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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Best skin tones

I've shot 2 features and color graded with the RED MX. Skin tones are always a challenge with the RED cameras. When we were using RED color1, I applied a little "bleach bypass" filter to help out, and this worked pretty well for the most part for that picture.

At first I thought that Red Color2 was an improvement, but as I worked with it, I found it has it's own issues, but different. The director wanted a more saturated image, and the fleshtones became a real issue and needed a lot of isolated correction. Of course, no one notices when they see the final movie :)

I did compare the Blu-Ray of the RedColor2 movie with an earlier Blu-Ray from a 720p Varicam. The Red camera had a little bit more detail on the blu-ray, and more pleasing depth of focus (bigger imager). But the skin tones from the Panasonic camera really impressed me. The actors just looked so much more healthy!

I sure hope the Dragon sensor will improve on this issue. I tested out Red Color3 and the color issues are still there to my eyes.

My Canon 5D1 makes great color from RAW data, I hope the RED cameras can do the same someday.
 
Blair S. Paulsen said:
Interesting link. I think the comparisons are dodgy though.

What has been done to the Vision3 image we are looking at? It's certainly not a log DPX scan which would be much flatter. So I will assume the film example on the film convert website was graded based on some aesthetic sensibility. Then they apply their process to the R3D files which adds contrast, sat, etc and makes it look similar to their manufactured target image.

I'm not saying their process isn't potentially a valuable tool for some projects, just that their "proof" comparisons are telling only a limited story.

Cheers - #19
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Hey Blair,

The film images were scanned on an Arriscan in status M and then had a Vision 3 print lookup applied. That was what we used as the target for our vision 3 Luts.

We do also have Luts in the software to go from R3D to the 'raw' status M scans, which looks green, log, and washed out. I'll try to get the original scans and make them downloadable on the site.
 
Pablo Moreno said:
Regarding of the system used, that is of course, Kodak Vision 250D-5207 film stock . :smiley:
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Are you sure? I thought it was a mix of 5218 and 5217. Anyhow, it looks great whatever it is! The colors on Kodak Vision film are really, really awesome.
 
Ok I'm not a DOP I'm just a Producer . My background is film, stills originally 10 x 8 , 5 x 4, 2 1/4 then moved into broadcast. So I "get" & I prefer the film look . I applaude the points raised in this thread particularly Bruce Allen's.

I never comment on threads like this because I'm way out of my depth. But I do know art history. So 2 questions with a producer's hat on....

Are we like the Neo Classists or Romantics art movements of the Victorian era & there repudiation of Impressionism, (or any other revolutionary art movement for that matter) & I quote ......... "Radicals in their time, early Impressionists violated the rules of academic painting. They constructed their pictures from freely brushed colours that took precedence over lines and contours.

Q 1) Are we complaining about breaking the rules or system of beliefs about what skin tones should look like ?

Q 2) Does a modern paying audience even know or care ?
 
Mike Garrick said:
Ok I'm not a DOP I'm just a Producer . My background is film, stills originally 10 x 8 , 5 x 4, 2 1/4 then moved into broadcast. So I "get" & I prefer the film look . I applaude the points raised in this thread particularly Bruce Allen's.

I never comment on threads like this because I'm way out of my depth. But I do know art history. So 2 questions with a producer's hat on....

Are we like the Neo Classists or Romantics art movements of the Victorian era & there repudiation of Impressionism, (or any other revolutionary art movement for that matter) & I quote ......... "Radicals in their time, early Impressionists violated the rules of academic painting. They constructed their pictures from freely brushed colours that took precedence over lines and contours.

Q 1) Are we complaining about breaking the rules or system of beliefs about what skin tones should look like ?

Q 2) Does a modern paying audience even know or care ?
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Mike,
The paying audience might not know or care I think. But you may: During color grading, skin tone correction requires extra time and money. On my last RED picture, the director asked that all shots of the lead actor have his face selected and tracked to correct his skin tone to make him appear more healthy. A camera with a more pleasing color rendition for skin would not have required this expense. Certainly film origination wouldn't have :)
 
Mike Garrick said:
Ok I'm not a DOP I'm just a Producer . My background is film, stills originally 10 x 8 , 5 x 4, 2 1/4 then moved into broadcast. So I "get" & I prefer the film look . I applaude the points raised in this thread particularly Bruce Allen's.

I never comment on threads like this because I'm way out of my depth. But I do know art history. So 2 questions with a producer's hat on....

Are we like the Neo Classists or Romantics art movements of the Victorian era & there repudiation of Impressionism, (or any other revolutionary art movement for that matter) & I quote ......... "Radicals in their time, early Impressionists violated the rules of academic painting. They constructed their pictures from freely brushed colours that took precedence over lines and contours.

Q 1) Are we complaining about breaking the rules or system of beliefs about what skin tones should look like ?

Q 2) Does a modern paying audience even know or care ?
Click to expand...

There are plenty of movies where skin tones go way far away from what's considered nice and aesthetic, from like Underworld to Man on Fire and Domino. There are even black and white movies... So it's not like a rule has suddenly been broken with the red "look," freeing people to innovate, it's more like this sensor renders skin in a more lifeless, if possibly more technically accurate and smoother, way (according to some people's subjective impressions, including my own) and people can use that to get a clean, aseptic, digital look that works (Social Network, Prometheus) but in cases where you want warm and painterly I think it's a real problem. Look at the Hobbit trailers. The new one looks a lot better (still not my cup of tea, but neither were the Lord of the Ring movies), but the first had real issues with organic areas looking plasticky. I don't think film is technically very "good"--too much grain, halation, and inaccurate colors, and it's much harder to light for--but I think it looks good. Does digital have to look that way, too? Of the two camera systems, one went for accurate/flexible and the other tried to emulate Kodak film stocks...

As for part 2 of your question, I think audiences care; we care. But audiences adapt faster and will accept "good enough" before cinematographers do. Technicolor was better than Kodak, Todd AO was better than anamorphic was better than super35, primes are better than zooms, slow stock is better than fast, tungsten is better than HMIs and kinoflos...there's just this incredibly long history of a race not to the bottom but to "good enough" and efficient. And that's where we're headed. Red's system is the least expensive to shoot with, but posting on it is much more expensive or time-consuming than on the Alexa in many cases, so I don't think the preference for the Alexa among some circles has to do with its superior skin tone rendering, it has more to do with prores with a film look baked in being much faster to post for small format agonistic houses and for big houses that don't want to rework their entire workflow around red. But for a small company that wants good quality affordably, the Alexa is a huge investment and if you don't have that much material to post it won't save you that much time. A producer's mindset is the right one here. But the Alexa does have magic skin tones, really among all digital systems still or video it shines. And for CUs in particular the softness (relative to the Epic, it's as sharp as 35mm) is not a problem, but an asset. It's got a very conservative design, which is why the industry has embraced it; red is very radical so its success is almost more remarkable...
 
I think Pirates of the Carribean (whatever that last one shot on RED) was called had a very solid "film-like" look.
 
I'm pretty happy with the skin tones in this shot using Epic + RPZ 17-50mm. Skin looks great but the babies eyes are light blue and I wasn't able to capture it for some reason. Using all natural daylight. I used the water reflection to act as a bounce to fill the eyes. No blue without CC and a power window.

ValiBath.png
 
"no blue though."

when you get into these sorts of things--the snap in the eyes that deakins sees on alexa--the face that would've looked fantastic on film but feels muted in every red color space--SDI lag ,etc etc--

you either point out every problem, or you take the limitations as challenges. there is a healthy amount of conversation about red limitations at the moment and i think that's fantastic.

i like the way the camera doesn't process certain colors and environments the way others do. it is a thick skinned, strong image that you fight with and create a certain rugged beauty from. in short the image has willpower. even if its expressed in ways not everyone likes.

do you want a camera that makes nice color and texture, using its own cleverness, without your input
do you want a camera that requires a bit more intelligence to produce desired color and texture, created through collective skill

the only thing like it is fishing

some people like to fish on the lake, where the salmon bite regularly and all you have to do is reel the damn thing in and drink beer.

some people like to wade in streams... where a bit of precision, testing, foresight and luck are a big part of the process.

some people try to fish in streams without knowing how, catching nothing, and calling it a bad stream.

some people could fish anywhere with their eyes closed, so it doesn't much matter (hears lookin' at you mr deakins)--
 
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Eyes pop pretty good on Epic too while achieving any skin tone look you want, such as in this case with Carly no post color correction but just utilized my style of lighting to create the skin tone look I wanted... ;)

PS: The EPIC has much more power to POP eyes then the Alexa, as it is all about Resolution which Epic of course has way more then Alexa, given of course same lens is use... Oh and it is in focus... ;)



246794_3711792233968_1084792866_n.jpg
 
i think the bottom line is red spits out an image with a certain character and color processing that is unique.

some people work with that as a tool, some people see it and walk away.
 
Yes and no Ryan, as thinking of my self as a good DP, I can make via Lighting choices the images look any way I want out of any camera, and it is then only the resolution and the lenses used that would limit the output quality of that image, in both capacity to substain a Post Grading professional workflow, as well as maximum print size and or Projection size and K's.

But I do agree yet disagreed to compare RED as a Digital camera to any Film camera, but when talking about any Digital camera, then is a different story as if you shoot RAW, and not having any inner filter baked in at capture of in direct out put look when not shooting Raw as Alexa does, then is a different story.
 
Even though many didn't like the movie, I did, I thought the skin tones on the latest Totall Recall have been the best yet from an Epic shot film. The film does not have an overly stylized grade, which is a breath of fresh air and let's the skin tones shine in my opinion.

-Dane
 
Dane Henry said:
Even though many didn't like the movie, I did, I thought the skin tones on the latest Totall Recall have been the best yet from an Epic shot film. The film does not have an overly stylized grade, which is a breath of fresh air and let's the skin tones shine in my opinion.

-Dane
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That and the new Spiderman too. Skin tones / flesh colors are fine and I'm sure it's only being improved in the Dragon. KV3 film stock colors look very tasty, most of the recent digital sensors are getting close to that, who knows Dragon may turn out to be the closest. Dying to see the first footage from the prototypes.
 
Expanding on this topic slightly (my apologies if this is an issue with someone) - I've been experimenting with skin tone on my Epic for some time. I swear I had a much easier time with it back on my Red One "M" sensor. But now sometimes it seems relatively smooth and easy to post and other times not. Guess it doesn't help if I experiment with the flow each time. My question is - what kind of camera settings are people using with the Epic to generate the best skin tones and overall working colors to carry over to post. I want it to look good in my monitor so the client is excited and I want it to translate to a post path that has both the best look and efficient work flow.

Any wisdom is appreciated.
 
I respect the opinion that some people have that digitally captured skin tones pale in comparison to film captured skin tones. Digital still has a lot of growing to do and it will only get better. I am very excited to see what will happen in the next decade of high-end digital image capture.

But as of 2012. I still think we're doing pretty well, even when it comes to skin tones.

Roger Deakins writes,

"I think the Alexa has a wider colour space than film. For instance, I did a candle lit comparison and it really surprised me how film tends to crush the subtle colours of a face in a warm light whilst the Alexa was maintaining a whole range. I also find that there is a constant problem taking red out of a face when I am doing a DI from a film negative. I have not seen this issue with the Arri Raw original."

http://www.deakinsonline.com/forum2/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=1908
 
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