Hollywood directors team with TV makers for Filmmaker Mode

Industry body the UHD Alliance has announced the launch of “Filmmaker Mode”, backed by TV makers such as LG, Vizio and Panasonic. 

The mode is designed to be a new viewing mode for watching movies and episodic TV. Its development follows calls from many filmmakers and actors who have been disgruntled by the poor out-of-the-box optimisation of TVs – particularly motion smoothing and colour correction.

Launched at a star-studded event, Filmmaker Mode comes with the backing of many iconic directors. 

UHD alliance chairman, Michael Zink of Warner Bros said: “When Paul Thomas Anderson, Ryan Coogler, Patty Jenkins, Martin Scorsese, and Christopher Nolan reached out to the UHDA about extending the cinematic experience into the living room, we were eager and ideally situated to engage in the conversation. 

“The Ultra HD TVs from supporting CE members are capable of delivering a range of viewing options and the addition of Filmmaker Mode for cinematic content, which is based on input from a broad range of preeminent filmmakers, provides a way for consumers to better experience the filmmaker’s vision.”

Of course, users have been able to calibrate their TVs to the optimal settings, but many either are unaware or do not know how to best recreate the cinematic experience in their living rooms. Filmmaker mode is looking to combat this and will be activated either automatically, through metadata embedded in the content, or through a single button which enables the consumer to activate Filmmaker Mode without moving through multiple menu levels. 

“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,” said Inception director Christopher Nolan. 

“Through collaboration with TV manufacturers, Filmmaker Mode consolidates input from filmmakers into simple principles for respecting frame rate, aspect ratio, color and contrast and encoding in the actual media so that televisions can read it and can display it appropriately.”  

There Will Be Blood director Paul Thomas Anderson added: “With all the advances in today’s televisions, now is a great time to introduce Filmmaker Mode. It’s just impossible to ignore what the technology can do. We can use these capabilities to preserve the intent of the filmmaker, preserve the purpose of the art.”

The UHD Alliance is made up of nearly 40 member companies, and is a global coalition of leading entertainment studios, consumer electronics manufacturers, content distributors and technology companies.