What happened here ?

[Dominik Muench]

Hi guys,

 

 

last week i shot a music video on pretty short notice and preproduction in an old industrial bulding.

filmstock was Fuji Eterna 500T. normal processing. two days ago when we had telecine i had the worst day of my "career" so far, the footage looked pretty bad in my opinion, very dark and absolutely NO detail in darker image areas even though there was light there.

 

lenses were zeiss super speeds and i mostly shot betwen F 1,4 - F 2,2

 

here are some screenshots of the footage:

 

http://www.hereticarts.com/1.jpg

http://www.hereticarts.com/2.jpg

http://www.hereticarts.com/3.jpg

http://www.hereticarts.com/4.jpg

 

especially in image 2-4 you can see that everything around the actress is pitch black, even though there should have been enough light to get some detail in the negative.

 

could there have something happened during the development or did i just screw up big time lighting wise ?

[Stephen Williams]

Hi guys,

last week i shot a music video on pretty short notice and preproduction in an old industrial bulding.

filmstock was Fuji Eterna 500T. normal processing. two days ago when we had telecine i had the worst day of my "career" so far, the footage looked pretty bad in my opinion, very dark and absolutely NO detail in darker image areas even though there was light there.

 

lenses were zeiss super speeds and i mostly shot betwen F 1,4 - F 2,2

 

here are some screenshots of the footage:

 

http://www.hereticarts.com/1.jpg

http://www.hereticarts.com/2.jpg

http://www.hereticarts.com/3.jpg

http://www.hereticarts.com/4.jpg

 

especially in image 2-4 you can see that everything around the actress is pitch black, even though there should have been enough light to get some detail in the negative.

 

could there have something happened during the development or did i just screw up big time lighting wise ?

 

Dominik,

 

2 questions, did the camera have an adjustable shutter and what was the telecine?

 

Stephen

[John Holland]

Hi guys,

last week i shot a music video on pretty short notice and preproduction in an old industrial bulding.

filmstock was Fuji Eterna 500T. normal processing. two days ago when we had telecine i had the worst day of my "career" so far, the footage looked pretty bad in my opinion, very dark and absolutely NO detail in darker image areas even though there was light there.

 

lenses were zeiss super speeds and i mostly shot betwen F 1,4 - F 2,2

 

here are some screenshots of the footage:

 

http://www.hereticarts.com/1.jpg

http://www.hereticarts.com/2.jpg

http://www.hereticarts.com/3.jpg

http://www.hereticarts.com/4.jpg

 

especially in image 2-4 you can see that everything around the actress is pitch black, even though there should have been enough light to get some detail in the negative.

 

could there have something happened during the development or did i just screw up big time lighting wise ?

 

 

Hi guys,

last week i shot a music video on pretty short notice and preproduction in an old industrial bulding.

filmstock was Fuji Eterna 500T. normal processing. two days ago when we had telecine i had the worst day of my "career" so far, the footage looked pretty bad in my opinion, very dark and absolutely NO detail in darker image areas even though there was light there.

 

lenses were zeiss super speeds and i mostly shot betwen F 1,4 - F 2,2

 

here are some screenshots of the footage:

 

http://www.hereticarts.com/1.jpg

http://www.hereticarts.com/2.jpg

http://www.hereticarts.com/3.jpg

http://www.hereticarts.com/4.jpg

 

especially in image 2-4 you can see that everything around the actress is pitch black, even though there should have been enough light to get some detail in the negative.

 

could there have something happened during the development or did i just screw up big time lighting wise ?

Sorry apart from follow spot where was the lighting ? johnholland .

[Dominik Muench]

stephen: no the camera was an arri srI.

telecine was on a davinci HD system.

 

john: no particular lighting for the clip but some ambient and practical lighting, it was actually quite bright around the "lit" stage areas, thats why im so surprised that these areas went so black.

[Filip Plesha]

Sorry I'm just understimating your problem, but how did you meter it?

It looks to me as if you took a reading directly from your lightsource where it hits the surface strongest, and then exposed for that reading. Or as it is often said: "exposed for highlights"

And in this case, your light is more like backlight, and as far as I can see this kind of stuff is always exposed

so that the backlight is one or two stops over the key, even if the key is bounced.

 

But then, I don't shoot movies.

[Dominik Muench]

well, i usually meter into the direction of the lens, plus the side where the light is coming from and then find a ballance between those readings. i often expose for highlights thats right, but usually i stay half a stop or so under the "highlight" reading.

[Filip Plesha]

Yea but in case of such strong directional light, exposing for highlights will result in everything else being pretty dark.

 

You probably had several stops difference between your main light, and the bounce in the rest of the room. If you expose for the brightest part, the rest of the room is supose to be several stops below your mid gray, which in case of film (even negative) is pretty dark.

 

 

Did you see the film? IF this is how you metered the dark parts should be pretty thin, or pure base

 

 

Your eyes always avarage out the difference. Your eyes for example can see "in one take" both the interrior of a dark room with one window and the exterior after dusk drrn though a window. Both parts are within the range of the eye, and seem almost equally lit, but the difference is between 5 and 6 stops of light (I just metered it) and that is way more than any film can handle, the underexposure latitude is usually about 2 stops

Edited May 16, 2006 by Filip Plesha

[Dominik Muench]

hi filip,

 

 

you might be right, that sort of metering in those particular circumstances really might have been wrong, i guess i relied too much on the wide exposure latitude, call me a T grain victim :/

[Filip Plesha]

The advantage of imrpoved latitude is mostly visible in overexposure. That's where the big headroom is, and that's where you "trust" latitude to take care of the problem.

 

Modern films have certainly filled shadows with details, but the improvement is not such that you can underexpose film by two stops and pretend that nothing happened.

[Dominik Muench]

damn :/ guess i was too much in "shooting with digital" mode, im usually pretty scared of overexposure, guess thats why i went for the highlights. oh boy :/ i go n hide for a month n hit myself with the lightmeter carry strap.

 

at least i have to tell something in the "Memorable Blunders" section at the last ASC Magazine page when they come to interview me :)

Edited May 16, 2006 by Dmuench

[Canney]

In post production you can increase the brightness by doing a gamma and highlight correction. I would decrease the gamma to around .84 and it should improve the picture's visibilty and keep color deteroiration to a minimal. I'll do some test on your pics and get back to you. Due note when changeing the gama to a lower setting the picture will lose color and become B&W.

 

My recommendation however is if you can refilm then do it, keeping everything that the people above said in mind. Doing corrections for severe problems in post is only as a last resort because there is only so much you can do.

[Dominik Muench]

hi canney, thanks for the help.

 

reshoot is not an option, the production was absolute low budget.

[Olex Kalynychenko]

stephen: no the camera was an arri srI.

telecine was on a davinci HD system.

 

I hope, the film was fresh ?

You shoot test image with gray and color scale ?

 

What format of footages you received from Telecine ?

Possible, this was computer file of Dpx 10 bit log ? and you open by After Effects ?

 

You can make simply test.

Take cut of negative and print photos on photo lab.

The result can show you quality of negative.

[Dominik Muench]

yep i got the film 3 days before the shoot from fuji.

nope, didnt have the time for film and camera tests :/

 

i got a digibeta tape and then a transfer from digibeta to miniDv...thats the only format the editor could accept easily.

 

as far as i know the editor is using after effects for all the effects stuff yes.

[Dominic Case]

could there have something happened during the development or did i just screw up big time lighting wise ?

Forget all this chat about what sort of telecine, and meering and so on.

 

Filip has already asked this question: Did you see the film?

 

In other words, LOOK AT THE NEGATIVE. Not on the telecine. Open it up on a light bench. What is the image like? You will easily see if the image is there as you lit it (in which case go back to telecine and get them to do a proper transfer), or if it's thin - almost non-existent even. Is the dmin as it should be, or is it old, aged stock. Are you sure it was Eterna 500T? Any chance of a mistake there? What do the edge numbers tell you? As Olex asks - did you shoot a grey scale? What does that look like?

[Guest Jim Murdoch]

You know that the 35mm still camera format was originally developed in the 1920s as an inexpensive way of shooting on-set tests, using movie camera stock, to avoid this sort of problem.

 

Although there's no practical way of shooting a test still with 16mm film, nonetheless, by using a 35mm still film that at least approximates the speed of your motion picture stock, you get a rough idea of how it will behave lighting-wise, for not too much money. As Dominic has pointed out, when you're troubleshooting a bad take, the negative is the most important thing, and that's what you neeed to look at in a test.

 

A 24-shot roll of 35mm still film and a one-hour minilab charge is pretty cheap insurance if you're on a tight budget. It won't tell you everything, but it will serve to highlight possible problems.

 

Generally, there's a lot more that can be done to fix over-exposed negative film than under-exposed, which is pretty much the reverse of shooting with video cameras.

[Dominik Muench]

Forget all this chat about what sort of telecine, and meering and so on.

 

Filip has already asked this question: Did you see the film?

 

In other words, LOOK AT THE NEGATIVE. Not on the telecine. Open it up on a light bench. What is the image like? You will easily see if the image is there as you lit it (in which case go back to telecine and get them to do a proper transfer), or if it's thin - almost non-existent even. Is the dmin as it should be, or is it old, aged stock. Are you sure it was Eterna 500T? Any chance of a mistake there? What do the edge numbers tell you? As Olex asks - did you shoot a grey scale? What does that look like?

 

 

hi dominic,

 

iu havent looked at the negative itself yet, i will try and do that this afternoon. whats dmin if you dont mind me asking ?

the stock is deff eterna 500T, i ordered it directly by Fuji Kine Films Germany and i loaded it personaly out of the original can. i will check teh edge number this afternoon as well.

 

no i didnt shoot a grayscale before the shoot.

 

You know that the 35mm still camera format was originally developed in the 1920s as an inexpensive way of shooting on-set tests, using movie camera stock, to avoid this sort of problem.

 

Although there's no practical way of shooting a test still with 16mm film, nonetheless, by using a 35mm still film that at least approximates the speed of your motion picture stock, you get a rough idea of how it will behave lighting-wise, for not too much money. As Dominic has pointed out, when you're troubleshooting a bad take, the negative is the most important thing, and that's what you neeed to look at in a test.

 

A 24-shot roll of 35mm still film and a one-hour minilab charge is pretty cheap insurance if you're on a tight budget. It won't tell you everything, but it will serve to highlight possible problems.

 

Generally, there's a lot more that can be done to fix over-exposed negative film than under-exposed, which is pretty much the reverse of shooting with video cameras.

 

 

jim, ive got a digital SLR which i often use for previsualization, however this shoot was on such a tigh schedule that i simply didnt think of using it :/

[Stephen Williams]

hi dominic,

 

iu havent looked at the negative itself yet, i will try and do that this afternoon. whats dmin if you dont mind me asking ?

the stock is deff eterna 500T, i ordered it directly by Fuji Kine Films Germany and i loaded it personaly out of the original can. i will check teh edge number this afternoon as well.

 

no i didnt shoot a grayscale before the shoot.

jim, ive got a digital SLR which i often use for previsualization, however this shoot was on such a tigh schedule that i simply didnt think of using it :/

 

When in telecine I always look at the neg myself. If the pictures looks different to what I was expecting ask them to put up Kodak telecine test film. Then when the test film looks good swoop back your footage without changing any settings. There may be a colour cast but the exposure should be close.

 

If the telecine is say a FDL 90 slight underexposure looks terrible. An old telecine maybe connected to a new looking DaVinci

 

Stephen

[Dominik Muench]

i try n have a look at the negative later,dont ahve a light bench but a pair of gloves and a flashlight should do the job :)

 

so you dont think i simply could have screwed up the metering ?

[John Holland]

i try n have a look at the negative later,dont ahve a light bench but a pair of gloves and a flashlight should do the job :)

 

so you dont think i simply could have screwed up the metering ?

Yes afraid so , as said in earlier post , as the subject was mostly backlit should have exposed for the shadows , shouldnt worry about overexposure when shooting colour neg . In fact i always overexpose by about 1 stop . john holland.

[Stephen Williams]

i try n have a look at the negative later,dont ahve a light bench but a pair of gloves and a flashlight should do the job :)

 

so you dont think i simply could have screwed up the metering ?

 

Hi,

 

Thats always a possibility! Did you take an incident reading of the dark areas? If so how many stops under exposed? looks like 5 or more, should be nearer 3 IMO.

 

Stephen

[Olex Kalynychenko]

I have a few additional ideas.

At first, need check quality of of negative.

I agree with idea to check quality of negative by view with magnifier with white screen.

This first step, what need do.

 

You can print photos from cut's of negative on any photo lab.

You can take computer film photo scanner and scan cuts from negative too.

 

If you will see good quality of image, you will need re-transfer of negative.

You have complex scenes from lights setting and measuring.

 

About next steps of post production.

You lost a some quality with convert from Digibeta on Mini DV , I think, 4x..6x.

 

Possible, will be good idea the scan negative by Arri scanner to computer file without compression on high light, but, this high cost service.

 

What final format of footages you must have after edit ?

If you can not re-transfer of negative, I recommend to transfer Digibeta on computer file and

edit footages on computer.

[Dominik Muench]

the mroe i think if ot it im sure i simply metered these scenes wrong. stephen: the blacks yould have been between 3-5 stops under thats right :/

 

the final cut needs to be on betacam.

[freddie bonfanti]

hi

 

i agree with the misreading, that could definitley be the problem. shooting a greycard could have helped i guess. although you are not happy with your results, is there any way you save the video and take advantage of the mistake in a creative way? i cant really tell from the images you posted but maybe you are being too negative, maybe the way the picture looks can still be "intriguing" or stylised even if the whole background is pitch black.

i mean it doesnt look bad, but then again i guess director/producer/whomever has the last word.

 

i hope this wont bring you down, ive seen your work and i like it a lot

 

good luck

 

freddie

Edited May 17, 2006 by federico bonfanti

[Olex Kalynychenko]

no i didnt shoot a grayscale before the shoot.

jim, ive got a digital SLR which i often use for previsualization, however this shoot was on such a tigh schedule that i simply didnt think of using it :/

 

If we talk about style technical control of shooting, i wish tell a few words about my style.

I shoot of test card on start of every roll and on every new scene or new lighters setting ( If need ).

This test card included Kodak grey scale,( for control of correct exposing ) Kodak color scale ( for

adjust of color with telecine ) and 3 squares : white, grey, black ( for telecine adjust).

 

If i cast doubt on aperture calculation, i take my digital photo camera ( Casio QV-4000) shoot of scene, read speed of shutter and aperture and read bar graph.

I know speed of sensor of Casio and can calculate aperture for cine shooting.

For example: