Color in the Classics

[David Mullen ASC]

When you realize that Kodak used to update their single motion picture 35mm color negative maybe once every seven or eight years, meaning that most movies shot within big chunks of a decade used the same stock, you realize how little the technology contributes to the look compared to the work of the designers and craftspeople. I mean, sure, you can design a software plug-in that emulates Kodak 5247, but keep in mind that movies as divergent in look as "Airplane!" and "Apocalypse Now" used 5247, it's next to meaningless, or at least, it's not the cake, it's not the frosting on the cake, it's the sprinkles on the frosting.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

Or to put it another way, if you like the look of a woman in a black dress wearing a red scarf standing against a pale green wall, then don't put her in a white dress wearing a blue scarf against a pink wall... and then find a software that can turn the dress black, the scarf red, and the wall pale green.

 

[Rob Castiglione]

General Spectrum?

General Spectrum?

What does general spectrum mean on the website? There are colours on the general spectrum which do not appear on the light medium or dark.

 

[John Johnson]

Or to put it another way, if you like the look of a woman in a black dress wearing a red scarf standing against a pale green wall, then don't put her in a white dress wearing a blue scarf against a pink wall... and then find a software that can turn the dress black, the scarf red, and the wall pale green.

i understand, how about we look at such a woman:
http://www.maik.de/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/stevemccurry1.jpg
I assumed you ment her ^^ since it is a rather known image or it is just a coincidence. She was shot on Kodachrome by McCurry for those who are interested. My question or should I say, the way I understand it is this: Would an egglestone picture look like an egglestone picture if not for the dye-transfere? English isnt my first language so maybe I need to ge this straight: I am the last person who would downplay the role of the artist and say "its all bout the tools" . . . before I hear someone accusing me of saying that egglestones pics are "nothing without the dye-transfere. . . "
I hope I am not misunderstood when I say that this isnt what i mean.

let us take "a yellow school bus on a street in autum with a blue sky" :
http://i150.photobucket.com/albums/s84/brewsterg6/My 1951 Chevrolet/1960SchoolBus.jpg

isnt it also a "huge thing" how the color is "reproduced" or one could even say "interpreted", because obviously, in the example of Kodachrome, the film doesnt reproduce (copy) reality, it interprets it or translates it.
So if I let the woman in the scarf at home and run around with a camera that takes it all "RAW" (which alone can mean sooo many different things, but this would be yet another topic) and then "enter the magic numbers to make the color be reproduced like in apocalypse now", shouldnt a frame that I shot be very close to the COLOR of something out of apocalypse now?
We didnt even mention the colortiming and all these things that I know sooo little of.

And a big YES to the choice of "red scarf; pale green wall vs blue scarf, pink wall" in school, when i was little -/) teacher once showed us this green jungle with this one red dot (eye or flower or whatever) in the middle of it. . . was a painting. . . cant forget it till this day. . . talk about striking. . .

this is what i meant about "color" and stdying maybe in books, to understand more about the effect cernten combinations have.

You guys are ace, being a HUGE help. I tend to "read" on forums but write little because I dont really have anything to contribute to help others (still got so much to learn myself ^^) but this kinda discussions are really awesome.
thx

 

[John Johnson]

If you haven't already, read Ansel Adam's "The Negative". Understanding your medium and then previsualizing your frame is what it's all about...

to be honest, I heared about this one before, but havent checked it yet! I always say to myself that I would love to, some day, pre-visualize the frame as in seeing how the final frame will look like in cinema while still being on a set. To train the eye to such a level. I hear many oldschool cinematographers use the lightmeter only to double check because their eye can tell. . . also you hear something "yeah they can fix that in the lab..." the little differences when the light is not perfectly tungsten or daylight or what eve, as if his/her eye becomes celluloid. . . lol this something that needs decades of in-field work, no way around that. . .

 

[Kenny Mosher]

Awesome!

 

[Guy Staley]

If you haven't already, read Ansel Adam's "The Negative". Understanding your medium and then previsualizing your frame is what it's all about...

Amen brother! I learned exposure from the ground up. Even though film is all but gone, there's no substitution for understanding classic approach and technique.

 

[Guy Staley]

Or to put it another way, if you like the look of a woman in a black dress wearing a red scarf standing against a pale green wall, then don't put her in a white dress wearing a blue scarf against a pink wall... and then find a software that can turn the dress black, the scarf red, and the wall pale green.

Tee hee!

 

[Hrvoje Simic]

Medium determined picture properties and cinematography crafted ones often seem to be simplified yet differentiate substantially, as well as the ability and sense in digitally compensating them with post production tools.

sounds like a noobish question, i know >.> , but is there a way to dial in these colors into lets say resolve or speedgrade, like a LUT or something, to "instantly" get a similar look? Shouldnt that information be super helpful to greate a specific look in no time and simply be used as a filter or something? Talkin bout RAW footage here.

No.

The answer will be the same to most similar questions containing "instantly" and a notion of value.

 

[John Johnson]

^well there is noise reduction, isnt there? Removing grain on film via the DI, they took a long time to get as good as they are today. . . more complex even are stabilizer and slow motion, and again took some time but today it is acceptable. You dont even have to share Georg Lucas philosophy when it comes to "value (or quality)" (he always says "if its good enough so when you look at it on the big screan the first time and it isnt ditracting, then it is fine" basically) to accept the quality of noise red. or even stabilizing software.

The way I saw a few guys doing color to "imitate" a look, is by having a frame from that movie on the left and on the right their own frame. And now it is about "analyzing" by eye and numbers and getting everything as close as possible to the "example frame", so the question is why not let software and workstation do it for you and then you get to fine tune it later. Nobody said "click a button and wait for results to magically come into existance" This would take out the fun of all of it

You guys seem to think of it in terms of your jobs going "Hmm doing this with MY work for MY costumers. . .? They would laugh about the results and never pay as much as they do now for the quality work I deliver" which isnt what this is about, atleast the way I understand it.

If RED would, in some paralel universe, have too much time and money and want to tackle a new problem, wouldnt it be something great to have them do something like this, since:

It is their Hardware-> They know how their sensor and the filters behave to the micron.
It is their Software -> Have redcine-x pro analyze the "example frame/video" and calculate what the raw-pixels need to be translated into, to become that "technicolor sky" similar to this one:
http://us.123rf.com/400wm/400/400/e...tro-vintage-toning-technicolor-film-style.jpg

one can dream, no? ^^