Back then, i hadn't done a degree in photography.. Now i have, and the level of appreciation sky rocketed for the amazing footage captured... i now know the kind of challenges they would have had to face to gain the images they did.
Ok, so thats only one aspect of it... The film itself was captured in large format analogue film.... yes u know, the old stuff... not the digital HD gear that is used today. Don't for a second though regard that as inferior... quite the contrary. For a few scientific reasons im not going to go into, film surpasses digital capture on a number of aspects... being exposure and contrast curves. It can be simulated on digital, and even surpassed in a few areas such as dynamic range, but that still has to be controlled and outputted, and the organic feel of film is often lost. Besides that, film of that format has unparalleled resolution. Using the scanning techniques they used, and only just approaching the recorded films capabilities, they reached a resolution of 8000 pixels in width, and over 30 TB of information. It was then downscaled to match 1080p. The results are phenomenal. Once again,its not just the quality, but the nature of the shots acquired. I'll leave Nige to explain the natural and social significance of the film itself, because even though i understand what it's trying to portray, and the juxtaposition of many of the scenes, its not my area of specialty.
What i CAN tell you, is that this film.. on blue ray.. on a decent HD tele... and to top it off, with surround sound.. is the most amazing visual and audible experience i have ever.. um.. experienced
If you have a blue ray player, and good tele... this is a MUST buy.
