The Wall.

[Nick Wolf]

Hello hello hello is there any body out there ???

I have been toying with reshooting something I shot earlier on a substandard format on Red since I will have access to one very soon for a very short window of time.

Yes yes yes there is nothing better than the real thing but what I wonder is if anyone has tryed this or heard of ways to make something like this work?

Many thanks,

 

[James T Mather]

Use a pebbledash wall - it gives a great texture.

 

[Nick Wolf]

Thanks James I thought I`d go for more of a Stucko textured look, though that might be too subtle...But your input will be highly regarded feel free to chime in again.

Anyone else have something to say about filming something off a wall or screen?

 

[Brian Langeman]

Sure. It can be done.

I hope you don't spend your limited time with the RED to shoot that though, because the quality will only get worse than the substandard format you shot with before, no matter how you try and project it and record it.

 

[Nick Wolf]

Thanks alot Brain and glad we are on speaking terms...Nice to hear from you really!

I could restage the old material but it just struck me "What would happen if I just projected it in a pitch black room" it already has a very expressionistic feel to it so perhaps some sort of funky color sceme could add to that over all impression.

Has anyone tryed something like this? How good vs awful can the results be? Isnt this the way much of the pirated versions of films get distributed around the world before the torrent rage?

 

[Brian Langeman]

What would happen is this. You would quite possibly lose some dynamic range from the original footage, the limiting factor probably being the projector. As has been stated, anything on the wall or projector screen will be burned into that part of the image, which would be a lot worse than grain, because it would be static. You could also skew the image if the RED wasn't positioned perfectly.

If you want to add any sort of color scheme to it, or to uprez to a higher resolution, it would be much faster, and you would get far better results on the most basic editing systems. Since your shooting with RED I'm assuming you've got access to at least Final Cut or something similar, which can easily do the color grading.

 

[Nick Wolf]

I will try both ways for the sake of experimentation. But lets say we have one version of an uprezed original ( How far can it go from SD? ) and we take it into Color and then another version off a screen at 4K and then take that also into color...

 

[James T Mather]

Sorry - my juvenile sense of humour got the better of me -

yes you will lose some serious resolution but that said one of the prettiest things I've seen is a film reprojected - it gives it an "optical printer" look where the shadows get really dense and the colours explode. Its technically imprefect but aesthetically, I found, quite pleasing.

There will be a contrast buildup - There is really no way around this apart from flattening the contrast on the projected image (if it's an electronic projector try to lift the brightness and drop the contrast somewhat) it will look pretty flat to your eye but will rephotograph better.

 

[Nick Wolf]

I have to admit when I read your first post it did "Crack - Me up " ... Yes thats the thing finding those obscure qualities and of course if one routinly takes the beaten path, well we have seen a thousand times where it leads...

That is exactly how I want to work with this particular material...More like an ornimental design...The sound is sort of pasted to it not organically eminating from the subjective figures seen on the screen so it is really about creating an "Effect" and "Impression"...

Thanks for this feedback.