If you had asked me how much of the outdoor shots on TV were faked, I wouldn't have guessed 100%:
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When you shoot everything in digital video rather than Betamax or 16mm, it's a heck of a lot easier to fool the viewer's brain. One, because digital has gotten super-duper good at feathering out the edges when someone's in front of a green screen. Two, because the artists and designers are better at softening the focus of stuff that's supposedly far away. Three, because viewers are more used to the fakey-flat, digital look (think "Episode IV" compared to "Episode III"), and the brain is more willing to suspend its disbelief. Viewers see more movies projected digitally, or on a TV screen, than they used to. So with analog film, which is actually three-dimensional with the emulsion on it, you get a depth of field there on the screen that you don't get with a flat digital signal.
It's like audiophiles complaining that CDs are tinny compared to the richness of sound you get from analog-recorded vinyl.
Anyway, now you know why the "Heroes" clip may look a little weird to you, though you've never been able to put your finger on it: the background is moving a little too fast in relation to how the camera is moving around the actor, even though the actor isn't standing totally still. That's bad editing. They had a certain number of seconds of fake Times Square, and a larger number of seconds of the actor. The editing technology should have been up to the task to slow down the fake Times Square footage smoothly and sync it up with the actor.
Posted by: Glomarization | February 18, 2010 at 03:25 PM