(New Look) MerseyBeat

A new season of the Liverpool based police drama series "MerseyBeat" has just started on BBC ONE.
And there's one little technicality . . . for this season, they've done away with the filmic look they've
used in all three previous seasons of "MerseyBeat". It looks so much better this way as well . . .

I dont think it does look better. The filmic look made it look like a professional quality drama, now it just looks like 'the bill'. Well one is located in liverpool, the other's full of scousers!

I know you were probabally expecting this from me, but I also think it looks better. IMO it brings the action closer becuase it looks like it's "live" and happening now. The filmic looks takes that away. They still seem to have some "filmic" camera angles still around though, however they still seem to look good. It seems quite often that the filmic look is added to shows that didn't use it before, but it seems rare for a show that did use it to stop using it (the only example I know of is My Family- there probabally are more though).

It looks like the trendyness of slapping the filmic look anywhere & everywhere is starting to die out. Hopefully in a couple of years it will only really be used where it will work to great effect rather than just slapped on where they feel like. Over the next 2-3 years we might see this happen, one of the shows I'd like to see drop it is Byker Grove. I think the filmic look isn't working there (admittadly I am a couple of years outside the show's target audience, but I still enjoy the show). The filmic look should be reserved for proffesional drama series and some documentries where it works, not sitcoms, soapy dramas or performance (Anyone who saw MTV's EMAs will know how bad they looked) where most of the time it just doesn't look right.

Hmm, made by BBC Birmingham . . . interesting . . . !


As for the "filmic" look . . . here's a radical and groundbreaking idea . . .

If TV drama producers want to acheive an authentic "filmic" look in their production that doesn't look
flickery or otherwise crap they use . . . film . . . ! In real film cameras, with using film processing and
editing methods. Not by adding a horrible, juddery, flickery effect to videotaped footage in post-
production, that looks a little bit like it's been recorded on film, even though it hasn't . . . !

Or - they could, like Rockface, shoot on HDTV, still save money, and still shoot at 24 or 25fps...

'fraid I do - rather than looking like video that has been flickered and is pretending to be film, it looks like what it is... video...

To me it looks less "dramatic" and more "realistic" - it is also about 1000 times less pretentious.

Trouble is, filming in HDTV format at the moment, is just a pointless waste of money and resources.

Why?

Because there are no HDTV channels available in the UK, and about 99.9% of the UK population
have no access to, or can even afford to buy HDTV equipment to watch any HDTV broadcasts.

By the time any reasonable number of TV channels in the UK broadcast in HDTV format, and
the majority of the population can afford to buy suitable HDTV receivers, programs such as
the like of MerseyBeat, Rockface and other similar drama series, that may (or may not)
use the "filmic" effect will have already been shown on UKGold umpteen times.

(Why on God's earth CBS use HDTV cameras for taping Letterman, goodness only knows!)

Using Progressive HD is still a step up from the filmic look as they are shooting it at 24/25 (25 is probabally better if destined for the UK) fps rather than cutting it down from 50. I presume it's still possible to use interlaced HD as well?

Err - but the point is that shooting in HD is now cheaper than shooting on film. If you shoot 24 or 25 frames progressive you achieve a look, and quality, that is much nearer to film than flickered video (which normally suffers from resolution reduction and excessive flicker when converted from 50fields to 25frames)

Whether or not you have an outlet for HDTV it still makes financial sense to shoot on HD rather than film these days.

You don't even have to post-produce in HD - though for overseas sales to countries like Australia that buy a lot of UK programmes and are also 50Hz based it makes sense.

As for the US - think of HD in the same way as the UK is moving to 16:9. As HDTV sets are getting cheaper, and DTV delivery systems gaining market penetration there are more and more outlets for HDTV viewers to watch. Whether Letterman directly benefits from HD - the more HD programmes that are broadcast the more likely people will be to make their next TV purchase an HD model.

Yep - most HDTV kit sold these days that is 1080 line 24/25/30 progressive can also operate in 50/60 interlaced modes. The interlaced modes obviously look like video rather than film in motion rendition terms. You can broadcast a 1080/24 or 25p shot programme in 1080/50i in just the same way as you broadcast a 24/25fps film on 50Hz 625 TV.