Hacker Cinema
Layer Cake
2004 · Film · 105 min
Directed by Matthew Vaughn
When a seemingly straight-forward drug deal goes awry, XXXX has to break his die-hard rules and turn up the heat, not only to outwit the old regime and come out on top, but to save his own skin...
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6 comments on Hacker News
disclaimer: I worked in a DI lab
second disclaimer, dbspin knows all this, this is aimed at the casual observer
About 2010 was the time that digital cameras were common enough and had enough dynamic range to make "better" looking 35mm than 35mm. There were caveats, certain hella expensive fujifilm stock still looked great and had decent enough resolution if you were skilled enough. (I'm not a DoP or lighting designer so take this with that in mind)
RED gets lots of credit, but frankly they were not that great, they had optical resolution, but not very good colour or dynamic range.
However, the most important point is this, most films from about 2006 were fed through DI. This means they were scanned in, degrained, conformed (so all shots from the same scene had the sameish histogram). Then the colourist would grade it all, give it a feel ( a bit like foley/music) and it'd be lasered back out to film or sent to be packaged into a DCI.
the "feel" of film is usually added or enhanced. modern film stock isn't grainy, unless you choose it to be. (compare layer cake to harry brown) "film-y ness is a choice, in the same way that "warm" analogue sound is a choice"
It's interesting that's true even for movies where the character barely touches a gun. In the movie Layer Cake the main character even states he hates guns and loathes having to use one at one point. Yet most of the poster art features him holding a pistol.
I was wondering if this was related to the 2004 film Layer Cake. Quite happy to find it's actually a delicious cake!
It wouldn't be it was/is a fad? In the 2000s there was literally a zombie movie coming out every week it seemed. In the UK there was load of movies about the UK "underworld" e.g. Football Hooligans, Drug Dealers, Gangstars and Illegal fights (Layer Cake, Snatch, Rock and Rolla, Green Street, Football factory, The Business and my favourite Sexy Beast).
There is generally a new film genre that does really well and people copy it chasing the money as people tend to want more initially until it is played out.
I live in "Lost Angeles" and former police chief Bill Bratton took credit for any statistic he could. It's my belief that the reason for crime reduction here in L.A. is that the standard of living has gone up via social services and drugs as a income vehicle are more ubiquitous. (See the first 60-seconds of the intro to the film "Layer Cake" where the bank robbers realize they "are in the wrong game..." http://youtu.be/QHKI8zMHCjE )
Then there is credit card fraud too which is non-violent. In other words info and contraband crimes.
Just a thought...
You know, I can't help but be reminded of the movie Layer Cake ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0375912/ ), where the main character, a drug dealer kingpin, points out that drugs will be legal some day, and that people like him are just ahead of the curve as far as making a business out of giving people the drugs they want.
Thinking of it from this angle, if drugs were to indeed be legalised (as in, like cigarettes - not just decriminalised), the possibilities for innovation, product development, etc, would be pretty enormous. You want to build a product that people just keep coming back to? Here it is.
Sure, eventually, this market would become like food or, at best, cigarettes - with smaller margins, and not much innovation. But it would take a while, I imagine, and in the meantime, there would be a lot of potential innovations, experimentations, etc.
Just a thought...