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Hi,

 

I'm currently in pre-production on a "kitchen-sink" social realism drama and I'm looking at films like 'Fish Tank' and 'This is England' as visual references for the look of this film. I want to use the flat and dry colour palettes used in these films to create a similar mood and atmosphere for my film. Eventhough my influences are from an 80's style, this is a creative choice for a film with a contemporary story.

 

I will be testing the Sony F55 and the Blackmagic distagon lenses next week to see if this would be a possible substitute for shooting 16mm film as this would be too expensive. I've been told that this would change my depth of field and that I'll be shooting with a 2x crop. The majority of this short film will be shot ecu - mids with occasional wides as it's quite a close and intimate story.

 

I'm just wondering if anyone has any suggestions or advice in regards to my approach? Here are a few visual references.

 

Fish Tank:

 

http://66.media.tumblr.com/f87e91f7a39493982b2c3d601ca6b463/tumblr_mn65qzTtXA1s6aghro1_1280.jpg

 

https://cinenthusiast.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/fishtank.jpg

 

This is England:

 

http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/thisisenglandpedia/images/6/68/Article-1285850004888-0b6ab43e000005dc-948583_636x361.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20150928011720

 

http://esquireuk.cdnds.net/15/37/980x490/980x490-this-is-england-90-finale-43-jpg-6b3a7d05.jpg

 

(Sorry for the links - this has been sent by mobile)

 

Thanks and any help is much appeciated!

 

Matt

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How about the blackmagic pocket camera and ol' 16mm cine primes? They work great on my pocket and you can absolutely achieve the look your after, without spending the money on bigger kits.

 

The pocket is a real Super 16 sized imager, shoots RAW and pretty much takes any lenses you want without fuss. I put Arri B mount S16 glass on mine and it looks awesome. Kick the gain up to 800 and it has a pretty filmic look.

 

Worth checking out for sure.

 

Here is a little sample of some BTS material I recently shot with that package, Super 16 Zeiss 12-120 zoom and pocket. This is shot Pro Res HQ 1080p 23.98 200ISO and 45 deg shutter, with a .6 IRND and 1.0 grad.

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/xonfgpua4u2kqyn/Blackmagic%20Pocket%20with%20Zeiss%2012-120.mov?dl=0

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If you have access to an F55,I would go with that rather than a BM pocket cam.. but I wouldn't shoot centre crop.. after debayer you have less resolution than HD.. If your on a tight budget and need to shoot quickly.. what about renting a couple of 2.8 zooms that cover s35mm.. The Fujinon Cabrio,s or Canon CN7...

 

If you shoot Slog3.cine.. in Cine EI mode on the F55.. the 10 bit XAVC codec will give you just over a billion color combinations.. the .cine is a sub set of the Slog3 gamut.. and pretty easy to grade in Resolve etc.. the look you want is best achieved in post I think..plus art direction,costume of course..

 

Not to say Tylers suggestion isnt a bad one.. it will be cheaper and the camera is super small for any "under the radar stuff" and shoots RAW..and alot of lenses to choose from.. but generally I think its fair to say the F55 if you can get it cheap would be the better choice..

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Thanks for your reply guys, I understand where you're coming from Tyler because the blackmagic is more compact, lighter and you can shoot in RAW with the S16mm sensor, so thanks for your advice and I'll test this against the F55 this week.

 

I have access to both the F55 and the Blackmagic PCC, and the F55 just keeps appealing to me, as i would prefer to shoot slog and like you said Robin, I can play around more in post. So if i shot with the F55 in 2K with the 2.8 zooms, would you say that this would still work to a good enough standard and i'd still retain a good picture quality and depth of field with S35mm lenses? I'll take a look at them lenses now.

 

Thanks for your help guys.

 

Matt

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I wouldn't shoot 2K with the F55.. no point .. Im not sure why anybody would on this camera..its a 4K sensor... just shoot 4K.. (you can shoot either full 4K 17-9.. or UHD 16-9).. or shoot HD.. the camera will always record off the full 4K sensor and down sample internally(no line skipping) for HD.. if you shoot 2K.. after debayer your resolution is actually lower than HD 1080.. about 1.5K.. your 4K will become about 3.4K.. which is plenty of course..

 

If you go over certain frame rates in S&Q mode you have a choice of full scan or centre crop.. because the camera cant deal with processing the max 150 (PAL) fps, it goes to 2K automatically ..(full scan). or centre crop.. menu choice... but the OLPF is a 4K one.. so can have aliasing problems.. so centre crop is safer.. as the OLPF is dealing with the same 4K sensor.. just cropping the middle of it.. you can also change the OLPF to a 2K one.. if your going to do alot of slo mo and what to keep the same FoV..

 

But anyway I would always shoot 4K.. you,ll get just over an hour on a 128GB card at 25p.. HDD space now is cheap.. you,ll get the full s35 shallow DoF look.. if you want it..and 4K recording.. if you can get the R7 RAW recorder and you have 3 choices of RAW.. 16 bit or the new more compressed version that came out in V8 software.. but that another road if you want.. Slog3.cine in Cine EI is the way to go.. 10 bit gives you over a billion combinations..

 

I dont know your budget.. either go for primes.. if you can get a good deal.. and thats the style you want.. cheapest would be a canon CN7.. 17-120.. but ramps to just under 4 from 90-120.. but basically you have a box load of 4K spec primes in one lens.. although the focus marking off the barrel arnt so great for your AC.. but he/she can mark the wheel anyway.. the fujinon cabrio,s .. there is a wide angle zoom 14-35 and a 19-90.. more accurate markings I believe.. and wider if you need it.. but more to rent..also very good high end lenses.. the older 19-90 is supposedly not actually 4K spec.. but the newer one s are... but really I dont think it matters and the whole debate of 4K spec lenses can be up for debate..

 

The F55 is a pretty high end camera.. I wouldn't turn it down for a pocket camera.. unless the size was going to be the deal breaker to actually get the shots you want.. although an un pimped F55 is relatively small too..

Edited by Robin R Probyn
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I should have said it's a student grad film with roughly a £3000 budget, so I have the kit needed to pull this off, but there are some additional lenses/accessories I may need to rent, which is absolutely fine.

 

I had in mind 4k but I was just wondering if it was necessary as a creative choice for the story if I was going to settle with the ziess cp2 primes. I know that I should shoot 4k as after all it has a 4k sensor, and if I shoot with with the centre crop, roughly 3.4k would be acceptable for what I'm going for in regards to the visual style also.

 

I think the film school have the r7 recorder, so yeah I'll be using that to my advantage for shooting in RAW. I'll check out the primes, distagon and zooms for the camera test this week and see what this does for my intentions with the visual style of the story. I have access to the carl ziess 21 - 100mm T2.9 so ill test this with the AC as well and see how this work out for me. I'll bare in mind the fujinon cabrios 14-35 and 19-90, however this would have to be a rental.

 

Im not going to pretend I know everything about the technical differences as I'm just starting out, but thanks for your advice because it's really come handy. I think im pretty settled on the F55, and for the planned car rigs I'm hoping to use the Sony A7S II as a smaller compact system, it also shoots in RAW and Slog so this will be beneficial matching the picture up in post.

 

Matt

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Remember, if you're looking for the S16 look, big S35mm sized imagers in 4k is the polar opposite. The field of view will look like 35mm, not 16mm. If you use longer lenses, nobody will notice the difference, but it's a huge difference on the wider side of things.

 

The other thing to think about is the workflow. The XAVC and Sony RAW workflows are atrocious, they need transcoding in order to work well with any editing program. I've been cutting with XAVC material since its inception and I refuse to use that codec after the headaches I've had over the years. The Sony Raw codec is no different. You can't use programs like pluraleyes to do automatic audio syncing with XAVC iframe or Sony Raw either.

 

At least companies like RED cine, offer solutions. I have a Red Rocket card in my tower, that allows full real-time integration of up-to 5k files with most editors, without any transcoding. Blackmagic shoots Pro Res, which is native for every editing program on the market today, including Avid. This is why my workflow is 100% Pro Res today. The files work perfectly with all the programs and pluraleyes for automatic audio syncing. Premiere has auto sync as well, but it's nowhere as good.

 

These are critical things to think about when choosing a camera because post production can either be smooth and simple, or a complete nightmare. I spend most of my time editing and I'd rather have less of a camera that's integrated into post better, then a camera that needs conversion. Remember, every time you convert, you loose quality because each codec puts it's own spin on the files. I like to work with camera originals if I can, but it's hard to when you're dealing with codecs that require a lot of horsepower to decode.

 

Those are just a few things to think about. It's why when I shoot 4k, I work with Red, Arri or Blackmagic cameras, they have a simpler workflow that's designed for post production.

 

As a side note, the A7SMKII is 8 bit 4:2:0 long gop MPEG camera, no raw. It doesn't get close to matching the F55.

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Take a look at what they did on Vinyl (HBO), Prieto & Scorsese wanted to shoot super 16, they did tests, Prieto was surprised to see how soft it looked, so he looked for a solution, ultimately, they found out about LiveGrain, which is a grain solution far more advanced than your typical film grain scan, with that, he found that they could shoot on the F55 (which they did) and mimic a super 16 look, but with more sharpness, Scorsese liked the look and they went with that.

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Matt.. I wouldn't worry about Sony post work flow.. XAVC I is a very used codex these days... it obviously doest suit Tylers work flow.. but its fine for thousands of other people around the globe :).. The F55 is widely used in features/drama,s.. The Crown.. was shot F55.. and beside its dodgy subject manner .. it looks pretty good..Sense 8 .. Vinyl etc..

 

Shooting centre crop will not give you 3.4K ,although it will let you use s16 lenses.. its about 1080.. and will change the FoV of your lenses.. if you want less DoF put your aperture up in s35 ?

 

As Manu says for Vinyl they added grain in post .. but like Tyler says.. if you use longer lenses hard to see differences .. you might need to play in post with adding grain.. but by shooting 4K 10 bit you will have the latitude to do so..RAW even better.. but to have the choice of the F55 and a pocket camera is like choosing between a Bentley and Ford transit van.. I,d rather drive the Bentley like a transit van.. :)

 

Is there any alternative to rent say an Aaton and shoot actual s16 film.. ?.. rental of gear would be very cheap.. and if your not planning to shoot tons of footage..?

Edited by Robin R Probyn
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Matt.. I wouldn't worry about Sony post work flow.. XAVC I is a very used codex these days...

Yea, they transcode everything. Which on a big project, takes manpower, CPU power and lots of drive space because you're basically duplicating media. For smaller productions that need instant results, it's a problem. Otherwise 410Mbps XAVC iFrame does look fine for most situations. The amount of dynamic range is about equal to Pro Res HQ.

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Yea, they transcode everything. Which on a big project, takes manpower, CPU power and lots of drive space because you're basically duplicating media. For smaller productions that need instant results, it's a problem. Otherwise 410Mbps XAVC iFrame does look fine for most situations. The amount of dynamic range is about equal to Pro Res HQ.

 

Do you know this for fact.. I work on plenty of stuff that isn't transcoded.. you cant really talk for all global users .. the whole world is not universally transcoding to Prores just because you do.. XAVC is accepted by ALL usually used NLE editing software.. thats a fact..

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Do you know this for fact.. I work on plenty of stuff that isn't transcoded.. you cant really talk for all global users .. the whole world is not universally transcoding to Prores just because you do.. XAVC is accepted by ALL usually used NLE editing software.. thats a fact..

Well you're right, if all you do is TV work in 100Mbps XAVC iFrame 1080p, most editors can use that media natively with a plugin from Sony. However, in this thread we weren't talking about 100Mbps XAVC iFrame, we were talking about 4k which is 410Mbps, which is quite a different beast all together.

 

Where it's absolutely true, the editing software does accept XAVC 4k, ALL of them need to make transcodes of some kind or another. This is because XAVC does not have a multithreaded playback engine. Since there is zero native support within Windows or Mac OS, the integration comes down to code development. Apple has spent millions developing a multithreaded iframe codec. Avid has spent quite a bit on DNX, which is a form of JPEG 2000, that decodes on multithreaded GPU's perfectly. Yet Sony and Canon haven't bothered because they for some reason are the only two companies pushing XAVC. The plugin's simply aren't a priority for them and actually, from looking at how they process the material, it seems as if they're 32 bit as well.

 

I already produced a video about how poor the XAVC Long GOP codec is. I'll gladly produce another video to show you how poorly XAVC 410Mbps 4k performs without transcoding. It's a bit harder to do because it eats up all the system resources, leaving not enough to do high quality screen grabs. That's basically the only reason I haven't bothered doing it in the past since this argument comes up all the time between us. You are an avid XAVC guy, but that's because you have XAVC cameras. I shoot with everything, RED, Alexa, Blackmagic and Sony, so I get to see what codec's are better and what works in post since I generally edit what I shoot. This is how I come to my opinion, which is not tainted by the cameras I own.

 

Ohh and pretty much every feature made in the last 5 years was mastered with Pro Res XQ. Even the great Roger Deakins shoots everything in XQ, not bothering to deal with Arri Raw. I do about 2 - 3 feature deliverables a year, on top of my regular work which is industrials and commercials. I have yet to deliver anything that wasn't Pro Res as a master. Sure, clients will ask for "low quality" MPEG files as well, but the masters are always Pro Res. It's also true that television shows are MPEG from start to finish, but that's because they're 1080p and XAVC works great for those clients. If your product is going to be shown once as a premiere and then maybe on syndication a dozen more times, the requirements are a lot more lax. At that point, it's more about speed then anything else. If those shows were forced to deliver 4k, their world would explode. The last TV series I worked on, we delivered on tape, so yea about that. :)

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Well you're right, if all you do is TV work in 100Mbps XAVC iFrame 1080p, most editors can use that media natively with a plugin from Sony. However, in this thread we weren't talking about 100Mbps XAVC iFrame, we were talking about 4k which is 410Mbps, which is quite a different beast all together.

 

Where it's absolutely true, the editing software does accept XAVC 4k, ALL of them need to make transcodes of some kind or another. This is because XAVC does not have a multithreaded playback engine. Since there is zero native support within Windows or Mac OS, the integration comes down to code development. Apple has spent millions developing a multithreaded iframe codec. Avid has spent quite a bit on DNX, which is a form of JPEG 2000, that decodes on multithreaded GPU's perfectly. Yet Sony and Canon haven't bothered because they for some reason are the only two companies pushing XAVC. The plugin's simply aren't a priority for them and actually, from looking at how they process the material, it seems as if they're 32 bit as well.

 

I already produced a video about how poor the XAVC Long GOP codec is. I'll gladly produce another video to show you how poorly XAVC 410Mbps 4k performs without transcoding. It's a bit harder to do because it eats up all the system resources, leaving not enough to do high quality screen grabs. That's basically the only reason I haven't bothered doing it in the past since this argument comes up all the time between us. You are an avid XAVC guy, but that's because you have XAVC cameras. I shoot with everything, RED, Alexa, Blackmagic and Sony, so I get to see what codec's are better and what works in post since I generally edit what I shoot. This is how I come to my opinion, which is not tainted by the cameras I own.

 

Ohh and pretty much every feature made in the last 5 years was mastered with Pro Res XQ. Even the great Roger Deakins shoots everything in XQ, not bothering to deal with Arri Raw. I do about 2 - 3 feature deliverables a year, on top of my regular work which is industrials and commercials. I have yet to deliver anything that wasn't Pro Res as a master. Sure, clients will ask for "low quality" MPEG files as well, but the masters are always Pro Res. It's also true that television shows are MPEG from start to finish, but that's because they're 1080p and XAVC works great for those clients. If your product is going to be shown once as a premiere and then maybe on syndication a dozen more times, the requirements are a lot more lax. At that point, it's more about speed then anything else. If those shows were forced to deliver 4k, their world would explode. The last TV series I worked on, we delivered on tape, so yea about that. :)

 

 

But surely your not editing in full 4K..? actually the F5/55 can record a proxy file to the same SxS card as the 4K if you want to.. very efficient.. Im not talking about mastering either.. thats a different topic..

Anyway as you say we are destined to argue this point till the end of humanity :)... even if you have to transcode the whole lot to Pro Res... for a short film I would still go for the f55 over the pocket cam.. if the actual size of the PC wasn't make or break for the production.. i.e. alot of under the radar locations.. the work flow from Sony 4K camera,s is not difficult or unknown.. so I cant see Matt having any problems there .. its not an Avid only thing.. even FCP7 it will work now !

 

 

But each to their own.. its all good info..

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I wonder if HBO requires 4k for all shows done internally and that's why they couldn't use S16... Amazon, Netflix and Cinemax do.

 

only netflix does, from what i can see cinemax , amazon, hulu they all still shoot with alexia's so don't think they have the same requirements as netflix.

 

Hbo also still shoots its mast current and biggest shows on alexa so they also don't have that requirement.

 

I think you have some bad information

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Well you're right, if all you do is TV work in 100Mbps XAVC iFrame 1080p, most editors can use that media natively with a plugin from Sony. However, in this thread we weren't talking about 100Mbps XAVC iFrame, we were talking about 4k which is 410Mbps, which is quite a different beast all together.

 

Where it's absolutely true, the editing software does accept XAVC 4k, ALL of them need to make transcodes of some kind or another. This is because XAVC does not have a multithreaded playback engine. Since there is zero native support within Windows or Mac OS, the integration comes down to code development. Apple has spent millions developing a multithreaded iframe codec. Avid has spent quite a bit on DNX, which is a form of JPEG 2000, that decodes on multithreaded GPU's perfectly. Yet Sony and Canon haven't bothered because they for some reason are the only two companies pushing XAVC. The plugin's simply aren't a priority for them and actually, from looking at how they process the material, it seems as if they're 32 bit as well.

 

I already produced a video about how poor the XAVC Long GOP codec is. I'll gladly produce another video to show you how poorly XAVC 410Mbps 4k performs without transcoding. It's a bit harder to do because it eats up all the system resources, leaving not enough to do high quality screen grabs. That's basically the only reason I haven't bothered doing it in the past since this argument comes up all the time between us. You are an avid XAVC guy, but that's because you have XAVC cameras. I shoot with everything, RED, Alexa, Blackmagic and Sony, so I get to see what codec's are better and what works in post since I generally edit what I shoot. This is how I come to my opinion, which is not tainted by the cameras I own.

 

Ohh and pretty much every feature made in the last 5 years was mastered with Pro Res XQ. Even the great Roger Deakins shoots everything in XQ, not bothering to deal with Arri Raw. I do about 2 - 3 feature deliverables a year, on top of my regular work which is industrials and commercials. I have yet to deliver anything that wasn't Pro Res as a master. Sure, clients will ask for "low quality" MPEG files as well, but the masters are always Pro Res. It's also true that television shows are MPEG from start to finish, but that's because they're 1080p and XAVC works great for those clients. If your product is going to be shown once as a premiere and then maybe on syndication a dozen more times, the requirements are a lot more lax. At that point, it's more about speed then anything else. If those shows were forced to deliver 4k, their world would explode. The last TV series I worked on, we delivered on tape, so yea about that. :)

 

Saw what you said about Rager Dekins , this is not true currently all his latest films were shot in OPEN GATE which you can only shoot in RAW. Feature films don't normally use Pro Res. Where did you get this info because its false. Poisnt m to any feature of that caliber and ill show you them using ARRI RAW. Almost no features were recorded in Pro RES. Also when you speak about masters in Feature films of the level of Dekins . The master files are most certainly not Prores the are DCI complaint files for theaters . Before that they usually masting in a color suite on DPX files or something similar or the native RAW files from the camera.

 

I would ask that you change your post so you don't give too much false information, as people use this site to learn and I have noticed you give a lot of false information.

 

Also if you shooting things on red its easier to edit in the NATIV codec . Prores UHD is harsher and the system then red files .

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Remember, if you're looking for the S16 look, big S35mm sized imagers in 4k is the polar opposite. The field of view will look like 35mm, not 16mm. If you use longer lenses, nobody will notice the difference, but it's a huge difference on the wider side of things.

 

The other thing to think about is the workflow. The XAVC and Sony RAW workflows are atrocious, they need transcoding in order to work well with any editing program. I've been cutting with XAVC material since its inception and I refuse to use that codec after the headaches I've had over the years. The Sony Raw codec is no different. You can't use programs like pluraleyes to do automatic audio syncing with XAVC iframe or Sony Raw either.

 

These are critical things to think about when choosing a camera because post production can either be smooth and simple, or a complete nightmare. I spend most of my time editing and I'd rather have less of a camera that's integrated into post better, then a camera that needs conversion. Remember, every time you convert, you loose quality because each codec puts it's own spin on the files. I like to work with camera originals if I can, but it's hard to when you're dealing with codecs that require a lot of horsepower to decode.

 

Those are just a few things to think about. It's why when I shoot 4k, I work with Red, Arri or Blackmagic cameras, they have a simpler workflow that's designed for post production.

 

As a side note, the A7SMKII is 8 bit 4:2:0 long gop MPEG camera, no raw. It doesn't get close to matching the F55.

 

I agree with you, I'd rather use the Arri or a Blackmagic camera on that note. Unfortunately for me, we have an Arri Alexa at our film school, but the camera is only available for the MA students. I was not happy! I understand that using a S35mm sensor is the opposite to what I could shoot with the Blackmagic at S16mm, however I would prefer to shoot Slog2 with the F55 with the longer lenses in addition to it also having more dynamic range. I'm going to test both cameras this week taking into account the advice on this forum, they are my best options I suppose.

 

I've also learnt that the Sony RAW files are a nightmare to transcode, but shooting in RAW is a personal choice as I'd prefer to play around with the Sony LUT's to achieve the best possible look for this social realism drama. I understand post-production could be a long process, but I guess it might be a case of learning from my mistakes on this one. I'm not 100% which camera I'm definitely going to use as of yet, but I'll bare your advice in mind, thanks.

 

Sorry my mistake, I confused them both for shooting in RAW. I was told that the Sony A7S II shoots Slog2, so I was thinking about maybe doing camera tests with both this and the F55 to see what options this offers me.

 

Thanks for your reply Tyler.

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Remember "This is England" switched from super 16 to digital for the TV series. So you could look at the TV series and see if you like to s35mm sensor size look.

 

Digital super 16 cameras like the digital bolex and ikonskop approximate the 16mm look quite well. If you have access to an F55 then you should be able to get excellent results with it. Its got a good dynamic range which will help you control the contrast.

 

Camera choice is less important anything decent would work- 95% of the Shane Meadows look is to do with lighting, production design and the way he blocks the camera. The look is all about attitude - shane meadows has worked in 35mm, 16mm and digital and there is a consistency of feel/look across his work even if the format is different

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Saw what you said about Rager Dekins , this is not true currently all his latest films were shot in OPEN GATE which you can only shoot in RAW. Feature films don't normally use Pro Res. Where did you get this info because its false. Poisnt m to any feature of that caliber and ill show you them using ARRI RAW. Almost no features were recorded in Pro RES. Also when you speak about masters in Feature films of the level of Dekins . The master files are most certainly not Prores the are DCI complaint files for theaters . Before that they usually masting in a color suite on DPX files or something similar or the native RAW files from the camera.

 

I would ask that you change your post so you don't give too much false information, as people use this site to learn and I have noticed you give a lot of false information.

 

Also if you shooting things on red its easier to edit in the NATIV codec . Prores UHD is harsher and the system then red files .

 

 

There are plenty of independent features that shoot ProRes 4444 instead of ARRIRAW on an Alexa -- I've done it myself. "The Theory of Everything" did. Noah Baumbach's "While We're Young" did too. "Whiplash", "The Iceman", "Rampart", etc.

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David ,

For sure your correct even awsome movie like Drive was pro res.

I was referring to his comment about every feature in the last 5 years and then he mentioned Roger Dekins . This type of big budget and all major motion pictures like his are usually 100 percent RAW . Indies like you mentioned of corse will change it up do to budget constraints .

 

I just figured he wrote what he wrote with out doing any actual research

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Remember "This is England" switched from super 16 to digital for the TV series. So you could look at the TV series and see if you like to s35mm sensor size look.

 

Digital super 16 cameras like the digital bolex and ikonskop approximate the 16mm look quite well. If you have access to an F55 then you should be able to get excellent results with it. Its got a good dynamic range which will help you control the contrast.

 

Camera choice is less important anything decent would work- 95% of the Shane Meadows look is to do with lighting, production design and the way he blocks the camera. The look is all about attitude - shane meadows has worked in 35mm, 16mm and digital and there is a consistency of feel/look across his work even if the format is different

 

Completely agree! The latest TV series 'This is England 90' is the one I'm looking at more specifically and actually looking at them both you can tell that it isn't S16mm film used for the latest series. Myself personally, I focus a lot more on lighting than I do in camera, so thanks for message Phil - massive help.

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Yes, it's incorrect that Deakins shoots ProRes 4444 XQ. He shot uncompressed HD for "In Time" but since then, he shoots Arriraw on the Alexa, and now in Open Gate. I suppose it's possible that he's doing a back-up recording to ProRes... but as you say, there is no Open Gate 3.4K ProRes option...yet. But maybe his DIT can make some XQ files after downloading the Arriraw.

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No, I don't know anything... but if they chose 3.2K ProRes because it was mathematically good for uprezzing to 3840 pixel UHD (better apparently than using 3.4 to get to 3.8 due to scaling issues) then I assume that 3.4K ProRes would be good for uprezzing to 4096 pixel 4K DCI.

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Yea, they transcode everything. Which on a big project, takes manpower, CPU power and lots of drive space because you're basically duplicating media. For smaller productions that need instant results, it's a problem. Otherwise 410Mbps XAVC iFrame does look fine for most situations. The amount of dynamic range is about equal to Pro Res HQ.

I've shot XAVC UHD on the last three features. We transcode to Pro-Res HD, so that dailies can have a LUT applied to them. My DIT transcodes and syncs at the same time. No big deal. In fact it's the exact same workflow that I would use if shooting Pro-Res on an Alexa. No additional work for anyone, and certainly not a problem.

 

I'm not sure what you're trying to say about dynamic range and codecs.

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