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So underexposure is the thing now, hey


Karim D. Ghantous

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On 10/7/2020 at 3:07 AM, aapo lettinen said:

The Walking Dead for example

With some exceptions as noted above, if one absolutely insists on being able to see actor's expressions and reactions and on being able to get a sense of their surroundings, it is best to view films set in deep caves or tunnels, miles below the sea, or in rooms lit only by one or two candles :).

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Do the visuals of underexposure and low contrast go together?

For example, DARK is quite low contrast (and personally flat, and boring), but I don't feel its underexposed.

Underexposure doesn't seem all that overused in the shows I watch regularly. 

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4 hours ago, Stewart McLain said:

I think the underexposed look marries really well with the trend toward inaudible dialogue. 


Instead of soft, flickering, silent, black and white images, we now have pitch black wide color HDR, out of focus 8K, inaudible Dolby Atmos audio... I think I like the old way better!

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On 10/11/2020 at 5:08 AM, Uli Meyer said:

When I was a teenager at the beginning of the 80s, I remember German TV audiences complaining en masse about Rainer Werner Fassbinder's 'Berlin Alexanderplatz' TV Series being too underexposed. I couldn't find better images and some look like they've been boosted but I do remember that it was best to sit in complete darkness while watching it. Easy to do, since it went out at 11pm, if I remember correctly.

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This feels more natural to me since the highlights have room to breathe and aren't taken down below 60IRE.

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3 hours ago, Karim D. Ghantous said:

I said that I wouldn't post any examples, but I'm going to post this one, because I want to see On the Rocks anyway:

https://www.imdb.com/video/vi2271133209?ref_=tt_pv_vi_aiv_1

I guess it's okay to punch up now and then, even if it is from an armchair.

This looks beautiful. I wouldn't call this underexposed. The sometimes sombre atmosphere seems to compliment the story. In the past few days the world where I live looked very similar ?

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Yes I've noticed this so much in the past year or so. Been muttering it to myself when I see people post screenshots of their films around the web.

I see this as part of the same "cycle" or downstream movement as the shallow depth of field epidemic (which is still going btw, and getting worse with the popularity of full frame cameras) that started after the introduction of the Canon 5d.

Big budget films did it, up and coming filmmakers at home emulated it when they got their hands on a DSLR (yes people were doing it with those 35mm lens adapters for video cameras but mainstream was when DSLRs crossed over).

Now it's the same thing over again just with lighting. You can get low key moody lighting much easier now then ever before with the right tools and people are injecting it into their productions. If it's done right, it's done right. But as mentioned elsewhere in this thread, it's also used as a crutch a lot.

There has to be some "xerox effect" going on here too, where the people who emulate Hollywood through shortcuts like shallow DOF and super tight closeups have moved up in their careers and initiated a feedback effect todays style.

Reference from Steve Jobs talking about Xerox:

I like being able to see things in a visual medium.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Any style is fine as long as it serves the story well, what I only find a bit annoying is when this kind of trendy low key look is manifestly achieved in post and looking so fake.  I often see day int with clipping windows and very extreme low key inside apart from the key on the talents (sometimes not even that).  That’s well beyond expressionism, especially if it becomes the main trait of the visual style for days int throughout the piece.  In my humble opinion it’s just not real.   As for the nights int, I don’t think this issue has mostly to do with practicals lighting, but it rather depends on predominance of soft lighting.  In the project I’m currently shooting I’m only using practical lights and china balls of different sizes as extensions for night interiors, while lighting the far backgrounds objects out of the windows (trees, buildings, so on) with M40s Or M90s.  This way I always try to achieve some highlights (whether from the practicals or from outside) that balances the predominant soft lighting.  I must add that it’s my first time shooting with Alexa LF, because of the 4K requirement from the OTT streaming platform, and I’ve been so far satisfied by following my usual approach from previous workflow on Alexa: EI at 400 to protect the shadows.  This way a get a “denser” signal while working at low levels and no noise.  I only had to tweak the dailies with the DIT once (Look files tend to crush the blacks too much) so that he knows what are the levels I want to deliver on a daily basis, of course when I’ll sit with my colourist at the grading I will have more time and space for fine tuning.

Edited by Vincenzo Condorelli AIC
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