Making things look 'hyper real'.
 

Hi,

I'm going to start filming a short script soon, and it calls for a 'hyper real' look. It's about living in a simulation, so I'd like to get the colours to look too bright, edges to be a little hazy and shadows a to have a certain sharpness to them. Things like that. I'm new to filming, so I'm not sure how I'd do this. At all. Would it be setting a strange white balance? In post with colour correction?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Gary there is a lot you can do in post so i would shoot it normally and experiment with filters and plugins. Do a lot of tests etc.



Andy.

IMO 1st decide if you prefer interlace or progressive for super real ...
my mind thinks interlace has more of the super real then progressive ..
i find the cheaper HDV camera's that they have on display at best buys ( usually connected to 40-50" TV ) is a good starting point ( fine tune camera from there) ...

I don't know that interlace is the key. But 60 fps, rather than 30p or 24p might do the trick. In that case 720@60p is your best bet. 1080p could work, since the new Blu-ray and HD DVD and the latest monitors support it, but there aren't any inexpensive 1080p cameras - yet.

If 1080 is important to you, 1080i would be the way to go.

Part of it depends on your definition of "hyper". Start with natural video (say, news footage), decide which aspects you want to exaggerate and go from there...

I Origionally was going to suggest 50i but reading into his post a bit more i think when he says hyper real he means surreal. He is trying to shoot something that is ment to be a simulation which means he needs more than just frame rates, he needs some kind of filter or plugin that gives it a stylised other world feel..................I think! could be completely wrong.

Andy.

Yeah, Andy's right - sorry if I wasn't being very clear. Have you every fainted? If so, in the seconds before you do, when the world seems to press in at you and you feel that you can't handle the vibrance of the colours and the closeness of sound - I want to go for that feeling.

I would go for a very warm white balance, a promist 1/2 filter and a shutter speed effect. For hyper-real I would go with a faster shutter, say 1/250 or higher and for surreal, I would go 1/24 or 1/12.



ash =o)

There's a lot of lighting possibilities here that could help you achieve a "hyper-real" effect. Try mixing a generally small very very very hard source with a larger heavily heavily diffused source in generally the same position and see if that does you any justice.

What you're asking in a sense is...how do I replicate a very cerebral experience through only the eyes?

This is what Hollywood's greatest DPs shoot for, and is not easily done.

Whether it be your frame rate, your blocking and timing of the actors, your lighting, your enhancements in post, your color treatments, your sound effects, etc.

These will all have to be juggled to create your intended experience.

I would first suggest doing research. watch movies that deal with surreal experiences (not horror). Also, rent 'Crank', rent it now, watch it tonight, take notes on scenes, lighting, action, tempo, speed, sounds, coloring, everything, find scenes you like and watch them 20 times. join netflix and search for movies that portray characters under drugs, death, surreal stuff, I'm sure you'll get what you're looking for. These days, anything can be done. You just need to know what you want...


Also, what you're describing with the brights to be 'too' bright and smear is two things. First, up your saturation, either in camera or in post, then add a blooming effect. It will keep your shadows where they are and spread out your highlights to look overexposed/bleeding into neighboring pixels...then play from there.

Look up the plant called "Salvia", a legal, HIGHLY hallucinogenic substance. There are videos all over the net about it. THAT STUFF will give you some ideas for sure! LOL

3 layers...footage shot well exposed and focused.

Top layer, duplicate of bottom layer, blurred and comp mode either multiply or add or something.

Middle layer, duplicate of bottom layer, push the contrast and drop the color saturation to 0...this will be a luma mask.

bottom layer, normal footage.

This will get you the soft-edged whites and the crisp blacks you asked about. If it softens the blacks, invert the colors on the middle layer to reverse the mask. To make it a little more, make sure to shoot in 30p with a 1/60th or 1/120th shutter. Shoot it handheld (with a shoulder mount) for more of a dynamic camera.

If the intention is to create computer generated looking images, shoot the same way, but with steadicam or tracks, try to have the camera motion be more sudden than organic...and very calculatedly (real word) even. Digital is on/off, non-natural feeling.

For more of a pastel look, dupe another layer over the whole thing, and blur it about 10-20 pixels, then overlay or soft/hard light (whatever looks right) and lower the opacity to use it as a coloring layer over the image.

If you are using FCP I use all of the Nattress plug in filters. You might play around with these to give you the effect you are looking for. You can download the plug ins at www.nattress.com
John