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The Film Look
  • Movies have contrast. We shoot flat for flexibility in post, but movies have glorious blacks and whites, not weak-ass shades of grey. Rich blacks create solidity and make colors pop off the screen, while bright whites give sparkle and direct the viewer’s interest.

    Cinematic images are about drama and the most effective way to achieve striking shots is through awesome lighting. Shoot against the light wherever possible. Rembrandt lighting, which creates a triangle beneath one of the subject’s eyes, is one of my favorite techniques.

    The majority of movies make use of shallow depth-of-field to isolate the subject from the background. Not only are blurry backgrounds aesthetically extremely pleasing, but along with lighting and composition, shallow depth-of-field is one of the most sure-fire methods of directing the viewer’s attention where it belongs. Anyone who says different doesn’t know what the fuck they’re talking about.

    Movies are vibrant. That means not shying away from boosting saturation in post. In real life, skin tones may very well look pale and washed out, but at the cinema, they should glow and radiate warmth. Desaturated colors put the audience to sleep. People don’t go to the movies to see a drab reproduction of their shitty depressing lives outside the theater.

    Movies are sharp. Granted, your local drive-in might be projecting an image at something less than 720p resolution but that is absolutely not what the director intended, anymore than god intended us to watch movies in our cars with a Slurpee, or worse yet, on an garbage 11″ MacBook Air. Get over it. Just the same, all hybrid cameras add junky artificial sharpening that kills anything resembling cinema. Dial that crap all the way down.

    https://jonpais.wordpress.com/2018/10/27/the-film-look/

  • 19 Replies sorted by
  • SMH Thanks for calling. Try again. Once you've color corrected actual film you'll know why this post and POV is so errant. I'm sure you meant well, but you misunderstand why we shoot flat. You'll learn eventually. Or not.

  • @shian Thanks for your constructive comments. I hope to learn a lot from you.

  • I'm sure you meant well, but you misunderstand why we shoot flat.

    For now LOG exist mainly due to how NLEs and color grading tools work.

    As present implementations contain less information than non-LOG footage.

    You'll learn eventually. Or not.

    Or we'll all go to good compressed raw, where required and proper working NLE with non-flat profiles for all else.

  • "For now LOG exist mainly due to how NLEs and color grading tools work.

    As present implementations contain less information than non-LOG footage."

    Just completely wrong. Try again!

  • Let me clarify: there will never be a digital sensor that can do what film does.... never. Why? Because film is a physical medium. It's 3 dimensional and transparent. The 3D nature and transparency (when developed) along with random grain inherent, all work to add a magical quality to film. Softening while retaining details, and a magical "glow" to the celluloid itself as the light passes though it on it's way to the screen.

    I am a huge proponent of digital. I love it, but I love it more if the final DI is transferred to film, and then re-scanned. Which is expensive, but IMO the only way to do digital right.

    As for the flatness and saturation argument, you were on the right track, but we shoot flat so we can digitally remap with vibrance and contrast along preset filmic curves to attain the "film look", but to truly attain it... see the above paragraphs.

  • @shian How expensive?

  • Because film is a physical medium. It's 3 dimensional and transparent. The 3D nature and transparency (when developed) along with random grain inherent, all work to add a magical quality to film.

    Actually requirement to have layered structure and never ideal properties of "transparent" parts are big issues of film. Random grain inherent (as well as physical limitations of this) always had been viewed as issues.

    I love it, but I love it more if the final DI is transferred to film, and then re-scanned. Which is expensive, but IMO the only way to do digital right.

    I have no words. It is same as say that you love underpants better if they had been used before you for a week by someone and presented to you unwashed.

    Another obvious sample is idiots praying on tube amplifiers or recent movement of degradation in synths with demand of "true analog" shits.

    Softening while retaining details, and a magical "glow" to the celluloid itself as the light passes though it on it's way to the screen.

    I hope you understand it is all not going away only due to greed of capitalist owners?

    As for the flatness and saturation argument, you were on the right track, but we shoot flat so we can digitally remap with vibrance and contrast along preset filmic curves to attain the "film look", but to truly attain it... see the above paragraphs.

    Term "film look" is used still as it is huge inertia in the industry. It'll all go away.

    Same will happen with LOG formats, especially all current implementations. As none of their makers really understand how their own compression part works, how information being stored, etc

  • "I have no words. It is same as say that you love underpants better if they had been used before you for a week by someone and presented to you unwashed.

    Another obvious sample is idiots praying on tube amplifiers or recent movement of degradation in synths with demand of "true analog" shits."

    srsly?

  • @squig

    More than seriously.

  • So you're telling me the album I spent 4 years making would've sounded just as good without the valve pre-amps, EQ, limiters, and compressors. Wow, what a waste of money that was.

  • So you're telling me the album I spent 4 years making would've sounded just as good without the valve pre-amps, limiters, and compressors. Wow, what a waste of money that was.

    If you understand how this things work and select plugins that emulate this stuff - will sound even better (I mean - better to you).

    I can somehow understand using valve preamps if you like trashing sound a little. But using EQs/limiters and compressors is not needed even from time saving standpoint, just inertia.

  • I do use some very realistic sounding plugins, but they don't sound better than the real thing. We used valves to take the edge off the harshness of digital at the A/D phase, this was 1999, 24bit A/D had only just become affordable to indie producers. I put a studio together for 20k. You can judge for yourself whether it was worth it. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8A328669CFE7F48A

  • I do use some very realistic sounding plugins, but they don't sound better than the real thing.

    It is strange terms ala "realistic" and "better".

    Proper correct words are - this exact plugin with this exact settings produce different sound compared to this gear with this specific settings.

    We used valves to take the edge off the harshness of digital at the A/D phase, this was 1999, 24bit A/D had only just become affordable to indie producers.

    What exactly is "harshness of digital"? How it is defined?

    I put a studio together for 20k.

    How it is related?

  • It's been a long time since I worked on the cutting edge of digital audio recording but from memory the harshness was due to aliasing.16bit dithering helped. 24bit was much less harsh. But the digital master pales in comparison to the vinyl, which is kinda like doing a DI film transfer.

    My point on the "put a studio together for 20k" is: at the time most recordings of the quality of ours were done in studios with much more expensive equipment, something only accessible to artists owned by the corporations. I said fuck that and figured out how to do it indie with cutting edge tech. The marriage of affordable analog and digital gear (and a bit of talent) produced something that brought happiness to a lot of people enduring the drudgery that is capitalism. And I paid a few bills.

    You can laugh about my dirty undies all you like, I don't mind.

  • It's been a long time since I worked on the cutting edge of digital audio recording but from memory the harshness was due to aliasing.16bit dithering helped. 24bit was much less harsh.

    All it sound very strange.

    But the digital master pales in comparison to the vinyl, which is kinda like doing a DI film transfer.

    Mine god. And yes, it is exactly same scientifically insane as doing that @shian proposed.

    The marriage of affordable analog and digital gear (and a bit of talent) produced something that brought happiness to a lot of people enduring the drudgery that is capitalism. And I paid a few bills.

    Now all this analog things is mainly pushed via ads money and huge inertia. Plus horrible education level helps.

    I had few talks with analog synths big sellers and manufacturers - all clearly know how much bullshit it is, but this is where profits are.

  • @squig - great album, PNAU is excellent!

    Actual purpose of LOG is to emulate film NEGATIVE with the bit depth and gamut we have available. Here’s an article :

    https://theasc.com/magazine/jan05/conundrum/page1.html

    I’ll see if I can dig up the white paper by Joshua Pines on ASC CDL and post here which is more about gamma and gamut.

    This all relates to what Has been called the (devil’s?) triangle of filmmaking: - Business / Technology / Artistry

    Many decisions start with Business (capitalism, just for you Vitaliy) - make money and lots of it. How ?

    It relies on Artistry to entertain the mind of the audience and to be creative in finding a solution.

    What Happens when the Artists have the idea and a big creative dream but it needs to be made real ? Or made real, in the cheapest, most profitable way ? It relies on technology to find a solution or generate a pipeline for productivity.

    Many times there are unforeseen consequences that affect the other points on the triangle in a direct or indirect way.

    Why film ? It was the only way to get it done at the time to make the money and create the artistry. Why do artists love it now ? Because it does have a special look that is inherent to what a pure Technologist or engineer would call flaws - dependency on multiple layers for color, creating diffusion instead of perfect crispness.

    Most of us fell in love with the “week old used underwear” it’s true. Now as humans and artists we want to hold onto that semiotic signifier of what a movie is. The pure capitalist or pure pragmatic technologist don’t care and want to move away from it - but we are codependent on one another.

    There are many who embrace media playback at 120fps or 240fps with motion smoothing , because it’s technically “better” and someone in corporate said it’s a good business decision, but many humans who are not viewing media for the first time throw up when they see it because it’s so different (or ugly if you ask me).

    Bottom line : it’s not fair to conflate perfect technology with perfect Art, or perfect capitalism for perfect Art or expression or result of Technology !

    One more fun, now “old” article:

    https://ascmag.com/blog/parallax-view/the-future-of-cinematography-part-1-of-2

  • @bannedindv

    Actual purpose of LOG is to emulate film NEGATIVE with the bit depth and gamut we have available. Here’s an article

    Present purpose of LOG is to overcome some NLE/grading software limits. And as some parts of grading software had been done to process scanned film - it had been just convenience and inertia decision.

    Article on link is quite bad, as it try to touch everything at very low level.

    Many decisions start with Business (capitalism, just for you Vitaliy) - make money and lots of it. How ?

    I really do not care. Our talk here is pure science.

    And artists are not made to "entertain the mind of the audience", as some capitalism born people tend to think reading nice books. Most artists are just prostitutes used as such by ruling class and not having any real positions that reflect their own interests (all they can is to produce trashy horrors that partly depict their own internal horrors).

    Most of us fell in love with the “week old used underwear” it’s true. Now as humans and artists we want to hold onto that semiotic signifier of what a movie is. The pure capitalist or pure pragmatic technologist don’t care and want to move away from it - but we are codependent on one another.

    And this is just idealism that does not match reality around. You can see real examples on how things change fast and this dependence really does not exist.

    The pure capitalist or pure pragmatic technologist don’t care and want to move away from it - but we are codependent on one another.

    It is real things around, real technologies that determinate how things are being done. This is called materialism. All this vinyl, analog synths and film things are no more than reflection on present capitalist society decay, reflection of its inability to more forwards, it tries to catch to something old and bad and call it as something good and renewed.

  • @squig - Roughly $1000 to $1200 per minute. So roughly an extra $72,000 per hour of narrative story just to transfer to film, and then about $3000 per hour of story to scan back at 4K.

  • @bannedindv Thx

    @shian Yikes!

    True happiness is a life spent busting your arse on a collective farm.

    I agree that analog modelling makes having the real thing obsolete, and materialism will get us all killed, but you can take my vinyl out of my cold dead hands.