4K and beyond...Pretty .Ugly

[Michael Panfeld]

vintage glass + 4,5, or 6K cameras = a look that many people are liking.

 

[Ivan Kovax]

We are finding that most actresses look pretty darn scary in 4k and absolutely horrific in anything higher.

The trickery and hoops we are having to go through to get a "pretty" look is nothing short of a nightmare.

Yes, it IS lovely to have the information we get from a large sensor, but the reality is, we are back to all the work-arounds that Hollywood masters of light, filtration and post developed to make the glamourous stars look ...glamororous!

Will we indeed have to resort to Vaseline-smeared Doris Day close-ups to get approval on-set of the current stream of leading ladies, or will we be stuck in post production, electonically dealing with the very REAL reality of seeing humans under the scrutiny of the new wave of very unforgiving sensors and projectors?

Your thoughts?

My thoughts? Find which vaseline works the best

 

[Marc Wielage]

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.)

It's not necessarily true. I recently did several episodes of a major dramatized cable show in two days, and I'm guessing I did at least 100, maybe 120 defocused close-ups in the entire show (out of 1400 shots). Many with tracking power windows. The key is: the hair is sharp, the eyes are sharp, the clothing is sharp... but the skin in their faces is slightly soft. We keep it as a preset, pop that in as an extra node, problem solved. Literally 1 minute per shot, plus maybe another :30 seconds to finesse the tracking window.

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.

We agree, but if only the skintone is soft, you won't notice it if it's done in a way to glamorize and beautify the actor. There is a point where "too much is too far." A brilliant mixer I know does the same thing in audio: "taste +1." Back off a little bit from going too far, and that's usually the right place to go. I'd call it the selective equivalent of a 1/4 Promist -- maybe a 1/2 if the client insists.

We can't color-correct worth a damn if the material isn't shot well to begin with. Good colorists are always in service to the work of the DP. We can make good work better, but we can't make crap work great. Given sufficient time -- and 16 hours is reasonable for an average 43-minute network dramatic show -- we can easily make the show better, smooth over the rough spots, make everything consistent, tell the story, preserve the DP's looks, and keep the show on budget.

BTW, I'm consistently floored at how good Smash looks, particularly in how good you're making Angelica Houston look. And I laugh every time at how well you guys keep the camera reflections out of the mirrors in the rehearsal hall. Damn near amazing. I've had to wind back on the DVR to check, and each time, I say, "damn! David got away with it again!" You're a bloody miracle worker.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

Thanks! Most medium shots I use a #1/4 Hollywood Black Magic, on other scenes it may be a #1/4 Classic Soft Black... but for some tighter shots, I either use the #1/2 version of those filters or a black net I made from a fine black tule or veil material I found at a fabric store. My colorist is great too, Sam Daley at Technicolor.

David Watkin was right when he said that it was all about lighting more than diffusion, though, any light that comes from an angle creates a shadow on a face, and a diffusion filter just makes that shadow fuzzy, it doesn't get rid of it.

Now that I'm back in L.A. I've had to supervise the grade over some sort of data connection between Technicolor LA and Technicolor NYC, that's been interesting because now I'm looking at a large Plasma TV rather than the DLP projector in a D.I. theater, and the two devices are not exactly the same. Noise, for one thing, is more heightened on the Plasma display.

Yes, the wall of mirrors! I have to constantly remind directors lining up shots to take them into account, and every time we end up at one end of the room, the mirrors reflect the off-camera corner at the opposite end, so any equipment, video village, etc. all has to move, many simple shots still end up seeing 90% of the whole room due to the mirrors, leaving a small area to hide in. And I wish more often I could light through the daylight windows with some big soft sources but the mirrors on the opposite wall see the same windows, so it's like lighting for a 360 degree move many times. Luckily the mirror panels can be crooked a little, creating a few dead spots in the reflections to hide things in, but as soon as the camera moves, what's hidden can be revealed again.

 

[BRANDON JAMESON]

David Mullen!!!

I started this thread for the quality and integrity of information that you have been so generous and thoughful to share.

To the rest who have read and will benefit from this discourse, enjoy!

 

[Michael Zeleny]

We are finding that most actresses look pretty darn scary in 4k and absolutely horrific in anything higher.
[...]
Your thoughts?

4K has that effect on most human subjects. As an assault photographer in training, I couldn't be more pleased.

 

[Justin McAleece]

FWIW going back to the Dark Night I thought that Maggie Gyllenhaal was lit LESS attractively in that film then just about anyone I've ever seen her in. Personally, I feel like Pfister didn't do her any favors.

 

[Cliff Hokanson]

use your iphone

 

[Joel Arvidsson]

"Skin detail is beautiful to me". I agree Phil. There is a certain culture that wants to airbrush out all "blemishes", all signs of ageing whatsoever. That is not beauty to me.

Im all behind this! I dont like the plastic look you get when you take out the skin features. I waited so long time to finaly capture this. Texture does make everything feel more real and natural.

 

[Marc Wielage]

4K has that effect on most human subjects. As an assault photographer in training, I couldn't be more pleased.

I dunno. One can make a wild guess on the total "K" of 15-perf Imax 70mm, and I don't think the human subjects in The Dark Knight looked bad at all. High-res alone doesn't make people look bad; bad lighting and bad makeup do. Diffusion (lens, lighting, and in post) can always help.

To me, the key is just to control the sharpness. Knock it back when you need to, take advantage of it when you need to emphasize it. Resolution is just another part of the Swiss army knife of tools available to the DP.

 

[Casey Green]

Is it 4K, or is it on set HD monitoring that is the culprit?

If anything, the Mysterium-X sensor is not the problem, since it is NOT doing in-camera sharpening, which most HD cameras of old did which caused this "problem". I'd think the RED workflow is actually actress friendly, and it is more the "luxury" of having large HD monitors on-set where actors can see (pre-graded) playback which can make them unnecessarily paranoid.

Understand and explain the process.

 

[Michael Zeleny]

I dunno. One can make a wild guess on the total "K" of 15-perf Imax 70mm, and I don't think the human subjects in The Dark Knight looked bad at all. High-res alone doesn't make people look bad; bad lighting and bad makeup do. Diffusion (lens, lighting, and in post) can always help.

To me, the key is just to control the sharpness. Knock it back when you need to, take advantage of it when you need to emphasize it. Resolution is just another part of the Swiss army knife of tools available to the DP.

I don't doubt the capacities of vaseline and its hardware and software equivalents. But my natural perspective aligns with that of Lemuel Gulliver in Brobdingnag, reflecting upon the fair skins of English ladies, "who appear so beautiful to us only because they are of our own size, and their defects not to be seen but through a magnifying glass, where we find by experiment that the smoothest and whitest skins look rough and coarse, and ill colored."

 

[Stuart English]

Is it 4K, or is it on set HD monitoring that is the culprit?

If anything, the Mysterium-X sensor is not the problem, since it is NOT doing in-camera sharpening, which most HD cameras of old did which caused this "problem". I'd think the RED workflow is actually actress friendly, and it is more the "luxury" of having large HD monitors on-set where actors can see (pre-graded) playback which can make them unnecessarily paranoid.

Understand and explain the process.

I concur, we've seen plenty of skin / faces shot on RED cameras at 4K and 5K, then projected out to 40 ft screen and the issue isn't showing up there.

The worst offenders of this " low resolution but pockmarked faces " characteristic are digital security cameras.... i.e. add "edge detail" at your peril.

So we'd need to know the full workflow too understand where it's creeping in.