RED always needs secondary correction? Huh?

[CameronORourke]

I'm (gently) pushing a new commercial project that I'm producing to using RED, mostly to get a nicer, cinematic look with the 35mm back and Arri primes, and to have a greater degree of control and options in post.

We are planning to just do a one-light correction in REDAlert, and then transcode to ProRes HQ at 2K, and edit, grade and master in that. (Not do a 4K conform.)

I have folks telling our production manager and director that the RED will require extra time in post, that RED footage never looks the same in post as what you saw on-set (I guess via the Rec709 tap on the camera) and that secondary color correction is almost always required to achieve an acceptable result.

They are saying that they often can not get skin tones and backgrounds, especially neutral backgrounds, to look right without a secondary color correction (with a mask or key).

They are comparing this experience against other, more traditional acquisition formats such as HDCAM SR and P2. Saying that these formats are more what-you-see-is-what-you-get.

Assuming that you have a DP that understand digital acquisition, and is not trying to paint a look in camera, this all sounds like Voodoo to me. Does this (the need to do extra color work on RED output) make any sense to anyone? Do anyone know what might be behind the comment about balancing skin tones?

 

[Jason Ing]

Needing "secondaries" to get correct skin color and neutral backgrounds? That doesn't even make sense irregardless of whether it's a Red or not.

If they have to use a mask or key to do that, I really don't think they know what they're doing. Sorry.

Maybe there's a bias somewhere on their part? So let's take Red out of the equation here for a moment. If you're familiar with shooting RAW on a DSLR, then maybe you know how simple it is to get a correct color balance; especially if you shoot a macbeth chart and white balance from that. Your white and greys will be "neutral", right? And the other colors will be correct as well. Including skin tones.

I've seen great looking footage posted on RedUser with good skin tones, realistic colors, etc. And the poster usually says that it wasn't even cc'd or just a basic cc was done.

In other words, other people are getting great color accuracy with very little effort in post. So that's you're measuring stick you can take back to these "folks".

P.S. I haven't used RedAlert to CC though, but I doubt that has anything to do with it.

P.S, P.S. "Neutral" backgrounds? Are the backgrounds white or shades of grey? Am I not understanding what "neutral" is here? If they were trying to make something that was almost neutral but not quite, it would throw off the rest of the image, including skin tones. They need to balance off of "true neutral"; hence, use a macbeth chart.

 

[martin.kryjom]

RED is great camera, but u need to know how to use it. Many people are scared, not prepared, with out any knowlage needed to shoot on RED. Is like using 35 mm camera with out any expirience. In 100 % all pictures would be in very pure quality in such a case. Red is no different. IS not camera for people with out expirience on 35 mm, Is even harder if sombody works only with pro HD camcorders. Is just a new way and u need to know what to do to get from that tool 100 %. Just try, let them try, read about how to expose red material , and u will not need any special post for that,
Good luck

 

[David Wyatt]

Sounds like you're planning on a doing a secondary already if you're doing a basic grade in Red Alert or Red Cine and then outputting 2K Pro Res files for the final grade. Sounds like either your post guys are making excuses for not wanting to handle the Red workflow (which is pretty simple your way), or they're getting confused between looking at the RAW image and the Red Space or Rec 709 image (the RAW image will of course look low contrast and desaturated, but all the information is there. Maybe they've been supplied in the past with footage exported in Red Log??). Just get the footage close to what you want in Red Alert / Red Cine and then they can't really have any complaints or confusions.

 

[amrrahmy]

to the orignal post, they r not off or anything.
hd cameras that compress or re-encode or what ever you'll say it, will change skin tones(cuz it changes everything) to diff colors or degrees on diff light situations, so in one seen the skin tone wont match the next shot or a moving object will shift tone from frame to frame, it's common to do pri-correcton on any camera, it's the norm now.this has nothing to do with red, it's just to clarify that norm pri-correction is standard.but it has to do with ur project settings changing the raw to 422 pro res, as much as it's amazing(the prores) it will shift slight degrees, nothing that will throw away ur eyes, it's totally acceptable for commerial, and with bad lcd screens from the views end, the viewer wont notice anything anyway, he has everything shifted and over contrasted.

aside from red fanatics,

viewing what ur shooting is a big deal, and red is not the best camera for that, u dont get a rolling shutter or an accurate lcd or evf, or up to normal standards, there are no options or ways to better see the image ur recording, u'll have to do much more preparation and much more work after every single shot roll to make sure u got the shot that u need. u have to conform every single shot after u take it, which in comparison to other cameras is ridiculous, and that includes all cameras, even consumer cameras.

and the problem goes all the way to light accuracy too.

but other than the on set extra time(which would be allot), it's the same time in editing bay with any medium, if it's done right or wrong, it wont be magically fixed in post, i they cant fix it, they will make it as close as possible and acceptable.
if u can afford extra time on set instead of going with another more expensive camera or film, go for it.

to all replies to this post, if u dont have 20/20 vision, or have a diff idea of what is "acceptable" or "close enough" or "not so bad", feel free not to reply.

 

[Uli Plank]

Or maybe it's just a confusion about terms? A "first-light" in the case of a RedAlert / ProRes workflow means a rough correction of severely off values to make full use of your raw footage in the 10 bit space of ProRes. It's even not always needed if exposure was spot on and the image not too contrasty.

Final grading in Color (for eaxmple) might be seen as a "secondary" process in such cases.

But the correct usage of the term "secondary CC" is referring to individual corrections of areas or specific colors by means of masks, vignettes etc. and that is not necessarily the case to get correct skin color or neutral backgrounds. The Red is not introducing non-linearities here, the only critical situation is the well-known IR problem.

 

[CameronORourke]

Thanks to all who replied.

In regards to the term "secondary color correction", the post supervisor was very specific in his description -- needing to mask or key areas of skin tones and applying corrections to those areas. They found the need to do this when shooting against neutral backgrounds. This was offered as an example of the kind of thing that needed to done in post when working with RED footage (vs. having in post pretty much what we saw on set when working with 'regular' video cameras.)

This is a fairly well respected post supervisor who is telling my production manger and director that there will be extra costs in post just to deal with, I guess, the peculiarities of the RED. Costs that will not be present if we shoot P2, or bring in an SR tape. I been very clear that this project does not require a 4K conform -- we'll be doing 2K ProRes all the way through.

I've found that there is a lot of voodoo and misinformation around technology in the media business. I could certainly pull my client card and just tell them to suck it up -- but I would sure like to understand where this post supervisor is coming from.

 

[Paul Hazlett]

were they working with pre build 16 footage? build 16 addressed the WYSIWYG problem so now what you see on set is what you get through
Redspace.

 

[Bruce Ingram]

Just to add my two cents, having worked with a lot of P2 footage and having worked with RED footage dealing with skin tones, varied backgrounds and both subtle and extreme differences in both I have to say I find it no more difficult to grade or treat RED footage as compared to P2. Heck, I find it easier simply because I have more room in the RED footage to tweak.

We recently did a very quick, small crew shoot using the RED where we had no time confirm every shot or to do any color tests on set that included both interviews and B-Roll from a fairly tough environment to keep consistent. The results were that what we had at the end of the shoot was what the DP/Director saw and wanted while shooting. We pushed the footage in post, of course, but what was on disk was what the DP saw and was extremely happy with it.

Now, I can't speak to what this post supervisor may be thinking. Not being knowledgeable with what he/she is seeing there may be factors that they see that is influencing their recommendations. But, I can say that I have loved coloring/grading RED footage as to date and have found it no more difficult nor time consuming than P2 or other digital sources.

 

[Bing Bailey]

I think a lot of post houses are using BS excuses to either not deal with RED at all or to shore up the money they used to get for digitising and conforming projects. what he's saying sounds like complete nonsense.

 

[Lucas Wilson]

Thanks to all who replied.

In regards to the term "secondary color correction", the post supervisor was very specific in his description -- needing to mask or key areas of skin tones and applying corrections to those areas. They found the need to do this when shooting against neutral backgrounds. This was offered as an example of the kind of thing that needed to done in post when working with RED footage (vs. having in post pretty much what we saw on set when working with 'regular' video cameras.)

This is a fairly well respected post supervisor who is telling my production manger and director that there will be extra costs in post just to deal with, I guess, the peculiarities of the RED. Costs that will not be present if we shoot P2, or bring in an SR tape. I been very clear that this project does not require a 4K conform -- we'll be doing 2K ProRes all the way through.

I've found that there is a lot of voodoo and misinformation around technology in the media business. I could certainly pull my client card and just tell them to suck it up -- but I would sure like to understand where this post supervisor is coming from.

Cameron,

Meaning no overt disrespect, but your post supervisor is full of sh*t. : ) That sounds like someone who has either a) not had any real RED experience and is going off of what other have said, or b) had one or two really bad experiences with post houses who were not prepared for the workflow and has written it off.

But as an overall statement, he is way off.

What part of the world are you in? I'd be happy to try and connect you with different facilities near you that know what they're doing and can have the conversations you need to hear.

Best,

Lucas Wilson
--------------
ASSIMILATE, inc.
LA, CA, USA

 

[Hans von Sonntag]

Secondary colour correction, masks etc... for the independent control of background and foreground is often done in telecine. For example, if a grey background should get a cold feel while the forground needs some warmth.
These things are done quite often, regardless wether you shoot Red or 35mm.

Generally, Red's sensor records "white" at 5000K. Like 35mm you don't have a WB which is common to a classic video aquisition. Most scenes are lit with 5600, 3200, or even 7000 Klevin when shooting outside in the shadow. Therefore "off-white" pictures are normal. You need a dedicated colour correction system to balance the whites, mids and blacks to a neutral setting. Mostly a primary correction will accomplish this, hence RA and RC are tools that will be fine for this.

If you develope the footage not balanced to white it can happen that later on such "off-white", crooked footage needs help with the secondaries.

This does also happen to badly telecined "one light" 35mm footage.

Hans

 

[Etienne Caron]

They are saying that they often can not get skin tones and backgrounds, especially neutral backgrounds, to look right without a secondary color correction (with a mask or key).

It depend, if you use ND .9, ND 1.2, etc. you will have IR pollution and you cannot correct in post. You have to use a IR or hot mirror filter.

Dont think that many people, except every-day Red shooters, know that detail.

 

[CameronORourke]

Thanks again everyone. Not having any direct experience with RED data, this bolsters my confidence considerably.

Paul said that "Build 16 addressed the WYSIWYG problem so now what you see on set is what you get through REDspace." I assumed that I would use REC709 as my output/transcoding LUT as the video tap on the camera is also REC709. Can someone kindly point me to a link discussing the use of REDspace as the viewing/output LUT?

Etienne discussed ND filters and IR pollution. Likewise, if anyone could direct me to more details on this subject I would be grateful.

Thanks again everyone. I had about 48 hours to get up to speed on the RED technology and you all were extremely helpful. And... here it is, documented now on reduser.net!

 

[Joel Kaye]

I assumed that I would use REC709 as my output/transcoding LUT as the video tap on the camera is also REC709. Can someone kindly point me to a link discussing the use of REDspace as the viewing/output LUT?

Etienne discussed ND filters and IR pollution. Likewise, if anyone could direct me to more details on this subject I would be grateful.

Cameron, I think a day of hands on with RED would get you familiar with on set to post workflow. Since everything is metadata you can switch easily between RedSpace and REC709 in camera and in post.

As to the IR pollution this generally refers to ND filters on RED. Other cameras, like the Sony EX1 have very similar issues. The higher your ND the more IR light pollutes the image and can add a little magenta to the blacks.

If you're going to shoot .9ND+ then you should rent an IR Cut filter with the camera.

Check out the Hot Mirror sticky threads here:
http://www.reduser.net/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=32

But as to RED being different than any other camera really - I don't buy it. If they are trying to avoid a primary correction altogether I still think you could dial in RED and the on set monitors to deliver that if you had some setup time. Maybe take up Lucas on his offer and he can point you to a post house with Scratch that's happy to work with RED.

 

[James T Mather]

I have shot going on fourteen consecutive commercials on Red having come, prior to this, from shooting mostly 35mm or 16mm film, d20 or occasionally Genesis. I can safely say that the post supervisor you were speaking to is talking nonsense as I have shot commercials which encompass the exact conditions he is describing and no such "secondary correction" is necessary, either on set or in post production.

What he (and amrrahmy) are saying is just old fashioned misinformation. Twaddle.

 

[CameronORourke]

Joel, thanks for the link to the Hot Mirror threads. That completely answered my questions about the IR problem. My current working theory is that someone ran into problems on footage shot with an ND filter.

 

[amrrahmy]

I have shot going on fourteen consecutive commercials on Red having come, prior to this, from shooting mostly 35mm or 16mm film, d20 or occasionally Genesis. I can safely say that the post supervisor you were speaking to is talking nonsense as I have shot commercials which encompass the exact conditions he is describing and no such "secondary correction" is necessary, either on set or in post production.

What he (and amrrahmy) are saying is just old fashioned misinformation. Twaddle.

so i would assume ur on set work with all the cameras was, roll, action, cut, gr8 work everyone.?

that doesn't mean that u actually worked with these cameras same as Disaster Movie is not considered a movie, even if it had a theatrical release and has movie in the title.lol

 

[GlennChan]

Perhaps you are processing the footage in a way that causes them to need to do secondary CC down the line?

e.g. if you crank saturation up in Red Alert, you can make the flesh tones look green-ish. Leave saturation at 1 and do saturation in other programs to avoid that.

 

[Esteban Sosnitsky]

Cameron,
there is something you and your crew must keep in mind at all times.
RED is not an HD TV camera, it doesnt work like one nor is built with that sole purpose.

You are comparing the workflow between a HDTV cam to a Digital Cinema Cam. Once you understand that this camera is not made for plug and broadcast but just like film, you will get most of your questions answered.

It has happened to me that different reactions come from the old school you went to, in other words, if you come from the video world this camera represents something different than if you come from the film world. For example, you have to understand that this camera shoots RAW, that means it doesnt have any CC applied nor LUT nor Gamma. You have to put it afterwords. This means that what you see is a video assist, just like in film. If you are used to the P2 in which what you see is what you get, you must understand the differences.(I am not implying Red is better or worse, just different)

This also means you can output to whatever format you want, from iphone movies, to SD broadcast, to HDTV all the way to a film theater. If you come from the film world, you would know that you have the process of shooting, then developing and then color correcting and transfer. In red this would translate to shoot, import into a computer, develop the raw applying gamma and LUT or color spaces, and then grade. Its just like film. With the only difference that you can do it at home with a laptop. Process and quality are comparable. If you come from the video world you will know this is gonna be hard because what you see is what you get with all of the limitations. Not only what you see is what you get, but there is also there is nothing else you can do to that. Not the case of red, or raw. Editors generally get scared about this because of ignorance on the topic, but once they get their first hands on experience they usually change their minds. Its just that probably, what you are saving on film process, transfer and color correction is going to be their task. Hope this helps.