BenQ Home Cinema Projector: Revivification of Director’s Eyes

The birth of a great movie relies not only on the director’s efforts but also those of all the staff involved in every aspect of the film production. Every detail of making the movie is interconnected. From the script creation to the on-set filming, from the hardware to the software, every aspect of the whole process must be fully taken into consideration seriously. Despite all these painstaking efforts, Huang seldom watches his own works after they are finished.

Huang: “Unless the movie was shown in a movie theater or in other excellent playing environments, I wouldn’t want to watch it again. Watching the movie in an ill-equipped environment makes me feel sad,” said Huang, with some frustration.

As a professional filmmaker, what are the essential elements of a good movie in director's opinion?

The advancements and changes in technology have altered people’s habits to watch movies. In the past, people had to go to movie theaters to watch the latest movies. If you wanted to reminisce these movies at home, only VHS was available. Later, VCD, DVD, and Blu-Ray video formats were introduced to the market one after another. Although the images in these video formats cannot compete with those from cinema projectors, the image quality has been enhanced considerably, much vivider and more delicate than what VHS could provide. It appears on the surface that these formats have enhanced the viewing quality. However, they also bring about hidden concerns that directors cannot ignore. Unlike the cinema projectors which shine a light through a transparent lens and then project images unto the big screen, these new media require a flat panel display which uses back-lighting. And the LED back lit monitors make it easier to have inaccurate colors.

H: “Colors are often manipulated in movies to portray different ambiances. In The Great Buddha+, the movie was mainly in black and white, and intermingled with some colors. The contrast between black and white and the colors was to highlight the tension of the story. Another example is the color red. In the movie Grand Budapest Hotel in 2014, the color red was saturated, and it was so red that it not only told a wonderful story but also stimulated a sense of comfort for the audiences. But later, as I watched the movie again in a friend’s house, the red was so striking that it nearly distracted me from the plot. That’s why I find color accuracy an extremely important factor. When the colors are inaccurate, the movie loses the original intentions of its director and other staff. On the other hand, these inaccurate colors could distract the audiences from the movie, which I think is a great pity.”

Huang believes that color accuracy is an essential part of movie-viewing. But as a director, he can merely supervise the colors of the movie only when the movie is finished.

H: “Once the movie goes to playing phase, it is out of my control. Some people watch the movie on TVs and computers. Nowadays, more and more people watch movies on their cellphones and tablets. Each manufacturer has its own built-in video set as well as video optimization. I often say that when someone over-edits his or her photos, people may not be able to recognize who he or she is. Similarly, when a video is over optimized, it loses its original details which the movie intents to present. Thus, I have the habit of not being willing to re-watch my movies after they are completed because their original colors are lost when being played on different play tools.”

For a director, what is the best way to watch a movie except watching it in a movie theater?

To be honest, it was the first time for me to watch a movie on such a big screen with a projector at home, and all I want to say is that this experience was just exhilarating. Once you have this set at home, you will want to re-watch all the movies you’ve watched before. You may have watched them in DVD or Blu-Ray formats on a TV screen but re-watching them with a projector brings out a whole new level of depth and detail.”

The BenQ home projector series coming in excellent image quality of Full HD, 4K HDR, etc. resolutions with BenQ’s exclusive CinematicColor™ color management technology that utilizes international standard color gamut (Rec. 709 and DCI-P3) of film production industry specifications, is capable of accurately restoring the colors of the movies and thus projecting the true pictures intended by the directors. No wonder it has gained Huang’s praise.

H: “The most important thing of watching movies at home is the quality consistency in their images and sound. In the same way that filmmakers follow the Rec. 709 or DCI-P3 industry color gamut, television and home entertainment systems have their own sets of specifications, and Blue-Ray and other digital TV platforms follow these specifications. And if our movie-play system could conform to the standard color gamut, it will be able to present the closest colors to the original ones. In other words, it could provide more accurate color restoration, which in my opinion matters more than anything else in watching a movie.”