From avforums:

In this interview Vanja Cernjul, the director of photography on the Netflix series Marco Polo, explains why HDR is important to him and how it is freeing him up creatively to do far more than he ever could in the past. He also talks about the HDR grading process, a short film that he directed for Panasonic that was designed to take full advantage of HDR and what benefits consumers can expect to see as HDR becomes more readily available.

Sony, alongside Netflix, is betting big on 4K HDR with their entire 2016 line of Android TVs offering native support. Interestingly though, Sony is not utilizing the industry agreed branding for the new format and instead has chosen their own marketing design. Marco Polo DP, Vanja Cernjul:

 A lot of times, you had to make a choice whether you let the highlights go and expose with the shadows or you’re going to try to save the highlights in the torches and flames and sacrifice the shadows. 

And to me, this is where HDR is going to truly shine. We can already get some pretty impressive footage in perfect daylight but it’s nighttime scenes that can miss the essence and nuances of what’s really happening.

 Once you know the image is going to be released in HDR, you know that you can save much more information in the highlights, so you can play with the existing light. 

Anybody who has ever picked up a camera knows the challenges of filming in the dark where the camera is seemingly picking up 1/10 the detail that’s in front of you. Now HDR can change that.

 You can light the whole scene with fire for example. We did one scene which was entirely lit by one torch an actor was carrying. 

That’s damn impressive. The full interview with Vanja Cernjul after the jump.

Discuss:

Do you think HDR will be important to the future of filmmaking?

[Via avforums]