During an interview four years ago, Jesús Colmenar, the executive director and producer of Money Heist, didn’t think that UHD HDR would be accepted by viewers. What follows is an excerpt from that interview.
And I guess “Money Heist” is being prepared for 8K.
Migue Amoedo: We are shooting in 7K with an 8K sensor, but as I want to use Leica Summilux optics, angle shots do not cover 8K in full. That is why we are shooting at 7K. And then it is lowered to 4K. And just today we have started doing tests for HDR.
Do you think these formats will be welcomed by viewers?
Jesús Colmenar: Everything has to do with the market. To this question, the answer is a clear ‘no’. In fact, I am not really keen with HDR, because definition is already so high that it impacts on image. We are shooting in 7K because of the market and we will shoot in HDR because of the market also.
Migue Amoedo: That is the first answer and the good one, as for a platform such as Netflix, HDR opens a new sector within users, which means an increased fee for having access to content of a given quality. It is clear that they want production number two in number of viewers in their platform to be shot in HDR and we have to do it that way, And then, HDR is like color. What happened when color first arrived? Productions were over-saturated. When you watch “Wizard of Oz”, the yellow bricks really jump to your eyes. But it is true that is yet another tool that has to be handled and managed. On the other hand, there is another circumstance in regard to, resolution, those “Ks”. We are in a Babel-like war around resolution that is leading us to be increasingly less familiar with the cameras we use. With all these changes, no one can really master all camera manuals. But I always say: “Money Heist” was ordered in 2K and it was shot in 3.2K. Back then I had to quarrel with everyone to shoot it with the highest quality available at the time in Alexa Mini. But thanks to that little extra resolution we had, we were able to go to 4K and that is why they bought the series from us and positioned it the way they did. We always tend to think in present terms, but we lovers of movie history know the present is already past. Then we must think how we want people to view it, but not only now, also in the future. I will always try to shoot in the highest resolution possible, with maximum quality, maximum sharpness, with the broadest color space, because I expect that in the future someone will be able to watch “Money Heist” and enjoy as they do today. And, in fact, throughout history of Spanish filmmaking many movies were lost because of this somewhat austere thinking in regard to productions. I think in the future much present-day content will be recoverable and we creators have a certain degree of responsibility in packing all this to make it last as much as possible.
Migue Amoedo was a cinematographer on the hit Money Heist (2017-2021) and cinematographer and co-executive producer of the remarkable Sky Rojo (2021-2023).
Jesús Colmenar was an executive producer and director of Money Heist and Sky Rojo.
As a Panasonic TV ambassador, Migue Amoedo was quoted as saying,
“We live in an ideal moment, in which we have a “perfect canvas” where we can capture and carry out our creativity. OLED, 4K, HDR… are new tools that allow us to nuance that silent discourse that we articulate around the stories and thus faithfully reproduce our ideas.” “HDR opens up a new world for us, showing us things you didn’t see before. A greater range of luminosity that shows us a quality of images never seen before.”
Sky Rojo is as excellent an example of HDR filmmaking and grading as we can think of.
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