Dead Pixels found in footage after grade - worth fixing?

Mathew Lester · March 22, 2018

Hi Everyone,

I have finished the colour grade on a short film and afterwards, have spotted some shots used with a certain camera throughout the production that have dead pixels. I have scanned through the dailies and can confirm they are present from the day they were shot - so this is nothing to do with any post production or data transfer.

My question is whether or not it would be worth trying to fix - or just leave it and hope the majority of viewers wont notice. As I want to avoid any possible degradation and compression of the overall image during the post pipeline.

It just might be a bit more obvious on the big screen as this is not a 4K delivery.

Any thoughts and experience greatly appreciated.

M

Phil Rhodes · March 22, 2018

I could give you the name of a movie that failed its first QC because of a stuck pixel. It was a pretty obvious stuck pixel, right in the middle of the upper third, but it was spotted.

Phil Connolly · March 22, 2018

I used to work for Channel 4/Film Four QC and failed quite few a high profile things for stuck pixels. Generally you miss them if its a few shots. But if they are persistent and on light backgrounds it would be a QC fail. (well it would have been in the good old days when I did it)

Its a pretty easy fix - there a quite a few dead pixel buster plugins that fix the problem quite simply. I always used to reject programmes for dead pixels because its such and easy fix and only represents lazyness on the online editors part. Lots of post houses came to hate me over the years...

I would also fix it because even if the audience don't notice it, I would notice it and then I'd worry that other people would notice it... Its a very simple fix - depending on your software.... google is your friend here, plenty of online tutorials