Michael McIntyre

Not likely. Wouldn't see it today - won't see it in December. Weak. I like my video games and films the way they should be - separate.

And therein lies my beef. Ever since you tried to hijack the "look" settings thread (DVX100), there's been a consistent, condescending tone towards the use of in-camera manipulation. You've even gone so far as to suggest certain ops don't even know how to read scopes. To play the Graff hand, I've been finishing for broadcast for over 15 years now. That's innumerable episodes for international deliverables, every day, every week, QC on-the-spot. I'm fully aware of the power of post. I also appreciate the abilities of doing some things in-camera. I don't need convincing otherwise and I don't need these tired, pious posts born from some deep-seeded unhealthy need to be liked and feel important. These strike me as the ramblings of a narcissistic emotional vampire windbag.

And you could argue that far too many people are playing around in post. Aren't all creative decisions, by definition, a personal statement? There are things I do in-camera, there are things I do in post. No need to prattle on with these cyclical, long-winded diatribes about nothing....... I was on this project back in the day and I had this thing that did this thing but other people do other things and they are wrong because I've been doing this so long and on one project there was another guy that said one thing and I said don't say it and then we looked at the scopes and I applied a filter in this one shoot for a corporate client and then I told these kids about how awful their footage was because I get all these tapes because I'm such a professional and I do all these things way before anyone did them and I told a client not to do this one thing but they did it anyway because they didn't seem to understand the play of light during this one filmic moment that reminded me of a dream where I was white balancing with a filter I read about in some software that was inspired by a show cut at this place that used to do the telecine for this one guy I heard about but never met but didn't really want to anyway because I'm much more professional. Did I mention that I was a professional and that I'm thinking of collecting all my infinite wisdom into a collection of let's not say books per se. That's too cliche but some sort of electronic tablature device that can contain both my ego and all of my infinite intellect and this tablet will be able to power my house and my car that cost a lot of money since I've been doing this for so long and I made a lot of money back in the day before any of you were even born. I actually invented the motion picture camera. I made it out of 2 rocks and an amphibian exoskeleton. I fashioned a membrane cell structure that captured light and you flipped the book in our cave and pictures danced on the wall which I measured 2 stops overexposed which reminds of another expensive shoot that I worked on where this guy said he didn't understand using scopes on the set and I demonstrated the basic principles of luminance and chroma and how the interconnectivity of the Grassy Knoll and Kermit the Frog was actually a very real and dangerous collision of physics much like the need for people to stop playing around in-camera.

That's a very valid point. They did adopt a similar bait-and-switch with the 'sex victim advocate' guy. One minute he's up-and-coming officer material, the next he might have raped someone during shore leave. One minute the redneck's just a wild-and-crazy guy and the next he's a racist train wreck. There had to be some limits to their operational access (i.e. the nuclear install). It makes you wonder if this approach was dictated by a need to be relevant on today's TV dial or a search for story and screen time. More of a documentary concern than pure cinematography. Still an impressive undertaking. You didn't catch me complaining at my freelance gig today. And, no, I won't be seeing a recruiter anytime soon. Make that ever.

It's not always spot-on but (since you're using FCP) there's the "Broadcast Safe" filter. You can set how conservative you want your whites clipped. Rather than bring down all the luminance of your image, it will just clip those trouble areas.

Very cool, Mitch. Must feel good to be part of such a historic project. Admittedly, I am hooked. Saw the latest episode tonight, "Controlled Chaos" and started from the beginning with "All Hands". The storytelling is so great that the cameras almost don't even matter. Of course, the Varicams look incredible and hold up really well in all conditions. It's interesting to see them subjected to every imaginable available light condition there is. Beyond that tech note, I described it as a 'historic project' because it truly is. In this time of 'reality television', PBS proves {yet again} that other networks are dishing out nothing approaching reality. We're talking present day cinema verite on a grand scale. It's late. I ramble. The TV redeemed itself this week. Well - that and the NHL playoffs.

Must've been lonely. I know several people from your class. I guess you missed the last reunion. :blink:

Pretty amazing series on PBS right now - "Carrier". Making the film CARRIER required 17 filmmakers to take a six-month journey aboard the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz during its deployment to the Gulf in support of the Iraq War. They disembarked from Coronado, California on May 7, 2005 and returned there November 8, 2005 with stops at Pearl Harbor, Hong Kong, Guam, Kuala Lumpur, Bahrain and Perth, Australia. The trip proved an evolution for the film crew who spent the early weeks trying to find their place while the 5,000 sailors and Marines around them were too busy to take notice. Eventually, the film crew discerned the ebb and flow of life on a carrier, and began to feel more at home on board. The ship?s crew not only accepted them but also took a vested interest in the project, making suggestions on the best places to film and providing access to missions that helped capture the full experience of the deployment. Jammed into their own staterooms, the crew that once felt apart now felt kinship as they shared both trepidation and jubliation awaiting the safe return of the carrier?s jet fighters. When the huge emotional surge of seeing home hit in November, the filmmakers knew how the Nimitz crew must feel. But back on land, their own mission of editing and production continued for nearly three more years before the film CARRIER docked at PBS on April 27, 2008.

Seriously. Yet another 'unauthorized' edit: "I didn't get DoF in-field. I blurred background in post. I'm a magician". :blink:

Good hearing it went well and best of luck with the film. Big Bend is amazing country. Granted, I haven't been there in 16 years but I remember it fondly. That - and the chili thing in Marathon. Keep up the great work!

The unauthorized, late-night edit to your post. Come on, you rained on my DVX in-camera looks. I figure it's a fair trade. :P

Roger that and good to know. Can't say that I've ever used iMovie but DVD StudioPro does a fine job w/ 24p material. That 1st DVD burn was one of those light-bulb ah-ha moments that any dork can truly appreciate.

I'm more than a little late to this question but anyway...... To totally oversimplify things, where's your footage going to end up? Broadcast TV? 24p Film or straight-to-DVD? 24pA Many workflow issues and specifics but your deliverables ultimately determine the path. I'm certain people may jump all over this truncated response but it's a start for determining your footage acquisition.

A good case study might be looking at a career-in-reverse. After the ultra low-budget "Pi", Matthew Libatique went on to: "Requiem for a Dream", "Gothika", "Phone Booth", "Number 23", "Inside Man", "The Fountain" and many others. Just to name a few. Maybe slightly off-topic but Matt did some crazy stuff in "Pi" and he's gone on to great things.

Hey, Jason: I've often debated about doing a book of looks. I just wasn't sure if there'd be enough interest to put one out. Many people you read on dvxuser have a hard enough time just pony'ing up for Barry Green's book (if it didn't come with their camera already). I think it could be a great resource - it's hard to guage whether there's a market there. Also - it might be hard to come up with enough looks to warrant publication. I've managed to come up with a few but it seems like a weird, vicious cycle. You spend enough time getting one 'okay' and it makes you want to just do it in post. Then, you spend enough time in post that you long for a look to do it in-camera. Weird how that works. Regarding the Hostel and GoldenEye looks, they weren't actually paint chips but colored envelopes. They're colored semi-transparent plastic with a string tie to hold letter-sized paper or whatever. Hostel: Smead UltraColor Envelope (No. 89531 - Purple) Golden EYE: Smead UltraColor Envelope 89532 (BLUE this time) I don't seem to have a picture of the BLUE one for GoldenEye but this is the one used for Hostel to give you an idea....

Comp, digits, then details.... {another WHITE-BALANCE FAKE necessary - see below} "CyBlue" DETAIL LEVEL: -4 V DETAIL LEVEL:-3 DETAIL CORING:+2 CHROMA LEVEL:-7 CHROMA PHASE: -7 COLOR TEMP:-3 MASTER PEDESTAL: -6 A. IRIS -2 GAMMA: B. PRESS KNEE: LOW MATRIX: NORM SKIN TONE DTL: OFF V DETAIL FREQ:MID PROGRESSIVE: 24p I realize I just posted another batch ("TANG") but I got in a groove lately and this recipe had eluded me. After posting the "GoldenEye" set, I'd been asked several times about creating a 'cool blue' look. "300" had just come out and a series of plug-ins were being cooked up that mirrored some of this look. Not to bore you with the details but here goes: A 'cool blue' look actually leans heavily towards cyan, stopping just short of it. There's actually more cyan in any given 'blue look' than there is blue. Blue gets too blocky and noisy. Our first thought on seeing a similar shot is "Hey, that's a cool blue". Usually, there's some cyan-at-play. Cyan proved increasingly difficult to find its evil twin, reverse or anti-complementary color for a white balance fake. Yes, that's complementary, "relating to or constituting one of a pair of contrasting colors that produce a neutral color when combined in suitable proportions". Suffice to say, it can get old white-balancing and staring at scopes. Upon further inspection, it was the paint chips that were the problem after all. Both BEHR and Disney lines of paint arrive at a dizzying array of paint choices by blending various colors just like anyone would. When referenced, many of their products leave behind chroma blooms and color artifacts that offset additional colors. You don't always see these when shooting in one situation with a camera tethered to a vectorscope and waveform. Outside, with changing light and exposure, things can get weird and colors shift. Lows, Mids and Highs all respond differently, especially when you're goofing around with the camera's brain like here. There's almost no way to predict how a BEHR or Disney will do in-field. Enter Ralph Lauren. Seems his smaller (2.5" x 2.5") paint samples had found their way to the bottom of the gear bag. For whatever reason, Ralph Lauren's line of paints provide much cleaner and isolated white balance fakes. Maybe it's the higher price and, no, I don't work for Ralph Lauren. These paint chips, as always, are free at your local Home Depot. This is a similar approach as prior.... Freak out the camera and dial it in on the scopes to be 'painted' whatever with little hints remaining of other colors. This look would benefit from a lower MASTER PED and green-suppression. IB64 "Lifevest Orange" was the WINNER for this white-balance fake. And the losers are......

Pics, Digits, Paint Chip, then Details..... {*uses WHITE-BALANCE fakeout}..... Single jpeg's to follow.... Scene File: TANG DETAIL -3 V. DETAIL 0 DTL. CORING +2 CHROMA LVL -7 CHROMA PHASE -3 COLOR TEMP -5 MASTER PED -7 A. IRIS -2 GAMMA CineLike KNEE n/a MATRIX NORM SKIN DTL OFF V DTL. THIN 24p White-Balance from one sample of a BEHR paint color chip card (free from Home Depot).... It's a 4-color card from the 520F line. The 2nd color from the top is "520F-5 HARBOR". It's sort of a blue-ish green. I'd zero'ed in on 520F-5 HARBOR as a paint-chip WHT BAL fake for a different Scene File. I'd shot enough that I thought I'd post "TANG" in the meantime. It's been a while since my last settings recipe, so forgive the rambling. Just FYI - the idea behind using a paint chip or color to white balance is to push the camera's spectrum around in a way that you can't do by simply adjusting PHASE and TEMP in the menu. My goal (usually) is to totally freak out the colorspace and bring it back around towards somewhat normal. What seems like only a subtle difference in paint colors or art cards can produce wildly different results in-camera. IF you tweak in post then tweak in post. I do that too. There is a reason this thread is prefixed "Scene File Setting....". It's pretty obvious. The idea was to cook up a somewhat contrasty, autumnal, late afternoon warm look that bent towards yellow. Believe it or not, "TANG" does not bend towards yellow. Shot a batch and put them up on the old Tektronix 1740 scopes / waveform. "TANG" falls into a weird area between red and yellow - somewhat of a coral kind of orangey-pinkish fusion. Because the white-balance has shifted so dramatically, it behaves differently depending on exposure and colors in-frame. No surprises there but it ended up looking more like TANG than the intended October cornfield gold. Individual jpeg's will follow since the comp pic doesn't fully show how weird the colors could get. If you take COLOR TEMP all he way down to -7, it's pure California Orange Crush psychadelia. As always, and all input appreciated. Thanks for looking!

Nope. Not James Bond. Long before Pierce Brosnan took his turn as 007 in '95, John Huston released a very strange film in 1967, "Reflections in a Golden Eye" starring Marlon Brando & Elizabeth Taylor. I used a Smead UltraColor Envelope 89532 (BLUE this time) for WHITE BALANCE. Add some adjustments in-camera and you've got a cheat on this weird look. "To emphasize the film's psychological oppressiveness and find a visual equivalent for the novel's brooding, interior spirit, Huston," according to Tony Thomas in The Films of John Huston, "evolved a costly and complicated process of desaturating the film's color until only a gold and slightly pinkish image emerged. [Cinematographer Oswald] Morris called the effect on the film's mood "quite extraordinary." Warner Brothers didn't agree, however, and released the film in full Technicolor, which made the film pictorially striking and quite beautiful to look at, but decidedly worked against the emotional impact Huston wanted Reflections to have." "GOLDEN EYE" (need Smead 89532 or weird blue for white balance) DETAIL -3 V. DETAIL LEVEL -3 DETAIL CORING +3 CHROMA LEVEL 0 CHROMA PHASE -7 COLOR TEMP +5 MASTER PED -5 A. IRIS LEVEL -2 GAMMA B.PRESS KNEE HIGH MATRIX NORMAL SKIN TONE DTL OFF V. DETAIL FREQ THIN PROGRESSIVE 24P "Warner Home Video recently released Reflections in a Golden Eye as a stand-alone DVD and as part of the Marlon Brando Collection boxed set, and the picture looks the way Huston originally intended. The anamorphically enhanced presentation restores the picture?s widescreen aspect ratio, and Warner Home Video has seen fit to add the golden sheen back to the image ? a disquieting visual detail that only adds to the film?s strange, tension-filled narrative." Why would you want to use this? I have absolutely no idea. Why did I do it? Well, I had the envelope and a little too much time on my hands it seems. Warner Brothers hated it, maybe you will too...... Fever City Studio, Denver, CO fevercity is online now Report Post Edit/Delete Message

Nancy Schreiber (as many of you know) shot "November" on 2 DVX's: ?In the story, we keep returning to a convenience store, which we color balanced as a murky green. Then we had what we call the blue, golden and white ?chapters,? matching the emotional journey of Sophie. We tried to do everything in-camera in terms of color and contrast, which was facilitated by the camera?s Cine-Like setting and scene files. To achieve a film-like quality, I worked on the long-end of the lens, as wide open as possible, with not much depth of field. We had to do some wide shots?traditionally a liability with video cameras?but I thought these shots looked almost as good as if we?d shot with an expensive HD camera.?

Further research led not to more shooting but frame grabs and blank-staring st acopes. The Smead UltraColor Envelope produces such a strong 'green spike' in white balance that there's almost nothing left to warm back up. It's kinda like a strong sodium-vapor streetlight spike. Just need a kinder, gentler violet. I think that's about it. Still a pretty trippy bizarro effect for 99 cents though. And, well, the settings were free too. Obviously. Rather than reverse fluorescents, it looks like Milan Chadima actually played them up. Again - nothing new to that look either. 'Green scene' swatched pixel grabs from the film, Vortex's Minus Green (used to correct fluorescents) and the "Smead Spike".......

Okay, so technically it should be "Hostel 2" since that's what Eli Roth was on Conan O' Brien talking about tonight. Regardless, the 'green' look is overdone these days but it was late and scene settings have been on my mind lately (obviously). They showed an interior torture / horror scene and it was time to try and simulate that look on a DVX. The green was off the charts for a straight in-camera tweak alone. CHROMA PHASE will not take you that far green. The 'look' needed to be a repeatable white-balance fake. It needed to be more specific than "experiment with card stock from your local printing supplier". Enter the Smead UltraColor Envelope (No. 89531 - Purple). It's a letter-sized envelope with a string thingie but you only need enough to grab white balance and it's nice to know that their 'purple' will yield this creepy green. My contrast and details are much the same. Switched to NORMAL MATRIX to cut down on low-light noise (thanks to gco of Virginia). CHROMA LEVEL determines how green you want it. Increasing negative digits on COLOR TEMP from 0 (-1 -> -7) determines how much you want to see underlying colors. 0 COLOR TEMP leaves it really green. Blacks are solid at -10 on the PEDESTAL. Put KNEE on AUTO as fluctuating knee-protection could be interesting for a shoot that called for this effect. Or not... When you white-balance to the envelope or any colored material, sometimes it will tell you that it's NG (NoGood, NeGative, NotGonnadoit, NoGo, etc.) but it will still take the color info. It will even hold a 'BAD' white balance in whichever A/B spot you grab it to.... even after power-down. As always, any and all input appreciated........ "Hostel" DETAIL LEVEL -3 V DETAIL LEVEL -1 DETAIL CORING +3 CHROMA LEVEL 0 CHROMA PHASE 0 COLOR TEMP -4 MASTER PED -10 A. IRIS LEVEL -2 GAMMA B.PRESS KNEE AUTO MATRIX NORMAL SKIN TONE DTL OFF V DETAIL FREQ THIN PROGRESSIVE 24p White Balance Reference: Smead UltraColor Envelope (No. 89531 - Purple)

Maybe if it had a sexier name than "B.PRESS", I would've experimented more with this gamma setting sooner. Not that "CINELIKE V" is all that sexy but that's what I had settled on for a lot of my material. It is, after all, one of the 'suggested' film-out settings from DVFilm.com. Maybe it's too many years finsihing shows for broadcast where maximum contrast is essential 'on the scopes'. Whatever the case, I do find myself pushing blacks to black, whites to white and bringing down mids to taste. I may have found some common ground with "B.PRESS". Also, Barry Green writes in his bible that, with CINELIKE V, "more of the potential dynamic range is used so the image appears to have sharper contrast, but it's done so ELECTRONICALLY by stretching the gamma curve". I'm not sure if that's the culprit but I'm seeing mosquito noise in less-than-ideal recent shoots (sunrise, sunset and low-light). Pushing the range with color-correction {in 10-bit uncompressed} really brought out this noise even further. Regardless, I still push the range and 'almost always' bring down the mids, so maybe B.PRESS could fit the bill. With this latest batch, chroma's a bit hot. This jpeg doesn't do justice to how saturated the new woodwork on that house is. The sky remains thanks to a polarizer filter. Otherwise, there's no other filtration and white balance is clean. The blacks are definitely solid. Maybe too solid - this gamma curve probably allows for some more room on the lower end (a -6 or -7 should be ideal). -8 is what's provided here for PEDESTAL and HIGH on the KNEE, hence the name: "8-BallPressHigh" DETAIL LEVEL -3 V DETAIL LEVEL -1 DETAIL CORING +2 CHROMA LEVEL +3 CHROMA PHASE 0 COLOR TEMP 0 MASTER PED -8 A. IRIS LEVEL -1 GAMMA B.PRESS KNEE HIGH MATRIX CINELIKE SKIN TONE DTL OFF V DETAIL FREQ THIN PROGRESSIVE 24P

Another 'borrow' from dvxuser.com. This one comes from Senior Member "bwest" (Cambridge, Mass.). He posted these settings in order "to help with the blocky reds. Thats in-camera setting specifically designed for video noise and chroma noise...all inherent to dv-25 [minidv]. This happens to all minidv cameras with high pixel counts on the ccd's." I haven't used these and some may disagree with the reasoning behind their intended posting but here goes: RED DE-NOISER........ DETAIL -5 V.DETAIL 0 DETAIL CORING plus+4 CHROMA LEVEL -4 CHROMA PHASE 0 COLOR TEMP 0 MASTER PED -5 AUTO IRIS on GAMMA / CONTRAST blk press KNEE low SKIN TONE DTL on MATRIX norm\ then use the "chroma blur" or its equivalent in post!

I realize many of my scene files border on the 'warm' side and this is no exception. Someone elsewhere had asked about a 'Mexico' look for an upcoming shoot. Not sure it this fits the bill but I'd like to keep this thread going. There have many 'views' but no real 'shares' to speak of. Come on, people, share some settings digits! Anyway, the contrast here is strong (CINELIKE V). Blacks are conservatively solid with MASTER PEDESTAL at -6 {w/o being crushed}. I do need to bring the V. DETAIL down a bit. The idea was to pull out most of the chroma and warm what's left, creating the sense of late afternoon sun bouncing around, with a hint of the underlying color. So, here's "Warm Rust" ( I know - lame name but oh well....) DETAIL -3 V DETAIL +2 DETAIL CORING +2 CHROMA LVL -7 CHROMA PHASE 0 COLOR TEMP -5 M. PEDESTAL -6 A. IRIS -2 GAMMA CINELIKE V KNEE (n/a) MATRIX CINELIKE V DTL THIN SKIN DTL OFF 24pA

Agreed... Seems like we've sorta hijacked this thread but oh well...... There really isn't much middle ground with the HVX -> people either love it or could care less. I'm a little surprised there hasn't been more buzz around the Sony V1U. But, then again, there's the whole HDV debacle too (love it or hate it). As this has progressed though, I'd be curious to hear which route was taken by the original topic starter: 2.35 widescreen on the DVX.