The "Look" Did I hit it?

[Brian Mitchell Warshawsky]

Thought I'd put this to the test of the most discriminating viewers:

http://films.thelot.com/films/23105


Shot 24P with a DVX100 (not the A or B), at times with the superwide Century wide angle adapter.

I plan to eventually pick up a shallow dof device, but it wasn't an issue for this project. I see the film look as more than just shallow dof.

Am I wrong?

BWar

[Nate Weaver]

Originally Posted by Brian Mitchell Warshawsky

I see the film look as more than just shallow dof.

Very very much agreed, but I have to say Brian, you didn't really make it happen in this one.

Off the top of my head, the thing that is giving it away the most (for me) is the raised gamma, and the lack of any crushed blacks in any shot. It's not that having such is a prerequisite, it's more that the gamma tracking of whatever camera setting you used is screaming "video".

This is best done in camera, but can be done after the fact with color correction tools.

Couple this with the overexposed shots of your protagonist window peeping, and it's not too convincing.

Try exposing a bit lower than you have been, and try another gamma setting. Cinegamma is good, but you have to watch your highlights, they blow out uglier in Cinegamma.

[Brian Mitchell Warshawsky]

Nate,

Thanks for the constructive comments. It seems like some of this may be doable or fixable in post.

My next project is to attempt to raise the resolution and try converting the entire project to HD - tweak it - and then down convert it to DVCPro50.

That - if done correctly, may further create the look I'm chasing.

Brian

[Nate Weaver]

Mmmm, it's not going to do anything but degrade your image. HD upscaling tools degrade your image in an attempt to fool the eye into thinking there's more there than actually is. HD upscaling tools, in my opinion, are snake oil. There are no free lunches.

One of the big things those tools do is add edge enhancement (albeit in a slightly more intelligent way than traditional edge enhancement). Aka white halos around edges. Usually one of the things you do with a video camera to get more filmy is you dial DOWN the enhancement, not crank it up.

Honestly, just look into manipulating those midtones darker, as well as your muddy blacks. If a high contrast look is acceptable, you can hide your video-ey blowouts by crushing the whites as well...it will not "save" the whites, but it will make them less video like.

The only other thing I can think of is to maybe add a TINY amount of grain. I mean a TINY amount...it's one of those things where you add it until you see it, and then you back it off two steps. If you notice it immediately, you've added too much. It's like cooking. Note however that the very act of manipulating your mids and lows as stated above will already bring out noise (grain) in your image, so this may not be necessary.

[Brian Mitchell Warshawsky]

Valid points. I was impressed though, at some of the work done with Photozoom Pro 2 after individual frames are exported from the NLE progressively.

http://www.pinelakefilms.com/uprez.html

When done properly, and on a limited basis, what I noticed was that the jaggies magically disappear - and rather than looking artificially sharpened, it looked (to me) like greater resolution.

I'm planning to experiment further with Genuine Fractals as well.

Brian

[Ben Winter]

Actually Photozoom does an amazing job. I'm using it from now on to uprez all my HDV projects to 2K. It's not that big of a jump, but it makes it look amazingly good at that res. The downsize? It takes 17 seconds for one frame. Oh boy...

[Brian Mitchell Warshawsky]

Ben - 17 seconds? Ouch. I'm getting 5 seconds for DV to wide screen.

What are you doing with 2K?

Had you previously posted the Anger Management commercial? I know I saw it somewhere else recently.

Brian