Now that we live in the future, there are more ways than ever for us to watch all those new movies and TV shows out there. Most of the time, we don’t even need to leave our beds to catch our favorites, modern streaming capabilities allowing us to watch a huge percentage of entertainment on our computers or phones. Content is more accessible than ever, but many directors are worried that we aren’t watching their movies the right way.
You might not know it, but your fancy TV is probably using something called “motion smoothing” that makes all your fun football games look great, and all your movies and prestige television dramas look horrible. Maybe you’ve never noticed this, maybe you don’t care, but Christopher Nolan cares, a lot. And even if you want to do what’s right and make Christopher Nolan happy, you might find yourself struggling to figure out how to correct these settings, since TV manufacturers each present “motion smoothing” differently in their menus.
Nolan decided to take action against this in an email this week to his fellow Directors Guild members. An email sent to members of the Directors Guild of America, via SlashFilm notified them that the directors were taking action by reaching out to television manufacturers to ensure audiences can see movies without settings that drastically alter the original look of movies.
“Many of you have seen your work appear on television screens looking different from the way you actually finished it,” the email reads. “Modern televisions have extraordinary technical capabilities, and it is important that we harness these new technologies to ensure that the home viewer sees our work presented as closely as possible to our original creative intentions.”
“To this end, Christopher Nolan and Paul Thomas Anderson reached out, via the studio UHD Alliance, to television manufacturers,” the email continues. “By starting a dialogue with the manufacturers themselves we hope to try and give directors a voice in how the technical standards of our work can be maintained in the home.”
The email, signed by DGA Creative Rights Committee co-chairs Nolan and Jonathan Mostow, included a survey asking DGA members to weigh in on which television settings are most disruptive to the intended look of their movies. Motion smoothing has been targeted by numerous directors in the past. The DGA email concludes that Nolan and Mostow believe there is “real possibility here to try and improve the situation.
Source: Slash Film
