During CEDIA Expo 2019, Hollywood director Barry Sonnenfeld (Men in Black, The Addams Family, Wild Wild West) had quite a bit to say about the display industry’s latest technological darlings, 8K and HDR (high dynamic range). Sonnenfeld isn’t a big fan of either, calling the former “stupid” for anything other than sports. He claims 4K and 8K cameras make everything “look like a soap opera” or video game.
Sonnenfeld also hates HDR because it’s being pushed for marketing and boasting purposes, which is conflicting with artistic intent. The director recently shot “A Series of Unfortunate Events” for Netflix, which was supposed to be “really gloomy… really flat,” but the color timing was supposedly ruined when the streaming company adjusted everything for HDR.
Sonnenfeld says due to that HDR-driven manipulation, the second and third seasons of “A Series of Unfortunate Events” look very different. Since mobile devices and nearly every TV display made today has HDR, Netflix’s reasoning for the manipulation is that the television is going to expand the contrast anyway, so why not do it in the studio during color timing.