How to get "film look" on Epic for cinema?

[Brett Harrison]

All that can be done totally manually and looks fine. All you need is a modicum of skill and experience. There's no need to use a LUT just to get from Cineon, Log space, or RedLogFilm to Rec709. Just turn the knobs until you like the picture.

Yes, recently saw someone from CO3 commenting they would often just do it "by hand" or occasionally with a film emulation LUT.

There's two considerations here: the 'gamma' or 1D contrast curve, which is a two column table of input and output values for luminosity. Then there's the color space transform, i.e. redgamma3 or dragoncolor, also known as the matrix transform, because it is a 3D transform.

redcolor is a rec709-targeted color matrix transform.

So if you just apply a 1D curve to it then you're in business.

Here's a comment about this from Graeme Nattress:

http://www.reduser.net/forum/showth...LM-vs-Gamma3&p=1167497&viewfull=1#post1167497

For grading RLF, it's best to design a nice curve that maps the log to a nominal video gamma space, and then insert your grade before that curve. This ensures good consistent tonality and access at all times to the full dynamic range of the log in a neutral manner. Even some top graders will also add some grade after the curve (effectively grading in video space) but I'm not personally so convinced of that approach.

The best way to deal with colours going out of gamut is with well crafted secondaries to pull them in the way you want them to appear, which also means grading on a colour calibrated display of the target gamut. Automated methods all have their own drawbacks, not least that they're not under your control.

Graeme

But going back to the original question about making a cinematic image with RED - any camera - as others have pointed out, it's many things. Just know that with the methods outlined above, people have colored images that ended up looking very much like a movie.

A good exercise would be to take a LUT (perhaps just the ARRI one, but make sure you get the 1D lut, because you don't want the ARRI rec709 color matrix transform on top of the redgamma matrix, which is like adding mayonnaise on your ketchup on your burger) make sure it's high res and the right type for your color software.

Grade with this, then do a grade making a curve like Graeme suggests and use it in place of the LUT. Try and make the two grades look the same. Leave them to cool and come back later to see if you can tell which is which.

As Mark asserts, it's down to your ability to see if it's right or wrong and then adjust accordingly.

 

[Hrvoje Simic]

A good exercise would be to take a LUT (perhaps just the ARRI one, but make sure you get the 1D lut, because you don't want the ARRI rec709 color matrix transform on top of the redgamma matrix, which is like adding mayonnaise on your ketchup on your burger) make sure it's high res and the right type for your color software.

I applaud your good intentions, but I'd suggest not recommending fiddling with LUTs for the purposes they weren't designed for, especially to people with less experience, because if one doesn't know what he's doing things tend to go in various directions. Some of which are unwanted and questionable results which sometimes lead to forum drama and hundreds of unnecessary posts.

 

[Brett Harrison]

I applaud your good intentions, but I'd suggest not recommending fiddling with LUTs for the purposes they weren't designed for, especially to people with less experience, because if one doesn't know what he's doing things tend to go in various directions. Some of which are unwanted and questionable results which sometimes lead to forum drama and hundreds of unnecessary posts.

I prefer 'tinkering'.

 

[Frank Glencairn]

All that can be done totally manually and looks fine. All you need is a modicum of skill and experience. .

Well...

I had a fellow colorist saying that nobody needs a LUT, it's just wrong and lazy, and that you can do it all by hand.
He than tried to emulate a LUT from the Osiris package, that was based on real film and chemical tweaking - he gave up after an hour :wink5:

 

[Scott Crawley]

Ha ha ... Here we see Mark and Frank making opposing points that are each completely valid. In my idealistic twenties such a thing would ave driven me mad. Now I am rather enjoying it. ;-)

 

[Nick Shaw]

Jake, is there a particular LUT in the Resolve set that you'd recommend to use as Cineon-Rec709?.

You could try my REDlogFilm to REDgamma3 or 4 LUT. See the link in my signature.

 

[mihail moskov]

Well...

I had a fellow colorist saying that nobody needs a LUT, it's just wrong and lazy, and that you can do it all by hand.
He than tried to emulate a LUT from the Osiris package, that was based on real film and chemical tweaking - he gave up after an hour :wink5:

It is technically possible, but reasonably accurate emulations would need instruments which are generally missing from grading tools. You'd really need a high resolution 3d color chart to work on. Working from practical images is mostly doomed to resulting in superficial similarities. (But superficial is often good enough). The main culprit is hue shifts in film (and especially positive film) happening non-linearly with increasing saturation. You can't just pull some hue-hue curves and luma-sat curves (although both of these can get you far) and call it a day. Same with working on RGB curves.

 

[David Battistella]

How is a "correct rec709" LUT determined?

Reds ads own rec 709 was not "great" so really a red to REC709 LUT is just trying to emulate a standard or copy another interpretation.

Arri, Sony or red all need to be mapped differently to display rec709 which itself is an HD color space.

How different is the color going to be when comparing Vimeo on a computer display vs. Vimeo on your iPad retina vs how it might look on a MacBook pro retina display?

battistella

 

[Scott Crawley]

How different is the color going to be when comparing Vimeo on a computer display vs. Vimeo on your iPad retina vs how it might look on a MacBook pro retina display?

That is completely out of our hands, isn't it? That happens on the consumer's side of the equation. The best we can do is produce our material to a common standard that can be translated by the consumer's display of choice to recreate colors accurately so that we the producers and our audience can share a common color experience. Rec 709 is basically equivalent to a dictionary, no?

I'm not sure I understand your point but you seem to be confusing production standard color definitions with display profiles.

 

[Frank Glencairn]

How different is the color going to be when comparing Vimeo on a computer display vs. Vimeo on your iPad retina vs how it might look on a MacBook pro retina display?

battistella

The resolution (retina) doesn't matter here, but on iPad, iPhone and Apple Laptops blacks are always more crushed than on other devices.
On top of that different browsers and different players also can make quite a bit of difference - it's a mess.

 

[Minu Park]

Hmm,

regarding grading I hope this would help.

I just finished 48hour challenge with Red. Because of my editor screwed me I submit without grade.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHh_wN0VI58&list=UUUOE9px_ht7D5I_m-uKmQjg

Now, after a week, I just finished first draft of the grading - it took me 2 hours only.

https://vimeo.com/111928081

Password:0204

My D.P was really un experienced person(Living room shot) so I took over the Kitchen shot with my self. - Don't ever hire student ever.

Grading make it look better, beyond that it could keep the continuity too.

There are many reasons we are using RED (Raw) rather than other cameras don't we?

 

[Marc Wielage]

I had a fellow colorist saying that nobody needs a LUT, it's just wrong and lazy, and that you can do it all by hand.
He than tried to emulate a LUT from the Osiris package, that was based on real film and chemical tweaking - he gave up after an hour.

Come to LA, and I'll show you it can be done. LUTs are useful for comparison and to give people different potential choices, but I think you can really get there with curves, primaries, secondaries, and keys. The advantage of doing it within the color corrector is that you won't violate the 32-bit internal processing within the color-correction system, and you don't have to clip it. The other advantage is that you can optimize the look for many different types of footage, which the so-called "look LUTs" can't do. They'll work some of the time, but not all the time.

You can look upon a "look LUT" as you would a lens filter: they might work with certain lenses, certain kinds of exposure, and certain kinds of lighting, but they won't work 100% of the time with everything. Talent and experience will always yield a better result.

I don't dispute there are cable shows and other low-end users that have no choice but to throw on a look and go, because there's just no time and money available to hire an experienced colorist to go through the show. Sometimes the looks work, sometimes not, but it's better than sending out Log footage or just using the stock Rec709 LUT.

I have absolutely no problem with LUTs that are part of the manufacturer's actual color science (also known as a "technical LUT"), and I think those are very important. And display LUTs are very important for VFX departments so they can determine the final colorspace for the effects shots they're working on. I also have no problem with plug-ins like the Sapphire OFX stuff, because those do things impossible with conventional controls (like adding lens flares, distortions, ripples, reflections, and so on).

 

[Frank Glencairn]

I agree Marc, at least to a certain degree.

For many guys, LUTs are just the new MagicBullet-Looks - slap it on your timeline and call it a day.
This was wrong back in the MagicBullet days, and using a LUT as a look in the same way, is wrong today.
MB Looks was a mighty tool in Premiere/AE, compared to the on-board tools, but it was totally abused, and used in a wrong way.
Most folks only clicked on the presets and that was that.
Same thing goes for LUTs today. For me, they are just a starting point, to get in a certain ballpark - than I work from there.

 

[Paul Russell]

Not just a starting point. Sometimes it's inspirational to run through a library of LUTs on certain scene, just as a creative shortcut.

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

Please do not do this. RLF has a Cineon gamma curve and as such, by arbitrarily increasing contrast you will never get a proper image. The only way to correctly work with RLF is to use a proper Cineon to Rec-709 LUT. Because RCX doesn't allow use of LUTs, then the only proper way left is to grade in RCX with RG4.

Bollocks. What is this "proper image" you speak of? A "proper image" is whatever looks good and you don't need a ISO standardized rec709 curve to achieve that. In fact 99.9% of REDUsers are working in sRGB which is a totally different curve from rec709. So if they grade on an sRGB computer monitor they *shouldn't* be using a rec709 LUT. It's doubly nonsense because RG4 *is* an "arbitrary contrast" curve. It's just a random curve that RED thought would look good. It's no more "correct" or wrong than any other.

You know what you *shouldn't* be doing? Applying a contrast curve on top of another contrast curve. You can start to get odd blending issues where the two curves conflict and then you get either banding or else solarization. Starting from RLF is the most neutral curve you can start from. In fact the RG4 curve is relative to RLF as a starting point.

 

[Marc Wielage]

You know what you *shouldn't* be doing? Applying a contrast curve on top of another contrast curve. You can start to get odd blending issues where the two curves conflict and then you get either banding or else solarization. Starting from RLF is the most neutral curve you can start from. In fact the RG4 curve is relative to RLF as a starting point.

Yes, I agree with that. RedLogFilm works very well, and I think there's more than enough range to get where you need to go without any LUTs from that point on. It just takes effort and experience.

 

[Erick von Schulz]

I see this all the time.. People think they can get a Red camera or an Alexa and think you point it and it should look like a 165 million dollar Ridley Scott movie.

You can not point a great camera at two friends from your neighborhood against the white walls of their bedroom and wonder why you don't have the look of Aliens.

Set Design
Lighting
Composition
Actors
Camera movement
Editing
Color grading

All of these play a part in it.


You can get big budget looks on a small budget. But you will need to plan and really have a great looking set or location you can use as well as a great lighting person.

Any camera in the hands of an expert and a movie budget will look good.

It's not the camera that gives the Epic movie look.

It's the epic vision of the person behind the camera. That can some how get that look to an audience.

 

[James Falco]

I am probably jumping incredibly late in this conversation.
But after reading a lot of the comets, and most of them are incredibly informative and constructive.


I think there is two things entirely overlooked.


One is, film, or cinema look can be entirely grading independant.
In general cinema existed way before digital grading was invented.
Film noir is a good example of such.


Second, aside all amazing camera and lighting technology, and all advanced framing and lighting techniques.
What we often overlook is basic human talent.

If you don't have the eye for it and can't understand the subtlety of story telling in a motion picture.
No school or camera will compensate for it.


Even an iPhone can be a great camera in the hands of a talented DP, where a RED DRAGON in the hands of a butcher becomes a rental house. ; )



PS: Side note, I love my Epic, and yes, I just rented it out to a fellow DP.

 

[Joel VanZeventer]

Does anyone shoot with Schneider Digicon or Black Magic Filters? Thoughts?

 

[Aaron michaels]

I spoke to a film house about the look and they told me that hollywood drops a ton of money converting the digital shots on to 35mm film / grade and go back to a digital format.