GH2 shot sci-fi Upstream Color breaks $300,000 mark at the US box office

[Sean Cunningham]

Actually it can cost a lot more than $30M to market a film. With animated films the budget for marketing is usually similar to budget to make the film, 100-150M.

 

Hats off to this guy.

 

It can.  What someone will spend isn't necessarily the same as what they have to spend (or feel they have to spend).  Soderberg's point was that is what studios feel they have to spend to market a film, any film, here in the States (and another chunk as big overseas).  He further illustrated why they are far more willing to do this for a film that costs $60M than they are a film that costs $6M, because the cost to market both are essentially equal and there are very, very few precedents for low budget films earning $300+Million at the box office or even close.  

 

Those are odds they're not playing and they don't know how to scale back from $30M minimum marketing to a proportional amount based on the cost of a cheaper film.

[Lucian]

Hopefully once the move to streaming has shaken out, some alternative models for marketing lower budget films will come about.

[andy lee]

It just goes to show that the camera is not an issue to artistic greatness

If people like your story what you are doing it will sell.

Look at the Dogme 95 movement and what they achieved

if they had had a GH2 they would have been kicking out some amazing films now

 

The GH2 is a great camera and now the G6 (with the same sensor) is released soon the legacy continues

more films will be made with this camera

[mjfan]

do you think the g6 without the hack will be as good as a hacked gh2?

[andy lee]

G6 unhacked is so far looking very very good see Julian's A/B test on this forum of Hacked GH2 v G6

[moebius22]

Anyone know the glass that was used?

[Chrad]

Anyone know the glass that was used?

At least the Voightlanders and Samyang 85mm.

[cloudsorghosts]

I saw Upstream at Sundance earlier this year and Shane Carruth gave a lengthy Q&A afterwards. I loved the film, both style and content, but it certainly won't be for everyone. The plot becomes somewhat inscrutable by the end and disintegrates into a kind of symbolic drift that I found intriguing but my partner hated. (Postmodern narrative disjunction, disintegration of stable identity and all that business. Yes it's been done before but not in this way, and the intrigue holds together until the last 20 minutes or so. I actually got the sense the film should have been about an hour longer, or possibly two parts in a series.) I love directors that take risks and put forward an idiosyncratic and clearly personal vision that will alienate some viewers while entrancing others. Not to mention the film is visually gorgeous from front to back. 

 

I had no idea it was shot on the GH2; in fact, Carruth deflected multiple questions about the production (the theater was full of amateur dps, so this was their primary interest) preferring to focus on people's emotional/psychological reactions to the film, which was understandable. Apparently after Primer he was in talks for years with a big studio to make a $XXXmillion sci-fi feature based on a partial script he'd written, but found the process so tedious and soul-numbing he decided to walk away and make Upstream independently.

 

Despite his reticence I would definitely be curious to know more about his setup, GH2 hack, glass, etc, if this information is out there. One thing this film does is demonstrate the crucial importance of good sound work. The sound effects and mixing are phenomenal and play a large part in the storyline. Would also like to hear about the recording process for the film. 

[Cfreak]

Thank to Andrew's article I caught it last Thursday on the last day it was screening in my city. It wasn't the largest cinema, but, still the big screen (ca. 40 feet wide). First, the film is very original and intriguing, storytelling in a way I haven't seen before. That being said, the content kept the surprises coming rather sideways, if that makes sense.

 

IQ: I arrived a few minutes late and the film had already started. It was screened in a science museum, I had to walk all the way throught the museum and to a lower level to find the cinema. I guess they don't show trailers there. As I took my seat, my first impression was that the whole image was overall a bit soft. It may have been the projector or the source. I don't know. As I can't help myself, my first instinct was too look for signs that this was shot on a GH2. After 20 minutes I hadn't seen any moire or banding and just forgot about it and got into the story. Not once in the film did I see something that would have clued me in that this was an 8-bit DSLR. I was looking for it, but, didn't see moire in the hair of the actress, as someone here reported. That being said I did feel that overall the film was shot rather close, there were few wide shots and they weren't held very long, if memory serves. Wether intentional or not, this will help to reveal the banding  and tiny moire problems the GH2 has. After the credits ended a "BluRay" logo was displayed on the screen, leading me to wonder had it been played back off BR? The only other time I saw a film in this theater was last fall at a film fest, where a friend screened her 1st feature (shot on Red) and she screened it off BluRay, and the IQ looked flawless. So I do believe they screened it of BR.

 

I would be very curious to know what, if any, image improvements they made to it during post.

 

In any event, it's a film definitely worth checking out if you get the chance. Some will love it, some will hate it. He took risks, that's what counts.

 

PS: Does anyone know which city it was where they met on the street car? USA? Canada? Tx.

[Chrad]

Sounds like it was screened from the Blu-Ray at your cinema. Depending on the quality of the projector used, that could account for the softness of the image. I worked in a cinema where the Blu-Ray screenings were done with a lower quality projector, and I could always tell.

[PSimpso]

We've seen photos of them shooting with the GH2, but how do we know they used the hack?