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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Is Red one bad for music videos?

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precious

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Most artists on MTV music videos always have a shiny skin tone that the film cameras achieves for them http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sF84pIhP5UM

But after reviewing so many music videos shot on red one, for example watch this video http://www.vimeo.com/902113/ I have noticed that red one doesn't achieve a shiny skin tone which is a very important artistic tool when you are dealing with music videos. Even the worst arri S2 camera would achieve a better skin coloration than that in the above video.
I really love the red one camera because it is revolutionising the way we see digital cameras but i believe it cannot compete with film cameras when it comes to music videos.
 
That's called color correction. Chances are the folks doing the videos on MTV have the $$$$ for a full Da Vinci session with a seasoned colorist not to mention full lighting packages and an experienced makeup artist on the set. Maybe the videos you've looked at so far from indie RED shooters haven't. Also I'd imagine half of the videos you see on MTV nowadays are being shot high def so there goes the film argument...

Noah
 
we have shot many music videos with red#0031. the latest a Switchfoot video for a song that will be promoted along side the Narnia film.

they have all been well received videos and i strongly suggest using the camera for your music videos.

Music Videos to date:

Daughtry
Juanes
Kina Grannis
Bryan Adams
Switchfoot

red#0031 will also be shooting a Rock the Vote PSA with Christine Aguilera as the talent on Thursday, it doesn't get shine-ier than her.
 
Noah is spot on.

LIGHTING, COLOR CORRECTION, and POST.

Music video budgets that you may be used to with the "Shiny look"

Could have budgets exceeding well over $150,000.00 + or -

A significant portion of that can be used in Lighting / The director of photography.

Another large part is often times used on a Da Vinci telecine transfer with like Noah a said seasoned colorist.

And sometimes they would finish post on a Fire, Flint or Flame system.
Thats another solid chunk of money.
With again a strong operator.
And that person or persons may apply another color correction which enhances the image even more.
Makeup artist? $2,000.00 per day

If you spend $150,000 ++++ dollars on a 2 day music video shoot shot with a RED.
You will find it hard to tell if it was shot on film or RED.
 
Most of the "glossy" skintones are achieved in telecine when grading crossed.
One grades from the negative and uses a negative videosignal from the Spirit. Then, hights become blacks and vice versa. The results are skintones that get a shining roll-off in the whites due to the inverted controls.

Digital CC tools are usually limited in this regard. I know that Color cannot do this but SpeedGrade can, Scratch perhaps as well, I'm not sure about the big ones (Baslight, Lustre, etc...)

Most CC pakages also have Bleach-Bypass as a setup in their system integrated. This also creates the "glossy" look but much harder, desaturated and a less beauty-look.

Hans
 
hi precious,

shot a music video some days ago and well, shiny skin tones are no problem. it depends on the light composition and finally the color correction. find enclosed two "raw" pictures - still with a shiny look. we will color correct by a da vinci system on friday and than I´ll post the video...

cheers
 
It's all lighting and grading.
You can get that look easily with a HDCAM. You just have to know what you are doing.
RED wont make you a better cinematographer.
RED is 35mm so you have to work precise.
If you thouhgt HD is hard to pull focus, then have a nice day with RED.

Lighting is everything. 80% of the picture is light.
Then there is the grading but that's where RED is strong and much fun.
 
Hans von Sonntag said:
Most of the "glossy" skintones are achieved in telecine when grading crossed.
One grades from the negative and uses a negative videosignal from the Spirit. Then, hights become blacks and vice versa. The results are skintones that get a shining roll-off in the whites due to the inverted controls.

Digital CC tools are usually limited in this regard. I know that Color cannot do this but SpeedGrade can, Scratch perhaps as well, I'm not sure about the big ones (Baslight, Lustre, etc...)

Most CC pakages also have Bleach-Bypass as a setup in their system integrated. This also creates the "glossy" look but much harder, desaturated and a less beauty-look.

Hans
Click to expand...

I have a question about Red image feeling.

I have seen a lot of footage on this forum from various sources and levels of expertise in matters of filming. Even Darius Kondji, that I know a specialist of color, gets a final image desaturated, with a slight white overall feeling.

I see the commercial you shot with Red, having that feeling too, even if you get great contrast and black which are properly black.

My concern is: can we have sunny, colorful, balanced (nor oversaturated or desaturated) imaging, like we could get with kodak 35mm stockfilm? I haven't seen yet that kind of image, I know that desaturation can be beautiful, but I also want some films to be more colorful and not having this slightly pale feeling. Like in many films where color has a stylistic and narrative part to play (Wong Kar Wai's films, kurosawa's Ran etc.)

I'm asking because I'm planning a Short movie (I'm not DOP but director) and the Red camera is very attractive for many reasons, but I d'like to achieve a certain look, and I'm not sure whether the digital 4K cameras can provide this look.
 
David Block said:
My concern is: can we have sunny, colorful, balanced (nor oversaturated or desaturated) imaging, like we could get with kodak 35mm stockfilm? I haven't seen yet that kind of image, I know that desaturation can be beautiful, but I also want some films to be more colorful and not having this slightly pale feeling. Like in many films where color has a stylistic and narrative part to play (Wong Kar Wai's films, kurosawa's Ran etc.)
Click to expand...

This is a byproduct of wide-gamut imaging. Squeezing all the information the camera can record in to a viewing space like your monitor results in the washed out, desaturated look that seems to be the default you're seeing everywhere.

The upside of this is that you can pull out highly saturated and constrasty images without losing quality of gradations like you would with HD.
 
cailyoung said:
This is a byproduct of wide-gamut imaging. Squeezing all the information the camera can record in to a viewing space like your monitor results in the washed out, desaturated look that seems to be the default you're seeing everywhere.

The upside of this is that you can pull out highly saturated and constrasty images without losing quality of gradations like you would with HD.
Click to expand...


Is this byproduct a result of the Red software process from the Raw images?
because when you get from a 35mm footage even to a compressed Mpeg2 DVD image, you also have lost a lot of color information, which doesn't result in this pale feeling.

How can we solve that "problem" (which actually might not be a problem if you want a nice desaturated look, but might be a problem if that doesn't match the image you're trying to achieve)
 
I asked the question before but i didn't get any satisfying response. what i am trying to know is whether there is more to achieving a good skin tone than just the camera it self.
 
David Block said:
Is this byproduct a result of the Red software process from the Raw images?
because when you get from a 35mm footage even to a compressed Mpeg2 DVD image, you also have lost a lot of color information, which doesn't result in this pale feeling.

How can we solve that "problem" (which actually might not be a problem if you want a nice desaturated look, but might be a problem if that doesn't match the image you're trying to achieve)
Click to expand...

It's not a bug, but a feature, and if you had looked @ filmscans, you'd recognised some of the RED carracteristca. Those are graded, too before dropped on DVD's...

A more important question:
Is music videos bad for your RED... :)
 
kosmos3d said:
we have shot many music videos with red#0031. the latest a Switchfoot video for a song that will be promoted along side the Narnia film.

they have all been well received videos and i strongly suggest using the camera for your music videos.

Music Videos to date:

Daughtry
Juanes
Kina Grannis
Bryan Adams
Switchfoot

red#0031 will also be shooting a Rock the Vote PSA with Christine Aguilera as the talent on Thursday, it doesn't get shine-ier than her.
Click to expand...

I just wanted to say that if have this video on youtube try to tag them the word red one. in that case they would show up when some body searches for videos shot on red.
 
gunleik said:
It's not a bug, but a feature, and if you had looked @ filmscans, you'd recognised some of the RED carracteristca. Those are graded, too before dropped on DVD's...

A more important question:
Is music videos bad for your RED... :)
Click to expand...

I know they are graded but I have seen graded footage shot with Red, without finding any image achieving this kind of look I'm looking for. Let me give you examples.

ran_sc1.jpg

2046_photo.jpg

2001SpaceOdyssey094.jpg


And can anyone produce here a still from a Red Shot that can achieve these kinds of look, I would be convinced. Especially the first and third ones.

I add that I'm convinced by the camera in many cases, including music video clips... yet for feature films, I still haven't seen a frame dramatized by colour and shot with Red. I'm waiting for the Che experience footage, meanwhile I am eager to see a still that I could grade in Photoshop to fully convince me, without any doubt any more. Cause I still have some doubt about the colour treatment in the process.
 
David Block said:
How can we solve that "problem" (which actually might not be a problem if you want a nice desaturated look, but might be a problem if that doesn't match the image you're trying to achieve)
Click to expand...

I'm on the road and don't have anything to post but you can definitely get very saturated images out of RED. As long as your scene is lit up (preferably daylight) and there actually are saturated colors in the scene then RED can produce them. It's just that most people around here aren't shooting that style.

But you can walk outside and shoot a yellow car on green grass against a blue sky with a polarizer and you'll have color overload.

edit: I just saw the pictures you uploaded. Those don't look particularly saturated to me (but I'm on a latop) so maybe I'm not interpreting what you're talking about right. The second two shots should be easy for RED. The first one has a subtlety to the colors that I'd guess would be a little different from camera to camera - film to ccd to cmos.

You're just going to have to rent a RED and test. But I can promise a lot of what RED is capable of lies within the color correction and I'm certain much footage out there does not yet live up to the potential of what the camera can do.
 
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