PIRATES 4 - Film Look

[gbalaji]

Any Idea how they achieve film look in PIRATES 4?

 

[Rohan B]

its not a film look,its a cinematic look. Pirates 4 does'nt have same look as the last three but it has a new kind of cinematic look. We often confuse the film look for the cinematic look because cinema has never primarily had any other format than film.But the truth is that if a format is technically as superior as 35mm film in terms of dynamic range,resolution,latitude,sensitivity and colour depth and reproduction, and can shoot 23.976 progressive frames per second at 180 degree shutter it will give you a proper cinema like look, and as far as this film look is concerned, even fuji eterna has a bit different look than kodak vision 3 series of 35mm stocks.

 

[jimhare]

I think "film look" is as descriptive as anything. It gets a lot of criticism on this board but I think it conjures up a particular image of most importantly, not video.

Cinematic is fine, but I think "film look" is still valid.

 

[Rohan B]

no,i think cinematic is the one actually valid,so far till now motion picture film was the only format that could provide it,and now some high end digital cinema cameras like red both mx and epic and also arri alexa can provide it. All of the above formats 35mm film kodak or fuji eterna or in the digital realm red epic and arri alexa have their own unique feel and look and differences but all of them can give you the basic cinematic look that people want when they are investing 10 dollars and going to watch a movie in a theater ,thats all......

 

[jimhare]

Fair enough, but I've seen some "cinema" that looks like bad video, but haven't seen too much film of any description that does.

We're not talking about character of film stock, we're talking about achieving a look that is generally connected with celluloid.

A term that has been heavily contested and will continue to be so, but we are moving off topic:

How did Pirates 4 achieve it's "cinematic" film look?

 

[Eki Halkka]

Fair enough, but I've seen some "cinema" that looks like bad video, but haven't seen too much film of any description that does.

That's mainly because most film shoots are done by seasoned professionals. Give a 35mm film camera to Joe Average, do a neutral best light scan of the footage and the result will NOT look "filmic". Make him shoot 50 fps, play it back at 50 fps and the film will look pretty much like any average home video.

How did Pirates 4 achieve it's "cinematic" film look?

Talent and hard work come to mind.

 

[Rohan B]

i have seen many independent film shot on 35mm that looked like video, but mostly you have limitations with the shutter in a film camera,for its mechanical, actually when many cinematographer get a digital camera they tend to experiment a lot with the settings,mainly shutter angle,thats sometimes takes us farther away from the film look because of giving a different motion flow characteristics. I would say stick to the basics,maintain the 180 degree shutter with respect to your frame rate,know how the shutter works in a an electronic shutter on a digital camera, many people think while shooting 24 fps that it is 1/60 whereas it is 1/48,it gets 1/60 when i am shooting 30fps. Now see a camera is just a tool lots of things depends on the cinematographer,the lighting, how well the sets are lit,d.i. colorist,how much money is spent on the film,how the cameraman uses the camera. Its a combined effort, a combination of all these(180 degreee shutter,24p frames,sensor size 35mm,field of view,depth of field,technical superiority, dynamic range latitude sensitivity color reproduction,cinematographer, lighting,editing, d.i. color grading) creates the so called film or cinematic look that we love and want to see in a "feature film" or "movie". Hope this helps Balaji....

 

[Rohan B]

That's mainly because most film shoots are done by seasoned professionals. Give a 35mm film camera to Joe Average, do a neutral best light scan of the footage and the result will NOT look "filmic". Make him shoot 50 fps, play it back at 50 fps and the film will look pretty much like any average home video.



Talent and hard work come to mind.

i completely agree with you Eki

 

[Jannard]

Light it... shoot it... grade it... looks cinematic. What's your question?

Jim

 

[Anthony Cote]

the cinematic look is a combination of in-camera settings, lighting on set, camera angles, and post color grading. So there are a million ways that the look from Pirates could have been achieved. I don't believe in wanting to copy a film's 'look'. I grade more in the sense of, " Hey, the color grading and lighting in this film matches the emotion I'm trying to convey with my film" Then I look at the type of lighting and color grades that is done, paying close attention to color and range of saturation and exposure. That in turn will be in the back of my mine when I shoot and grade, by I don't try to screen match.

Basically watch a lot of films and dissect the frame. That will help you learn how lighting, camera settings, and color grading balance to create a beautiful image. That's what I do, and it helps me. Sometimes when I am color grading (I color grade in Magic Bullets), I instantly know that I have achieved the look I want. It's something inside me that knows that the settings are perfect and in balance, without losing what I want to keep ( i.e. resolution, dynamic range, etc) unless those are what I am willing to lose for a stylistic choice

 

[Rohan B]

the cinematic look is a combination of in-camera settings, lighting on set, camera angles, and post color grading. So there are a million ways that the look from Pirates could have been achieved. I don't believe in wanting to copy a film's 'look'. I grade more in the sense of, " Hey, the color grading and lighting in this film matches the emotion I'm trying to convey with my film" Then I look at the type of lighting and color grades that is done, paying close attention to color and range of saturation and exposure. That in turn will be in the back of my mine when I shoot and grade, by I don't try to screen match.

Basically watch a lot of films and dissect the frame. That will help you learn how lighting, camera settings, and color grading balance to create a beautiful image. That's what I do, and it helps me. Sometimes when I am color grading (I color grade in Magic Bullets), I instantly know that I have achieved the look I want. It's something inside me that knows that the settings are perfect and in balance, without losing what I want to keep ( i.e. resolution, dynamic range, etc) unless those are what I am willing to lose for a stylistic choice

Exactly,thanks Anthony, i completely agree with you...

 

[Graeme Nattress]

1) It's well lit. This is the starting point for a cinematic look
2) lens choice and aperture were used appropriately
3) REDLogFilm / REDcolor2 used for grading

And a professional team that knows what they're doing.

Graeme

 

[gbalaji]

Rohan, EK, Anthony,

I dont ask by shooting home video kind of look. We are talking about serious cinema with good budget and good post process and would be keen to understand how come pirates 4 achieve the film look (Motion picture look), whatever you call.

We are not here to educate people to set their shutter to 1/48 rather than 1/60.

My simple humble question again here, how come Pirates 4 with the same mysterium-x sensor can achieve film look possibly in post process and also shoot for DI discipline. Very curious and once you see our film "180" (Tamil & Telugu) releasing this May in India worked hard to match the film look with Mysterium-X Red One Camera with all the discipline on exposing in shoot (worked as DIT) and using one of renowned colorist (kevin shaw) as an colorist in our facility in chennai, India.

 

[Matt Sibley]

Light it... shoot it... grade it... looks cinematic. What's your question?

Jim

Jim, I couldn't of put it better myself

Matt

 

[gbalaji]

1) It's well lit. This is the starting point for a cinematic look
2) lens choice and aperture were used appropriately
3) REDLogFilm / REDcolor2 used for grading

And a professional team that knows what they're doing.

Graeme

Graeme,

Thanks for your reply. We started our feature film 180(Tamil & Telugu) using Film Master (implementing new color science 2 as our color space / Red Rocket) and we found after a reel grade that we are not able to achieve good level of saturation with RedColor 2 in-spite of increasing saturation level in grading and gone back to RedColor, while using RedLogFilm as our gamma space.

Any idea about the saturation difference in RedColor 2 & RedColor which had huge difference in what we see on set and we are seeing on grade, while RedColor closely matched in grade whereas Redcolor2 doesn't match at all. Anything missing here?

We are grading in DCI P3 Color Space using Barco 2K Projector.

 

[christopher witzke]

Lately I've been trying not to get sucked into the "film look" convo.... But the amelioration of digital motion capture due mostly to the RED cameras has made the film substrate itself as useful as the male nipple.

Can we start using the wording/concept "look style" instead?

Retro
Post war
70's
Bleach bypass
Noir
Glossy
?



Thanks.

 

[gbalaji]

Light it... shoot it... grade it... looks cinematic. What's your question?

Jim

Thanks Jim. Ofcourse when we talk about cinematic look using Digital Cinema Camera or even Film Camera is follow the basics of shooting discipline. Any inside post process which can be shared if possible!

 

[gbalaji]

Lately I've been trying not to get sucked into the "film look" convo.... But the amelioration of digital motion capture due mostly to the RED cameras has made the film substrate itself as useful as the male nipple.

Can we start using the wording/concept "look style" instead?

Retro
Post war
70's
Bleach bypass
Noir
Glossy
?



Thanks.

We can call whatever we want to Christopher. The question here is achieve a "look style" which we like or some people like and goal here is achieve it rather than questioning 100 years of history(probably analog medium).

Life is improper and so be the film which is what the style I like to achieve rather than uniform digital look?

Thanks.

 

[Graeme Nattress]

I have no idea. REDColor2 is a little less saturated than REDColor, but that makes no difference once you get to grading where you can alter saturation in the grading tool itself. REDLogFilm is designed for a proper log workflow, either grading through a print emulation LUT or using your own grading curve - both methods work very well and I've seen excellent use of both.

I'd remember saturation is also dependent upon image contrast, in that a low contrast log image looks less saturated than a high contrast image.

Graeme

 

[Jake Bastian]

I'd remember saturation is also dependent upon image contrast, in that a low contrast log image looks less saturated than a high contrast image.

Graeme

This is actually my favorite part about grading using REDlogFilm and RedColor2. You set your whites and your blacks and it still looks a little flat - but THEN you grab your curves and just tug them down a little bit. It's soooo easy and it looks soooo beautiful. It really makes grading your image much easier. :smile5:

I'd also add that skin tones look a little better using RedColor2 which is much more important to me than maintaining a little pre-grade saturation.