HDV on the Big Screen

[Erkki Halkka]

If you're going a gritty drama you may not want clean. The BBC person's concern was that they'd lose that sense of a rough world. HD can look extremely clean; it's how to develop a new look for these dramas using the new format that he was concerned about. BBC drama has always had a different look to the 35mm American dramas. Also, grain is good for some subjects.

 

You can always add grain in post production, if you wish.

[Max Jacoby]

As far as the color range goes, it's quite rare to run into subjects that fall outside the hue/saturation range of video cameras. More or less all things in nature fall within the range, including human skin. It's just a matter of color timing them properly.

 

I'm sorry, but this just isn't true. Video has much less colordepth than film. This is especially obvious on skintones, where video/digital simply doesn't look good. I can tell every time whether something is shot on video just by the way the skintones look.

[Brian Drysdale]

You can always add grain in post production, if you wish.

 

At the moment it doesn't look as good as the real thing.

 

These formats are tools to tell stories, you pick the one that gives you the best way to tell the story that your budget allows. It might be DV or it might 65mm film, this is part of the creative process.

[Erkki Halkka]

At the moment it doesn't look as good as the real thing.

 

Synthetic film grain doesn't - real does. Shoot a gray card with the film stock of your choice, digitize it, composite on top of video - voilá!!

 

Edit: Fixed a typo

Edited December 11, 2005 by Eki Halkka

[Max Jacoby]

This is especially true when digital intermediate is used - even though the imagery is high bitdepth most of the way, film printers tend to be 8 bit / channel (the same as i.e. MiniDV), AFAIK.

 

I think you are mistaking filmprinters with filmrecorders here.

 

The Arrilaser, the most comonly used filmrecorder works at 10 Bit log, not 8.

[David Mullen ASC]

I'm not as critical as Max always is over this skintone issue -- he doesn't even like D.I.'s because of this -- but the problem I have with skintones in HD may or may not be related to the 8-bit, 3:1:1 linear video of HDCAM used by the F900. I don't know because I haven't shot 4:4:4 10-bit log HD like the Viper or Genesis does.

 

But when I color-time something shot on film, it seems that the fleshtone response is sort of "designed" into the emulsion, i.e. if I shoot a face in white light, exposed correctly, I get natural fleshtones. Any color timing applied to the image tends to feel ADDED over this basic color. In other words, a print with too much red or blue or green in the skintones looks like a bias on top of the basic skintone.

 

Now when I'm timing HD, I find that I'm always trying to FIND what the basic skintone is -- it doesn't "default" to it. You play with the controls of the DaVinci trying to fine-tune some shade you consider "fleshtone" as if you are starting from scratch with a bunch of paints, just like when a painter paints a portrait and has to create the right mix. So you look at some pink face on the HD monitor (which may be another problem right there -- CRT color space) and you think "would some more red look more like flesh? Or more green?" When you're done, you feel like you made up some color that looks like fleshtone.

 

I don't have any scientific basis for this feeling. My limited experience with D.I.'s tends to be that the fleshtone tends to fall more quickly into place than when I shoot in HD and color-correct it, but again, the HDCAM specs may partly be to blame, combined with timing to a CRT monitor display.

Edited December 11, 2005 by David Mullen

[Erkki Halkka]

I'm sorry, but this just isn't true. Video has much less colordepth than film. This is especially obvious on skintones, where video/digital simply doesn't look good. I can tell every time whether something is shot on video just by the way the skintones look.

 

This really should be a matter of timing the footage correctly - not an color depth issue. Flesh tones usually are are in the mid range of luminosity, and of quite low saturation. This shouldn't be a problem area in either of the formats.

 

In VERY, VERY general sense, film tends to make skin pink and video tends to make it yellowish. The technical difference is small, easily within the range of adjustments, both ways. Did i mention this is a VERY, VERY broad generalization?

 

Could you point me to a film frame grab that has excellent skintone in your opinion - i'll try to find a similarly lit video clip and color correct it to match... might be a fun test??

 

***

 

I stand corrected on the film printers - it seems more or less all my info on film techniques is rather outdated ;-)

Edited December 11, 2005 by Eki Halkka

[Erkki Halkka]

I'm not as critical as Max always is over this skintone issue -- he doesn't even like D.I.'s because of this -- but the problem I have with skintones in HD may or may not be related to the 8-bit, 3:1:1 linear video of HDCAM used by the F900. I don't know because I haven't shot 4:4:4 10-bit log HD like the Viper or Genesis does.

 

I don't think the 3:1:1 vs 4:4:4 sampling has much to do with this - it only affects the spatial color resolution.

 

8-bit linear vs. 10-bit log might have much bigger effect on the process - maybe log color space simply works better with the color correctors.

 

But i think the real reason is the camera itself - like different film stocks, different video cameras do have their own look, and maybe "the F900 look" simply isn't what you're after... some other model might give you instantly what you want.

[Max Jacoby]

Could you point me to a film frame grab that has excellent skintone in your opinion - i'll try to find a similarly lit video clip and color correct it to match... might be a fun test??

I could show you great skintones, but I would have to take you to a theatre. On a monitor skin never looks as good as projected. Let's not forget that film and video have two different colorspaces.

[Jason Debus]

I always thought this graph was interesting. The RGB color space is a small percentage of what our eyes see. I have no idea where film falls into this graph, but I think it demonstrates why it's harder to get things to look natural with HD/HDV.

 

[Erkki Halkka]

But when I color-time something shot on film, it seems that the fleshtone response is sort of "designed" into the emulsion, i.e. if I shoot a face in white light, exposed correctly, I get natural fleshtones.

 

Maybe this is the essence of it:

 

Video cameras are made to produce "mathematically correct" imagery, trying to get as linear reproduction of incoming light as possible. Technically speaking, this is good, but it doesn't always look cool, so visually oriented may consider it a fault.

 

Film, on the other hand, is not as linear / neutral. The midrange has more contrast than lows and highs. To the technically oriented, this is a fault, but it happens to look visually pleasing.

 

So, in practice, we tend to adjust the linear video to resemble nonlinear film, to get that cool look.

 

I don't see why it would be impossible to make a video camera, that has a "film stock" setting built in - it could be a simple lookup table, based on measurements of actual real life film behaviour.

 

When the sensor gives color X, the in-camera software would transform it into color Y. What Y actually is, would depend on the selected film stock.

 

Or, in my case, i could adjust it to low contrast, but color wise linear output. Or whatever else, using some kind of "lookup table maker" software.

 

It's just math, not even too complicated as such - we need to start calling the manufacturers, maybe they'll implement this to their next models ;-)

[Brian Drysdale]

The current HD cameras basically seem to come down to either capturing data for grading in post or creating the "look" inside the production camera. Whichever method is used this thread reinforces the need to go through the entire workflow including a final 35mm print. There are variables at each stage, even running a graded internegative for projection prints through a telecine can involve a near complete re-grade for video. It's not always a single setting and letting it run.

[Erkki Halkka]

I could show you great skintones, but I would have to take you to a theatre. On a monitor skin never looks as good as projected. Let's not forget that film and video have two different colorspaces.

 

Okay, i do get your point - but i got to disagree with you a bit. I still say that film's higher tonal range isn't the thing here.

 

Skin tones fall within a certain range of hue, saturation and luminosity, when you watch them from film, in a theater.. As far as i know, this range can represented in 8-bit YUV, or 8-bit RGB without problems, as well as displayed by RGB devices, easily.

 

The fillm's larger tonal range is an advantage only in very saturated deep colors (cyan especially, i've heard).

 

If you took a color densitometer with you to the theatre, took readings from the skin, the readings wouldn't be outside computer screen's range.

 

But now to the part where i agree with you - colors *do* look different in the computer monitor. This doesn't really have as much to do with the abilities of the monitor itself, but rather with the surroundings - you watch films in a darkened theater, the monitor in dimly lit (at best) room.

[Max Jacoby]

If it really were as simple as you say, then how come I ALWAYS recognize whether something is shot on video just by the look of the skintones? You claim that skintones shot on video can be made to look like those on film, but I have never and I mean NEVER seen that. Hell, I even recognize whether a film went through a DI or not by looking at the skintones.

[Erkki Halkka]

If it really were as simple as you say, then how come I ALWAYS recognize whether something is shot on video just by the look of the skintones? You claim that skintones shot on video can be made to look like those on film, but I have never and I mean NEVER seen that. Hell, I even recognize whether a film went through a DI or not by looking at the skintones.

 

I trust you - but at least in digital domain, the color is simply math: it's just numbers. To make one color to turn into another, you can simply add and substract etc., ending up in a perfect match.

 

As far as recognizing digital intermediates goes - there's always some loss when moving from one format to another, and especially so when making analogue-digital-analogue transforms. Something gets lost, and you can see it.

 

What exactly it is, could probably be measured by comparing two positives, one of which has gone through DI and the other which has not.

 

Naturally, this should be done using the same original negative - it should even be possible to use this test to modify the DI process so that it's more transparent.

 

I was trying to find some A/B tests with film and video (to test that skin color matching) - and ran into this:

 

http://www.hd-channel.com/index.html?/programme.html

 

They have the same pop video shot in Super 16 and various HD formats (including HDCAM and HDV). I'm downloading the (big) windows media files as i type...verrry interrresting.

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

> I ALWAYS recognize whether something is shot on video just by the look of the skintones

 

You don't.

 

First off, that's completely circular. You always recognise it? And when you don't, it's film, right? Bah.

 

Secondly, with the amount of post manipulation typical of film production at the moment, claiming you can tell what's going on by viewing the end result is... almost peurile.

 

Phil

[Max Jacoby]

I'm afraid the difference between film and video is quite pronounced on the big screen. I am not claiming to recognize it on every single shot, but over the course of a film there are always invariably shots that stick out as video. In some instances, like shots with soft light without highlights and with a restricted colorspace that tends towards blue, the difference is impossible to tell. This is also where DIs look their best. But put in warm colors and/or high contrast and video sticks out like a sore thumb.

 

I know there are plenty of people who aknowledge the limitations of video and claim to be able to work around them, but there is no magic key, there are situations that simply will not allow you to get a result similar to film.

[Erkki Halkka]

They have the same pop video shot in Super 16 and various HD formats (including HDCAM and HDV).

 

Sorry, the HDV clips were NOT from the video. The video is available as HDCAM, VARICAM and 16mm.

 

Quite nicely selected scenes, showing different situations, interior, exterior, day, night, flames, closeups, wide shots, fast motion etc.

 

Anyway, interesting comparison, even though it's very big file, that "Szenen aller Formate im AB-Vergleich" is a good thing to watch - it has split screens and enlargements of the various formats etc. It also has some 35mm shots as well as DigiBeta.

 

 

 

For those who don't want do download half a gigabyte of video, i took the liberty of taking a screen grab of the video, with each of the formats showing... tell me which is film?

 

 

If i didn't know, there's no way i could tell the difference.

 

I'm afraid the difference between film and video is quite pronounced on the big screen. I am not claiming to recognize it on every single shot, but over the course of a film there are always invariably shots that stick out as video.

 

Okay, i thought you did claim you had NEVER seen a SINGLE SHOT that was taken in video, that could be mistaken for film.

 

I recall you said:

 

"You claim that skintones shot on video can be made to look like those on film, but I have never and I mean NEVER seen that. Hell, I even recognize whether a film went through a DI or not by looking at the skintones."

[Max Jacoby]

Of course it is impossible to tell by looking at low resolution pics on my laptop's LCD screen. Indeed once film is converted to digital and displayed on a monitor it is a whole different ballgame than what it looks like on the big screen. It is like Phil said, it can be graded any which way and even made to look like video. The shot you have chosen is low in contrast and the highlights on the girl's face are just too small to give an indication of the format. The only thing I noticed is the out-of-focus lights to the right of the girls head on the second pic . There seems to be some magenta in them, which is a problem with video cameras. However the resolution of the pic is too small to really tell for sure and these highlights are unfortunately missing from the first pic, so one cannot compare them to that. That is assuming of course if you did not put up two pics that are both shot on video.

[Max Jacoby]

Okay, i thought you did claim you had NEVER seen a SINGLE SHOT that was taken in video, that could be mistaken for film.

 

Sorry for that misunderstanding. I don't think anyone can claim to recognize that all the time.

 

I also would like to add that the reverse, i.e recognizing that something is shot on film, is not necessarily true either. I have seen some instances of DIs that were so poor that they made the film look like it was shot on video.

[Erkki Halkka]

Sorry for that misunderstanding. I don't think anyone can claim to recognize that all the time.

 

Okay -

 

So, do you still think it would have been impossible to insert some HDV shots within a 35mm movie, without you noticing it?? Meaning, you can positively ALWAYS see the difference between film and HDV??

 

Because that's what this discussion started with ;-)

 

I also would like to add that the reverse, i.e recognizing that something is shot on film, is not necessarily true either. I have seen some instances of DIs that were so poor that they made the film look like it was shot on video.

 

Actually, if you wanna make film look like video, the easiest way is to shoot 50fps, F11 or more, telecine it with best light, then speed it up by 200% to get 50i cadence. You could fool pretty much anyone just by doing this.

 

I've actually tried it - it works!

[Erkki Halkka]

Of course it is impossible to tell by looking at low resolution pics on my laptop's LCD screen. Indeed once film is converted to digital and displayed on a monitor it is a whole different ballgame than what it looks like on the big screen. It is like Phil said, it can be graded any which way and even made to look like video. The shot you have chosen is low in contrast and the highlights on the girl's face are just too small to give an indication of the format. The only thing I noticed is the out-of-focus lights to the right of the girls head on the second pic . There seems to be some magenta in them, which is a problem with video cameras. However the resolution of the pic is too small to really tell for sure and these highlights are unfortunately missing from the first pic, so one cannot compare them to that. That is assuming of course if you did not put up two pics that are both shot on video.

 

Please reaload, the .png was broken... there's three shots, varicam, hdcam and 16mm. I thought you were talking about recognizing the film vs video skin tone - the image size shouldn't affetct that... LCD screen might, but if the difference is too small to see on an LCD screen, i'd say it's not a real issue.

 

If that's the case, doing pretty much anything on the set has so much bigger effect on the picture than the difference of formats, that it makes the argument moot.

 

If you have the bandwidth, have a look at that comparision video - it has a load of examples of the differences, some favoring film, some favoring video.

[Max Jacoby]

So, do you still think it would have been impossible to insert some HDV shots within a 35mm movie, without you noticing it?? Meaning, you can positively ALWAYS see the difference between film and HDV??

 

Because that's what this discussion started with ;-)

 

I knew you would be coming back with this :-)

 

Inserting HDV shots into a 35mm movie is much more tricky, because you show video not just by itself, but together with a 35mm reference, so you have something to compare the 2 with. Shooting one close-up on 35mm and the reverse on HDV would stick out like a sore thumb for instance. I am not saying that it cannot be done, for some quick action shots with lots of motion it might work for instance, but to do it on a regular basis, as an alternative, I do not feel that is possible.

[Erkki Halkka]

I knew you would be coming back with this :-)

 

Inserting HDV shots into a 35mm movie is much more tricky, because you show video not just by itself, but together with a 35mm reference, so you have something to compare the 2 with. Shooting one close-up on 35mm and the reverse on HDV would stick out like a sore thumb for instance. I am not saying that it cannot be done, for some quick action shots with lots of motion it might work for instance, but to do it on a regular basis, as an alternative, I do not feel that is possible.

 

I dunno - depending on the scene, even that reverse angle thing might work. What i was tinking of though, was shooting one whole (easy) scene, i.e. something outdoors in an overcast day without the sky showing (you get my drift) and insert that scene in the film.

 

I'm still pretty sure it could be really hard to notice that, especially if you weren't deliberately looking for it.

 

As far as making a whole feature in HDV goes... i'm pretty sure we'll soon see something that was done this way. And it will look petty OK for an indie. Not as great as the best, but decent.

 

Edit: And no, i don't think 35mm film and HDV are "interchangeable" so that you'd get the same result regardless of which you used... that'd be a bit silly ;-)

Edited December 12, 2005 by Eki Halkka

[David Mullen ASC]

I remember reading an article about the stunt coordinator for the James Bond movies (Vic Armstrong?) testing using PAL DV cameras on skis and him thinking that they could get away with quick shots of that, but deciding not to risk it in the end. But possibly HDV cameras could work in an action scenes like that, for quick cutaways.

 

And of course, one could shoot a flashback or dream sequence in HDV for a 35mm feature and just use the different look as a design element.

 

You may get awy with more use of HDV, like for inserts. Tight shots of inanimate objects tends not to be as demanding on the compression, resolution, etc.

 

I'm just addressing the question of intercutting 35mm and HDV.

 

Now if this were for TV / home video only, you'd have even more leeway.

 

As far as a feature in the theaters intercutting 35mm and HD, the only one that comes to mind is "Collateral" -- in there, the differences in contrast, black level, motion blur, color saturation were more noticeable than the fleshtones, since the movie was set at night under oddly-colored lighting anyway. And of course, the film went through a digital step to help blend it better with the HD.

Edited December 12, 2005 by David Mullen