"Digital Cinema" workflow

[Josh Silfen]

I've been reading a lot on these forums about the new "Digital Cinema" cameras - Arri D20, Viper FilmStream, Genesis, Origin, etc, and they seem to make a lot of people nervous. I've been thinking about this a lot lately because I assume that this is where filmmaking is headed, and from what I've read it seems like what makes people nervous is not the image quality (even if it's not there now, I think most people know that it will get there eventually, probably in the next few years) but the fact that it's a new workflow that people aren't used to and they are concerned that the DP will lose control over the image creation process, while more and more decisions are made by Digital Imaging Technicians and Colorists.

 

I think this is a valid concern. I've never used one of these cameras, but from what I understand the reccomended mode (from the Viper FilmStream, for example) involves recording a flat, green image that, while ugly, captures as much detail of the scene in front of the camera as possible, in order to have as much leeway in the grading stage as possible. I have heard people say that this is more like shooting film than shooting video or other HD, and I have heard people strongly disagree. To me it seems like getting the broad strokes captured on set and doing most of the fine tuning later on is more like shooting film. I think that the time it takes to get it exactly right in camera, like you see on most HD shoots, is something that the average film production cannot afford, and it needlessly limits your options later on. There is one major difference in the workflow, however between film and FilmStream, and that is the dailies timer.

 

Nobody wants to see flat green dailies, just because from a practical standpoint that is going to give more choices later. Nobody wants the producer to see them and nobody wants the director to edit with them and grow accustomed to them by the time the final grading comes around. Even if he knows that this is not what the film is going to look like, editing with footage that looks nothing like the look that the DP was originally aiming for, means the grading is pretty much a blank slate, where anything can happen, and a DP doesn't want that. A DP wants their "look" baked in to the footage as much as possible so everyone's on the same page from the moment the camera rolls until the moment it hits the screen at the local multiplex.

 

The reason I say that this is more like shooting film is because often with film, the look isn't inherently visible on the negative any more than it would be with the FilmStream output. You have daylight-balanced or tungsten-balanced film as a starting point, and anything else you do is by using filters and gels, etc. That's what ends up on the negative, just as with these digital cameras, presumably there's a daylight and a tungsten setting and then any other correction you do is using filters and gels. The difference is that with film, the DP communicates with a dailies timer to make sure that the dailies that are viewed by production and used for editing, look the way he intends, regardless of what's on the negative and there seems to be no such intermediate step with the digital cameras.

 

For example, say you are shooting in a large supermarket and you don't have the time, money, crew, or inclination to swap out hundreds of cool-white fluourescent tubes with properly balanced Kino tubes. What do you do? You shoot a gray card under the cool-whites or make a note on the report to "time out green" or something like that, and your dailies come out looking just how you imagined them (in theory), but this has no bearing whatsoever on what is actually on the negative. If you looked at an untimed workprint of the scene, it would still be green, but that doesn't matter because no one sees that and you know that you can correct that in the final timing of the print or DI.

 

I think the workflow for "digital cinema" projects would be exactly the same as long as there was some way to ensure that the look you are going for is somehow applied to the footage, not just during the final grading, but every step of the way; some system that would be the film equivalent of the dailies timer. It seems like this would be very simple. I have heard that with these cameras, the footage, as well as being recorded in its RAW, uncompressed, flat, green form, can be sent through some sort of color correction or LUT device so that the on set monitor has a pleasing image. It seems like a very simple matter to just record whatever settings are used on this device to a file and have the file sent with the uncompressed footage to the post house, and apply the same settings to the footage when it is down-rezzed for the offline edit. Then you have essentially low-res "dailies" for editing that look basically however you want them to look and yet this has no effect on the orginal hi-res footage which is still in it's flat green state so that the look can be tweaked and fine-tuned in the grading.

 

This paint box or LUT box or whatever you want to call it could have simple controls to allow you to get the approximate color balance you're looking for, play with contrast, crush blacks, even have preset settings for skip-bleach or cross-process types of effects. You could spend a minute or two on set setting this up without any need for a DIT, and you don't have to get it perfect because it doesn't affect the actual image, but it does estalish a look that will stay with the film until the final grading. You could still use a second monitor with a feed of the actual RAW footage and/or a waveform monitor for determining exposure. This seems to me to be just like a film-post workflow (even better possibly because there's no chance of miscommunication with the dailies timer) and maintains the same degree of control that a DP currently has over film images.

 

Maybe there are already systems like this in place, I don't know. As I've said I've never shot with one of these cameras, but I expect to sometime in the future and I don't want to have to fear that day because I don't know what to expect or how to retain control over the images I shoot. It just seems to be a reasonably simple process that is or could be very similar to shooting on film, so I don't know what's so scary. If I'm missing some big point or some bigger picture, I'd like to know what that is. Any thoughts are appreciated.

-Josh Silfen

[David Mullen ASC]

If you were a DP shooting film for a photo-chemical post and finish to a release print, then these new digital color-correction technologies, or using cameras like the Viper in basically a "RAW" mode, can seem like a potential loss of control. With film printing, there is a limit to the degree in which the image can be altered from the photographic intent (though it's still possible to ruin something, like mistakenly or deliberately change day-for-night photography back to day.)

 

But the truth is that this problem of image control in a digital post environment has been around for decades ever since electronic color-correction for film material became commonplace with the advent of the flying spot scanner telecines. So feature DP's are just experiencing what TV DP's have been dealing with -- good and bad --- for a long time, that digital color-correction is a two-edged sword that gives them more control over the image, but also anyone else more control over the image.

 

You can't blame the tools for getting better over time; you can't wish it were 1960 again and these technologies didn't exist (anyway, back then, your problem would be producers telling you to print everything lighter for the drive-ins...)

 

So the solution isn't to "bake in" the look into the original HD recording UNLESS there is a good TECHNICAL reason to do so (i.e. whatever in-camera approach you are using actually produces better results than a post technique, or is more efficient) -- but it DOES make sense to do whatever you can to make sure that the dailies that will be edited have the look "baked in", whether or not that was done in-camera or in timing the dailies.

 

Because these images are your argument to the producers, editor, and director of what you think the movie should look like, more or less. If you give them something radically different than what you intend, they will spend months staring at this "wrong" look in the editing room, and it will be much harder to steer them back to your original intentions at the end of post.

 

Anyway, even with the "flat" or "raw" recording of the Viper, this does not preclude you from using diffusion filters on camera, or lighting with colored gels, etc. just as when shooting film. Despite what everyone thinks, a lot of the look IS determined at the time of shooting by how you compose and light the scene.

Edited December 22, 2005 by David Mullen

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

Viper output is only as green as a film neg is orange (or cyan, if you want to look at it the other way.)

 

You have a lot of on set control to produce a viewable image for preview purposes, but yeah, I certainly see it as a very good thing to be able to make paintbox decisions later.

 

All you're doing is tapping the image off before it gets DSP'd as it would in a conventional video camera, then deferring the DSP operation. It's hardly rocket science but it is probably good from a time management perspective.

 

Phil

[K Borowski]

Josh, I don't agree that people are holding on to film origination simply because they aren't used to digital. I'd been playing around with computers for a good decade before I got into cinematography, and I still prefer photochemical to digital imaging technologies. My biggest issue with digital is resolution and color/gamma quality. Why is it that EVERYTHING has to be done on computers?

 

Regards.

~Karl Borowski

[Michael Collier]

I agree with your concept of a workflow in theory. Some things I would change. I would not have a LUT applied to my screen (the directors, maybe) that puts it the 'way i want it' I have been color correcting my footage for years on computer so I sort of know how it should look if I see something just ballanced for 3200k (basic LUT to show what the baseline is) I like to see the image to know how far in post I have to take it and in my head I can visualize what is possible. But working the LUT on set is a time waster when I would rather spend that on lighting (remember, digital should speed things up, always faster)

 

The uncompressed cams are the ones that interest me. Its true a camera (ENG, non-RAW) has almost the same color corrections as you would in post (not all the way there, but part) but once you throw away 1/2 of the info (or more) to compression, you can't get the same effects in post. Plus if you overdo the desat. and want a little more pop in your colors, then basicly what you have done is applied an algorythm to take info out (desat) and another algy to boost levels (saturate.) both add more noise to the image.

 

 

I hate the idea of a DIT. I loathe the idea. Im sure many in this group do too. I am very technically savvy with imaging and video and in general. Anyone who spends 2 seconds to learn will be able to understand a vectroscope and a waveform. We all know what we want our image to look like and its not to hard to figure out how to get there. With uncompressed we dont need a DIT, because as long as the cam is in good working order, all that can be done later.

 

(even you film dinosars know how to shape the image you get on screen. The technical part is generally the easy part of cinema. Its figuring out what the film needs that is the real catch)

 

I do agree with the idea that uncompressed CCD or CMOS photography is like cinema, and as such our unions will work to keep our job similar to the film workflow. I would imaging that a DP's role may extend into post production. After the shoot is over, while the editors assemble the rough cuts, you go scene to scene and correct what needs to be corrected. Get each shot looking good then a colorist can go in after the fact to match little things, like blue shift as the scene gets later and later (for outdoor shoots, indoors would require little work). Add a LUT provided by kodak or the release print manufactuer to make sure that once lazered onto film it looks the same as computer. I would imagine all the various color corrections (DP color plus colorist matching the shots, etc) would all be combined into one LUT and applied to the RAW so that in the end the RAW only goes through one coloring algorythm (save quality)

 

 

Why is it that EVERYTHING has to be done on computers?

Better. Stronger. Faster. (plus it has an undo button)

[Tenolian Bell]

Better. Stronger. Faster. (plus it has an undo button)

 

I've seen computers create as many new problems as it solves old problems.

 

The new digital workflow is experiencing growing pains and bumps along the way.

 

I've heard stories of big mainstream DP's having problems with directors changing the look of the film from what was agreed upon during the shoot.

 

The DP does need to spend time in post production to watch over the finished timing of a film. There is a movement to get the DP paid for his/her time in post.

 

As far as quality control of a look. There is the exploration by the ASC to establish a Color Decision List, the same concept as an Edit Decision List.

 

Whether shooting film or digital the CDL would begin with still photographs from the set. The DP would take stills of their lighting set ups. Using software such as 3CP or Kodak Look Management set the basic look of the scene. These basic corrections would be compatible with all post software to keep the look consistent.

 

This established look would follow the the film through the post chain from dailies, to off line edit, on line edit, and final timing. There is also a movement to give the off line editor better resolution to edit.

[Eric Steelberg ASC]

I agree with your concept of a workflow in theory. Some things I would change. I would not have a LUT applied to my screen (the directors, maybe) that puts it the 'way i want it' I have been color correcting my footage for years on computer so I sort of know how it should look if I see something just ballanced for 3200k (basic LUT to show what the baseline is) I like to see the image to know how far in post I have to take it and in my head I can visualize what is possible. But working the LUT on set is a time waster when I would rather spend that on lighting (remember, digital should speed things up, always faster)

 

The uncompressed cams are the ones that interest me. Its true a camera (ENG, non-RAW) has almost the same color corrections as you would in post (not all the way there, but part) but once you throw away 1/2 of the info (or more) to compression, you can't get the same effects in post. Plus if you overdo the desat. and want a little more pop in your colors, then basicly what you have done is applied an algorythm to take info out (desat) and another algy to boost levels (saturate.) both add more noise to the image.

I hate the idea of a DIT. I loathe the idea. Im sure many in this group do too. I am very technically savvy with imaging and video and in general. Anyone who spends 2 seconds to learn will be able to understand a vectroscope and a waveform. We all know what we want our image to look like and its not to hard to figure out how to get there. With uncompressed we dont need a DIT, because as long as the cam is in good working order, all that can be done later.

 

(even you film dinosars know how to shape the image you get on screen. The technical part is generally the easy part of cinema. Its figuring out what the film needs that is the real catch)

 

I do agree with the idea that uncompressed CCD or CMOS photography is like cinema, and as such our unions will work to keep our job similar to the film workflow. I would imaging that a DP's role may extend into post production. After the shoot is over, while the editors assemble the rough cuts, you go scene to scene and correct what needs to be corrected. Get each shot looking good then a colorist can go in after the fact to match little things, like blue shift as the scene gets later and later (for outdoor shoots, indoors would require little work). Add a LUT provided by kodak or the release print manufactuer to make sure that once lazered onto film it looks the same as computer. I would imagine all the various color corrections (DP color plus colorist matching the shots, etc) would all be combined into one LUT and applied to the RAW so that in the end the RAW only goes through one coloring algorythm (save quality)

Better. Stronger. Faster. (plus it has an undo button)

 

very well said!

[Tim J Durham]

I hate the idea of a DIT. I loathe the idea. Im sure many in this group do too. I am very technically savvy with imaging and video and in general. Anyone who spends 2 seconds to learn will be able to understand a vectroscope and a waveform. We all know what we want our image to look like and its not to hard to figure out how to get there. With uncompressed we dont need a DIT, because as long as the cam is in good working order, all that can be done later.

What's to hate? Do you mean when you're shoooting film-stream or all the time?

 

If you don't have the money for extensive post prod color grading, and you have a list of different looks within the same production, A DIT can save valuable time for the DP. I know when I'm doing the settings from scratch, even if I'm working from a pre-established list, it can take a sh!tload of valuable time. Time that often needs to be spent lighting, for instance.

 

Now, if you DON'T have a list but only a still photo of the look you're going for, a good DIT can get you there on an unfamiliar camera much faster than many DP's or Op's could themselves. Or do you not accept that anyone could possibly know more about something than you?

 

Why hate?

 

'tis the season to be jolly.

[Tenolian Bell]

What's to hate?

 

I'll take it a step further back.

 

I hate the video camera menu system. Its convoluted and unintuitive.

 

Obviously an invention of engineers who lack imagination for good design.

 

Probably the same guys who came up with the 40 button remote control.

Edited December 23, 2005 by tenobell

[K Borowski]

Better. Stronger. Faster. (plus it has an undo button)

 

I'll take your calling me a dinosaur as a compliment. I wonder what animal I could liken you to that would be appropriate?

 

While computers have many advantages, they aren't nearly as "strong" as film when it comes to speed of exposure or amount of information/image quality fidelity as film. How is having an undo button good when it comes to making movies? I've taped over at least an hour of good DV footage in my day. Whereas with film I've lost maybe 2-5 minutes tops due to things like bad exposures or fogging. Maybe doing everything on computers is appealing to you because that means you can spend more time couped up indoors staring at an LCD. I keenly await the day when we can make movies without cameras, lenses, or even actors. If this computer advancement continues, we may never have to leave our homes again!

 

Regards.

~Karl Borowski

[Keith Mottram]

It's boxing day and I've had a little to drink, but after reading this thread I realise now that I got digital technology all wrong. so right after finishing writing this I'm going to throw this laptop out the window, ride a horse over to gran's house and write my next post on a typewriter (Probably about CDL- brilliant idea hand it to the director/ post team and they'll, er, promise to not alter your colour/ framing/ mistakes? Is that how it works or does it zap them if they add some cyan/ improve the shot?).

 

Keith

 

P.S. does anyone have an address to send to or do I just write cinematography.com on the envelope?

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

> I hate the video camera menu system. Its convoluted and unintuitive.

 

Only as much as a list of functions and their relevant settings can ever be. The nearest film equivalent is a motley collection of optical filters, photochemical engineering and processing options. No more intuitive, much less flexible and of course enormously more expensive. Given the number of steps a film image goes through once it leaves the camera, you'd have thought the option to have it guaranteed untouched until the grade would be welcomed.

 

> Obviously an invention of engineers who lack imagination for good design.

 

I don't think so. Mainly it's just a list of options and their values. It's certainly minimal, but that does avoid you having to drag something like the director's (worst enemy) friend around with you.

 

But then if you're shooting on something like a D20 or a Viper, there shouldn't be too much to tweak, certainly on a shot by shot basis.

 

Phil

[Michael Collier]

I'll take your calling me a dinosaur as a compliment.

 

Please do, I mean nothing by it. You do come from a different world though, with things moving as quick as they do. I have had a computer throughout my film-making career. This 'new digital workflow' is really just an extention of what I have been doing for years, with more sophistocated equipment.

 

And yes film has more information. Now.

 

Do you mean when you're shoooting film-stream or all the time?

 

yes. There are a lot of desions to be made on set. Least of those would be coloring in my mind. Yes you should with colors on the mind. You know you will de-sat greatly in post, but you wait until post to do it. Just as a DP now will push or pull their stock to get a desired effect, I would also shoot as I know a color correction session would modify certain aspects of the picture. Its all a mental thing on set. Use your mind. Take a picture in your head. Imagine what happens when you desat. or crush blacks, or change tonal width. With extensive color correcting experience a DIT is a time waster and competition for what I believe to be MY FRAME (not that im arrogent, I just take great pride in my work. If I am responsible for the look of the film, I want that to include coloring)

 

Also a DIT means that you have some form of compression, which for a film-out release is unacceptable. If the best CCDs are only barley kissing the line of what film can do, why do we want to throw half the info out? A DIT means your accepting limitations in a very flexible medium.

 

I dont know how much experience yall have with color correcting, but it is my experience that once color corrected, it must be done again. Usually several times to find a look everyone can agree on. Nothing major, just finding that proper balance. I enjoy that possibility to change the film, even if slightly, to find the better movie that dwells within.

 

In Response to this about DITs

Or do you not accept that anyone could possibly know more about something than you?

 

No, I willingly would accept an engeneer on board to keep the camera running within spec. But when it comes to making desicions about colors in my frame I am a little uneasy with. I have enough experience in those sort of settings that I can get what I want (I set color matrix and set-up almost everyday both in SD and HD) so its not that nobody could possibly know more than me, its this:

 

nobody knows exactly whats in my head until you see the footage. The big things I can pass off to others. Im comfortable telling a camera op to shoot a med. shot. But when it comes to fine tuning the image I am a stickler, because it means everything to me. In the end a DIT on my set would be unhappy, I would dictate the settings and he would basicly be there for nothing more than to push buttons.

[Tenolian Bell]

Only as much as a list of functions and their relevant settings can ever be. The nearest film equivalent is a motley collection of optical filters, photochemical engineering and processing options. No more intuitive, much less flexible and of course enormously more expensive.

 

 

Drop menu?s, switches and, dials differ in what they are called and where they are located from camera to camera.

 

A dial or switch on one camera is a drop menu in another camera.

 

1 ? 10 is not consistent on different cameras.

 

A setting you may need to use regularly is buried in a submenu, while a control you only need to touch once is a prominent switch on the body of the camera.

 

 

Because camera filters exist in the physical world they are based on mathematical scales that are consistent.

 

Many filters are measured on scale of 1/4, 1/2, 1, 2, 3.

 

ND filters are measured in stops.

 

Color correction filters are measured in mireds. You can look at a mired scale to see where any correction filter is as well as what you need to correct for.

 

Lighting gels work under the same rules.

 

Once it gets to post production coloring. With both film and digital it becomes as much taste as it is exact science. Film does have a predictable scale, that is still somewhat up for interpretation. But digital grading at this point there is no set scale for color at all.

[K Borowski]

Please do, I mean nothing by it. You do come from a different world though, with things moving as quick as they do. I have had a computer throughout my film-making career. This 'new digital workflow' is really just an extention of what I have been doing for years, with more sophistocated equipment.

 

And yes film has more information. Now.

 

Well, the interesting thing about filmstocks and CCDs that resolve more and more information is that, after you get past the fine-grainedness of a stock like EXR-50D, the LENS becomes the limiting factor for the resolving power of the system. With all the zooms people are sticking on the fronts of movie cameras these days, I wouldn't be surprised if even one of the 100T stocks start to resolve higher than the lens is capable of resolving. All this is hypthetical though, since moviemakers these days are perfectly content shooting 500T in the daytime and handholding every shot, even deliberately shaking the camera, ala Bourne Supremacy. Then they opt to downgrade the image further by putting the entire film through a 2K DI.

 

As for everything moving so fast these days, I find that people who are serious about cinematography and lighting are in need of more patience and foresight, setting up six lights and waiting until the sun gets to just the right point in the sky for what amounts to 20 seconds of footage in the final film.

 

Regards.

 

Karl Borowski

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

> Drop menu?s, switches and, dials differ in what they are called and where they are located from camera to

> camera.

 

And loading film cameras is all the same?

 

> A dial or switch on one camera is a drop menu in another camera.

 

The basics (gain, white balance) tend to be in the same place all the time, unless you're talking about Genesis and D20 and things of that ilk, at which point you begin to realise that not following standard ENG layout was actually a poor choice motivated more by fashion than practicality. On an ENG style camera like an F900, F950 or Varicam (or even a Viper, give or take the functions that are useful in filmstream mode) are largely standardised.

 

> A setting you may need to use regularly is buried in a submenu, while a control you only need to touch

> once is a prominent switch on the body of the camera.

 

Such as? I often wish things like black stretch and compress were more accessible, but really this is something you'd have to wait days and go to a separate facility to do on film, so you can hardly cite it as a comparative disadvantage.

 

> Because camera filters exist in the physical world they are based on mathematical scales that are

> consistent.

 

Fine, use 'em. My position has always been that it's better to do as much optically as possible in any format, because optical filters have near zero noise.

 

> Film does have a predictable scale,

 

No it doesn't, it's all over the place. Film processing is not consistent to within the noisefloor of even a very bad video camera.

 

Phil

[Tenolian Bell]

With my comments I did not intend to have a film vs digital argument. I'm talking about the menu system. And because the menu system has nothing to do with volatile chemicals, it should be easy to fix.

 

By the very fact that the menu system requires a DIT to help the DP set a look shows that it is not a good user interface for photography.

 

As I go from project to project I work with different cameras, and often I have to read the manual to figure out how to use a particular camera and decipher its various symbols mean. This is bad user interface design.

 

The entire menu interface between the Sony FX1 and the Sony PD-150 are entirely different.

 

The user interface between the SonyF900 and the Varicam are entirely different.

 

At the very least there should be consistency within Sony and Panasonic line of cameras.

 

These issues are not analogous to loading a film camera or the consistency of chemical processing.

 

 

For example with my iPod I can scroll through thousands of songs, thousands of photos, or hundreds of videos only using my thumb. Anyone can do this.

 

A design that takes vasts amounts of information, requiring the use of the opposable thumb to navigate. That's good design.

Edited December 27, 2005 by tenobell