Predator grain in waterfall shot

[petehammer]

Hi everyone,

With the release of "Predator" on Blu-Ray, I'm curious if anyone else noticed the incredibly amount of grain in the shot when Arnie goes over the waterfall. It looks like it was shot in 16mm or something with drastically more grain. I haven't seen the Blu-Ray version, but it is this way in all DVD releases that I've seen. Does anyone know why this is? It jumped out at me and seems incredibly out of place in the movie, almost like it was the 12th camera running and had the only usable footage and so they went with it.

Here is a review which mentions it... text search for "grain"

http://filmfreakcentral.net/dvdreviews/predator.htm

I'm curious if it actually was shot on worse film.

[J.M. Vargas]

Bad news: http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/609/predator.html. It's part of the original film stock due to the rough shooting conditions, so there!

[petehammer]

THanks for your reply. I figured it wasn't due to digital compression or anything. I'm just curious as to why they chose to shoot on such poor film stock just for that shot.

[Jim_Thomas]

THanks for your reply. I figured it wasn't due to digital compression or anything. I'm just curious as to why they chose to shoot on such poor film stock just for that shot.

My guess--That was shot in a large open space at night; the water meant that they had to keep lights further away than they otherwise would--result--not enough lights and they had to use a faster--and grainier film stock.

[Steve T Power]

80's filmstock generally sucked. It was heavier, and retained some great color - but it was pretty grainy, and often had a lower contrast look, which leads to a lot of 80's flicks looking like they were shot on an overcast day (even when they weren't).

Color correction/color grading also was nowhere near what it is today.

[B5Erik]

I've always thought that was a wide shot that they just zoomed in on.

It just happened to be the best shot they had, so they went with it and zoomed in - increasing the size of the grain and making that grain much more prominent/noticeable.

That's been my take on it since the movie first came out.

[petehammer]

B5,

That makes sense, thanks for your explanation. I'll have to watch it again. Because it made no sense to me why they'd switch to an inferior film stock, but if they zoomed it it would have the same defects. Good call!

[molly1216]

Bad news: http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/609/predator.html. It's part of the original film stock due to the rough shooting conditions, so there!

i noticed it when i saw it the 1st time in the theater, and that was the conclusion I came to, the second unit couldn't get close enough.
and never even thought about it again until you brought it up. funny how the brain works.

[chris_mcclinch]

THanks for your reply. I figured it wasn't due to digital compression or anything. I'm just curious as to why they chose to shoot on such poor film stock just for that shot.

My guess--That was shot in a large open space at night; the water meant that they had to keep lights further away than they otherwise would--result--not enough lights and they had to use a faster--and grainier film stock.

As a photographer, this explanation rings true. I don't know much about film stock, but the trade-off for high ISO (highly light sensitive) still film is increased grain--just like the trade-off for high ISO stills in a digital camera is increased digital noise. Still, when it makes the difference between getting the shot and not getting the shot, you load your fast film or crank the ISO setting and shoot away.

[Tinderbox]

I've always thought that was a wide shot that they just zoomed in on.

It just happened to be the best shot they had, so they went with it and zoomed in - increasing the size of the grain and making that grain much more prominent/noticeable.

That's been my take on it since the movie first came out.

This was always my opinion as well. The grain looks much larger, more than would occur from higher ISO film stock or pushed processing.

What bugged me more about this sequence is the POV shot looking down when our hero first slides off the edge of the cliff. It's obvious that he (and the camera) doesn't have an enough momentum or arc to reach the water and would instead hit the rocks or shoreline below.