MovieChat Forums > Lady Chatterley (2006) Discussion > Really shot in 35mm?

Really shot in 35mm?

posted 17 years ago by mpaulshore
13 replies | jump to latest

(July 27, 2007) The "technical specs" page for Lady Chatterley lists the film negative format as being 35mm; but can that really be true? I saw the movie last night at the Landmark E Street Cinema in Washington, D.C., a recently built theater that's noteworthy for its high technical standards; and the film, though of course it was projected in 35mm, looked for all the world to me as if it had been shot in 16mm, from the graininess to the mediocre definition to the lack of color richness and color detail. Is there anyone out there who has some solid information on which film format this movie was in fact shot in?

[–] mickeykuyo 17 years ago

I have seen it on big screen, the copy I had was from a 35 master...

[–] mpaulshore 17 years ago

I saw Lady Chatterley on the big screen too (i.e., not on video), as I've stated in my original post; and the theater where I saw it showed a 35mm print of it, as virtually any commercial movie theater in the developed world would do. That 35mm print was, by definition, made from a 35mm master (or "internegative", to use the technical term). But all that is irrelevant to my question, which is, which format was the film shot in? Like many other low-budget films, it could have been shot in 16mm and then blown up to 35mm. If you're claiming to know that the film was shot in 35mm, what's your proof?

[–] rupertbreheny 17 years ago

Saw it today digitally projected, and looking at the grain in the low-light shots and some of the artefacting in very dark scenes I'm inclined to think it was shot digitally and then duped to film for those cinemas without digital projectors.

On the upside it was in focus throughout, and was a lot more atmospheric through its use of natural lighting in many scenes. Fast moving shots and shots of branches against darkening skies looked a bit rough though.

www.breheny.com

[–] ccstirkjr 17 years ago

I saw Lady Chatterley (2006) last night at Theatre N in Wilmington Delaware U.S.A. & there was something wrong with the Digital Encoding ..

Theatre N uses digital projection

Projection was slightly soft not out of focus , low contrast or general lack of dynamic range .

As soon as the previews ( formatted correctly )were over & the film started several in the audience called out focus ....

So it is not just an issue with the 35 mm print of the film

I am sure this was a beautifully shot film but the technical issues with projection greatly detracted from the theatre experience

[–] Absinthevideo 17 years ago

I think it's shot in 16mm. The grain reminds me of other films shot in 16 and blown up. I don't think it's video. The picture is not that flat.

[–] mpaulshore 17 years ago

ccstirkjr: In your September 1st post, you contradict yourself about what the source of the problem might be.

On the one hand, you speculate that "there was something wrong with the [d]igital [e]ncoding" of Lady Chatterley (which you then refer to later in the post as a "projection" problem), and you state "I am sure this was a beautifully shot film", a statement that seems to imply you think there's nothing wrong with the original source material.

On the other hand, you say "it is not just an issue with the 35mm print of the film", which implies that you think that the problem must in fact be in the original source material.

You should think these things through before posting.

By the way, you also state that the previews were "formatted correctly"; but based on the context you seem to merely mean that they were in focus and had good color. That's not a formatting issue. Learn the meaning of the terms you use!

[–] Aunt-Peg 17 years ago

I've just gotten back from a screening of the film (in Sydney Australia where the film opened in the past week) and it looked like digital projection. It was very grainy and the image was soft.

It's hard to same how it was filmed but it certainly didn't look like 35mm.

[–] mpaulshore 17 years ago

Precious-3:

First of all, your thoughts about whether the screening of Lady Chatterley that you saw in Sydney did or didn't look like digital projection aren't really relevant here. The point of this thread is to ascertain the filming format, not to chat about the screening format at this or that theater. And it shouldn't be necessary for you to indulge in conjectures about the screening format: if you want to know what it was, just ask the theater's management or staff.

Second, the "look" of theatrical digital projection is more a non-look than anything else: it looks like well-focused 35mm or 70mm without scratches. It's never struck me as looking appreciably higher-resolution than well-focused 35mm or 70mm. When you say "it looked like digital projection. It was very grainy and the image was soft", it almost seems as if you're saying that graininess and softness are the natural look of theatrical digital projection. Is that what you meant? If it is, then you're mistaken. Perhaps you're confusing theatrical digital projection with the medium-resolution digital video formats that in recent years have sometimes been used to make rather cruddy-looking documentaries and low-budget dramatic features.

Having said all that, I concur with your impression of the film's overall technical visual quality, and your impression that it doesn't look as if it was filmed in 35mm. Perhaps it was filmed in 16mm, or made in some inferior video format. I repeat my call for anyone who has inside technical information about the film's production to come forward with the answer to this question.

[–] 17 years ago

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[–] ccstirkjr 16 years ago

According to the distributor Lady Chatterley (2006) was shot on 35 mm . ...

The distributor in the states was delivered soft looking 35 mm prints & the digital file for projection had the same soft looking quality ..

So this was some sort of post production issue ...

[–] jkhuysmans0 16 years ago

Good question. But the "grain" is very likely an artistic decision that was achieved by the selection of particular film speed (ASA) or it could have very well be applied in post. There again, with the "soft look," probably another directorial choice, well suited to the film I might add, can be accomplished by the use of high dispersion lens filter or in the post production phase. As to the lack of color, the film is really desaturated which has nothing to do with shooting format. None of the above characteristics to the film's are necessarily indicators of 16 mm film, not these days. It could be that Chatterley was shot on Super 16 mm, an increasingly popular format for smaller films, which can render an anamorphic widescreen format while standard 16 does not. If indeed the film wasn't shot on 35 mm, that's certainly be a curious misrepresentation, and they probably shouldn't do that.

[–] eolloe 10 years ago

Trying to watch it on streaming Netflix.
I reloaded the stream a couple of times at the beginning, thinking I must have a bad internet connection because it was blurry.

I see from this discussion that that's just how this film looks!

[–] eolloe 10 years ago

For what it's worth, it won a 2007 César award for cinematography.