When Do We Eat?

[David Mullen ASC]

I've been color-correcting an HD feature called "When Do We Eat?" that I shot in December. I've been over at FotoKem for the last three nights. Unfortunately, they pushed the last day of corrections to Monday when I'll be gone to Texas to shoot another HD feature, so I won't be timing the last reel.

 

It was two-camera Sony F900 Panavision package, 8-to-72mm Digital Primo zooms on both cameras.

 

Some observations:

 

The more HD shoot, the less I do with the camera's set-up. I've been shooting with the Gamma at 0 lately, the Black at 0, the Detail off. Only the DCC and the ITU-709 preset Color Matrix were on. Now looking at the footage, I regret even using that, particularly the 709 preset. I used it because I was in a colorfully decorated tent and we wanted a Technicolor look. But I find that anytime anything goes into the shadows, like the fill side of the face, the red chroma noise is distracting. Red lips seems to glow red unnaturally.

 

Maybe the problem is slightly worse because I'm using the Panavised F900. They have a different optical infrared filter behind the lens that allows more red to pass through, allowing them to reduce the amplification of the red channel. But I suspect that the ITU-709 color "boost" is now a little too extreme for the reds.

 

Anyway, I think I'll turn that off too the next time.

 

With the Version 3 upgrade, the DCC (auto knee) is so powerful that I have a couple of shots with odd artifacts in the whites, sort of going a dull cream with a pale green tint. One shot was really bad where someone stood up under a light bulb -- first their face was in the shadow so the skin was going too red with the ITU-709 preset, but when they lifted their head under the hot light at the end, a flush red cast to their face "popped" into a solarized looking pale green hot spot on the forehead. I can't fix it in color-correcting. Luckily it is only two frames long.

 

I think I'm going to use DCC more selectively now too. I still think it is useful for handling bright windows though and white clothing -- I just have to watch for the occasional weirdness.

 

This movie was a case where the look is pretty natural and conventional, and scenes were well-lit (I shot almost the entire movie at T/2.8 at 0 db). We were on a set for most of the film.

 

It shows me again why it is good to get most of the look and exposure right on the set because for the most part, our corrections have been minor. Which is good because HDCAM is so compressed that chroma noise artifacts quickly pop up if you push the image too much around in post color-correction. What's been tedious is that we have a limited color-correction time in the budget, but this WHOLE movie is eleven people talking in close-ups, medium shots, etc. around a dinner table -- and there are a LOT of cuts. So doing the subtle shot-to-shot corrections to match faces (some people have a more sallow skin color than others) is very time-consuming even if the corrections are minor. Plus we shot in this tent set with overhead softbox lighting supplemented by Kinoflos on the floor, so I had to use a dimmer system to control the overhead light. This caused some changes in warmth in our set-ups depending on if more of the light was coming from the overheads or from the Kinoflos. Plus I envisioned a warmer look since the tent is lit with lanterns and candles but now the director likes a whiter look to the lighting because it helps show-off the multi-colored fabrics on the tent walls. So originally was I not concerned so much with the warmth of the dimmed overhead lighting but now I'm pulling most of it out. It's not enough of a difference to create any artifacts in color-correction though because I didn't not go overboard.

 

I also had one day-for-dusk scene mixed with real dusk where I switched the camera from the Daylight filter ( D ) to the half-correction ( C ). This was less heavily blue than I would have gotten by switching to the tungsten setting ( B , i.e. no filter) but it turned out to be a good choice. The cool blue look of the C filter was slightly purple (because of the red channel boost of the ITU-709) but that was easy to adjust out (I could have done it on set with the white balance controls but I didn't). But having a halfway colored image was much easier to color-correct than if I had a too-blue image.

 

Same for my "moonlight" scenes lit with Half Blue. It was much easier to adjust the blueness by being halfway in the recording rather than if I had used Full Blue.

 

I'm tempted on my next HD film, if I have lighting control, to record the blacks at -1 instead of 0 and then use a little more fill if necessary to control the contrast -- because I think I'd get a cleaner, less noisy look to the shadows that way. Some of the prettiest shots have been some flashbacks where I used a heavy ProMist (1/4 or 1/2) with the blacks crushed slightly and the ITU-709 turned off. I then destaurated the image further in post. I get a nice glow on highlights but less milkiness.

 

Otherwise, I shot the movie clean except for a Soft-FX on some close-ups. This approach has been working for me lately because HD always looks a little soft in wide shots when transferred to film but sharper in the close-ups, so you can get away more with diffusion on the close-ups.

[Sam Wells]

I'm tempted on my next HD film, if I have lighting control, to record the blacks at -1 instead of 0 and then use a little more fill if necessary to control the contrast -- because I think I'd get a cleaner, less noisy look to the shadows that way.

David, do you prefer/are able to insist on filmouts from HD done on Vision Premiere ?

 

-Sam

[Kevin Zanit]

Interesting observation about the DCC. I thought I was the only one who saw that issue . . . glad I am not alone ;)

 

As I said yesterday, for me shooting clean in camera (as far as menu settings go) makes more sense the more I think about it/ test it.

 

 

Kevin Zanit

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

I've just been able to have a close look at some HD stuff (F900 shot in India) on HD monitoring. I don't think there was a proper colour profile set up for it - could be wrong - so I may have been looking at it wrong. In any case it looks exactly like you would expect it to - slightly compression-noisy in the blacks and highly intolerant of overexposure. This particular material was very, but not unnaturally, saturated and fairly high contrast. This worked with the subject but overexposed hilights very quickly went into a brightly-coloured mush of overdone DCC, which sounds like the problem you're talking about. Unfortunately I'm not likely to be able to find out what the camera settings were.

 

Phil

[David Mullen ASC]

Regarding the print stock issue, I saw some comparison tests of our uncorrected camera footage transferred to 35mm by various local companies.

 

One company's work was more contrasty than the others because they claim to have perfected their LUT's to map the HD image to film and be properly balanced from black to white. So it didn't seem that Vision Premier was necessary and they printed their test onto regular Vision. However, when I projected their print side-by-side with another company's lower-contrast transfer (more typical of HD-to-film), the pure black areas were still better on the Vision Premier. So it seems the company with the more contrasty transfer was trying to make it look correct on regular Vision yet somehow still were not getting the blacks are good as with Vision Premier.

 

I'm not sure though if this is simply the fact that Premier has better blacks (perhaps their film out had "correct" blacks) and I just prefer the denser blacks of Premier.

 

Anyway, we still may use this company for our film-out, but I will tell them that I want a less contrasty transfer BUT I still want it to be printed onto Premier. They'll probably say "but why? We achieve good blacks with our method and you can print on regular Vision." But I'd rather add the contrast in the print stock to get denser blacks rather than have weaker blacks but less shadow detail on regular print stock.

[Bob Hayes]

Correct me if I?m wrong. I know you will. But isn?t the auto DCC adjustable so you can change the setting to meet the situation. I remember on one shot changing the DCC so it had a very pronounced effect. And then dialing it way down on the next.

[David Mullen ASC]

I don't know if DCC is adjustable unless you go into a hidden menu or something. You can set the knee functions manually though to whatever fixed level you want, but I am less knowledgeable about setting those numbers to where I want them.

[Michael Nash]

Just to clarify, the DCC/AUTO knee is not adjustable (top position of the toggle switch on the side of the camera).

 

The KNEE function IS manually adjustable, through the menus and accessed by the middle position of the toggle switch.

 

 

http://jkor.com/peter/F900paint.html

[Michael Nash]

By the way, thanks for the color insight, David. I'm shooting my first HD feature for film-out in November and I'm compiling as many lessons as I can from your experience.

[Josh Hill]

I know this doesn't necessarily apply to the topic, but where in Texas are you going to be shooting? Its a great state, I hope you enjoy it. I know I'm certainly proud to call myself a Texan :)

[David Mullen ASC]

I'll be in Austin, TX starting today.

[Tenolian Bell]

The more HD shoot, the less I do with the camera's set-up. I've been shooting with the Gamma at 0 lately, the Black at 0, the Detail off.

When I spoke to the Panavision guys about the Genesis they also said the same. For Genesis they weren't planning any menu set ups, you just shoot. They said this was actually the best way to go.

[Josh Hill]

Wow, David. I'm moving to Austin as of the 21st (attending UT as a theatre major). How long are you going to be in town? If you have a day off I'd love to buy you dinner and just chat. There's a couple of other people on the board from Austin as well.

 

What are you shooting, may I ask?

[David Mullen ASC]

I'm shooting a just-under 1-mil feature in 24P HD called "Dot"; it's a co-production of the UT Austin and a company called Burnt Orange. We're shooting for about 25 days I think, until October 7.