Angus Hudson

UPDATE: After much work we have managed to resolve most of the problems and were getting on the Lustre and are achieving a very similar look, but not exactly the same for obvious reasons, to what was achieved in Spirit. In fact we are getting better look now. Nothing like lavishing a bit of TLC on to a shot ...... and the silver plug-in. We have found some workarounds to help with getting the level and quality of desaturation we are after without getting the magenta-greys we were experiencing before. However I find it interesting that when we do start to desaturate certain cyan greens tend not to be affected and if we go too far magenta starts to appear. All very strange. DLP/Print/Lustre mismatch issues have been resolved with a custom LUT and are now amazingly spot on or should I say spot on... amazingly ; ) I think the issues have come from a post-house that were a little lazy and expecting an easy hassle free job with undemanding clients who needed a bit of a kick up the proverbial to get their shop in order (post-house not clients) - combined with a slightly young and inexperienced, albeit it very good and dedicated colourist. Although somewhat delayed we are now getting stuck into the grade with hopefully most things resolved. Thank you for your advice. Angus

Little update: In absentia, the post house has carried out various tests and they have attributed some of the of the problems to the DLP. We have now been moved from Lustre suite 3, to Lutsre suite 1 and the tests are printing "better", what ever that means. Just wonder why they have substandard suite in the first place. Oh they joys of a low-ish budget film! Apparently still getting some magenta issues when desaturating or if no magenta the skin just goes grey. The tests are on 2 shots, one is on a day exterior shot on Fuji Eterna 250D, with no filters and bounced natural light as fill. The other is an studio interior on Eterna 500T in pure tungsten light. Also slight problems in both tests with tonal artefacts(?) in the skin tones in areas with heavier make up on the actresses slightly less than perfect skin - Seem to remember D.M. mentioning issues with heavier make up and DI. Fuji tech guy didn't have much to offer that hasn't been said here i.e. there shouldn't really be a problem. Although he did suggest having a go with the new Fuji RDI interneg stock. I'm due to review the tests later this week, as well as a few interesting tests involving DI combined with a bit of photochemical shinnagins to help with the desaturation. At least they are trying! Thank you for your comments.

I found these posts on this "Kodak vs Fuji" thread - http://www.cinematography.com/forum2004/lo...php?t11346.html David Mullen ASC Dec 26 2006, 03:08 PM One reason people find a color bias in Fuji is that the post chain is heavily optimized for the particular shade/density of the brick-orange color-mask of Kodak negative. You can neutralize a telecine for Fuji's base, and you can use Fuji lab stocks, etc. but most post people work with Kodak and thus it takes a little more tweaking to get Fuji to be neutral when the machines are set-up for Kodak and all the lab stocks are Kodak. Of course, Fuji is designed to work with either Kodak or Fuji lab stocks, but you know that the neg stocks were designed as part of a Fuji series of neg, intermediate, and print stocks. David Mullen ASC Dec 26 2006, 04:34 PM Fuji has been lowering the density of their color mask over the years to optimize them for scanning / telecine. But my only point is that you can get neutral color from Fuji with a minimal amount of effort, but not if you're set-up for a batch of Kodak stock. Then you'll be trying to time out a color bias and thinking something must be off with the Fuji stock. Any thoughts? Angus Angus Hudson DP London

Thank you Michael, most helpful. I will report back! Angus

I'm in the very early stages of grading a film via a DI (Lustre) and we have come up with a few issues which I would welcome your comments and views. Before getting into the "issues", here are a few details - Stock: 35mm Fuji Eterna 500T, 250T, 250D Format: 2.35:1 Anamorphic Scan: arriscanner @ 2k DI: Lustre Projector: Barco 2k Output:Arrilaser 10bit 2k Print stock: Kodak 2383 We are trying to achieve a slightly above average desaturated look (-40%ish) with a silver metallic bleach bypassy feel, with strong but ever so slightly bluish blacks, creamy highlights and soft peachy skin tones. Sounds more extreme than it really is. We came up with a "look" that we really liked in our telecined (Spirit) semi-graded dailies during the shooting of the film and we are keen to try creating a similar if not the same look. We do realise, for obvious reasons that they can never match exactly, but we feel/hope that we can get close. The ""Issues". Whilst grading the images on the lustre, how ever hard we try to stop it happening, once we start disaturating the image to the level we want (which really isn't silly desaturated), the skin tones start going flat and become more than a little magenta, the whites and off-whites start feeling a little green. We could not seem to isolate the magenta and even when we removed the magenta totally via the curves, there was still evidence of it in the image. We did a print out test and found the resulting print was stupidly magenta, as in there was a major calibration issue going on to say the least. I am not an expert in these matters but have a gut feeling that "they" have used the wrong LUT and it is throwing everything out, although i have been assured that the correct LUT's has been used........ Other issues include solarisation like artefacts in skin tones (looks like really dodgy make up) - seen more on the 8 bit DLP projected image than on the 10bit test print. Our weekly selected printed rushes are absolutely fine and gorgeous (albeit rather colourful) with no hint of magenta/green and the majority of the time we had healthy printer lights. I have suggested that the post house sort out their shop before we continue and get everything behaving the way it should, at which point we review if it is the grade we are try to achieve that is causing problems or if it is the negative, or if it is a combination of the two. Or if it is down to the equipment or operator inexperience/error or even, God forbid, DP error! The post house is doing the right thing - Lustre suites have been changed, tests are being carried out in our absence to resolve the obvious as well as the less obvious issues and initial reports are that the test prints have improved, although I have not seen anything so can not comment. I should add that this is a large and supposedly reputable company, which for the time being I prefer not to mention by name. A few initial questions come to mind: Will the wrong LUT make it impossible to grade out certain hues (green & magenta) despite the power and tools the lustre has at it disposal. Does destaurating an image too much create problems with greens and magentas as well as artefacts. Surely the Lustre should be able to isolate and remove the colours we do not want. I heard rumour that on the "Paris J'taime" project <http://pro.imdb.com/title/tt0401711/> which was all shot on Fuji with 17 different DoP's, needed a tweak to the LUT had to be carried out in order to get the Lustre and resulting prints doing what they should. Maybe I need a special customised tweak. It's getting late now and I'm getting tired and I'm in danger of rambling on and on, so I'll stop. But I would be grateful for any thoughts on these matters. In the meantime I will sleep on the matter and try and follow up soon. Thank you and all the best ... Angus Angus Hudson DP London