4K and beyond...Pretty .Ugly

[BRANDON JAMESON]

Ketch with all due respect, shooting raw means the actual skin tones have little to no bearing on much ...I am talking about TEXTURE..like pimples, facial hair on women,black heads, visible cosmetics that are applied by experts who really DO know what they are doing and finally the delight of wrinkles.

So far we have had a go with filters, nets behind the lens,beautybox and cosmo plug-ins and yeah they do help..but by the very nature of the beast, you are going to SEE more no matter how much our DPs know skin tone and lighting..and I can assure you that accross a cinema screen unless theres a great deal of work in post, the experience will be jarring and ugly to many who are used to seeing cinema magic performed on their favorite female stars of ANY age.

It's a bitch, but men can have all the hard light and wrinkles in the world and we think it looks awesome, but women...not so much!

[David Mullen ASC]

There are, to some extent, two conflicting forces at work -- when we want to capture reality in all its glory, then we want as much information as possible recorded. But a lot of narrative work involves fictional situations by definition - this actor doesn't really live in this house, those aren't his clothes, he's actually bald but his character has a crewcut, his wife is supposed to be 30 years old but is being played by a 45 year old actress, the scene is supposed to be sunny but halfway through the shoot, it starts raining, etc. There is a lot of smoke and mirrors, visual misdirection, look here but don't look there, etc. So the art comes in what you don't show as much as what you do. It's like that story Sidney Lumet tells about meeting Kurosawa and complimenting him on the composition of a wide shot in a period battle scene, and Kurosawa tells him that he framed it that way... because there was a power plant on the left and telephone poles on the right, both just off-camera (something like that, I don't have the actual quote.)

We are in the business of selling illusions just as much as reality, or a false reality, i.e. fantasy. To do that, we need to control what the camera sees and how it is rendered. Now most of the time, we want more information because we can always throw some of it away in post. But there are reasons why we do things in-camera as well, both political and practical (or financial). For example, on a hour-long TV show that budgets 2 days to color-correct an episode, if you give them 20 or so close-ups that need digital cosmetic work done to hide something, you will go over the budgeted time in color-correction and thus go over budget (depending on how much they have budgeted for that sort of thing.) Therefore there is a lot of pressure to get most of it right in-camera and not save it for post, just as there is pressure on the sound recordist to get clean dialogue tracks even if ADR is an option in post.

I think, for the most part, the modern high-end digital cameras are great in terms of resolution, because I prefer an image with more detail but less artificial sharpening, i.e. more like a film image. Sharp but not sharpened. I don't think lowering the resolution of the cameras is the right idea. However, let's all admit that for some types of close-ups, we need to soften the image and therefore are also lowering the resolution. Most of us aren't selling cameras and TV sets, we are selling dreams and our obligation is to make the actors and spaces look good using all the tools and tricks available to us, not necessarily make the technology look good.

[Bob Gundu]

Software is quite amazing to deal with this. Just like point and shoot cameras have facial recognition and tracking built in, expect all colour grading tools have this functionality. It can be done now, but watch how it will be even easier very soon. I've done my share of digital makeup.

[Shane Kelly]

As always, David says it best.

Brandon, you should read a previous quote of yours (spoken in the third person) and maybe make adjustments:

"Brandon is laughing because Brandon is amazed how many prosumers can afford a Scarlet or Epic when what they really need to invest in is a few textbooks on lighting, a degree in production or a few years of working up to some sort of core competence as film makers.

Put a point-and-shoot in the hands of a master and you will get a masterpiece, however place a professional caliber instrument in the hands of a point-and -shooter. And you will most assuredly produce a train wreck."

[BRANDON JAMESON]

WOW Shane, not sure if im more delighted to have such a fan in you or horrified to have a stalker on here.

So nice to be quoted, makes me feel good, so thanks.

[Scott Crawley]

This discourse has become pretty ugly. Some other adjectives also come to mind.

[KETCH ROSSi]

Ketch with all due respect, shooting raw means the actual skin tones have little to no bearing on much ...I am talking about TEXTURE..like pimples, facial hair on women,black heads, visible cosmetics that are applied by experts who really DO know what they are doing and finally the delight of wrinkles.

So far we have had a go with filters, nets behind the lens,beautybox and cosmo plug-ins and yeah they do help..but by the very nature of the beast, you are going to SEE more no matter how much our DPs know skin tone and lighting..and I can assure you that accross a cinema screen unless theres a great deal of work in post, the experience will be jarring and ugly to many who are used to seeing cinema magic performed on their favorite female stars of ANY age.

It's a bitch, but men can have all the hard light and wrinkles in the world and we think it looks awesome, but women...not so much!

Again, strongly and respectfully disagree with you... again.

Shooting RAW has everything to do with SKIN, as it does with it all, ITS CALLED INFORMATION, and I always wanted to have as much as I can, I can soften an image as much as I can, but I wil always try to NEVER NEED TO SHARPEN one.

I control it all via lighting and effects if needed in Post, but I always acquired it RAW at the highest resolution, and always look out after my girls SKIN... ;)

[Björn Benckert]

Common guys, "blur and color corrector"....Thats is quite far from the sharpest shovels in the shed. Check this sample it was done with a "click to apply" nuke script. Blur is blur, getting rid of a certain noise frequency is something else. It leaves the wanted details and "nuke" the others...

http://www.syndicate.se/Files/~usr/f...gies_DeAGE.mov

When we grow up we will all have our own CG heads to wear even on Facebook, so no worry :)

[Jason DeSimone]

ha ha ha, This is why I shoot fish. Bring out 6k, please :)

nice

[BRANDON JAMESON]

Awesome , Bjorn!!!!

Thank you.

Common guys, "blur and color corrector"....Thats is quite far from the sharpest shovels in the shed. Check this sample it was done with a "click to apply" nuke script. Blur is blur, getting rid of a certain noise frequency is something else. It leaves the wanted details and "nuke" the others...

http://www.syndicate.se/Files/~usr/f...gies_DeAGE.mov

When we grow up we will all have our own CG heads to wear even on Facebook, so no worry :)