Dynasty tvseries 1980 vintage color grading technique

[Sergio Popirechnik]

Hi guys,
Im new Red one owner. I want to make short movie that would look like Dynasty tv series 1980.
I understand that I need to use same light sources as they used in that time period. Same story with lenses.
I've heard about black pro mist filter.
My question is, could I achieve same vintage look using only Davinci resolve with red one camera and RED ONE 18-50 T3.0 PL Zoom Lens ? Is there a chance to achieve it only with post production? If yes, what exactly would you do and how?
My second question is regarding the sound... I have my zoom which is perfect. But how could I achieve this warm vintage sound as in Dynasty tv series? I usually use Adobe audition. Ive tryed different plugins, but it still far far away from desired sound.


Here is the example I want to achieve...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmyP_k6hm4Q

Thanks,

Sergio

 

[Zeb B]

"Damn you Alexis" so money that line

Not seeing anything here but a lighting style which has gotta be done during the shoot. Other than that, they used Panavision Cameras / lenses and shot on 35mm film so do that as well ;-)

 

[M Most]

First, you have to decide whether you're trying to replicate the early seasons or the later seasons. The early ones were finished on film and transferred for air from prints. The later years (the last 2 as I recall) were transferred directly from the assembled negative by Encore Video. The two looks are considerably different as a result. As for filtration, every actor on that show had their own specific filter pack, which is why Joan Collins' closeups have a considerably different feel than anyone else's.

For the rest of your questions, the answer is a question: Do you have a good colorist?

 

[Zack Birlew]

The Digital Film Tools plugin suite would be a good recommendation. They were the core of the Tiffen DFX suite which is now discontinued but the software is essentially the same minus the branding deal. There are presets for recreating all kinds of optical filters and I think if you look there’s still the recipes for digitally recreating the Black Pro Mist preset that the Tiffen DFX suite had. Other than that, there is just a matter of playing with softening, maybe some distortion to make a VHS look, I think Red Giant Universe might have something for that. As for audio, I would imagine toying with your EQs would help but I don’t know exactly what kind of sound you’re going after as it’s been a while since I heard audio from “Dynasty”.

 

[Patrick Tresch]

Surely not VHS but also composite 1 inch tape. I suppose.

Pat

 

[Bill Totolo]

Funny, looks like they used a stunt double just as John Forsythe was about to grab Joan Collins.
She must have been very fragile, very valuable, or both.

To my eye, lighting and set design are the major contributing factors here. Everyone gets a key light!

 

[Christopher Mills]

Well, about the sound

Well, about the sound

The audio would have originally been recorded on a Nagra two track. Either Schoeps mk41 capsule, or sennheiser 415/416 shotguns.. maybe a little Neuemann hypercardioid and shotgun mic action as well.
The practice now is to get a lot less coloration on our tracks than back then. I worked with a sound mixer named Maury Harris who had worked on a lot of 1970s and 1980s television shows early in my career (1989-93, on In the Heat of the Night). We were almost always cabled boom mic to a Nagra two track which had awesome pre amps. Rarely more than two mics out. He had a nagra in a sound reinforced booth at the stage for ADR and re recording at all times.


Very few lav mic tracks would be in final mix, as we had much lower grade wireless than today. Might have a few sony ECM-50's hidden on talent in sit downs, but I doubt very many were used.

It would have been extensively re mixed from magnetic tape, and maybe Marc Weilage can weigh in on the likely post production chain.

The sound would have been very colored by the pre amps in the recording and re recording chain, and I bet a LOT of the show got re recorded.

I would actually consider a tube pre amp in your signal chain to fake this on a budget. The zoom is not going to color this in the way you expect. The tube pre amp will help. A real mixing board with full adjustable eq will also help, esp with an experienced audio mixer to operate it.

 

[Marc Wielage]

I actually worked a bit on Dynasty in the 1980s for Spelling & Fox in syndication, and the look was a result of using Kodak 5247 & 5294 and normal Kodak low-con print film. They used a lot of diffusion on set (to give the actors a bit more "glamor"), and they benefitted from great makeup, art direction, and exposure. The shows were actually transferred very quickly, typically no more than 5-6 hours of color correction for a single episode. (Typical 1-hour film network shows took about 10 hours to color-time during that era.)

The look was a combination of a lot of things and not just one thing. If I was trying to recreate that look today, I'd light the scene very well, provide lots of fill, then soften the image a bit with maybe a 1/8th black Promist or a Tiffen Glimmer Glass filter. My opinion is that the original Red One cameras were soft and very noisy, and the lenses were terrible (10 years ago). The later Red cameras got a lot better, and I've been pretty happy with the results of the Dragon and Helium cameras, provided the material is well lit and uses great glass; I'm a big fan of the Zeiss Master Primes.

 

[Marc Wielage]

The audio would have originally been recorded on a Nagra two track. Either Schoeps mk41 capsule, or sennheiser 415/416 shotguns.. maybe a little Neuemann hypercardioid and shotgun mic action as well.

Actually, in this era (1980s) generally all TV series were recorded with mono Nagra IIIs or 4's, sometimes with two boom mics which the sound mixer mixed live on the set. I agree that both 416's and Schoeps 641's were used. Wireless was pretty rare in this era. 2-track started to come in at the beginning of the 1990s, both with 2-track Nagras 4S's and DAT. Final audio was almost always on 35mm mag, but 90% of the sound quality was due to great mic placement and very quiet studios (plus ADR). (It is true that some sitcoms in this era were recorded on 4-track 1" machines, with the first 2 tracks devoted to two booms, one track for audience, and one for timecode.)

One benefit of recording in that era: you didn't have a lot mumbling actors. Performers usually had the training and experience to know how to project and enunciate clearly, so they knew how to make themselves heard very well. You can make a good argument that as recording technology has gotten better, actors have forgotten a lot of great dialogue techniques that made older TV series and films sound as good as they do.

 

[Hrvoje Simic]

My question is, could I achieve same vintage look using only Davinci resolve with red one camera and RED ONE 18-50 T3.0 PL Zoom Lens ?

NO.

 

[Christopher Mills]

Actually, in this era (1980s) generally all TV series were recorded with mono Nagra IIIs or 4's, sometimes with two boom mics which the sound mixer mixed live on the set. I agree that both 416's and Schoeps 641's were used. Wireless was pretty rare in this era. 2-track started to come in at the beginning of the 1990s, both with 2-track Nagras 4S's and DAT. Final audio was almost always on 35mm mag, but 90% of the sound quality was due to great mic placement and very quiet studios (plus ADR). (It is true that some sitcoms in this era were recorded on 4-track 1" machines, with the first 2 tracks devoted to two booms, one track for audience, and one for timecode.)

One benefit of recording in that era: you didn't have a lot mumbling actors. Performers usually had the training and experience to know how to project and enunciate clearly, so they knew how to make themselves heard very well. You can make a good argument that as recording technology has gotten better, actors have forgotten a lot of great dialogue techniques that made older TV series and films sound as good as they do.

I thought you'd know! I think because I started at the tail end of this era, I was just lucky to see the start of use of Nagra 4.2. and Nagra Stereo. since we were way out on location, we did not have a 35mm Mag stock recorder in our chain, but they certainly were in use in 1980s Atlanta post facilities. But yes, the boom (s) were the bulk of our track. Directors and script and few other folks got Comtek pr-72s. to monitor.

In lenses... Was that show a Panavision show?

 

[Marc Wielage]

The Digital Film Tools plugin suite would be a good recommendation. They were the core of the Tiffen DFX suite which is now discontinued but the software is essentially the same minus the branding deal. There are presets for recreating all kinds of optical filters and I think if you look there’s still the recipes for digitally recreating the Black Pro Mist preset that the Tiffen DFX suite had.

I'm a big fan of the DFT OFX plug-ins, but they are a bit buggy sometimes in Resolve. When they work, they can be beautiful and very effective.

 

[Marc Wielage]

In lenses... Was that show a Panavision show?

Yeah, a ton of TV stuff was all-Panavision in that era, especially sitcoms. I can recall seeing Panaflexes on the set, but sometimes the big reflex cameras were there. Spelling was cheap, but I don't think they economized on cameras and lenses. That was also an A&B camera show (as quite a few were in that era).

 

[Ignacio Aguilar]

Many episodes were shot by Michel Hugo, and he has a long article on the ASC book "Reflections" by Benjamin Bergery. He goes into depth about his techniques to photograph and expose for this TV series, and glamour portraits for the actresses. I belive he was rating for TV 5294 at 640 or 800 ASA, and was using the Cooke 20-100mm T3.1 zoom (Panavised or not) with difussion for the show.

 

[Marc Wielage]

Many episodes were shot by Michel Hugo, and he has a long article on the ASC book "Reflections" by Benjamin Bergery. He goes into depth about his techniques to photograph and expose for this TV series, and glamour portraits for the actresses.

They did use very soft lighting on the set for a "period glamour" look, and I suspect (though I don't know for sure) they were using ProMists on the close-ups during this era. There was a point where Spelling changed from finishing on film (low-con print lab color timing) to finishing on videotape, and then everything switched over to negative dailies and editing on videotape (with video color timing from dailies). But I think that was several years later. Joe Durvin was the exec post supervisor during those years, and he was generally a very good and knowledgeable guy to work with.

 

[M Most]

They did use very soft lighting on the set for a "period glamor" look, and I suspect (though I don't know for sure) they were using ProMists on the close-ups during this era. There was a point where Spelling changed from finishing on film (low-con print lab color timing) to finishing on videotape, and then everything switched over to negative dailies and editing on videotape (with video color timing from dailies). But I think that was several years later. Joe Durvin was the exec post supervisor during those years, and he was generally a very good and knowledgeable guy to work with.

It was never "finished on videotape," at least not the way other shows were (i.e., make video dailies, assemble those, and do a final grade "tape to tape"). And it was never cut on anything but film. What it switched to was Encore's system at the time, which was cutting on film, assembling negative in A/B rolls, and finishing via a transfer of the cut negative to tape with "opticals" done as part of that process. The only real difference from a "full film finish" was the elimination of an answer print and film opticals. And yes, Joe Dervin (correct spelling) was Spelling's head of post by that time.

 

[Karim D. Ghantous]

I really like this thread. Thanks, all! A bit of film talk, a bit of '80s workflow. Love it.

 

[Les Hillis]

Interesting to see it in such high resolution now too. I'm guessing not many people would have seen the show with that much definition before.

 

[Marc Wielage]

It was never "finished on videotape," at least not the way other shows were (i.e., make video dailies, assemble those, and do a final grade "tape to tape"). And it was never cut on anything but film.

Joe Dervin was a terrific guy, always very nice to me. This period was very much a transitional time, and there were a lot of shows that started shooting/cutting/finishing on film, then ended the decade shooting on film, cutting offlines on videotape, then finishing entirely on videotape -- often without much color correction (as you know). Spelling's shows were among that group, and there were always exceptions and experimentation going on, usually for budget considerations.

It's fair to say that weird variations, like going from A/B negative, were also part of that mix. I think nobody knew what to do and often a lot was thrown at the wall to see what stuck... but it didn't really matter as long as the show looked good, made money, and the ratings kept going.

I think you will agree that there was a period where 1980s shows like this were done entirely from low-con print, then at some point switched to negative transfers for air. I assume we can agree on that. I can tell you on Dallas and Knott's Landing (which I also worked on for a couple of years) had some issues where the talent became sensitive to how they suddenly looked without the benefit of a print generation, going right from negative. They were concerned enough about it on Murder She Wrote -- another 1980s series with a look very much of that time -- they refused to go from negative and stuck with a film finish all the way until the final episode. Ken Vogel (then VP of post for Universal) told me that Murder was the last of their shows finished on film through 1996; I think subsequent made-for-TV movies were reluctantly finished in video.

It's very interesting to compare and contrast the look of shows throughout this period, because it was a moving target as film stocks changed, techniques changed, and workflows changed. Getting that look today would be fraught with problems, but to me, a lot of it -- as usual -- boils down to lighting, lenses, and exposure, not just the medium.

 

[M Most]

Joe Dervin was a terrific guy, always very nice to me. This period was very much a transitional time, and there were a lot of shows that started shooting/cutting/finishing on film, then ended the decade shooting on film, cutting offlines on videotape, then finishing entirely on videotape -- often without much color correction (as you know). Spelling's shows were among that group, and there were always exceptions and experimentation going on, usually for budget considerations.

It's fair to say that weird variations, like going from A/B negative, were also part of that mix. I think nobody knew what to do and often a lot was thrown at the wall to see what stuck... but it didn't really matter as long as the show looked good, made money, and the ratings kept going.

I think you will agree that there was a period where 1980s shows like this were done entirely from low-con print, then at some point switched to negative transfers for air. I assume we can agree on that. I can tell you on Dallas and Knott's Landing (which I also worked on for a couple of years) had some issues where the talent became sensitive to how they suddenly looked without the benefit of a print generation, going right from negative. They were concerned enough about it on Murder She Wrote -- another 1980s series with a look very much of that time -- they refused to go from negative and stuck with a film finish all the way until the final episode. Ken Vogel (then VP of post for Universal) told me that Murder was the last of their shows finished on film through 1996; I think subsequent made-for-TV movies were reluctantly finished in video.

It's very interesting to compare and contrast the look of shows throughout this period, because it was a moving target as film stocks changed, techniques changed, and workflows changed. Getting that look today would be fraught with problems, but to me, a lot of it -- as usual -- boils down to lighting, lenses, and exposure, not just the medium.

Marc, Marc, Marc. You keep talking about projects you had, at most, only a peripheral knowledge of as if you were intimately involved. Even worse, you're talking about things that I WAS intimately involved with. So I'm going to make a couple of "corrections" here.

Electronic post production of single camera film shows was pioneered by the post production department at Lorimar, which consisted of about 6 or 7 people of which I was a part. I was both Special Projects supervisor and Post Production supervisor on a number of shows from 1984 through 1990, when we basically invented all of this stuff, including the terminology (thank you, Bernie Laramie....). It was done as a cost cutting measure, along with the adoption of the 3 perf 35mm film format a number of years before any other studio would touch it, and the use of mutitrack tape transports for sound editing and mixing. There was a lot of push back from both editors (who were very established, veteran film editors) who didn't want to change the way they worked, and producers who didn't want to make finishing their shows a science experiment. In general, the "video finished/negative transfer" look was considered to look "cheap" compared to a film print. And for some time, that was basically true. Not to mention that conversions to other standards (PAL, primarily) suffered greatly in quality compared to the prints that were delivered internationally prior to that point. The two things that "saved" the electronic approach were Pacific's (later Laser Pacific) development of Image Translation to improve that via 3:2 pulldown removal, and the cost savings afforded by the tape approach. But I digress. I was very much involved in moving Dallas to tape finishing, and deeply involved in improving what had already been implemented on Knots Landing. Dallas was the show that really brought the foreign mastering problem to light (the BBC almost canceled their contract even though the show was one of the highest rated shows in the UK at the time). And due to quality and presentation considerations, we continued to cut and finish all pilots on film until about 1990 (thank you, Les Moonves).

The "weird variation" you're referring to was Encore's response to a few shows that were seeking a "cleaner" look, but wanted to continue cutting on film. The main impetus for it was L.A. Law, whose post producer at the time (Mike Robin, today a highly successful producer and director), along with the show's lead producer Greg Hoblit, had the idea of making the show look "as good as the commercials that surround it." In trying to accomplish that, he started investigating how commercials were finished and who was finishing them. That led him to Encore Video, and Larry Chernoff came up with an approach based on commercial finishing (hence the A/B ribbons) that could accomplish that, via a direct transfer - with final color - from the assembled negative, with opticals and titles done electronically. Dynasty gravitated to Encore based on the L.A. Law experience, in large part because their editorial team (led by Kenny Miller, who ultimately replaced Joe Dervin as head of post when Joe moved to NBC Productions) was very comfortable cutting on film and had no desire to change that. It had nothing to do with "throwing things at the wall to see what sticks," it had to do with answering client desires for a post system that eased them into what electronic post could bring to the table without making wholesale changes in the editorial workflow. Universal and Warner Bros. were the two major holdouts in moving to electronic finishing, primarily because they had problems with the lack of an archival solution for shows finished on tape. History has shown that they were basically right, and it's ironic that Universal wound up acquiring the Anderson Video facility and expanding it to be their in house post facility, and even more ironic that Warners wound up buying Lorimar (I was still there at the time, lots of stories in that). But nearly everything we pioneered at Lorimar in the mid to late 80s was ultimately adopted by the entire industry, and eventually led to digital intermediate approaches for features.

As for "Murder She Wrote", I was directly involved in that as well, during my time at Encore. The reason Universal discontinued the use of cut negative transfers was because of an "incident" in which one roll (it was actually only part of the roll, as I recall) got scratched and it was assumed that it happened during the telecine transfer (never really determined, but assumed). Since it was the only original element of the show that existed, they quickly decided they didn't want to take that chance ever again. It had nothing to do with the "print look" and had nothing to do with anything else either.

Today, there aren't that many of us who were directly and intimately involved with all of those changes still working in the industry. But for those of us who are, it is important in the age of the Internet - where anyone can say anything and have far too many people believe it - that we talk with authority about things we were directly involved with, and not offer speculation on the things we weren't. I try very hard to stay away from deep details on things I wasn't a part of. I often which you would try to do the same.