overexposing and pushing the film sto

[F Bulgarelli]

Hello everyone,

 

I've met some dp's who tend to push the film to obtain higher color saturation and contrast but without really underexposing the stock. as a matter of fact sometimes they are actually overexposing and pushing at the same time. I've notice this method specially for commercial work.

My approach has been to increase contrast or saturation during the transfer but i've been thinking about trying it in camera. i'm talking strictly for the small screen.

 

 

I was wondering if anyone had any experiences or suggestions they would like to share,

 

thanks

 

francisco

[Jon Rosenbloom]

I shot a student film last year which is a drama about a husband and wife and the husband accidentally kills their son. I always overexpose 1/3 stop, but I wanted to increase the "local contrast" and make the image a little more "tense," so I pushed a stop in addition to the overexposure. The film turned out very saturated, as well as more grainy, but in a good way; the image has some substance to it. It really fits the gloomy drama (If I do say so myself.) I also benefited on that job from a nice set of Zeiss primes, and I'm always wary of stray light. If you're interested, I can email you a couple of stills.

Edited November 17, 2006 by Jon Rosenbloom

[F Bulgarelli]

I shot a student film last year which is a drama about a husband and wife and the husband accidentally kills their son. I always overexpose 1/3 stop, but I wanted to increase the "local contrast" and make the image a little more "tense," so I pushed a stop in addition to the overexposure. The film turned out very saturated, as well as more grainy, but in a good way; the image has some substance to it. It really fits the gloomy drama (If I do say so myself.) I also benefited on that job from a nice set of Zeiss primes, and I'm always wary of stray light. If you're interested, I can email you a couple of stills.

 

Thanks John, I would like to see the stills.

[Vedran Rapo]

same here, if it is possible to see those stills

[John Pytlak RIP]

A "push" ECN-2 process will generally increase the contrast and color saturation of the image, along with an increase in graininess. The Kodak VISION2 color negative films have enough latitude to be able to overexpose by a stop or so, and still be able to print/transfer a "push-1" processed image. Slight overexposure increases shadow detail, and increased the density ("blackness") of the blacks.

[Nitay Artenstein]

I shot a student film last year which is a drama about a husband and wife and the husband accidentally kills their son. I always overexpose 1/3 stop, but I wanted to increase the "local contrast" and make the image a little more "tense," so I pushed a stop in addition to the overexposure. The film turned out very saturated, as well as more grainy, but in a good way; the image has some substance to it. It really fits the gloomy drama (If I do say so myself.) I also benefited on that job from a nice set of Zeiss primes, and I'm always wary of stray light. If you're interested, I can email you a couple of stills.

 

Hi,

 

I would also like to see those stills. Maybe it would be possible to post something here for everyone?

 

 

Thanks,

Nitay

[Brian Baker]

I shot a student film last year which is a drama about a husband and wife and the husband accidentally kills their son. I always overexpose 1/3 stop, but I wanted to increase the "local contrast" and make the image a little more "tense," so I pushed a stop in addition to the overexposure. The film turned out very saturated, as well as more grainy, but in a good way; the image has some substance to it. It really fits the gloomy drama (If I do say so myself.) I also benefited on that job from a nice set of Zeiss primes, and I'm always wary of stray light. If you're interested, I can email you a couple of stills.

 

 

Another party interested in seeing the stills from this project. The technique interests me, and would very much like to see the results.

 

Please let me know if they are posted or you can e-mail -- thanks :)

[Jon Rosenbloom]

I posted some stills, w/ captions on myspace. I think you have to sign in to see them. Let me know.

 

http://www.myspace.com/jwrnyc

[Sam Wells]

I shot a bunch of 7274 pushed one NO compensation for the push (& some leaned on another 1/2 stopish) -- it printed in the mid to high 30's -- on Colorlab's 1-40 scale !! and looked totally great in daily prints - I almost thought I'd put a roll from 7245 up by mistake when I screened the first dailies.

 

However, I have yet to get a good looking High Def transfer from this neg on two different Spirits / colorists. Well some shots with even natural light were nice (which might as well have been on pushed '45 tho...) but ones with a large range highlight/burning sun to deep shadow, no.

 

C-Reality transfer in SD looked much better however.

 

Need to investigate more, but digital finish suggests this extreme is problematic in some ways.

 

Wondering if I need to really get heavily into secondaries at the very least. Raises the question - if that much secondary correction is needed, maybe better to shoot more normally (somewhat against my nature :D

 

-Sam

[Pavel Mitov]

I shot a 7217, underexposing it with 1 stop and pushing 1 stop. It was highly contrasty, with deep shadows (somehow flat though) and high saturation. I loved it and it wasn't that grainny. I'm thinking of doing that again...

 

thanks Colorlab :)

[Joey Dee]

I always overexpose 1/3 stop, but I wanted to increase the "local contrast" and make the image a little more "tense," so I pushed a stop in addition to the overexposure.

Hey Jon,

 

I just check out the stills on your myspace - and they look very nice!!! Well done mate!!! here are the stills for the ones who are still curious. I should of used that technique for my short film - uhmm here's a question Jon, do you normaly apply that method to natural light or it doesn't matter? Cause I think it's more dramatic to manipulate natural as opposed to a lighting kit (in my opinion that is).

 

 

 

my best,

Joey Dee