Is resolution THAT important?

[Graeme Nattress]

See Muppets when it comes out - or look at Pirates 4 - very unlike other RED movies in terms of colour palette -showing the versatility. Colour palette is not determined so much by camera (unless you're shooting with a burned in colour space or black and white) but by grading (and the current grading fashion).

Graeme

 

[leebrandt33]

See Muppets when it comes out - or look at Pirates 4 - very unlike other RED movies in terms of colour palette -showing the versatility. Colour palette is not determined so much by camera (unless you're shooting with a burned in colour space or black and white) but by grading (and the current grading fashion).

Graeme

Yes, I saw Pirates 4. I was one of the few who really liked it unfortunatelly, the focus was strangely soft. Must have been the projector at the theatre I was watching, even though it's one of the best in L.A.

I reiterate that I am not suggesting that definition isn't important. Of course it is, and Red has it in spades. I was simply impressed by the amount of detail I found from a 2k Alexa film (and yes, it is 2k. It may be 3.5k acquisition, but not after debayering). This result was suprising to me since I always hear that you need higher resolution. And since it looked so great, could DR have a greater impact in image quality than resolution? Or is it simply a matter of preference?

 

[M Most]

See Muppets when it comes out - or look at Pirates 4 - very unlike other RED movies in terms of colour palette -showing the versatility. Colour palette is not determined so much by camera (unless you're shooting with a burned in colour space or black and white) but by grading (and the current grading fashion).

Grading is often influenced by the natural tendencies of the camera and its color processing. Although a number of pictures have "looks" that are largely the creation of post production, many more have looks that are the product of the photography and the production's visual intent. In other words, some are "created" looks and a lot of others are "conventionally beautiful" images. Both can be very true to the story being told if handled sensitively. I don't think it's fair to say that the look of, say, "Transformers" - created almost completely in post production - is any more valid than the look of, say, "The Dark Knight," which didn't even go through a digital intermediate grading step.

The original photography is usually used as a starting point by any colorist, even when extreme looks are requested and created. The natural tendencies of the earlier Red cameras and color processing were to produce a somewhat desaturated color pallette with brownish flesh tones. Over the last 2 years or so that has changed, but how the original photography presents itself can and does have a great deal of influence on where the final product winds up. Grading doesn't happen in a vacuum, and it doesn't really start with a blank slate.

 

[Graeme Nattress]

Alexa is 2.8k max on the pixel count - measured resolution somewhat less.... I've only ever seen it look soft in comparison to other cameras (not just RED's camera offerings) when displayed in comparison in a proper viewing environment. I'd also remember that the degree of contrast in grading has strong impact on perceived image sharpness. Commercial cinemas are often not the best viewing environment, which is a shame, especially after you see how good things can look in a good DI suite.

Graeme

 

[Graeme Nattress]

The original photography is usually used as a starting point by any colorist, even when extreme looks are requested and created. The natural tendencies of the earlier Red cameras and color processing were to produce a somewhat desaturated color pallette with brownish flesh tones. Over the last 2 years or so that has changed, but how the original photography presents itself can and does have a great deal of influence on where the final product winds up. Grading doesn't happen in a vacuum, and it doesn't really start with a blank slate.

And doesn't work in isolation either - trends and fashions go through the grading side of things just as they do with all the other aspects of film-making.

Graeme

 

[Miltos Pilalitos]

See Muppets when it comes out - or look at Pirates 4 -

I haven't seen Muppets but Pirates 4 had the worst colour grade I have ever seen in a movie of that scale. I felt so bad when I saw it and hoped it was just because of the Stereoscopic projection or something but I saw the Blu-Ray disk 2 weeks ago and it was as bad as I feared it would be. Skin tones had an awfully unrealistic yellow hue and the whole London day scene was so bad I thought I was watching a work print!

I am not bashing my RED-MX because I know for a fact I can get excellent results but the Alexa looks like it gives you amazing colour so effortlessly. (This pisses me off actually)

 

[Bruce Allen]

See Muppets when it comes out - or look at Pirates 4 - very unlike other RED movies in terms of colour palette -showing the versatility. Colour palette is not determined so much by camera (unless you're shooting with a burned in colour space or black and white) but by grading (and the current grading fashion).

In my opinion, the skin tones on Pirates 4 and overall look just was not as good as the previous 3 Pirates movies.

Don't know whether it is director, DP, famous colorist sitting on a yacht while his assistant does the work, some effect of the stereo (were the skies blown out for London stuff because they were worried it'd look too dark in stereo or because everything clipped?), or camera color rendition. But good heavens, it just looked plastic compared to the first 3.

Look forward to getting the Blu Ray and comparing directly to see if I was hallucinating or something.

I had had 5 glasses of wine before seeing it which might have impaired judgement somewhat... but on the other hand I got completely plastered for Pirates 2 and walked over to the movie theater with my friends - and still enjoyed the look immensely.

Maybe I should start a thread asking for everyone to send their favorite examples of good RED color so we can clear this up?

EDIT: Milatos just said the exact same thing.

OK, I'm doing a Color thread. Where should I put it? Not sure exactly which forum category it goes into, since it kinda spans them all.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

 

[M Most]

Don't know whether it is director, DP, famous colorist sitting on a yacht while his assistant does the work....

Not that he needs defending, but the only person I know who I would say works as hard as Stefan Sonnenfeld is perhaps Jim Jannard. And while he might not have touched every frame on Pirates, Stefan has his hands in everything that has his name on it. If you or I were involved in as many massively budgeted productions as Stef is - not to mention the countless commercials he still does, and even the television programs for which he still provides his great talent for "look" creation - I think either of us would find it a pretty impossible task to be there every minute that work is being done on every one of them as well.

He may drive a Ferrari, but he hardly sits on a yacht and calls it in. Ever.

 

[leebrandt33]

I haven't seen Muppets but Pirates 4 had the worst colour grade I have ever seen in a movie of that scale. I felt so bad when I saw it and hoped it was just because of the Stereoscopic projection or something but I saw the Blu-Ray disk 2 weeks ago and it was as bad as I feared it would be. Skin tones had an awfully unrealistic yellow hue and the whole London day scene was so bad I thought I was watching a work print!

I am not bashing my RED-MX because I know for a fact I can get excellent results but the Alexa looks like it gives you amazing colour so effortlessly. (This pisses me off actually)

Yes, I agree with the color comment. At any rate, both Alexa and Red are excellent cameras, and in my opinion are no joined by the Sony F3 s-log as the best digital cameras that give you Hollywood quality images.

 

[M Most]

And doesn't work in isolation either - trends and fashions go through the grading side of things just as they do with all the other aspects of film-making.

Graeme

Uhhh... OK. But I really don't understand your point.

 

[Mark L. Pederson]

And doesn't work in isolation either - trends and fashions go through the grading side of things just as they do with all the other aspects of film-making.

Graeme

Amen.

 

[Bruce Allen]

Not that he needs defending, but the only person I know who I would say works as hard as Stefan Sonnenfeld is perhaps Jim Jannard. And while he might not have touched every frame on Pirates, Stefan has his hands in everything that has his name on it. If you or I were involved in as many massively budgeted productions as Stef is - not to mention the countless commercials he still does, and even the television programs for which he still provides his great talent for "look" creation - I think either of us would find it a pretty impossible task to be there every minute that work is being done on every one of them as well.

He may drive a Ferrari, but he hardly sits on a yacht and calls it in. Ever.

Sorry to offend the Stefan.

This is one of those things where either I offend Stefan (saying he did a bad grade), or I offend RED (saying their camera's color looked bad in the hands of a brilliant colorist), or I offend the director and DP... so I'm going to just shut up and make a more positive thread here...

http://reduser.net/forum/showthread...al-quot-filmic-quot-color&p=823620#post823620

One thing though... I remember that with Super 8, nobody can tell what pickup shots were RED and what was film (right??).

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

 

[Jake Bastian]

I would turn that around and ask the question: have you seen the movie that the post is referring to? Because the comment was based on the fact that the original poster thought it looked great. That's not a discussion about the merits of 4K on any random picture, it's a discussion about this particular picture and how he felt it looked, regardless of its origination.

All due respect, starting a discussion about the merits of high resolution capture on any random picture is exactly the point of this thread, hence the title: "Is resolution THAT important?" rather than "Everybody go see Drive, it looks awesome!"

The comment I made was based on the original poster's subjective opinion that the film looked great. Based on that opinion the poster suggested that 2K is good enough for any random picture. Based on that it's not unreasonable to suggest that the poster may be jumping to conclusions absent any experience with 4K projection.

And based on posts he's made later in this thread about the grades of various other films and the softness of them, it's also not unreasonable to think that the theater he's watching these films in is inconsistent at best and probably not the best place to be seeing films and coming to the conclusion that 2K and 1 extra stop of DR is all you need.

 

[Joe Kleber]

If resolution isn't important, then why do Hassleblads have 50 Mpixels?

If I want to see/use ultra high res print (in some cases), then why don't I want to see/use ultra high res motion? Answer: I do.

My reasons may be totally different than yours.

 

[Mitch Gross]

I'm not going to give any opinion on the comments here, just some factual notes on some productions referenced. I do not believe that Drive was captured in ARRIRAW. I do not know if it was captured in ProRes or if the signal went to an outboard recorder. I do know that Game of Thrones is recorded in ProRes, although I can't recall at the moment if it is 12-bit 4444 or 10-bit 422.

 

[Alexander Ibrahim]

Of course 2K looks like crap compared to 4K!

I think it takes quite a bit of training or experience watching 4K to see the difference reliably.

... an analogy.

Most consumers have a hard time telling between 720p and SD. Of course ... most of them see primarily 1080p upscaled DVD and 1080i/720p cable/DTV.

We don't because we work with real 1080p+ sources all the time.

The guys at Red think this is so obvious because they go into work every day and see 4K. Even when I am working with Red 4K or 5K footage, the best I ever see is usually 2.5k (2560x1440 monitors)

 

[M Most]

I'm not going to give any opinion on the comments here, just some factual notes on some productions referenced. I do not believe that Drive was captured in ARRIRAW. I do not know if it was captured in ProRes or if the signal went to an outboard recorder. I do know that Game of Thrones is recorded in ProRes, although I can't recall at the moment if it is 12-bit 4444 or 10-bit 422.

That's interesting about the feature.

As far as television, every television show I know of that's shooting Alexa is recording using ProRes 4444 on SxS cards. It would surprise me if Game of Thrones or any other show is doing anything else. Now, how they handle that in post is a very mixed bag, with some reconforming from the ProRes files, and others (more than you want to think) going into Avid at DNxHD115 and staying there, bypassing a conform altogether. Horrifying but true.

 

[Tim Whitcomb]

I haven't seen Muppets but Pirates 4 had the worst colour grade I have ever seen in a movie of that scale. I felt so bad when I saw it and hoped it was just because of the Stereoscopic projection or something but I saw the Blu-Ray disk 2 weeks ago and it was as bad as I feared it would be. Skin tones had an awfully unrealistic yellow hue and the whole London day scene was so bad I thought I was watching a work print!

I am not bashing my RED-MX because I know for a fact I can get excellent results but the Alexa looks like it gives you amazing colour so effortlessly. (This pisses me off actually)

FWIW - We have had a RED MX and ALexa on the SAME SHOOT recently and all we had to do to match the ALexa was use a 1/8 Digicon filter. It was insane really how identical they looked on a color accurate monitor after we dropped that Digicon in fron of the MX. I am guessing Alexa uses some sort of low con filter internally to achieve their signature look, its MOSTLY a TV camera that goes straight to Prores... so creating a WYSIWYG look, makes sense

To original poster... do yourself a favor and go visit Red studios hollywood and have them demo 2K and 4K for you. In that context, its hard to get excited about 2K... especially when you walk up close to the screen.

 

[Pietro Impagliazzo]

I'm not going to give any opinion on the comments here, just some factual notes on some productions referenced. I do not believe that Drive was captured in ARRIRAW. I do not know if it was captured in ProRes or if the signal went to an outboard recorder. I do know that Game of Thrones is recorded in ProRes, although I can't recall at the moment if it is 12-bit 4444 or 10-bit 422.

Thanks for the info Mitch!

IYO does the Alexa have a colorimetry advantage over the Epic?

Because I'm usually stunned with the colors that the Alexa puts out, they are very soothing and classy.

 

[Mitch Gross]

Anonymous and Hugo Cabaret were both shot very on early on, well before RAW or ProRes was enabled on the camera, so I believe both were recorded in HDCAM SR on SRW1 decks. ProRes was enabled about a year ago and RAW in February. All of the ALEXA features thus far released were not been captured in RAW, including Mr. Popper's Penguins and Prom.

Just some stats here guys. There's tons of big work being shot on REDs as we all know. And there are a large number of ARRIRAW features on the way. What will be the most interesting will be the projects that mix the two, as will inevitably happen. There will likely be post work to make them each look like the other, but the fact is that they will be mixed and it is likely that no one will know which shots are from which when looking at the finished product.