Filmmaker Mode has received a long awaited update that’s designed to ensure that content reflects the creator’s intent in brighter viewing conditions – something that it has long struggled to achieve.
With Filmmaker Mode 1.1, the technology now takes advantage of TVs’ built-in ambient light sensors to adjust the brightness to compensate for any picture-ruining sunshine, and it does so without altering the black levels or the colours, staying true to its original mission.
The UDH Alliance first launched Filmmaker Mode back in 2019, describing it as a special picture mode setting that reproduces movies exactly as they’re supposed to look. The idea is to make films look exactly the same as they did when they’re shown in cinemas, and to do that it strips out all of the motion smoothing, colour saturation and artificial contrast that TVs implement to try and improve picture quality.
Filmmaker Mode has won plenty of plaudits over the years, but many people have complained that the format is not very effective in brightly lit rooms. The problem is that Filmmaker Mode is optimised to work in reference viewing environments of five nits, and so it struggles when the ambient light is much brighter than that – such as during the daytime, especially if the curtains are open and sunlight is directly hitting the TV screen.
While modern TVs are more equipped to handle brighter viewing conditions, they struggle to replicate the creator’s intent while doing so. This is what Filmmaker Mode 1.1 is trying to address.
The way it works is that the TV’s built-in ambient light sensor will measure how bright the living room is, and then when Filmmaker Mode is turned on, it will make adjustments to the picture that attempt to mimic how the human eye responds to brighter conditions. The brighter the room is, the more the new algorithm compensates for this by upping the brightness of the picture. This helps to ensure that dark details can still be seen.
The UHD Alliance stressed that it still doesn’t raise the black levels or alter the colours or colour temperature, so everything stays true to the original. All it does is change the luminance parameters.
Filmmaker Mode 1.1 was developed in collaboration with experts including professional Hollywood colourists, film studio executives, members of the American Society of Cinematographers and the Colourist Society. The UHD Alliance demonstrated the technology at a special event at Warner Bros. studios, where it showed the 1988 film A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master in Filmmaker Mode on an LG OLED TV
The new algorithm does not take into account the reflectivity of the screen, however, but the UHD Alliance said it will try to address this separate issue in a future update.
Steven Fierberg, who served as director of photography during the production of A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master, praised the update. “I’m happier with how the film looks now than I ever was,” he told Media Play News after viewing it at the event.
