As he began preparations to make back-to-back films about the historic World War II battle for Iwo Jima—Flags of our Fathers and the upcoming Letters from Iwo Jima—director Clint Eastwood reports that he seriously investigated using high-definition cameras to make the movies. Eastwood had DP Tom Stern’s camera team and HD camera operator Liz Radley conduct a series of tests to compare footage from various HD camera systems with 35mm film footage. At the end of the day, Eastwood chose to continue shooting film as he always has for the project, although he did bring both movies to Technicolor Digital Intermediates (TDI) for the first digital intermediates of his storied career. (See an upcoming issue of Millimeter for a detailed examination of the DI work done on both movies.)
Despite the decision to shoot film, however, Eastwood did decide to include some HDV POV-style footage in both movies for specific creative reasons. He says the overall experience has moved him closer to fully entering the HD acquisition universe.
“I looked at all the [available] digital cameras, and tested them against film to see if the digital age was here completely,” Eastwood recently told Millimeter. “I know, some day, that will be it. But for this project, I felt HD did not hold up quite enough compared to film for the way I wanted it to look. It obviously had some advantages, but I just felt I couldn’t control atmospheres as well—I couldn’t get quite as deep into the blacks as I wanted. So I decided to shoot film. It was almost like they needed to go another millimeter before HD gets to where I want it to be. I’m sure [manufacturers] will get there before long the way things are progressing. They are already so close. But for me anyway, the main advantage I’m looking for is portability—small cameras. Some of the systems we tested were really big. I’m looking for the day they can be as small as [a tape recorder] and still look great on the screen. That’s kind of what I was thinking about when I had the idea of using HD cameras [to capture frenetic battle footage].”
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