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RED vs. Genesis/arri d-21 film look

J

jamieheinrich

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I have been doing a lot of test shots with RED and cannot seem to crack that "video" look. The still images look amazing but something about the way it flows looks very video still. I want to get that film look as seen with genesis footage. The emotion.. I've shot at various shutters speeds, lenses, frame rates, color correction and adding grain, and with shallow DOF and still feeling like "video". The stroby sharp edges and such are not helping..Is there a process in post or do I just wait for more builds? and what is the main difference between these cameras.. Super bad looks great with the genesis, especially the crappy looking scenes because it feels like bad film stock.... Does anyone else feel this way?
 
Have you tried De-Interlace?
 
Yes this is the kind of answer I'm looking for I guess. But would like some more detail or if anyone could has some comparison footage posted on RED vs. ARRI, Panavision, F23 etc. that would be awesome (I'll look). The "motion blur" aspect doesn't play into it, to giving more motion blur doesn't resolve the fact that it still looks like "video" with some motion blur added. The image is very sharp on RED but does not have that film/emotion feel to it, like I'm see from that list. You should be able to shoot with the shutter at 90 degrees and it should look like film like those high end cameras achieve.
 
some of the stuff people have been shooting with anamorphic lenses on RED feels very filmic to me.
 
With RED recording REDCODE RAW you can apply any kind of tonal curve you want, log curves included.

Motion characteristics are altered by how edges are defined. Sharpening and very stark contrast will not help motion. We don't do that as a matter of course, unlike cameras that sharpen as a matter of their design.

I've seen post where people have posted "strange" motion characteristics, but I've not seen a simultaneous comparison with another camera showing anything atypical with the RED.

Of course, video has a very smooth motion due to it's higher fps. I've not seen RED look unintentionally video-like.

Graeme
 
jamieheinrich, um, film is usually shot with a 180 degree shutter, ie at 1/48th of a second while shooting a 24fps. As for "emotion" - that's the cinematographer's job. I don't see David Mullen's work (no matter what camera he uses) lacking emotion....

Graeme
 
" Does anyone else feel this way?"

no, pretty much everything i've seen does have a film look/feel to the 24fps images with one exception = no grain ..
after reading your full post and based on my experience with a Red camera i have to ask are you sure the camera you are TESTING is a RED or a camera disguised as a Red ?

"I want to get that film look as seen with genesis footage"

simple = shoot with a Genesis ...
 
donatello said:
" Does anyone else feel this way?"

no, pretty much everything i've seen does have a film look/feel to the 24fps images with one exception = no grain ..
after reading your full post and based on my experience with a Red camera i have to ask are you sure the camera you are TESTING is a RED or a camera disguised as a Red ?

"I want to get that film look as seen with genesis footage"

simple = shoot with a Genesis ...
Click to expand...

Here are some test shots with the RED camera I was shooting with primes.. Mind the "no lighting what so ever".

http://jamieheinrich.com/red_quicktests/

(some are fast start, some wait for download)

Feels very much like video to me... My option is to shoot a feature on RED with this camera package for practically free, or spend 7-8k a week on genesis. I don't want to waste money. But I am not getting the look and feel I see with these other high end cameras. I am a rookie to the RED and I'm looking to learn more techniques from advanced users and overall all the footage I've seen, even posted on redrelay has a video feel to it. Maybe newer firmware build will have more options. Are there settings that can be tweaked? Thanks in advance for any advice!!
 
Haven't finished looking at all the footage, but from what I have seen:

You're way too overexposed. Blown highlights are probably what's screaming 'video' to you.

Also, you have the shutter set at 90 degrees or something lower than 180 degrees (1/48th) so your motion is more stuttery than normal.

Get comfortable exposing for Red. Don't clip, expose for your highlights, bring the mid-tones up with a curve in RedCine or RedAlert. Shoot at 1/48th.
 
Jamie-

Is it specifically the motion that's bothering you? Because from the test footage you posted, the major thing that is making the footage look like video is the exposure; it seems to me as if you're exposing RAW as if it were video (in this case over-exposing it), and have massive amounts of clipping, even on objects that seem like they should be only slightly overexposed.

I realize that this may well be part of the "no-lighting-whatsoever" look, and if so, feel free to disregard it, but even in these lighting conditions, the tonal range would look much more like film if you stopped down (or added ND, etc.) to control clipping and then adjusted levels and curves in REDCine (or whatever you use). Are you the DP or the director (or both) on this project? If you're not the DP, I would make sure that whoever the DP is has experience shooting RAW. Shooting RAW is a very different beast from shooting video (like on the Genesis).

Other possibilities - I see what you're trying to do with the grain (though in some ways that makes it look even more like video, because it looks like noise rather than film grain. Of course, that can easily be fixed). My question, though, is this - is it possible that the footage from the RED is TOO clean? It's definitely a consideration, depending on what sort of look you're going for. It might be quite a challenge to make RED footage look like it's been shot on Super-16, if that's the sort of look you want.

Another question, this one about Superbad: did you see it in a theater (i.e. transferred to film)? If so, THAT may be a lot of where the 'film look' came in. Have you watched it on DVD or Blu-ray since? (Preferably Blu-ray, since you'd be losing a lot of visual info on DVD). You may come away with a different feel. If there's a chance of transferring this project to 35mm for projection, that may bring the film look you need.

Anyway, don't know if any of these suggestions have helped. Hope so, but if not, hope someone else can help. All the best with the project!

Edit: I second Kenn's note on the shutter; that will help a bunch with the motion/emotion problem that's been bugging you. It really does make a difference in feel.
 
Thanks for posting the movies. It really helps us help you when we can see what you're seeing.

Graeme
 
Hi,

I have to agree the footage looks video like, the ones with added noise are actually the worst offenders of video IMHO.
I am also not happy with the movements.

Stephen
 
mail4joeg said:
I'm not the most knowledgeable person around, fer sure, but if you are printing it out to a film stock at the end of the process -- it WILL be film. And it will look more film-like than on a screen.

Just something to keep in mind.
Click to expand...

Hi,

So to give the film look on a DVD you would have to make a film out & then telecine that! Sounds quite possible, however shooting on film would probably be cheaper in the first place. IMHO that is not the answer to the problem.

Stephen
 
I completely agree with Kenn's comments. The main culprit here appears to be the overexposure -- it makes it impossible for you roll off your highlights in a film-like way. So try way less overexposure and then bring your mid-tones up in post.

Another suggestion would be for you to experiment methodically on a single setup, shooting the same scene with a range of exposures and then trying to maximize the look you want in post on each one.
 
JasonMurphy said:
Jamie-

Is it specifically the motion that's bothering you? Because from the test footage you posted, the major thing that is making the footage look like video is the exposure; it seems to me as if you're exposing RAW as if it were video (in this case over-exposing it), and have massive amounts of clipping, even on objects that seem like they should be only slightly overexposed.

I realize that this may well be part of the "no-lighting-whatsoever" look, and if so, feel free to disregard it, but even in these lighting conditions, the tonal range would look much more like film if you stopped down (or added ND, etc.) to control clipping and then adjusted levels and curves in REDCine (or whatever you use). Are you the DP or the director (or both) on this project? If you're not the DP, I would make sure that whoever the DP is has experience shooting RAW. Shooting RAW is a very different beast from shooting video (like on the Genesis).

Other possibilities - I see what you're trying to do with the grain (though in some ways that makes it look even more like video, because it looks like noise rather than film grain. Of course, that can easily be fixed). My question, though, is this - is it possible that the footage from the RED is TOO clean? It's definitely a consideration, depending on what sort of look you're going for. It might be quite a challenge to make RED footage look like it's been shot on Super-16, if that's the sort of look you want.

Another question, this one about Superbad: did you see it in a theater (i.e. transferred to film)? If so, THAT may be a lot of where the 'film look' came in. Have you watched it on DVD or Blu-ray since? (Preferably Blu-ray, since you'd be losing a lot of visual info on DVD). You may come away with a different feel. If there's a chance of transferring this project to 35mm for projection, that may bring the film look you need.

Anyway, don't know if any of these suggestions have helped. Hope so, but if not, hope someone else can help. All the best with the project!

Edit: I second Kenn's note on the shutter; that will help a bunch with the motion/emotion problem that's been bugging you. It really does make a difference in feel.
Click to expand...

Thanks for all the great info.. I appreciate it.. The clipping is a result of poor cc in redalert... very fast preset.. I have posted another shot with a different cc from redalert here...

http://jamieheinrich.com/red_quicktests/better_cc_48th_shutter/

this was shot at 1/48th shutter speed....that still feels video to me.. the still on RED is amazing, but when motion begins it's got a video texture to the motion (bare with my explanation) thanks again
 
How you roll off the highlights also matters. My preference is to roll off the highlights well under 100% and sometimes bias towards a slight cream colored highlights.

Also extremely important is what you look at the footage on. If you're looking at it on an LCD monitor running at 60hz, you will see motion artifacts because you're missing accurate timing on displaying frames.
Also, LCD has a very different contrast and highlight response. Highlights that look ok on lcd can look harsh on projection.
 
What ISO did you shoot at? What ISO did you set your meter to?

Graeme
 
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