Overexposed windows and golden glow in the movie Monster (2023)

[silvan schnelli]

I recently just watched Huirokazu Koreedas newest movie Monster, in the cinemas and was blown away by both the story and naturalistic beauty.

I was especially engrossed by a kind of golden glow that seemed to be particularly visible in the highlights. I tried to attach screen grabs I got from the trailer, but it definitely doesn’t do it justice compared to the image I experienced in the cinemas. I'm sure that if you have seen the movie, its evident what glow I am talking about. My question really being how they achieved the glow, the images didn't seem particularly soft, in terms of acutance or contrast or resolution, but then again its tough for me to judge just like that.

It also got me thinking about overexposed lights or especially windows (as they are very large), or in this example the highlights of the fish tank. Do people usually expose the frame to clip the windows or always best practice to keep information in the windows, and then do the overexposure in post (even if the final shot should have overexposed windows)? If the latter is the case, how would you overexpose it in post without affecting the other highlights?

Thank you for your time

 

[Albion Hockney]

This looks like diffusion filters + Vintage lenses but some/most of it might be accomplished in the color grade.

The FX isn't from necessarily blowing out the highlights. filters like this are effected by brighter areas of frame, so you don't really need to blow it out to see the effect, just keep it pretty bright. I'd think in the case of the fish tank the DP would keep the highlights just on the edge of clipping while still trying to preserve some detail, but everyone has a different approach to this.

The film was shot digitally so my guess is regardless of if they used filters or not atleast some of this was created in the color grade. Post Halation and diffusion effects have become better and better in recent years

If you want to re-create the look simply you might find something like a 1/4 Black Pro Most filter creates a similar feel.

Edited January 19 by Albion Hockney

[David Mullen ASC]

Overexposure can still be below the clip point, cameras like the Alexa can have highlights many stops overexposed and still not get clipped depending on the subject’s tone.

[silvan schnelli]

@Albion Hockney@David Mullen ASC Thank you for the great replies. I know this has been touched on before, but I am still a bit confused about: If I intend to have windows with no details in them, would it be okay to just clip the windows during acquisition or should I still try to obtain information and do it in post. I am wondering because I don’t understand how I would be able to clip the windows in post, without affecting the exposure of the whole scene. I also understand that, to my knowledge, the value of keeping information includes, having  better control of the roll off and that it can avoid the problem where different RGB values saturate at different levels, which can lead to hue shifts. So what is the best method ?

Edited January 20 by silvan schnelli

[Steven West]

I’m not sure there is a best way to clip highlights; just ways of clipping.

If you retain them when shooting and clip them in post, it’s just a matter of keying the areas (using a luma key) of the area you want to affect, then shifting the values of that area to taste.

Retaining the detail is going to give you more control on exactly how you push those values, because you have the data recorded.

As each camera sensor, situation and intention is different, it’ll be a good idea to test (easy to do even at home) both workflows and see which one gives you the look you’re going for. 

Edited January 21 by Steven West

[Kemalettin Sert]

On 1/20/2024 at 3:01 PM, silvan schnelli said:

@Albion Hockney@David Mullen ASC Thank you for the great replies. I know this has been touched on before, but I am still a bit confused about: If I intend to have windows with no details in them, would it be okay to just clip the windows during acquisition or should I still try to obtain information and do it in post. I am wondering because I don’t understand how I would be able to clip the windows in post, without affecting the exposure of the whole scene. I also understand that, to my knowledge, the value of keeping information includes, having  better control of the roll off and that it can avoid the problem where different RGB values saturate at different levels, which can lead to hue shifts. So what is the best method ?

I have seen this movie in cinema and i remember the scenes you were talking about.I found that approach not very good looking and it looked like they just blown out those parts in post.

[Albion Hockney]

I think your overly concerned with the process. Different DP's have different ways of doing things based on personal preference. Some love the flexibility of retaining all the image data they can and working with the picture in post, others like capturing something closer to the final image in camera. experiment and you'll sort it out yourself.

resolve is free to download, I would get it and play with your images, shoot some tests!