House of Cards season 6 - Helium

[Curtis boggs]

Started watching season 6 of house of cards and just love the way it looks.

IMDB lists season 6 as being on Red Wepon 8k s35, helium.

Has a nice look and I wonder who the colorist is and if anyone knows anything about it.

Cheers,

c

 

[Nick Gardner]

Does season 6 look better than any of the others? It wasn't shot any differently other than the new cameras.

Nick

 

[Bob Gundu]

I feel they all have slightly different looks due to the DP's changing overtime. The underexposed look from earlier seasons are almost non-existent this season.

 

[Nick Gardner]

That's definitely true. I'm rewatching season 5 now. I can't remember, but I think season 5 was dragons. ^k with a 5k window for reframing and stabilizing.

Nick

 

[Rob Anderson]

Sorry, but I have to disagree. Season 6 is a mess. The color grades are terrible, with major shifts between camera angles. There is a lot of noise, horizontal light bands, and lots of other issues. The frames in S6 are some of the worst I've seen in top television. Compositionally, S6 is every bit as magical as S1-S5, but the quality of the frames and the grades of those frames are very disappointing.

 

[Bob Gundu]

Sorry, but I have to disagree. Season 6 is a mess. The color grades are terrible, with major shifts between camera angles. There is a lot of noise, horizontal light bands, and lots of other issues. The frames in S6 are some of the worst I've seen in top television. Compositionally, S6 is every bit as magical as S1-S5, but the quality of the frames and the grades of those frames are very disappointing.

I agree.

 

[Thai Christen]

Sorry, but I have to disagree. Season 6 is a mess. The color grades are terrible, with major shifts between camera angles. There is a lot of noise, horizontal light bands, and lots of other issues. The frames in S6 are some of the worst I've seen in top television. Compositionally, S6 is every bit as magical as S1-S5, but the quality of the frames and the grades of those frames are very disappointing.

No offense but I am wondering if you ever watched the show or just were pixel peeping.
I have seen 1-6 on an iPad Mini - yes I know, but trust me, the future is going mobile and more portable. We are a household of four people, me my wife and two teenage girls. Everyone is watching their own show on their own iPad Mini. Girls sometimes on their iPhone 7. Just saying.

Back to House of cards. I found season 1 and 2 fantastic and very intriguing. Watched each show on a single weekend. From season 3-5 it was going south and lost my interest (still finished each show but during a longer period). However, season 6 got back my attentention with many interesting twists (finished it on a single weekend).
I saw some subtle changes in colors. But nothing dramatic that sticks out or made me scream. Maybe it has something to do with the new era with Robin Wright in the main role as president. .
But as I said before, only watched on my iPad Mini. So nope, didn‘t see any noise, color or banding issue. Wasn‘t particularly paying attention on the technical aspect either. This is how you should watch a movie IMO - not pixel peeping or trying to find flaws. I think we camera people are sometimes too much focused on the technical aspect and don‘t see the whole picture. Just my two cents.

 

[Rob Anderson]

No offense but I am wondering if you ever watched the show or just were pixel peeping.

Thai, I’ve watched every episode of every season. We watch on 4K wall-mounted screens. S6 has major technical problems with picture quality and grade choices. This isn’t ‘pixel peeping’, this is losing the plot because of the problems being so severe, they are distracting.

 

[Thai Christen]

Thai, I’ve watched every episode of every season. We watch on 4K wall-mounted screens. S6 has major technical problems with picture quality and grade choices. This isn’t ‘pixel peeping’, this is losing the plot because of the problems being so severe, they are distracting.

Rob, not trying to argue with you here. But if you let the technical details pull you away from the story, then you are not watching the movie correctly. These are words from a good DP who told me once, btw.
How about if you watch again on an iPad Mini (if you have one of course) and let me know if the problems are still so severe. Because I don‘t, I am sorry. Or maybe you just have super trained eyes

Btw, grading choice could also be strategic choice to set a new tone for a new era - after what had happened with Kevin Spacy and #metoo wave. Who knows.

 

[paulcurtis]

Ooh interesting. We're half way through S6 but nothing had leapt out at me and i wasn't looking. It's certainly exposed higher and i think the DP is the same as on S5 as well. I find the cinematography fine, it works. I find the car interiors awful though, drives me nuts.

IMHO S1 was outstanding, because the language of cinematography was used to help enhance the story whereas since then it's been about graphic composition more. Personally i prefer the underexposed look, i think it gave it a very distinct feel away from the crowd. It was like The Crown in that regard, sumptuous shadows, which i still think has perhaps the best work on TV in terms of look.

cheers
Paul

 

[Bob Gundu]

It’s a miracle Season 6 happened at all.

https://www.vulture.com/2017/12/house-of-cards-season-six-why-did-netflix-move-forward-with-it.html

 

[Björn Benckert]

I find helium to be a great camera but it really does not like high exposure. Color fringing and other artifacts come in play in an ugly way.

I like Martin Ahlgrens season the best think it was season 5 with dragons. I can not for my mind understand why such high end show would push for anything except monstro. Sure lots of lenses that does not fit but even at 6k it, as I see it, outperforms everything else out there. And swapping brains for such show can not even be lunch money. Would love to hear their thinking regarding camera choice.

 

[Thai Christen]

I find helium to be a great camera but it really does not like high exposure. Color fringing and other artifacts come in play in an ugly way.

With Helium you expose differently than Dragon. Helium I tend to slightly „underexpose“, or expose to the left and don‘t worry about noise. You still get great DR, it is just distributed differently.

 

[Thai Christen]

IMHO S1 was outstanding
Paul

Agree. After season 2 the show got boring. S6 got back my attention though. Now I admit I want to see 7

With some few exceptions, most shows are dragged on too long IMHO. This is why I sometimes prefer European mini series. Most shows end when I want to see more.

 

[Nick Gardner]

I find the car interiors awful though, drives me nuts.

Really? I think they are some of the best green screen driving stuff ever done. Certainly on par with Mindhunter which uses the same system. So far season 6 is a bit of a more high key look, but absolutely nothing has jumped out at me as being problematic.

Nick

 

[paulcurtis]

Really? I think they are some of the best green screen driving stuff ever done. Certainly on par with Mindhunter which uses the same system. So far season 6 is a bit of a more high key look, but absolutely nothing has jumped out at me as being problematic.

Nick

I assume it's a stylistic thing and perhaps a choice. But the lighting in the cars is utterly unnatural and the way the light from outside is mimic'd just doesn't connect to what is outside. It's like there's an attempt to integrate but it doesn't connect. The overall comp just feels studio. I presume the outsides are in camera with screens - not an actual vfx comp. Maybe some of it is a fixed DOF with the outside, because it's a screen that's out of focus, not an actual outside - so all the screen is the same degree of blur. Maybe that's not helping me either.

cheers
Paul

 

[Nick Gardner]

Actually the way it was done was this - We would have a speed railed out pick up truck with four cameras mounted on it, front, back, and the two sides. All the heights were adjusted to be whatever the vehicle height was, ie if the interior was an SUV, then the cameras were raised up to SUV height, and if say a porshe, lowered down. All of this footage was shot out of focus. Lenses were set to typical car interior focus distances. If the scene took place in a motorcade, the motorcade surrounded the camera car and we went off and shot the plates.

Then back on the stage, the picture car was brought into a special green screen stage referred to as the cooler. There were Large LED monitors on chain motors on all four sides of the vehicle. These LED screens were lowered to just out of frame, and played back the plates that had been shot previously. Their only purpose was lighting the scene. That's how the car interiors were lit. Then the same footage that lit the scene was comped over the green screen, in sync, so the lighting perfectly matched the plates.

I've done a lot of car work, and I can't think of any other method that looks as good, but, to each his own. It's a pretty kick ass rig though ;-)

Cheers,

Nick

 

[paulcurtis]

I've done a lot of car work, and I can't think of any other method that looks as good, but, to each his own. It's a pretty kick ass rig though ;-)

Just my luck to find one of the people that did it

IMHO the exposure from the LED panels lighting the scene is way too low perhaps. The overall exposure of the car seems pretty fixed with some slight flicker on the talent. I just did the opposite, i had to shoot in a real moving train with 4 to 5 stop extremes between light from the outside as trees passed, the open field, the buildings and so on. In fact i'm having to tame the exposure by riding the curve in post, to minimise the extremes. However it does look real, there's a point where you ride the exposure too much and it becomes too flat and unreal. We did a bunch of tests to see whether we should shoot static but you get so much accidental stuff for real when you do.

If those LEDs are high and just outside of frame then maybe the angle is wrong, or perhaps behind the camera they are lowered?

Then i think there are some DOF issues, because i don't know what stop you shot at outside but there's something a bit off with the comp and fall off - like outside was one stop and inside was much wider. It could also be just comp edges then if they are comp'd normally. Or a lack of light intensity pushing the edges of hair and things.

Yes, awesome rig. Awesome toys. Turn up the intensity

Why not shoot for real in the car on the stage with those screens behind? Most of the shots are quite static in the car and the screens could be moved around a bit?

thanks for the details Nick, always fantastic to hear straight!

cheers
Paul

 

[Nick Gardner]

Hi,

The LED screens were not tremendously high res, just really bright. Also, something like 3' by 8' or so, so they wouldn't have covered the view out the windows.

Yeah, I tend to prefer to just shoot with mostly available light out of a process trailer, I believe real highlights and flares etc. just look more real because they are. I remember back in the old days of NDing the windows you see out of and banging lights through the ones you don't. Now adays the cameras can mostly handle the contrast range. I find the more I mess with car stuff the faker it looks. Same with supermarkets. I finally just stopped trying to light them and let them look like supermarkets then clean stuff up in the close ups.

I am sure part of the decision to do the car work this way was based on what a pain in the ass it is to shoot in DC, and just getting a pass with the plates truck, even if you have 10 vehicles in the motorcade rather than doing multiple takes was easier. Also, I didn't come up with any of this stuff. I was just an operator a bunch and did 1 day as second unit DP on the car rig. Very weird show to work on. The Fincherized operating has scarred me forever. I can't look at a shot the same way ever again ;-)

Cheers,

Nick

As a side note, anytime I hear anyone complain about fan noise I think, "There were so many damn fans on the back of those LED screens in the cooler, it sounded like a hair salon and they managed to get clean sound in that room, so I really don't think this fan is a problem"
;-)

 

[Peter Strietmann]

Tough crowd here. Like any well told story I completely lost track of the photography and was sucked into the narrative. I do think however the photography is extremely good though. Very much like the formal compositions.