals. He also depends on commissioner Gordan to get leads and prosecute criminals.
5. Batman did, in fact, kill Two-Face, so he does kill villains. The Joker predicted this in the interrogation room (you'll have to break your one rule), and it is a key part of the movie.
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
No, Bush has claimed many justifications for warrantless wiretapping; he has argued, among them, that it is based on inherent Presidential powers over foreign affairs and security over which Congress has no authority whether or not there is a war; he has also claimed that if he had needed authorization for it, which he did not, the authorization for the use of military force also implicitly authorized it. He h
Re:Points are Incorrect (Score:4, Funny)
I think the writer's thoughts on the subject of spying on citizen's is actually voiced with Morgan Freeman's concerns, which is decidedly anti-surveillance.
Plus, Morgan Freeman is the only one who can be trusted with it. I'd be okay with wiretapping if Morgan Freeman had sole discresion over it. Those who set up the system (Batman here) and the enforcement (again Batman) should not be the ones in control of it.
The writer is explicitly saying we should not be wiretapping or spying on citizens, and is saying even if we did need it, we can only trust it to Morgan Freeman... or at least not Bush, congress, or law enforcement.
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Re:A right-wing movie (Score:5, Informative)
Anyone thinking Batman has a simplistic right-wing message is naive or hasn't seen the movie. The message is pretty complicated, and there's been a lot of discussion about this in blogs this week.
One of the better analysis, and some discussion which references the comic books:
http://www.cogitamusblog.com/2008/07/the-dark-night.html [cogitamusblog.com]
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Re:A right-wing movie (Score:5, Insightful)
Is it possible that not every element of a Hollywood blockbuster (and perhaps not any elements of some) is intended as political/social advocacy?
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Uh, Klavan is comparing the box office success of a comic book-based action movie that can be read in a strained way as political allegory with the returns of overtly political films and trying to read into that that the political position that the former can be stretched into an endorsement
Re:Not to be pedantic... (Score:5, Interesting)
Darren,
In the Good Old Days of photochemical process work, say on Star Wars, it was not uncommon to shoot the visual effects shots on VistaVision and the rest of the movie at normal film resolution. The idea was that the process work at the time added significant grain, blurriness, and reduced contrast to the image, so starting from a larger format with less grain helped make the visual effects shots blend in somewhat more seamlessly.
Doing the process shots on IMAX is a bit of a step up from VistaVision (ok, maybe two steps up!) but it makes some sense. Modern film stocks are much better than what was used on Star Wars, but there will always be something to be said for having more film acreage to work with.
That said -- there is a bit of "because we can" here as well. When they made The Dark Knight, they apparently didn't want to compromise in any way.
[disclaimer: I'm VFX supervisor for a film in production right now, with some 1000 shots...none of which we are doing at 8K]
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Re:Storage? (Score:5, Informative)
We at the StereoLab in the National Film Board of Canada have an infrastructure set up specifically to manage a number of simultaneous 3D productions, several in "Large Format" (i.e. Imax) resolutions and the rest in various HD and 35mm formats. It's been to make over a dozen 3D digital films in the last few years or so.
In practice we use about an equal mix of internal data server drives, SAN, NAS, and a pool of bare drives with a stack of empty shells. Often people drop a drive in a shell and attach it (via eSATA, FW800 or USB in that order of preference) to whatever machine they need it on, because it reduces network load. This technique works especially well for intermediate data that is output, reinput, and then discarded.
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