Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?
 

Ryan - do you have some kind of memory loss - we have answered this very question multiple time now.

Your film making process is flawed. Story is everything. If you cannot afford to shoot that story, find another.

You seem to do everything backwards. Could the director of 1917 have made it if budget had let him have 10 extras instead of 1000. Could he have changed the story to cut the night scenes because lighting it was too expensive. Could he have replaced the cranes with a gimbal gaffer taped to the back of the head of an olympic retired champion?

Can you not see that you ARE continually trying to emulate big budget shots from random movies, then tinkering with your product to shoehorn these in? Every movie has some scenes that none of us on here could recreate on a budget.

The really crazy thing is that YOU write the scenes you can't shoot on your budget.

I'm grateful you don't want to set your next movie in a desert, but for budget reasons want to shoot it on a local beach in winter, with no sun, and sort it in post.

You need an injection of common sense - if you really misunderstand people so much, is working in a communications medium ever going to work?

Last question. You got banned it seems on that other forum. Did you consider why?

Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?
 

Oh well I thought I could shoot a scene at night on a budget if done right. I just thought it was possible as long as I don't get too crazy with it.

As for why I was banned on the other site, I was told it was because of some of the content in my screenplay that I posted for review.

Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?
 

One thing in that sentence, Ryan - if it was done right.

What can I say? All I know that if I was considering this scene with my camera, I'd be out every night trying everything I can think of.

I fancied doing some Milky Way night shooting that I'd seen, so I spent three cold quite scary nights trying it only to reveal that while I could do it, my results lacked that wonderfulness others have. First two nights were a total waste of time, and while I got the shots on night three - they were poor.

Do you have the test material you shot still? I assume this is where you got the noise problems? Did you try all the things you mention - the work lights, the generators, now perhaps the car headlights I suggested.

Tell me you read the car headlights and went out that night and tried? I bet you didn't. This is the problem. It's like you are a student at university collecting information but never actually trying it for real?

How long would it take to set up a car, a subject and your existing equipment - just to say it works better or worse? Please tell me you try these things for real. It's then fine to reject them, but I think you read papers, ask friends, and then post here without ever trying these things!

Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?
 

Many ears ago I made a 50 minute drama that some people on the local arts council film committee said I couldn't make, However, the difference was that I had been trained by the BBC, I had made number of films shot on 8mm film one with a professional actor who had some screen presence.

I had a crew of university students and, for part of the time a National Film & TV School student. A mixed cast of professionals and non professionals, although I'm not sure if a former professorial wrestler counts as the latter.. The students went on to work on high end TV dramas and feature films, so they knew their basic stuff at the time, but what we were doing was high end film school stuff in a risky environment

There was no internet, so information was gathered from an industry magazine, which had long interviews with A list cinematographers and some books (there was a lot less of these). The sound design was inspired by a sound track LP that had sections film soundtrack with the music.

The film was shot on 16mm black and white negative, so there were real costs involved and you had to edit on film. Mistakes were made along the way, together other mishaps, so it is possible to push the envelop. The best thing I did was hire an Arriflex 16BL, instead of using a Bolex with a home brewed sync system and blimp, life is so much easier with the right kit.

The film was finished and shown in festivals and I recently saw a scene projected in the local art house cinema and looked like it belonged on the big screen with the main actor shining. So, although flawed, it has held up pretty well.

The point being, that you can't keep on endlessly asking the same questions, you have to gather it yourself and analysis the information, so that you understand the underlying pattern. You may say you're doing this, but you're not, all you;re doing is going around in endless loops, You need to take a personal vision of the story and push it far as you can, not keep asking the same questions.

You should know yourself, and try to work out what in this stroy is about yourself and the world you live in and people you know. If you have to keep asking questions on writing forums, which go around in circles, perhaps you don't know the world of the story, so need to think again. Ian Fleming worked in navel intelligence in WW2, so James Bond came out of that.

Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?
 

Oh well I didn't have any subjects who's skin tones I can test it on, but I can do my own. But I had to decide on a better camera first, with much better noise quality, compared to my crappy T2i before I do any more tests though I figured.

Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?
 

I'm not sure why you're changing the subject to skin tones, when the thread is discussing something else.

Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?
 

What I mean is, it's hard to judge my tests unless I have actors skin in the frame, to light the skin to see how the exposure is, at night.

I can do some tests, but I do not have enough car headlights. I only have one car, and need more to test light the locations.

Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?
 

You only need one car for a test and a friend to stand or sit in the beam, it's not really a huge deal.

Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?
 

Oh yes, I'll do a test with my car headlights and see what I come up with.

Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?
 

This is EXACTLY what we mean Ryan. Instead of doing the test, you generate problems. Why?As Brian said - where did the skin tone thing suddenly come from? We are talking about illumination. You might even discover your camera is not crap at all and the issue is at the other side of the viewfinder?

Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?
 

Oh okay, I just thought it was hard to judge lighting without skin in front of the lights. But I can do it.

I was told the Canon T2i was crap before, and to get something better. I was told it was too sensitive when it comes to noise but also when it comes to color grading, as you cannot push anything very far either after. I was told that on here long before as well, so don't people have a point, and that I should get a new camera therefore?

Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?
 

You were happy with it, weren't you? Why dismiss it now based on people's opinions when you have one, and know how it works in low light. The grading issue never was a problem before, was it - only discovered when you wanted to do strange things, and not gentle strange things but radical turn one colour into another stuff.

I just don't see why you don't put the computer away, go and shine some headlights on real people and shoot the results. Skin is optional for what you are doing. Just take a normal person, try lighting them and see what it looks like. Not remotely rocket science here!

It could be awful - but you would then be able to make a better decision on fact, not opinion.

Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?
 

Sure I will wait till night time and do a test with the car lights then.

But as for the camera, I find that not being able to do much grading without their being noise and artifacting is a huge problem, though, unless there is a way to fix that. However, one person told me that with magic lantern, you can turn the camera's codec into RAW and improve the grading from there, if that's true.

Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?
 

No one is telling you not to place a subject in the lighting test.

Again, doing a lighting test with your current camera will confirm the lighting levels with these particular lights and a ball park on how the skins tones look like. It will reveal if the headlights are suitable or not, in the past I would've taken an exposure reading with a meter as the starting point, but you can use your old camera instead..

The production camera on your film is entirely different and decision for the future. Why create unnecessary problems at this stage? If you do that nothing happens and you live in a land of procrastination..

Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?
 

Sure, I will do a test tonight with the car headlights. One of the locations I was planning on shooting in, a car would not be able to physically go into it though. It' s a park, so we would have to walk into it with lights. Maybe the car headlights can be removed? But I will do the test tonight with car headlights and see.

Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?
 

Why have you never in many thousands of posts up till recently never mentioned your noise issue? I suspect it's because you never noticed. You were not really grading were you? You were taking one colour, and trying to create a new one from very little real information in the data? If your colour on screen is nearly white, then there is a sensible amount of all colours in it, so you can increase cyan, or drop yellow a little and all the red green and blue primaries. What you cannot do so simply is take something that is very blue, for instance, and try to turn that green - because there is so little green in the original that bringing it up produce noise you can see. Matching white, something I've been doing for years, never seems to cause me any grief with my equipment - and it is not in the 'special' category at all. You were pushing too far, on unsuitable material. Your camera never bothered you until you discovered the latitude it has for big shifts is compromised. What you were doing was trying to do was a coat of paint electronically - and it failed.

Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?
 

No, I noticed the noise issues before. I said before that when I tried to use the qualifier in Resolve to separate the skin tones, from the rest of the scene, like it shows how to do in tutorials, that separating was causing noise and artifact issues. When I mentioned that noise problem on here before, it was said on here, that it was because my camera was 8 bit 4:2:0, and that I needed a camera that was 10 bit 4:2:2, in order to separate the skin tones, with minimal noise and artifact issues. The noise issues would happen just from separating the skin tones, before I even started any attempts at grading. Now it was said before that having 10 bit 4:2:2 is only part of it, and I still need to do good lighting, but that is still a significant part of it though, isn't it?

When you say I was trying to create one color out of a new one, are you referring to the test I did when I tried to make the wall blue, behind the subjects?

Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?
 

I think you went overboard with the re-colouring on unsuitable material, that's all. We've known about 4:2:0 vs 4:2:2 for a long time, but chroma content is always noisier than the luminance. You were not being gentle - the colour shift from blue to green in that saturation was extreme. It's like when you try to increase contrast beyond a certain point. A little is noise free, push it too much and it goes badly wrong. Colour is less capable than luma changes because the information is not encoded in the first place - hence the differences in the two formats, but you just went too far and tried something too radical. Your format doesn't allow this much shift.

Have you ever had the need to electronically repaint a room before? I think you've read about the technique used to separate the skin tones, by pushing the complimentary colours, and instead of using it to increase the colour contrast, you're using it radically to change colours to totally new ones. Not subtle pushes, but huge great nudges!

Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?
 

Oh okay, but the thing, is that the noise and artifacts was not caused from changing the colors. The noise and artifacts appear right when I separate the skin tones from the rest of the scene. So I haven't even applied any color changing from one color to another yet. The separating of the skin tones is what is causing the noise and artifacts, before any color changing.

Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?
 

Regarding car headlights, you don't need to go to the same location in order to test a light, something similar will do.

If it works, you can buy headlights from written off cars in the junk yard.

You don't need to grade shots for a lighting test, the ungraded pictures will tell you more about the light.

Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?
 

Okay sure. I wasn't planning on going to the location to do the test, I just meant I wonder if car headlights would be doable, if the location does not allow cars in. But I will do the test and see.

As for buying a new camera, can I still separate the skin tones using qualifiers in Resolve with only 8 bit 4:2:0 then, without noise? It was said before that decorating the background with different colored options would help, but would it really help that much without 10 bit?

Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?
 

Lol. Paul you’re right it’s that whole crazy colorization thing he’s been banging on. I didn’t make the connection with skin tone and noise. Here I’m thinking insufficient light is the cause of the noise but instead the problem turns out to be Ryan. He has this odd way of not disclosing what he is really doing and then when you figure out what’s going on he denies it. Truly idiotic. Honestly it’s hard enough to film and he figures out a way to complicate it further. Madness!

Detach the light from the car? lol

Like I said before he’s not buying the camera.

Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?
 

But the noise and artifacts was not caused from changing one color to another. It's caused from separating the skin tones, not the coloring that follows afterwards. I think it was incorrectly assumed that it was the color changing causing the noise, when it was in fact, the qualifier.

As for detaching the light from car, it was suggested to use car headlights, so I am trying to work with that suggestion. Is that bad?

Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?
 

There is no need to separate the skin tones.

You’re doing great. Detaching the car light is genius.

Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?
 

Well the car idea was suggested to me, so I am just asking about a variable in that suggestion. I cannot get a car into the location. So I would have to take the headlights in separately, if I am to use car headlights.

Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?
 

It depends if detaching the light works for the owner?

Look - this skin tone obsession - if you carry out the process you've read about and watched the tutorials, you are changing the colour of the scene by shifting the balance of some colours vs others, and the most contrasting result is when one bit goes pink and another goes blue green (your teal colour) That's changing colours. Nothing else - just changing the colours and this is where noises comes from, so don't do it.

I bet you have not even thought about the reason you would want to do it? What is the problem with the material out of the camera that even needs it? You have heard of a technique, so want to use it, no matter if your camera and eyesight cannot manage it.

When your telephoto shots wobbled - did you read up about the mechanics inside real quality heads that make long lens work possible, and go out and buy one? Nope. Yet you have transferred your fly-by-wire obsession with focus onto colour changes.

What can we say? I cannot dance. Wanting to dance is not enough to make it happen. Spending money on lessons is futile - I cannot do it! So I don't.

Write a good script. Hire decent actors. Find a person who can operate a camera properly, and then find somebody who can record the sound properly too. Then you will have a decent product that you can try to edit. If you mess that up, the original material is still available and still decent and somebody else could edit it.

I note you never ask questions about end credits? I don't suppose you ever get that far?

Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?
 

My reason for wanting to change the color of the background, was I wanted more color contrast to separate the actors from the background. Plus different color grading for the background helps create, mood, tone, atmosphere. If color doesn't matter, and it's all about story and acting, then why do people even bother shooting in color, instead of black and white then?

When the telephoto lens wobbled I thought that was me and my hands moving it on the tripod. I thought it was me who needed more practice on moving the camera. I didn't think it was the lens that was causing the wobbling.

Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?
 

You can shoot orange and teal if you want to, it's now a bit of a cliche, but no one is stopping you. There are a lot of other grading options that are used in thrillers, but the choice is yours.

With long telephoto lenses you need a good tripod and head.

Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?
 

Okay thanks, I have a fluid head tripod, which I have been using for the long telephoto lens. But I still thought it was my movement on the tripod that was causing the wobbling, not the lens itself. But I see that it was the lens, when it was suggested.

I don't want the teal and orange look exactly. What I what is a more neutral skin tone look, with either teal or blue in the background. I would have to try both and see, but I just want neutral skin tone, not orange.

So it's similar to teal and orange, but just teal or blue, with neutral skin tone. I also did find a way to push color further without noise. If you separate the skin tones, and then make the rest of the scene, apart from the skin, black and white, you can then tint a color over the black and white. This causes to change a color drastically without near as much noise, cause you can change to black and white and then tint a new color over top of the black and white, rather than pushing a color too far. If that's a good alternative. Seems to work better than changing an entire color into another.

Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?
 

You are such hard work Ryan. Your lens you reported as having stabilisation turned on and people told you that this and your jerky head was the problem. Selective memory now?

You want your subject to stand out from the background by changing the colours - this is an effect. Blue to green. Not shades, but a green top changing to blue is an effect - it's not real, it's manufactured. You want to use locations with colours you don't like and change them without introducing noise? That's impossible. Whatever noise is there will get worse.

If you want a real face colour, but want to change the background colours, that is a LOT of processing - what do you expect?

In your martial arts thing - why was the colour important? It was their location, and their choice of clothing. Why bother messing with it?

We're not really talking about specifics - we use your history as examples, that's all - you take everything so literally it is almost impossible to communicate. You never seem to understand and we're getting exasperated with you again.

We genuinely have no idea what on earth you are trying to achieve any longer.

Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?
 

Yes I remember how people told me about lens. I turned it off and it's all good since then.

I was using the martial arts footage to do color tests. It was not the video I gave them. I was using it as a location example, to do my own tests.

Well in the Resolve tutorials they say in order to get a look, where the background is a separate color, they say to use the qualifier effect in resolve to separate the skin tones from the background.

Now it was said on here to choose locations that look good in the first place, but I thought the qualifier could still help some.

I guess I just don't understand that if lighting is important, and to forget about color grading, than why do other movies bother to grade at all then, if it's all about the lighting and performances and story? Why do those movies bother to grade in post then if that doesn't matter and it's about story, lighting and performances? Doesn't grading in post help too?

What if I produced and directed a whole movie, with no grading, or at least no skin tone separation in post? If the story and acting was good enough, will it really not matter? If you want the movie to get into festivals and actually be worth the budget spent, will people look at it and feel that the lack of post grading is an issue, even if the story, acting, and lighting is good?

Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?
 

If you don't have the story, great acting, lighting, good camera work and sound you won't even get into festivals because no one goes to watch a movie for the grading effects, because that's what orange and teal is. You can have a well graded film with a tough look without going for an over used effect.

Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?
 

Okay thanks. I just don't want to get everything else right, such as the story and acting, but then in post, have people say the color looks bad, cause I didn't care enough about it, or pay enough attention to it, compared to everything else.

Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?
 

Ryan - you just don't get it. Grading is done to as perfect a product as possible - like mastering in audio studios. Nobody would master a recording that contained wrong notes. get the basics right for goodness sake, then apply the tiny improvements. You have everything around the wrong way,

They're going to notice the stuff we do, but as EVERYONE has said - you MUST get the basics right or they won't even watch it. The public is not even supposed to know what grading even is!!!!

Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?
 

He’s still in the planning stage and he’s worried about the grading! The story is so salacious and unpalatable it got him banned from a writing forum.

Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?
 

That may have been the forum’s “diplomatic” reason. Seems weird...movies have been made with content like that before (whatever it was), dont know why that would get someone banned.

Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?
 

Well I thought I would plan it till post. What I can do is hire a DP and art director to help with the color and leave it to them then, and forget about grading in post, until then.

Well I posted some of the script to get opinions on it, and then after I did that, I got a message saying I was banned because of the content of the script. Maybe they just didn't like the type of material.

Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?
 

Well I did a test with the car headlights in front of me. I can get my legs exposed enough for the camera, but not my face. The legs are good though, if I shoot at 1/50, f5.6, so the DOF is not too shallow and the ISO at 1600.

So that's the settings I need for my legs to be exposed, but my face is still too dark. For a master shot, where you see a whole character, the headlights will not work if they attached to a car perhaps, since the actors lower body will be lit a more than the upper body and face.

Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?
 

Options:

#1. Run the car front wheels up on some blocks of wood and use high-beams

#2. If #1 isn't high enough, put front end on jack stands.

Block rear wheels of course.

Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?
 

Of course car headlights (if fitted to the car0 won't light faces, they designed for lighting the road. You're meant to be testing to see if the lights themselves are suitable. As mentioned earlier, you should've sat down for your face test, If suitable you should buy some headlights from a car breaker or check out if they sell sealed beam lamps at the auto part syore.

BTW you'll need some car batteries to run them, The breakers yard could be a cheap source.

However, unless the scene is short, I would tend towards power, other than batteries,

If there's no power available from nearby buildings, I would check out the generators, park it on the other side of a building, with a 100ft ((or longer if needed) cable run of heavy duty cable to the Lights, The larger towed generators used on building sites or outdoor events aren't that loud and if shielded behind buildings they may not be picked up on the sound, You can ask the plant hire company to run their kit as a test.

I would also check out audio software for removing any remaining generator sound in post, The sound recordist records a reference track for this software, so it knows what to remove. It's not my department, but a fussy professional recordist was happy doing it with a noisy small generator.