Grainy 35mm

[Sanji Robinson]

Hi,

 

I am going with 35mm for the shallow depth of field.

 

I am planning on using the Kodak 200T 5213 (not 19') since I like the color of this stock. I will underexpose the film by 1 stop, then push process it by 2 stops, so it reaches 800 ASA (with 1 stop overexposure to protect shadow detail).

 

Would you do anything different?

 

I am going for grain on people's faces, texture and very high contrast...but without degrading the quality of the image. Also I don't want too high saturation, so I will bring that down in the D.I.

[Tyler Purcell]

Spherical/Anamorphic?

4 perf, 3 perf, 2 perf?

Heavily lit, or underlit?

BRAND NEW stock or aging stock?

 

Those are some variables.

 

However... since you are going to DI, the "color" of the stock is almost irrelevant.

 

I would shoot 5219 and rate it at 1000ASA and push it one stop. Then adjust the color to your liking in post. I've done that before with 16mm and it always looks great.

[Sanji Robinson]

Spherical

3 perf

Underlit

New stock

 

It's hard to say where the color will go. I will shoot a test.

 

Another reason to use 5213 is that the contrast build up should be higher when pushing two stops than shooting 5219 and pushing one stop.

 

Any other thoughts?

[Dirk DeJonghe]

We did a S16 job two months ago on 7213 200T. Pushed two stops for grain. The effective speed gain was less than a stop in the shadows, grain was as planned, serious loss of highlight detail not planned. More difficult to scan due to blocked highlights in neg.

[Tyler Purcell]

Under lighting is going to be a problem because you will loose highlight detail as pointed out above. So you'll have to punch up the actors faces which can lead to them being more grainy then the rest of frame.

 

It's a tricky situation and even on digital, I would never recommend under exposing with higher ASA's, unless it's well lit.

[Sanji Robinson]

Tyler,

 

I actually would like it if the faces were a little grainier than the rest of the frame.

 

So you recommend exposing normally and pushing 2 stops? Without't that burn the highlights even more?

Edited February 24, 2016 by Sanji Robinson

[Karim D. Ghantous]

If you're scanning the negative, why push at all? From what I've seen you don't need to push. Pushing is definitely needed if you're using positive film, or if you're doing traditional IP/IN (it's just easier). But negative film in general (and b&w film specifically) does not need pushing.

Edited February 25, 2016 by Karim D. Ghantous

[Sanji Robinson]

Karim,

 

Someone someone at a big lab (no names mentioned!) begs to differ.

 

Can anyone confirm that pushing the film stock 2 stops will give you no advantage over raising contrast in the D.I (grain and saturation aside) ?

[Tyler Purcell]

Tyler,

 

I actually would like it if the faces were a little grainier than the rest of the frame.

 

So you recommend exposing normally and pushing 2 stops? Without't that burn the highlights even more?

Personally, I wouldn't... it's so easy to do in post production, why mess up your negative?

[David Mullen ASC]

The Vision-3 stocks all match each other pretty well other than grain, so if you want grain, I'd use '19 instead of '13 -- minor differences in color can be adjusted in the D.I., as well as contrast can be added/increased. You can push it one or two stops if you want more grain, though I'd suggest only a 1-stop push w/ 1-stop underexposure and then use sharpening in the D.I. to make the grain pop out even more.

 

But if you want to be bolder, sure, trying what you are suggesting, 200T pushed 2-stops, rated at 800 ASA. In theory your density should be normal, but you'd have more contrast and a loss of shadow detail but with some base fog increase, and probably some color shifting. But it may look interesting in that Chris Doyle "Happy Together" funky sort of way.

 

Just depends on how safe you want to play things. Testing would do a lot to answer these questions.

[Phil Rhodes]

What I fear about this sort of thing is how it will be distributed. A DCP can retain grain reasonably well, being permitted up to 250Mbps of data rate with efficient wavelet encoding. On other media, such as DVD, blu-ray and online, codecs are likely to struggle with the grain. It can be done, but you need to be careful and use services which allow you to use high bitrate encoding.

 

In a lot of cases your carefully created grain may get squashed by the codec.

 

P

[Ari Michael Leeds]

A lot of good answers here from a lot of people with far more experience than me.


That having been said, I don't think anyone touched upon this: Color on '13 and '19 are identical. They're all the same colors, same dyes, same line.

Gone are the days when you had low-con stocks like Expression, older emulsion lines. Vision film is all pretty much the same, just differing levels of grain and color balance.



I'd NEVER recommend pushing 2 stops, unless you're shooting the next "Eyes Wide Shut" and that's the fastest film available ;-)

[Sanji Robinson]

But if you want to be bolder, sure, trying what you are suggesting, 200T pushed 2-stops, rated at 800 ASA. In theory your density should be normal, but you'd have more contrast and a loss of shadow detail but with some base fog increase, and probably some color shifting. But it may look interesting in that Chris Doyle "Happy Together" funky sort of way.

 

(in your experience) is it worth pushing the contrast photochemically (combined with some D.I) over doing everything in the D.I? Will the extra cost in testing/special processing yield better results? Not thinking about the added grain for now.

 

 

What I fear about this sort of thing is how it will be distributed. A DCP can retain grain reasonably well, being permitted up to 250Mbps of data rate with efficient wavelet encoding. On other media, such as DVD, blu-ray and online, codecs are likely to struggle with the grain. It can be done, but you need to be careful and use services which allow you to use high bitrate encoding.

 

In a lot of cases your carefully created grain may get squashed by the codec.

 

P

 

Good thinking, Phil. I have had this experience with 16mm grain and low-Mbps H264 transcoding. What software would you recommend for the encoding to Blu-Ray/Web? You must know quite a few.

[David Mullen ASC]

Adding contrast is basically throwing highlight and/or shadow information away. It is always easier to throw information away in post than it is to add it, so adding more contrast in a D.I. is not difficult.

 

Again, a test would answer a lot of these questions about which approach would be better.

[Ari Michael Leeds]

Also worth keeping in mind that a lot of labs are set up for scanning normal contrast negative, not reversal film or even pushed neg.

I'm not sure what the typical cine scanner tops out at, but you're increasing the D-max when you push, making the blacks blacker, which may make it tougher for scanners to punch through.


It may be worth looking at the film's characteristic curve chart, seeing where the D-max is with a push (if Kodak even has that information) and calling the lab and seeind what OD (same as D-max) their scanner can handle.

If you're adding contrast that you're losing when you go back into the computer, it's kind of a pointless exercise.

[David Mullen ASC]

But if you compensate for the push by underexposing, the net density should be similar. Besides, if the negative density goes up, it's the highlight information that might become too dense for some scanners, not the shadows.

[Ari Michael Leeds]

Sorry, you're right. Forgot that that was coupled with underexposure.

[Freya Black]

What I fear about this sort of thing is how it will be distributed. A DCP can retain grain reasonably well, being permitted up to 250Mbps of data rate with efficient wavelet encoding. On other media, such as DVD, blu-ray and online, codecs are likely to struggle with the grain. It can be done, but you need to be careful and use services which allow you to use high bitrate encoding.

 

In a lot of cases your carefully created grain may get squashed by the codec.

 

P

 

Hmmm. I've hardly seen any blu-ray stuff but I tend to find that DVD handles the grain reasonably well considering.

Things start changing when the bitrates get lower such as with TV and even streaming where everything is massively compressed.

 

Freya

[Ari Michael Leeds]

35 is fine, 16 is where you run into trouble.


Hell, I saw it on the Oscars last night with the 16 clips! Disappointing. Then again, my TV's only 1080i and I was watching on the cable.

[Manu Delpech]

Can't judge super 16 via a satellite feed. Blu Ray is really the way to go, although I've seen "It eats you up", that super 16 short film that came out a week ago and has been promoted by Kodak on their FB page on Vimeo, original file, and it looks great. Even 35 mm suffers on YT in 1080p, goddam compression destroys the texture, nothing better than a good ole QT 1080p file for trailers.

[Ari Michael Leeds]

I agree, that's why I mentioned that caveat that may have detracted from my viewing experience ;-)

I agree Manu, although I find a trailer to be best for a trailer, a 35mm print :-D .

[Manu Delpech]

Well yeah, I meant from what you can get online, WB also releases those insanely big Pro Res files that are like 2 gb for a 2:30 min trailer (even though there's really not that big of a difference with the 1080p regular QT file, the grain is more finely resolved and tiny bit more detail)

 

Although Carol looks soft for super 16, but that's the look of the film. I was blown away by the sharpness of Steve Jobs' first act on super 16 when watching it on BR, granted my JVC projector has the 4K eshift activated (not pushing it too much), but it kinda blew me away, especially considering they shot the whole first on the 7219 stock. But yeah, when you switch to the 35 mm 3 perf, it's something else. Super 16 looks awesome but to me, I still take the resolution, detail and grain of 35 mm, anamorphic being the best, 3 perf great and 2 perf lovely for that extra texture.

[Ari Michael Leeds]

LOL, am amazed, in this day and age, they'd shoot ANYTHING about Steve Jobs on film of any sort! B)

[Manu Delpech]

I don't know what your deal is Ari, if you're being ironic every time you post a message, but you've been really hostile on the forum ever since you got here. What gives?

[Ari Michael Leeds]

Umm, you're getting mad at me for being hostile towards Steve Jobs???


Guilty. Not sure why you'd take that as a slight, personally. Smilies and winks mean I'm joking.