Thoughts on Film and Digital

[Bruce Greene]

"I don't know, I mean I work on the post production side and have worked on many decent sized shows and the digital workflow is far more complex then film." -Tyler Purcell

 

I've worked on both sides, as the DP who is foolish enough to color grade my own films :)

 

From my experience there is no difference in post production when grading film vs digital originals. Well, with the exception of removing color casts from IRND filters used sometimes with digital cameras, but this situation is improving with the newer cameras with built in filters.

 

As for the capture stage, I've never had a DIT colorist on set for a feature. I have created my own modified Alexa viewing LUT to help me judge the lighting better on set, and I bring along my own 17" Panasonic to judge the image. I ignore the video village. I often use my light meter for exposure.

 

Perhaps in your post work, the DPs that shoot film are generally experienced, but there is a variety of experience for the digital DPs?

 

The last picture that I shot on film, I knew would go to DI, and not an optical finish. I made many decisions to fix some things in the computer rather than spend the time on set. So it didn't make post any easier!

[David Mullen ASC]

The reasons why colorists are being inundated with problematic digital footage have little to do with the technology being harder to master than film; it's a cultural problem -- digital is cheaper to shoot on set, so productions shoot more and more of it, on shorter and shorter schedules, under a belief that more is better. I see it all the time even on bigger productions -- three cameras rolling all the time, often the third camera only getting usable footage 1/3 of the time. It would be the same problem with film in terms of sloppy footage being delivered to post, except that the costs of shooting film act as a bit of modifier in the headlong pursuit of more footage.

 

Like I said, back in pre-digital days, you could find plenty of timers and colorists complaining about badly-shot film footage, it's just that in photochemical printing, there were fewer options to fix the problems. In that aspect, printing, film is simpler because it is more limited, but that doesn't mean the results are necessarily better, it just meant that the cinematographer needed the skills and disciple to work within those limitations.

 

What's interesting today is that despite the greater amounts of sloppier digital footage being shot, narrative studio movies and TV shows in general are more technically "perfect" (or perfected) in their final deliverable than in the days of photochemical finishing where a certain amount of flaws were accepted even if not desired. You can watch mainstream movies from the 1970's with a greater occurrence of mismatched contrast, grain levels, optical quality problems, focus-pulling problems, dirt & dust, etc., even if shot single-camera, but with the ability of digital post to fix many of those problems, the expectation is to fix them because the movie would not pass QC with many distributors and broadcasters without those fixes.

 

The reason why so many people recommend that a student cinematographer shoot film is not because it is easier to get good results with film, it's because the expense of shooting it demands a certain discipline in order to get consistent results. It's similar to the days of still photography in film where the advice was to learn by shooting slide film in order to learn how to expose, because it was harder to fix your mistakes. In fact, I probably learned the most about exposure by shooting so much reversal Super-8 and 16mm, which was more of a challenge than shooting digital.

[David Mullen ASC]

Bruce's comment reminds me of how much harder it was to deliver a consistent-looking movie back in the 1980's and earlier. Back then, you had to test each lens because lens manufacturers were not consistent, you couldn't mix and match lenses in a line, not before the Primo lens was introduced. Back then you had to shoot stock tests and lab tests and then buy all of your stock from the same batch because Kodak wasn't consistent enough in its manufacturing, and then you had lab inconsistencies to deal with, and everything flowed to a simple RGB printer light finish where many of these problems couldn't be fixed. My hat is off to the cinematographers back then, it took a lot of work to get consistent results.

 

Today we have manufacturers making matched lens systems, Kodak is consistent enough that you don't have to buy within a batch run, and in the D.I., you can fix many of these mismatches so fewer people sweat switching to a lower-contrast zoom from a higher contrast prime, etc.

[John E Clark]

The reasons why colorists are being inundated with problematic digital footage have little to do with the technology being harder to master than film; it's a cultural problem -- digital is cheaper to shoot on set, so productions shoot more and more of it, on shorter and shorter schedules, under a belief that more is better. I see it all the time even on bigger productions -- three cameras rolling all the time, often the third camera only getting usable footage 1/3 of the time. It would be the same problem with film in terms of sloppy footage being delivered to post, except that the costs of shooting film act as a bit of modifier in the headlong pursuit of more footage.

 

This is not limited to motion picture projects. The Wife and I use to shoot about 1000 shots at weddings, formals and candids, in film... then we went digital for the candids... 2000-2500 digital candids... then the Wife complained that she couldn't get the 'proofs' out in a reasonable time because of the number of shots... trying to get her to limit the shots... uh... was... problematic...

Edited June 28, 2016 by John E Clark

[Stuart Brereton]

Yea, but nobody really uses that workflow. Again, I've worked on literally hundreds of shows in post production and I have yet to see out of camera proxy's. I know some people do use that workflow, but I haven't ever seen it.

 

 

Most stuff will not pass through a flat LUT correction and be acceptable to a clients eye. This isn't necessarily the DP's fault either, in a lot of cases it's the directors for pushing a scene through quickly and being OK with something heavily under or over exposed due to time constraints.

 

DP's really like to have one-off LUT's for their movies, DIT's to insure their footage is being shot right during production and color corrected material on the backend for editing using that LUT. This is the case on everything from TV to commercials. In fact, my DIT friends have told me, even though they don't have as much full-time work, they are still making one off LUT's for even the basic of shows.

 

 

Just about every show I do uses that workflow. It's simple yet flexible.

 

I don't know what kind of material you're looking at, but to say that 'most' won't look good with just a straight 709 conversion is completely at odds with my experience. I doubt that my dailies are somehow miraculously better than everyone else's.

 

Having a one-off LUT for a movie is not necessarily complicating matters. My DIT applies the ARRI 709 LUT in Resolve, and then makes simple tweaks to black levels and gamma when creating dailies for editorial. Those tweaks could easily be part of a LUT, but I prefer to do them manually in case I want to change them day to day. I'm not color-correcting shot by shot, just applying 709 + tweaks to the whole day's material. It's not a complicated process, and the DIT is generally done with his work within 30 minutes of wrap

[Phil Rhodes]

Am I the only person who still just lights to 709?

[Stuart Brereton]

Am I the only person who still just lights to 709?

No. That's essentially what I do. I get it looking the way I want it in 709, while knowing that I have the flexibility of Log if I need it.

[David Mullen ASC]

Most of us monitor and therefore light for Rec.709, knowing we have more information to pull later in log. It's similar to lighting film for a projection print, knowing that in a D.I. using film scans in log gamma there is more information to work with later.

[Tyler Purcell]

To answer some questions, yes I mostly work in marketing promotional, training/educational, documentary and a small bit of narrative features. Our workflow is heavy pro res origination with log/flat look out of camera. We also do a lot of red code but not much Arri raw.

 

I spend a lot of time on set to insure things are looking good, interface with DITs and cinematographers on a regular basis. I'm on my third project in 2 months right now, just slammed with work. People hire my expertise and eye to help guide the look of projects prior to post. It's a new way of doing things but it's valuable since I'll be the creative force during the entire post process.

 

The statement I made which set off this discussion was me staying how digital looks like crap without a lot of work. This statement is true if you take a camera and shoot with it. Nobody does that, everyone manipulates their cameras and shooting style to make it easier in post. Yet post in of itself is more expensive.

 

I also do budgets for films as one of my pastimes is helping friends shoot their projects. So I've done the a/b comparison between shooting on 35 and digitally without an on set specialist. In my eyes there is a huge difference between paying someone daily for that technical experience vs paying a lab for a specific job. It's true that shooting 4 perf 35mm is more expensive then digital. But when you get down to 2 perf and 16mm, film and digital costs are about equal, if you're shooting 4k 12 bit 444. When I hand people budgets and they see where the costs are going they're shocked. Digital is expensive to shoot and super expensive to make look good.

 

The reason why I seem like disregarding professional cinematographers opinions on this is simply because most guys are not paying for the colonists time. When you're paying someone $750/hr for color time and it takes 60hrs that's a huge expense. Sure you can pay a lower end person but they may not be able to make the digital stuff look good, you never know. Yet generally a lab technician can make film look great for dollar per foot rates, in about the same amount of time as a digital finish.

 

As pointed out above, the limitations of film make it easier to work with. You can't underexpose and expect it to look acceptable. You kinda have to light well because you can magically section out a given part of a shot and make it look good, there is too much noise. Yet digital filmmakers spent so much time on set and in post making their projects look filmic, but they may have saved money shooting film. They'd absolutely shoot less material (as we just started take 12 on a lengthy dialog scene) because there is cost associated but with digital there isn't much.

 

Yes consistency is better with digital, that's absolutely correct. Yet photochemical process can be made better, it just never was. We're still using 50 year old technology to make movies on film. So maybe if someone did develop better post workflow for film there maybe less consistency issues. Of course nobody cares, but I think of those things all the time and I know the consistency can be made better. To me, I've had more consistency issues between lenses and different cmos imagers then on film, which kinda masks a lot of problems.

 

All in all I'm sorry if people think I'm disrespectful, I don't mean to be. I just have another side, a different understanding based on coming from post rather then simply shooting. And yes I work with film all the time. Mostly in a digital workflow.

[Stuart Brereton]

digital looks like crap without a lot of work. This statement is true if you take a camera and shoot with it. Nobody does that, everyone manipulates their cameras and shooting style to make it easier in post.

This is frankly a ridiculous argument. Any material, film or digital, is going to look poor if it is not properly lit and exposed. I don't suddenly have to change my shooting style to make digital look good. I do the same things, with the same lights. The idea that film somehow can make poor material look ok, purely because it's film, is nonsense.

[Justin Hayward]

All in all I'm sorry if people think I'm disrespectful, I don't mean to be. I just have another side, a different understanding based on coming from post rather then simply shooting. And yes I work with film all the time. Mostly in a digital workflow.

 

It just comes off as arguing as fact that, under the same circumstances, the difference between film and digital is the difference between a Ferrari and a Buick. Then when someone questions that, you imply they're wrong because their taste isn't as refined as yours. There's a difference between saying, "I'm not a fan of your favorite movie" and saying, "Your favorite movie sucks".

[Manu Delpech]

Knight of Cups was shot on 35mm film.

 

I have it on BR and I'm pretty sure 95 % of it is shot on the Alexa. Really disappointing, they probably left the film footage on the cutting floor, it looks so clean, yuck.

[Tyler Purcell]

The idea that film somehow can make poor material look ok, purely because it's film, is nonsense.

That's not quite what I mean.

 

What I mean is if you shoot with a digital camera, there will be more manipulation required to get a decent image out of it for viewing then film.

 

Where you can do a one light print of an original camera negative and it generally looks pretty good. Heck you can project reversal right out of the camera and it looks wonderful in most cases.

 

The digital intermediate process has spoiled audiences since it's inception. People just expect modern movies to have a heavily posted look. Yet, it appears to me the whole digital workflow is trying to be more filmic.

 

I completely understand and recognize the issues associated with a 50 year old film workflow, it kinda sucks. Yet, that workflow is still in a lot of ways better then our modern digital one, mostly due to it's limitations. There are pretty much no limitations in the digital world, so that generally pushes filmmakers into realms they probably shouldn't have tread.

 

I love Manu's comment above... "it looks so clean, yuck". That to me is pretty much every digital show. There is no LIFE to the image, it doesn't breathe like film does and as I've said many times, no flicker either.

 

See, I don't have to shoot things digitally, there is nothing that says my personal projects have to be shot that way. If I want, I can pickup one of my film cameras, go to my refrigerator, grab some film, shoot and edit at home and project when done. All of this is possible and right now, quite easy to achieve as well. There isn't a director over my shoulder telling me I need to XYZ, I'm the director and I'm the guy making it happen. I'm also the guy editing and finishing my own personal projects as well. So when I shoot digital and I say, meh... it looks digital and I shoot film and I say, WOW that looks great, without any manipulation, it always surprises me when this subject comes up, more people don't think the same way. My theory is that more and more people want that extra layer of hyperrealistic manipulation digital post gives them and are now so use to that look, film doesn't look as good anymore. Yet any one of us could sit and watch Hateful Eight in 70mm and be blown away by it's completely photochemical post.

[Freya Black]

Well you don't need to do scene to scene correction with film, you can do one light no problem. Also with telecine, all you do is balance as that's all you can do... So it's an entirely different process then working digitally. Digital cameras look like crap until you rework and retool the image heavily in post.

 

You can do far more than balance in the telecine suite. Resolve has its origins in Telecine suites long before it was bought by Blackmagic and Baselight, although less common that Resolve has a similar history. I would assume they are even more common now!

 

Sorry I'm a bit behind here. I'm a bit off the map right now and swimming in paperwork and other equally fun stuff.

 

Freya

[Tyler Purcell]

You can do far more than balance in the telecine suite. Resolve has its origins in Telecine suites long before it was bought by Blackmagic and Baselight, although less common that Resolve has a similar history. I would assume they are even more common now!

I use to operate a Rank Cintel HD telecine for years. It doesn't have nearly the range of correction that scanning negative and manipulating later does.

[Stuart Brereton]

What I mean is if you shoot with a digital camera, there will be more manipulation required to get a decent image out of it for viewing then film.

 

 

As David and I have already said, that is simply not true. I have about 8tb of dailies sitting here on my desk which have nothing more done to them than a simple REC 709 transform, and they look great. Almost exactly as I want them, and I would foresee zero problems with QC if they were to be broadcast as-is.

 

A simple 709 transform is the digital equivalent of one-light dailies, a one size fits all adjustment that gets your material into a viewable state, nothing more. It's not more work, in fact it's less as it can be done on set without the involvement of a lab.

[Tyler Purcell]

Yea, I don't share the same experiences, but hey, it's all good. Every project is different and every cinematographer has their own way of shooting and expectations in the back end.

 

Nobody I work with would even contemplate accepting a straight REC709 as a finished product. They laugh at me when I use REC709 basic LUT converted media in an edited sequence of any kind. I generally have to spend a week re-coloring/tooling a product before the producers will even watch it. Generally the director is a bit calmer and understands the process, but the week it takes me to clean poop up just to get some producers happy, is a real pain and it happens on every project. Heck, just delivered a trailer before I started this show and it had REC709 color, looked fine, but the producers complained about the color.

[Aapo Lettinen]

That's not quite what I mean.

 

What I mean is if you shoot with a digital camera, there will be more manipulation required to get a decent image out of it for viewing then film.

 

Where you can do a one light print of an original camera negative and it generally looks pretty good. Heck you can project reversal right out of the camera and it looks wonderful in most cases.

You have to define in more detail what do you mean with the footage "looking good".

 

I have seen lots of video and film material that "looks good" when a simple LUT is added. but it always looks better if it's adjusted much further, shot by shot.

For example, Alexa material "looks good" when a LUT is added because it now (generally) has somewhat decent contrast and colors. But it can look better if some minor corrections are made.

It varies when these corrections are made though, some persons want to make them on set, others want to make them in post prod but not for dailies, others want to make them for everything they see including dailies, others want to always use the same custom look on set through editing and post prod to the screen...

the usual difference with film and digital is that film has more limited shadow response but huge highlight headroom which leads to the on-set corrections to be made closer to the mid tones of the range rather than in highlights (exposing digital, especially "indie-style") (approaches vary though) . so it may give you an impression that the film is "easier to color correct" because you don't have to use the mid tone/gamma boost as often and you have limited shadow detail in the original so you probably won't be allowed to boost the shadows at all, plus the shadow corrections are already done on set with lighting and not relied on the post prod gamma corrections.

 

It's thus more of a shooting style difference than actual difference between formats. I could shoot film material for you that is hell of a work to color correct and digital material which is very easy to work with, or vice versa

[Stuart Brereton]

Here's a couple of frame grabs. Alexa Pro-Res 444 Log C originals. Straightforward 709 transform in Resolve. No adjustments other than to black levels.

 

 

[Aapo Lettinen]

Yea, I don't share the same experiences, but hey, it's all good. Every project is different and every cinematographer has their own way of shooting and expectations in the back end.

 

Nobody I work with would even contemplate accepting a straight REC709 as a finished product. They laugh at me when I use REC709 basic LUT converted media in an edited sequence of any kind. I generally have to spend a week re-coloring/tooling a product before the producers will even watch it. Generally the director is a bit calmer and understands the process, but the week it takes me to clean poop up just to get some producers happy, is a real pain and it happens on every project. Heck, just delivered a trailer before I started this show and it had REC709 color, looked fine, but the producers complained about the color.

 

If they are paying separately for coloring all the material multiple times then it's kinda OK i guess but sounds like quite unefficient workflow to me. Rarely actually heard anyone doing it here in any production, it's the producers who would say no for that because it's kind of, well, expensive and unnecessary :wacko: the Faust movie did that I believe but others are usually pretty much edit-with-the-basic-lut-and-if-you're-not-ok-with-that-you-can-adjust-by-yourself-with-the-edit-software's-tools :lol:

 

tests and everything which is published is of course worked with a pro colorist always but not the intermediate versions for productions's internal use unless necessary for testing and determining the look etc.

Edited June 29, 2016 by aapo lettinen

[Stuart Brereton]

 

Nobody I work with would even contemplate accepting a straight REC709 as a finished product. They laugh at me when I use REC709 basic LUT converted media in an edited sequence of any kind. I generally have to spend a week re-coloring/tooling a product before the producers will even watch it. Generally the director is a bit calmer and understands the process, but the week it takes me to clean poop up just to get some producers happy, is a real pain and it happens on every project. Heck, just delivered a trailer before I started this show and it had REC709 color, looked fine, but the producers complained about the color.

Sound to me like you are just dealing with poor camerawork and are choosing to blame the format instead.

[David Mullen ASC]

Looks good Stuart! I'd point out that the majority of narrative TV shows follow a similar post path -- simple log-to-Rec.709 LUT for dailies, short color-correction session for the final master, and often the color-correction is mainly about matching shots and minor adjustments to black levels, chroma, etc. unless it is a stylized show. And many shows just use ARRI's built-in Rec.709 look file for monitoring on set, without a DIT -- "Mad Men" for example. And in terms of the episode of that show that I shot, there wasn't much of a change from what I saw on the set monitors to the final color-corrected version.

[Brent Powers]

 

I have it on BR and I'm pretty sure 95 % of it is shot on the Alexa. Really disappointing, they probably left the film footage on the cutting floor, it looks so clean, yuck.

 

Yes, it looks like digital throughout, although there were a couple of exteriors where I thought I was seeing film momentarily.

[Stuart Brereton]

the majority of narrative TV shows follow a similar post path -- simple log-to-Rec.709 LUT for dailies, short color-correction session for the final master, and often the color-correction is mainly about matching shots and minor adjustments to black levels, chroma, etc. unless it is a stylized show.

That was the path we followed on the show the frames are from, which was a SyFy original. Log-to-709 for dailies, with minimal tweaks, then 2 days for final color-correction. With such a short time for final color, you really have to make sure that you've got it right in camera. The fact that Tyler apparently has to spend a week polishing material just to be able to view dailies tells me that the fault lies with whoever is shooting it rather than the camera system.

[David Mullen ASC]

The short schedule these days for TV color-correction (even feature color-correction) is one reason I don't do much digital diffusion these days and usually do it on camera, even though everyone of course says that it is more controllable in post. Sure -- if you have the time. But it's one thing to monkey with the occasional close-up in post to soften it, another do add diffusion to a 1000 cuts, for example, if that's what you want to do. So there are a lot of reasons why we try to get things right in camera.