Actors look bad on HD

[mezmo]

I don't mean to be impolite, but In MY Humble Opinion, this is total crap. If you think that, then you are the one who can't light. It is all about ratios and you can get something interesting out of HD/Digital easily if you light for it. That is the DP's job, period. The answer is not to go soft unthinkingly, that is amazingly lazy, the answer is either: get the lighting ratios correct, or use a better camera if you are not happy with the pictures you are getting. You go soft because it is the look you want, not for any other reason.

I did a job with the Red about a month ago, the DP and I agreed we wanted to just see how far we could go. Never used fill, not once, never needed to. 90% high key sunlight, 90% of the shoot beach exteriors. And this is New Zealand - we have a large ozone hole above us. I got 2nd degree burns on that shoot from the sun, it was bloody harsh, trust me. Zero diffusion on the lens. Cooke S4's. We also overexposed heavily - maybe 3 stops - on an interior scene in a bathroom which looked amazing.

Benjamin Rood
Prod/Dir
Cinematic Alliance
Akl, NZ

Hi Ben,
The discussion here is about lighting actors faces (the classic close up)
for Digital. Faces, not the whole film, and the faces of actors with clout.
Filters are overused when DP's get worried about these faces. The results
more often than not is an overdiffused c.u./reverse(female) intercutting
with a totally different look(male). How do you solve this without the guy
looking like a pixie,(overdiffused) you light for it. No other way to do it.
Mezmo

 

[chuckt]

Hi Chuckt,
You don't reduce resolution if you diffuse light.
Mezmo

Thanks for setting the record straight.

I look good in the photos taken with my $120 point and shoot digital camera.
I look horrible in the photos taken with my $3800 digital camera.
I will try changing the lighting next time.

 

[mezmo]

There is no right or wrong level of sharpness, but your choices should be based on the worst-case scenario, i.e. large screen projection unless you are absolutely sure that will never happen.

As for diffusion, true diffusion is not the same thing as a blurrier image -- diffusion is the overlay of a soft image over a sharp image. That's how diffusion filters work. And there are many reasons why one might use a diffusion filter, not just for emergencies. There have been a number of movies nomimated for Oscars that have used diffusion for a specific look ("Lord of the Rings", "Snow Falling on Cedars", etc.) not because the DP did not know how to light.

As for just lighting super-soft, not only is that impractical a lot for feature work in terms of how restrictive that may be for the actors or the cameras, but it also may not be logical or realistic for the scene.

Yes, I agree that fixing facial flaws is almost always a lighting problem; filters are the final touch but they barely help -- if the light is causing a shadow from a bag under the eye, difffusion filters will just make the shadow fuzzier but it won't eliminate it. However, if you light the face to get rid of the bags, a diffusion filter may help reduce any super fine lines in the face that are distracting.

Hi David
LOR I would put in the emergency diffusion area. One month of night shoots
as I understand it and shooting two films at once. The shedule a nightmare
and a colorist I know spend months fixing the girls eyebags on Lustre.
Much facial tweaking in post on both films.
Snow falling on Cedars too diffused on CU's IMHO but people obviously loved the look of the overall film.
I am talking about close-ups here with my 'Go Soft for Digital' idea and trying to encourage the guys/girls to find a solution with lighting rather than
just slapping on the glass.
Mezmo

 

[David Mullen ASC]

Clearly LOTR used diffusion more to highlight the fantasy aspects, like the use of a net filter for the Galadriel sequence -- I doubt Lesnie used the net simply because Cate Blanchet had been up all night. There may have been some cosmetic use of diffusion too now and then (most of the series was shot clean though), like to hide some make-up prosthetic blends, but the most obvious use was motivated by the story, like the create the ethereal look of the world of the Elves.

My point is that diffusion filters are not only used to hide facial flaws, they can be used deliberately to create a look for the whole movie, like in "Excalibur", "Legend", "Superman: The Movie", "Cabaret", "JFK", "Fiddler on the Roof", etc. It may be done in order to create the feeling of Romanticism or a period look or simulate a painting better, or simply because the cinematographer and director personally like softer images. Or they may be used for flashbacks, memories, or dreams, like the use of the net in the flashbacks in "Sweeney Todd".

There have also been movies to use the lightest grade diffusion for most of the movie just for a slight softening and an increase in halation around lights. For example, Conrad Hall shot most of his last few movies with an #1/8 Black ProMist filter, as in "Searching for Bobby Fisher" and "American Beauty".

As for fixing facial flaws, correct lighting is a lot more effective, but as even you said, a giant soft light may not always be possible in a narrative feature shoot, especially with Steadicam-happy directors, or those running three cameras on everything. Just to calm the lead actress in those situations, you may be putting on a filter just to make her feel you are doing something rather than stand on principle and try explaining to her that filters won't help -- that may be misinterpreted.

I do think there has been a mistaken belief that digital cameras have too much resolution and thus need more softening with filters, when most are just over-sharpened electronically.

 

[Michael "Dorkman" Scott]

I look good in the photos taken with my $120 point and shoot digital camera.
I look horrible in the photos taken with my $3800 digital camera.
I will try changing the lighting next time.

Maybe you should change the subject.

 

[brandon herman]

My solution to the issue of Actors looking bad in HD:

Use better looking actors.

(And tell them to moisturize a lot.)

 

[mezmo]

Hi David again,
Point taken about use of diffusion for effect on many films, Digital or other.
Again I make my point that in the case of Digital Acquisition, if i can
light my way to a desired result rather than opticially diffusing a shot I will
always be be better off. I get a sharper shot although stiil soft or diffused
by the use of indirect or diffused light. The lens optics are unclutterd by pieces unbloomed glass with bits of stuff in them and as a result will perform at best specs. There is also less need to sharpen in post which seems to be all the rage these days, when a shot is found to be overtdiffused or slightly soft prior to a film-out stage.
I think Digital and Diffusion can be dangerous in some cases because it
can lead to unatural post sharpening and other odd post tricks. With digital
we start with a softer looking image in the first place. Why diffuse it even more if we don't really have to, unless for effect.
Cheers Mezmo.

 

[thornben]

Hi Ben,
The discussion here is about lighting actors faces (the classic close up)
for Digital. Faces, not the whole film, and the faces of actors with clout.
Filters are overused when DP's get worried about these faces. The results
more often than not is an overdiffused c.u./reverse(female) intercutting
with a totally different look(male). How do you solve this without the guy
looking like a pixie,(overdiffused) you light for it. No other way to do it.
Mezmo

Hi Mezmo,

I am still not in agreement but I understand what you mean. Okay, yes I would prefer to diffuse the source that may have been harder in a wider shot, at the least the angle has a continuity.

But maybe the director on those jobs needs to have some balls and be upfront with their actors how they are going to look so that the DP doesn't get blamed for something which the director has asked them to do?

Again though, hard light can look brilliant on RED on people's faces, very flattering. It is, at the starting point, not that sharp. When you process the images (to be specific, the R3D's), that is when you add the sharpness. Without adding the sharpness it is quite smooth and does not have a diffused look. I still think this is an issue not of softlight or heavy diffusion but of correct angle and "texture" of the light (HMI bad, Tungsten good, Sunlight good, Punchlight very good - these ar emy opinions) - and in correct collaboration with very talented make-up artists too. I worked on a job with the red a couple months ago and our make-up artist was so brilliant and made our leading lady look very very good. Plenty of hard light, small sources too, used and she looked brilliant.

-ben

 

[David Mullen ASC]

Depends on the face. Any light that is not flat-on to a face creates shadows, and if it is a hard light, then it creates hard shadows. And the angle that the light is striking the face will determine what objects on the face throw a shadow and where.

For example, a higher light will create a shadow under the chin and nose, but also under the bags under the eyes. So it depends on the face. Some faces take hard light very well from certain directions but not others. If the hard light is as dead-on frontal as it can be, then the shadows created are quite small.

Marlene Deitrich used a high key light to bring out her cheek bones, whereas Lilian Gish, who always had baggy eyes, used to tell DP's : "Camera High, Lights Low."

 

[thornben]

Clearly LOTR used diffusion more to highlight the fantasy aspects, like the use of a net filter for the Galadriel sequence -- I doubt Lesnie used the net simply because Cate Blanchet had been up all night. There may have been some cosmetic use of diffusion too now and then (most of the series was shot clean though), like to hide some make-up prosthetic blends, but the most obvious use was motivated by the story, like the create the ethereal look of the world of the Elves.

Watching it again recently, I wonder if maybe the diffusion was also used to (believe it or not), aid with getting away with a lot of the keying work. There is a lot of added-halation and edge softness in the alpha channels on all blue/greenscreen shots. Think how hard the keying would be with all that big hobbit hair!
When you do that you also need to diffuse the whole of the shot and to incorporte it into the look to "sell" what you are doing in the composite/keying work. (Especially with the massive amount of keying in such a fast time in that job)

For all we know however, the diffused look may have completely be done digitally, perhaps even in the DI where it is easy to add that kind of diff-look.

 

[Iron Possum]

To quote Andrew Lesnie talking about LOTR from an 04 Arri News article:

For the Beauty shots on Liv Tyler and Kate Blanchet I used a black net...

We started out not using it for blue screen, but then we did some tests, and the special effects supervisors told me that they prefer the net on the lens. Even though the net makes it harder for them to get a clean matte, it is ten times harder to replicate the net's effect. Subtle diffusion effects have not been successfully replicated digitally. So we ended up shooting live action as well as blue screen beauty shots with the net on

 

[David Mullen ASC]

There is also digital diffusion going on in many scenes, obviously because the blacks are halating (glowing) along with the whites, something you can get with a gassian blur overlay but not with lens diffusion.

 

[number6]

There is also digital diffusion going on in many scenes, obviously because the blacks are halating (glowing) along with the whites, something you can get with a gassian blur overlay but not with lens diffusion.

David, to further explore, are you as a DP/Cinematographer advocating using a smallish amount of gaussian blur over doing it on set?

What I'm really asking is, if working on a limited budget, limited equipment etc. type production, would you pick a lens softness, a lighting softness, or a digital fix in post as your primary softening tool?

To further clairify, which of the three choices would you make if you could only make one?

 

[David Mullen ASC]

Considering how cheap (relatively) a camera filter is, I don't see a reason to not use one if that's the look you've picked after testing. And it's never a choice between using a camera filter or using soft lighting -- you can do both if you wanted to. You should always light a scene for the look you want anyway. So you're describing a false choice.

The problem with digital diffusion, I've noticed, is that for film images, it tends to de-grain the image. Which can look lovely except what happens to the shots that you didn't diffuse?

Using a camera filter doesn't negate the ability to also do some diffusing in post. For example, in "Big Love" I used the lightest diffusion filters on the camera for close-ups, but in post we selected a handful of shots throughout the series to get digitally touched-up to soften something distracting in a close-up now & then. But due to the costs of Flame work, or whatever it was they used, we kept it to a minimum number of shots.

So whether to rely on post diffusion really depends on how you will be doing it and how much it might cost you. If you are doing it yourself on your own computer, then it's only costing you the render time. Just don't try and judge how much to use based on a computer screen sized image if this is intended for theatrical projection. Hence the reason you shoot tests and look at them at the intended viewing size.

The only trouble with shooting everything clean is that some post people hate softened shots so you'll never convince them to let you soften it further in post.

"Oh it looks so crisp & sharp in HD why would you want to soften it?"

"Because the actress could look better if we did, that's why."

I'm not interested in selling HDTV sets, I'm interested in telling a story and I don't want the viewer to be distracted by excessive sharpness in a particular close-up.

(The flipside is when you do a big sharp movie... and the efx people want to soften all the efx shots to hide their mistakes better...)

I did a feature ("Solstice") where I used the lightest ProMist filter (#1/8) for some long flashback scenes but later they were cut-up into brief snippets, flash-cuts so I felt I could now add more diffusion in post to make them more dream-like since you were only go to see them briefly, intercut with normal footage. Here are some examples of those shots, which mixed the light camera diffusion with digital diffusion:

 

[number6]

Thanks, that helps. One other thing... is a "soft" close look and a sharper medium and far shot something that seems acceptable to a movie audience? I'm sure this is a common way of shooting, so I'm interested in how it is perceived.

edit: David, never mind... saw one of your posts on another thread that pretty much answered my question.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

It's like any other aspect of filmmaking -- you spend your life learning just how much you can "cheat" from shot to shot. Sometimes it is more distracting for the viewer if you don't cheat. For example, in theory the lighting of the wide shot should be exactly the same when you cut in tighter on the same axis -- but in reality, that wide-shot lighting may produce a distracting effect on a close-up of a face that isn't visible in a wide shot. So you can either be pedantic and not change a thing when you move in tighter, or you can figure out a change that won't mismatch too much with the wider shot.

So the same goes for diffusion filtration, there's an art to knowing how much you can get away with when moving in tighter (generally, not much -- better to be subtle about it). The examples I just put up were more extreme because this was a flashback/dream sequence though.

 

[number6]

Ah, the lighting aspect... will copy your answer and paste it into my crib notes.

 

[mezmo]

Hi David,
I agree, for dream stuff, flashbacks, diffuse away.
The problem is with diffusion you get an over all soft shot.
At least doing it in post you can place it where you need it.
Lens choice can also have a lot to do with creating a softer
look, some lenses just resolve different to others.
Sorry for being the Killjoy for diffusion on Digital and with Red
the degree of sharpening or no sharpening to the captured image
seems to be the Bayer way to go.
If I see another SOFT movie shot in Digital or Film and heavily posted
Digital I'm gunna scream. This stuff is passed of as good Cinematography?
Lets not throw out the baby with the bathwater just because we are shooting Digital. Digital can be sharp too.

Mezmo

 

[mezmo]

Hi Mezmo,

I am still not in agreement but I understand what you mean. Okay, yes I would prefer to diffuse the source that may have been harder in a wider shot, at the least the angle has a continuity.

But maybe the director on those jobs needs to have some balls and be upfront with their actors how they are going to look so that the DP doesn't get blamed for something which the director has asked them to do?

Again though, hard light can look brilliant on RED on people's faces, very flattering. It is, at the starting point, not that sharp. When you process the images (to be specific, the R3D's), that is when you add the sharpness. Without adding the sharpness it is quite smooth and does not have a diffused look. I still think this is an issue not of softlight or heavy diffusion but of correct angle and "texture" of the light (HMI bad, Tungsten good, Sunlight good, Punchlight very good - these ar emy opinions) - and in correct collaboration with very talented make-up artists too. I worked on a job with the red a couple months ago and our make-up artist was so brilliant and made our leading lady look very very good. Plenty of hard light, small sources too, used and she looked brilliant.

-ben

Hi Ben,
I take it you have not sharpened your Red footage in post, if so and if you
are able, trial a small amount out to film (30' test) and project on a large screen.
If it's too soft, then you'll have to go back and sharpen again to get the desired result. Doing this, you may then start to notice your harder lighting
and the problems it causes.
Cheers Mezmo

 

[David Mullen ASC]

Mezmo, this is really just a matter of personal taste. My first favorite cinematographer was Geoffrey Unsworth, thanks to "Cabaret" and "Superman: The Movie". Then I saw "Excalibur" (shot by Alex Thomson), which also impressed me. I love the look of diffusion when motivated by the story or genre.

But there are plenty of ultra-light diffusions filters too that won't make the image visibly diffused, just soften fine detail in a close-up. "Lust, Caution" for example used the lightest Black Diffusion-FX on close-ups after shooting for a few days on the Zeiss Master Primes, which they picked in order to shoot at T/1.3 for a shallow focus look. When the production designer saw how sharp the first dailies were, he said "these lenses were designed for the scientific photography of ants!" Remember that the DP & director's previous movie together was "Brokeback Mountain", shot on Cooke lenses.

But there's no law saying that you have to use a diffusion filter if you don't want to Mezmo.

Sharpness is as much a perceptual thing as a measurable quality. Let's say you added the lightest grade of diffusion filter to a tighter shot but added some lighting element that created a sharp edge, like a hard edge or backlight, or increased the contrast. Plus the background was noticably out of focus. The perception might be that this diffused shot was sharper than the wide shot done without any diffusion! This is how one can slip in diffusion filters on tighter shots and not make the movie look like it is getting softer. Because our eyes crave more detail in wide shots, a softened close-up may actually blend better in terms of perceived sharpness than an unfiltered close-up, where there are times where you can be knocked back by the crispness and detail in the image (like some of Sigourney Weaver's sweaty close-ups in "Alien"...)

This is one reason why a cinematographer may use a sharp prime lens to shoot wide landscape shots, but be fine with a softer zoom lens for the tighter footage.

This is a matter of taste, like how much salt to put in your food. But it's also the reason why you have to be able to accurately judge the final quality of the image on the big screen when choosing lenses, filters, formats, post processes, etc.