skin tones, not satisfied.

[Josh Negrin]

Sorry in advance for not saying anything that would be useful in relation to this post, but I just wanted to point out… and do love the fact that directly under this post "skin tones, not satisfied" is a post titled
"Man I love the Epic."

When I started out coloring RED footage (during the 1st iteration of RED color science) I remember grading.. baking in.. and then grading again. Now, with REDcolor3 it's pretty simple to dial in a "good" skin tone (again subjective.. but I'm pretty picky.. and by picky I mean I hated the skin tones in "Knowing")

 

[Florian Stadler]

Send some shots to my color correction company and we can show you some looks.

www.buntefarben.com

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

Maybe a dumb question... it makes sense that you can't post footage but can you spend a minute getting a shot of an unidentifyable extra using your setup and post that to illustrate what you're fighting with?

Generally, publicly releasing any footage from a real production requires clearance from the highest levels. That's a non-trivial process and circumventing it even with out-takes and B-Roll is definitely a fireable offense on everything I've ever worked on.

 

[Vadim Bobkovsky]

Generally, publicly releasing any footage from a real production requires clearance from the highest levels. That's a non-trivial process and circumventing it even with out-takes and B-Roll is definitely a fireable offense on everything I've ever worked on.

Well, is there a reason why cinematographer couldn't replicate the lighting setting in which he or she had problems with the flesh tones, I mean totally different shoot, separate from paid projects? I don't think anybody is asking anyone to put their careers in jeopardy. That's kind of obvious, really.

 

[Marc Wielage]

Generally, publicly releasing any footage from a real production requires clearance from the highest levels. That's a non-trivial process and circumventing it even with out-takes and B-Roll is definitely a fireable offense on everything I've ever worked on.

That's true, but: any big production I've ever worked on has always scheduled a camera test day so that the DP could get a model in front of the camera, trying out different outfits, shot against different sets, and using different filtration and lighting schemes. One hour in a color-correction room will tell them for sure if they'll be able to get the images they want later on.

Filmmakers who think that they're stuck with the images they see during the shoot are very, very ignorant of the post process. My joke is to tell them, "what you see in editing is the worst​ the movie will ever look. It only gets better from here on."

 

[Van Royko]

Can anyone explain the skin tones in House of Cards?

Compare that with Game of Thrones. Im personally not yet convinced this is just a post issue....

 

[Sergei Franklin]

Look at "Flight" and "Rust and Bone" for skin tones.

 

[Matt Gottshalk]

Or Jackie Robinson "42".

 

[Randall Weatherington]

I was responsible for a lot of color timing (grading) during my career.
One thing I was really surprised to find was that there were a lot of people who were to one degree or another, color blind, and they were responsible for the look.
Of course, I also met some people who admitted they were color blind, and wanted nothing to do with grading.

This is not to say that the people responsible for the look on your movie are color blind, but if a color blind test were given, I'm sure some would see it differently than others.

 

[Brant Hadfield]

It's in the curves. Even in the standard RedGamma3, yes, skin tones can look very flat. You have to adjust the curves in order to pull the skin tones out. Although not "skin tones" per se , the aerials in the Istanbul pursuit in Skyfall were shot with an Epic from an octocopter or similar rig. You cannot see any difference between those aerials and the other footage shot with the Alexa, in terms of color rendition. It's all in the curves. You have to adjust them, not much though. But skin tones really live in the mid to highs.

 

[Marc Wielage]

This is not to say that the people responsible for the look on your movie are color blind, but if a color blind test were given, I'm sure some would see it differently than others.

I know of a couple of big-name directors who I believe are slightly color-blind or biased with certain hues. This explains why some of their films are tilted so far in certain directions: they don't necessarily see things the way anybody else does.

I can recall a client some years back who was incredibly sensitive to green, and would totally overreact if there was even the slightest hint of green in the picture. He finally gave up yelling at me when we color-timed the Sean Connery film Robin & Marion, which takes place mostly in Sherwood Forest, and he finally let me put some green in it.

Can anyone explain the skin tones in House of Cards? Compare that with Game of Thrones. Im personally not yet convinced this is just a post issue....

I'd call it a deliberate creative choice. I've seen situations where the director and the DP almost literally come to blows over the look of a film. Generally, the director wins, even if he or she has bad taste in color. As long as the movie tells the story and makes money, I'm not sure anybody but the technical crew and informed people really care.

 

[Nick Morrison]

Can anyone explain the skin tones in House of Cards?

Compare that with Game of Thrones. Im personally not yet convinced this is just a post issue....

There is a persistent trend of "if it look bad" it's RED's fault, but if it looks good its "because of the Alexa". I don't how this became so prevalent.

I've seen lots of very bad stuff shot on Alexa, and great stuff shot on RED, and vice-versa.

More often than not, it's the DRIVER, not the CAR, that matters.

 

[Dave Blackham]

There is a persistent trend of "if it look bad" it's RED's fault, but if it looks good its "because of the Alexa". I don't how this became so prevalent.

I've seen lots of very bad stuff shot on Alexa, and great stuff shot on RED, and vice-versa.

More often than not, it's the DRIVER, not the CAR, that matters.

I think this is true.

One reason Ive thought may affect Red is there are more cameras around and as less expensive camera tends to attract less expensive lighting fixtures (theres a fair few evil looking LED and Flouro light sources about) or possibly not ideal RC-X transcodes. It can result in less than optimum images in terms of colour. But I still don't think theres anything wrong with with the camera. That said Ive seen poor results from Alexa, Red, Sony and Panasonic not to mention poor results from both Kodak and Fuji Film stocks transfered on Spirit and Ursa Telecines plus poor film scans.

One reason why we invested in Red in the first place was after watching the first episode of Wallender (DoP Anthony Dod-Mantle) and seeing how good the images were. We have not been disappointed.

 

[Randall Weatherington]

When I first saw Redcine, and the image manipulation tools that it contained, I went, "Wow! This is just like Photoshop for .r3d files. They're not charging for this?"
I have played around with different looks on the same file, and I can say that I can get just about any look I want out of Redcine X.
When I read that people are not getting the look that they want, I start to suspect that they are not using the tools or at least the correct tools in Redcine X or even that they are just leaving the image in one of the presets.
Graeme, Jim, et all have stated that the presets can be used as a starting point for manipulation, and not necessarily as an end-all.
Graeme is likely currently finishing expanding the ranges of the tools necessary to accommodate the range of the Dragon sensor.
My guess is that right now, one could take a .r3d file from a Dragon sensor, throw it into Redcine X, but then would have to manipulate it a lot just to get a decent looking image.