Netflix-now-requires-its-films-to-be-made-in-hdr

[Daniel D. Teoli Jr.]

https://www.redsharknews.com/production/item/6795-netflix-now-requires-its-films-to-be-made-in-hdr

I knew it would just be a matter of time before HDR was mainstream.  But where does that leave film? Will HDR film scans be good enough for them?

Faces of Gentrification - D.D.Teoli Jr.

(low res image)

I guess Netflix wants invisible HDR. I wonder how a film done in painterly or grunge HDR would look?

 

Edited November 19, 2019 by Daniel D. Teoli Jr.

[Phil Rhodes]

I think there's some confusion happening here between what HDR tends to mean in still photography, and what it means in moviemaking. What you've posted there is not what people are generally going for in moving image HDR.

[Daniel D. Teoli Jr.]

Yes, I know. The movies tend to be more of the invisible HDR, but it seems to be kinda contrasty from what I've seen. And in reality, I can't say for sure if they were HDR, they just seem to be in that direction. But maybe they were just victims of turning up the contrast and saturation.

They have invisible HDR in still photos as well. Invisible in the respect that it does not thumb its nose at you as much as the more extreme HDR.

How do all you feel about HDR in filmmaking?

I've never used it. Only because my simpleton cameras don't offer it. And can't do it with my video software. I've only used HDR in still work. And it is generally single image HDR that is done in post not in the camera / scanner.

Are there any films out there that have been shot in HDR that you are enamored with?

Edited November 19, 2019 by Daniel D. Teoli Jr.

[Phil Connolly]

Netflix type HDR, just needs a camera source with enough dynamic range to be graded into the HDR colour space. Typically Alexa, Red et al are fine as are modern filmstocks and scanning techniques.

Its kind of the grading equivalent of cinema mix vs TV mix in audio.

Also HDR is a bit hit an miss depending on the display tech. A lot of so called cheaper HDR TV sets that use edge lit LEDs can't really reproduce HDR that well. I have a low cost(ish) Sony TV - and I can't get any version of HDR on Netflix using the TV's HDR "mode" to look decent, no better then normal dynamic range because the panel can't reproduce HDR

Same with cinema - outside of Dolby cinema and IMAX laser - typical cinema DLP projectors can't reproduce HDR images. 

[David Mullen ASC]

Netflix and Amazon have been making HDR masters for a few years now, we've create a UHD HDR version of "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel" ever since the pilot three years ago, for Amazon.  I talked to the post people at the time because they were dealing with HDR masters of some Amazon shows shot on 35mm film and some digital shows that added film grain in post.  Their main concern was that film grain tended to "sizzle" a bit more in UHD HDR, be a bit sharper and more pronounced, so they had to make a separate master using less film grain (if added in post) and they did some mild de-graining for film footage.  If you're talking about a movie like "Saving Private Ryan" in UHD HDR, then I don't think anyone would object to seeing more grain but for original programming, they didn't want the HDR version to look grainier than the SDR version.  It was all moot because I wasn't adding post grain to my footage anyway.

It's not the same thing or look as HDR in still photography.  It's just the (hopefully) 15-stops of the original image not being lopped off to 10-stops for SDR but all of it shown in on an HDR monitor with greater brightness range available, so you got hotter whites and deeper blacks rather than the flat "log" look when you try to show 15-stops of DR on a regular monitor.  The main problem is that the bright highlights can be more distracting in HDR.

 

[Manu Delpech]

Netflix is warming up to celluloid nowadays. Baumbach shot Marriage Story on 35mm, Jonze shot the Ansari special on 16mm and Prieto and Scorsese shot half of The Irishman on film (everything involving deaging had to be shot digitally). Prieto even says that Netflix initially said "we don't do celluloid film" LOL, and it turns out they were fine with it. 

[Philip Reinhold]

This „HDR“ thing brings a lot of confusion... but actually, these are more topics for postproductions and Monitoring on set than for the creative side of filmmaking. All modern digital cameras support HDR from scratch by recording log which support almost every digital camera now, as well as film scans.
With the knowledge of the wide latitude of modern digitals & film scans in our head we expose for HDR already anyway since some years.

[Stuart Brereton]

Modern cameras already have the dynamic range to create HDR, so there's nothing new there. As there's currently no practical way of monitoring HDR on set, it really just requires an awareness on the part of the DP of what will be happening to the material in post. It's back to the old days of protecting your highlights. A lot of producers have been doing an HDR pass on the grade alongside the SDR version for a few years now as a way of future proofing. It's no surprise that it is now becoming more widespread as a deliverable.