In fact, compared to Billy Lynn three years ago, Ang Lee has made a lot of progress, that is, he has studied how to guide actors to perform under 120 frames. Gemini Killer's performance is much more natural than Billy Lynn's, and the actors' subtle expressions and body movements are no longer as pretentious as in Billy Lynn's. From this, it can be seen that Li An is really enterprising, and it is not Jiang Lang's talent, so he can only simply show off gimmicks.
A discussion point that has always been inseparable from 120 frames is that there is no sense of cinema. After watching these two 120-frame movies, many people simply and rudely think that the movie sense is 24 frames. In fact, it is not. What is the sense of film? The sense of film is the exquisite light and shadow, the composition with a clear direction to the performance, the creative movement of the mirror, and the integrated narrative rhythm. These things are largely missing from Gemini Man and Billy Lynn.
If you want to prove this point of view from the opposite side, in fact, it is enough to compare it with the Hobbit series. The Hobbit also has a high frame rate. Although it does not reach 120 frames, the Hobbit has everything that 24 frames should have, but the frame rate has changed. The so-called high-definition documentary does not feel as abrupt as Ang Lee's films. If you look closely at the trailer for Gemini Man, it looks like an American drama from ten years ago. A lot of people think that Ang Lee is trying to create a new grammar of film, but I personally prefer to think that this is just a regression in technique, but the reason for this regression is the most curious point.
Anyone who knows a little about Ang Lee knows that he was born in scriptwriting, so his early films were relatively crude in terms of images compared to the script. Later, he has achieved success in such films as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Lust, Caution, and Juvenile PI. After making great progress, no one will pick out what's wrong with Ang Lee's images. But the two 120 frames give me the feeling that Ang Lee seems to have lost his memory, he has forgotten everything he has learned in the past ten years.
According to my experience, my personal guess on this issue is: 120 frames itself and the increased workload it brings have brought a lot of trouble to Ang Lee, and may also bring a lot of trouble to his communication with various departments of the crew. came to trouble. In interviews, Ang Lee often said that he did not understand technology. I believe he was not humble. After the release of Billy Lynn and Gemini Man, he often said that he was very anxious. When people don't know what to do and can't do anything, they are likely to say: there is no way, that's it. At least according to my personal experience and observations.
The proportion of Billy Lynn's action scenes is too low, so there are mainly two problems exposed by it. One is that the performance is not natural enough, which has been solved in Gemini Killer. The second is the lighting problem. Billy Lynn's indoor lighting looks like the effect of a new film and television worker using hundreds of LED panel lights. It lacks the proper sense of space, and the artificial traces are too heavy. In theory, 120 frames requires five times the illumination than 24 frames. Of course, this problem can be alleviated by increasing the ISO of the machine. The camera's high sense has also made great progress in recent years, but I have not used these machines, no Determine if illumination gaps of up to five times can be addressed. I have not heard that the manufacturer has specially developed new lamps for 120 frames. Regarding the lighting problem, my guess is that many soft light blocking techniques of 24 frames are no longer applicable under the illumination requirement of 120 frames, which has brought great trouble to Ang Lee, so I can only compromise and accept the current result.
As a pure action film, Gemini Man has exposed a new problem, that is, the randomness of lens design. This problem was especially obvious when Will Smith Jr. appeared for the first time. Many shots were taken like the VLOG of the UP master of station B. They were panned around with a wide angle, and there was no movement of the lens that showed the action. And scene scheduling, just filming the content, and relying solely on the 120-frame presence to bring a novel experience.
Moreover, Gemini Killer should have used HDR technology, the latitude has been improved and the light is more casual, as if everyone has become lazy, anyway, it will not be overexposed and underexposed, so the lights will not be turned on. The scene where this problem is more obvious is Will Smith receiving guests at his home and visiting friends on a boat. The sunlight outside the floor-to-ceiling windows of his house and the brightness of the interior are maintained at a very close level. I don’t know much about HDR, but from the My personal impression, I think it looks uncomfortable, it seems very inconsistent, a bit contrary to the visual habits of the human eye.
The above are all my xjb guesses, after all, I didn't stand next to Ang Lee and the others to watch them shoot. Finally, a conclusion: I personally still tend to think that 120 frames will not be the future of movies, but from the current point of view, 120 frames is worth exploring, and it needs a ruthless man like Ang Lee to explore.
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