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Color of framelines


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Hi everyone

 

Im a 1stAC and Focus Puller from Denmark.

 

Lately I have been noticing that a lot of productions have red colored framelines on their monitors, and I have been wondering... why?

 

Is it a way of keeping track of which camera you are watching, if it is a multi-camera shoot? (I have seen it being used on single camera productions)

 

Is it just a color psychology thing? Or because people just dont like the standard white colored framelines? Is it because it is easier to distinguish from the picture? (I wouldnt think red is the best for that...)

 

I havent been able to google search an answer, so I hope someone in here has an explanation.

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Yes Interesting .. most cameras now also give you choice of color for frame lines .. mine has about 5 .. even purple and an odd green one.. personally I dont like the red choice.. I associate it with some sort of error message !.. I went with a light blue color .. it just looks nicer in the VF ..a calm color.. than the ordinary white lines.. end of the day.. I think they are used as it looks a bit more fancy than the old boring white lines !.. I remember Panavision had a Panaglow thingy where the frames lines would light up for night shoots.. for some reason, that really seemed amazing to me..!

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I HATE frame lines, every monitoring device should offer frame masks (with variable opacity) as far as I'm concerned.

Trying to mentally occlude a high contrast element from your composition, that's outside of your frame, but within the monitor image, is a nightmare.

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i think it is a digital age manifestation of the colour-coding tradition where "A" camera gets colour red and "B" camera gets blue, "C" will get yellow, "D" green.

(also works as a rule of thumb for actor marks - #1 is red, #2 is blue, etc.)

 

you may see this on slates if you watch BTS videos, but also ACs will usually colour-code all accessories/cables/etc in prep

 

it is certainly not a rule nor expectation. some operators just prefer white framelines, and i have never heard of anyone at the video-village ask to change the colours

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  • 4 weeks later...

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