dirt-on-the-lens plug-ins now?

[Ken Corben]

Zack Snyder on shooting 300:

Snyder: I didn't want the movie to feel like it was shot out of a computer. I wanted you to feel that it was made by humans. We shot the movie on film and added a lot of grain back into it. For the fight scenes, we added flares, dirt on the lenses -- none of which was there when we filmed it. Putting that stuff in spoke to the organic process of making a film, just as if we were standing out in a field. But in our case it was everyone standing in front of a blue screen.

WN: So there are dirt-on-the-lens plug-ins now? You can actually put the imperfections back into the process?

Snyder: That's the crazy part. We learned how to create a pristine image and now we are working to fuck it up again. Part of the technology now is used to make it look like you didn't use the technology.

Link to full article: http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,72775-0.html?tw=wn_story_page_prev2

 

[Chris Gearhart]

I have a plug in for Wordperfect that puts that pencil-bump on my middle finger and mispels evertything.

 

[Jim Arthurs]

I have a plug in for Wordperfect that puts that pencil-bump on my middle finger and mispels evertything.

Classic!

Here we are trying to find the cleanest possible lenses for RED, the most rectilinear, the least amount of breathing, no flares, etc., and in the 3D packages the quest is to make the most crappy coke-bottle-ish glass imaginable.

BTW, my custom code of the "Bandsaw" plugin for Lightwave will take your fingers off if you're not careful...

 

[Peter Karlsson]

Hey Jim! Cool to see some fellow LW users here :biggrin:

Actually one of the uses of Advanced Camera Tools aka ACT aka Vodka is to accurately model lenses with imperfections. This combined with dirt maps can really turn the 3D into any old school camera :bleh:

Remind me to put RED into LWs lens database..

 

[PaulClements]

Making digital look just like film is all part and parcel of the switch from film to digital.

It satisfies those who dislike digital because it doesn't look like film and those who prefer digital workflow and are forced to satisfy those who don't like the clean image.

 

[Martin Drew]

Hear! Hear! Paul.

 

[Blaine Golden]

Making digital look just like film is all part and parcel of the switch from film to digital.

It satisfies those who dislike digital because it doesn't look like film and those who prefer digital workflow and are forced to satisfy those who don't like the clean image.

I agree. I love the organic look of film and have felt that HD has gotten too pristine. Get a beautiful picture then add a few touches to give it that film feel...nothing wrong with that. :wink:

 

[Jim Arthurs]

Hey Jim! Cool to see some fellow LW users here :biggrin:

Actually one of the uses of Advanced Camera Tools aka ACT aka Vodka is to accurately model lenses with imperfections. This combined with dirt maps can really turn the 3D into any old school camera :bleh:

Remind me to put RED into LWs lens database..

Great! Actually, quite a few Wavers here. Someone on the LW open beta list was asking for RED support for the Real Lens just yesterday... BTW, the ACT has been a godsend for my dome work! What used to take five rectilinear images and an intricate post step is now a single render...

 

[Peter Karlsson]

Mmm.. Well, in order to get RED support among the Real Lens profiles it must be in EPaperPress PTlens profile list. And in order to do that someone must take calibration images for EPP..

I don´t think the RED Team has time for taking calibration images right now, and Im on the wait list with my #1120.. So If you know any LW (or PTLens) user with a lower RED # than you Jim, please let me know and we can fix this as soon as the REDs are out of the door.. Othervise we'll have to wait until you get yours And I'll make sure you'll have it as a preset.. Of course this will be quite a task considering the amount of lens options we have for the RED

 

[Jim Arthurs]

I don´t think the RED Team has time for taking calibration images right now, and Im on the wait list with my #1120.. So If you know any LW (or PTLens) user with a lower RED # than you Jim, please let me know and we can fix this as soon as the REDs are out of the door.. Othervise we'll have to wait until you get yours

Thanks Peter! I agree that there is MUCH bigger priorities right now for the team... so much so this isn't on the radar or should be for some time.

I'm glad to help in whatever way I can... I did reserve the zoom but not the 300mm.

I'm curious as to how useful and accurate these profiles are... I typically do a series of tests and generate an un-distort series of settings for each lens/mm I need for plate work... I will test out the preset for the Coolpix 995 against some real world set-ups with a grid chart and get back to you. I bring up the Coolpix because that's what I've been using for years to do HDRI and dome images (ala John Knoll on the SW films...) and have it mapped accurately for matchmoving reference. Also I know my HVX-200 wide setting to the nth degree...

 

[Brook Willard]

Anybody know what film stock they used to shoot?

 

[Ken Corben]

Good question on film stock

Good question on film stock

One would guess Kodak 5299 - Since the film look is created using digital image processing applied at the time of transfer, precise color and tone looks of many KODAK Films can be generated from this one stock.

FROM 300 DP Larry Fong - The frosting on "300's" cake was a "super-contrasty, silvery bleach bypass" digital intermediate master — basically a Photoshop-like adjustment of color and contrast.

A few of the key ingredients in Snyder's secret cinematic sauce: thousands of hours of visual tests, shooting on film and shooting everything lighted as if it were golden hour, overcast or under shimmery moonlight.

Although high-definition video has become a de rigueur medium for bluescreen shoots — for one thing, film has to laboriously be scanned into the digital realm — Fong shot film because Snyder relies heavily on variable speed lensing, which new digital cinematography cameras aren't so great at yet.

"I'm glad we didn't shoot in HD," Fong said. "When you think period, you think film, which is funny because in ancient Greece there was no film. But for us, the cinematic experience was informed by film artifacts. We wanted the film grain to show."