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A Major Motion Picture in HDV
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Just one thought; how does the cost of extra time spent grading less-than-ideal footage compare to the savings of renting cheaper cams?
Just wondered, because I heard some talk about when people started shoooting on DV, only to find the savings being eaten up by more time needed grading. I wasn’t around at the time myself, so I don’t know, but is a situation that could hit low-budget HDV productions in the back? Just curious, really.
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Walt showed me the before and after on this India footage and his color grading on it was MASTERFUL. Yes. He truly made the story by adding mood and focus in some places and colorful excitement in others which simply did not exist in the original footage. (As said in Wayne’s World while bowing feverishly, “We’re not worthy. We’re not worthy!”)
So what happens when there’s decent footage to begin with? Can’t better work come from starting with a better product? I believe the answer is fairly obvious.
And while I have little doubt that Planet Earth was helped in post there are so many aspects of its cinematogrpahy — ie. – the the one man hot air balloon camera gliding through the treetops — that simply could not be on screen without it.
Then there’s one of my favorites, production music. Put great music behind mediocre to adequate footage and suddenly no one notices the video, just how dramatic the scene is. Oops. There I’ve given away one of my secrets to how I pass myself off as a cameraman.
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Stu Maschwitz on less = more in this context:
https://prolost.com/blog/2009/2/24/slumdog-millionaire.html
Slumdog Millionaire winning the Oscar for Cinematography last night is meaningful to me in two nerdy ways.
First, Slumdog was partly shot with a digital cinema camera—the SI 2K Mini from Silicon Imaging. No, not just the game show footage, also some of the wild chases through the slums of Mumbai.
But mostly what I love about Slumdog winning is the clips played all throughout the Academy Awards ceremonies. Of course the awards show highlights only the most emotionally resonant moments of the film (there are so many to choose from, it is a magnificent movie). And those emotional moments, almost without exception, featured key shots captured at 12 frames per second (or less) and double-printed for a staccato, dreamy feel.
That’s right, in order to enhance the emotion, director Danny Boyle and cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle showed less. They showed less and communicated more.
And Stu is also a grading madman. (Stu, if you’re reading this, I mean it in the very best way possible!)
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[Asmund Voll Tesdal] “how does the cost of extra time spent grading less-than-ideal footage compare to the savings of renting cheaper cams?
“While there are actually many cases that can be made for using less expensive cameras in a whole host of different situations, you bring up an interesting point Asmund. In my 30-plus years in the business, one of the mistakes I’ve seen over and over again, is what I refer to as “spending a dollar to save a dime.”
On average, post-production costs typically represent sixty-five percent or more of most budgets (that means essentially two-thirds of the average budget is spent in post), and everyone knows this, yet you’ll see producers constantly creating new and unnecessary work for their post-production departments, which they somehow think saves time and money.
The classic example that we hear about on the FCP Forum several times every day, is the producer who saves money in camera rentals by shooting their multi-cam project with three different cameras, at different frame rates, and with different pixel dimensions. Great!!! You just saved a few hundred bucks on cameras, but it’s now going to cost you many thousands of extra dollars and many hundreds of extra man-hours in post to finish a project that will also most likely never be as good as it could have been if all cameras had matched.
The bottom line is, as I wrote in an article for Creative Cow Magazine a couple of years ago, “as technology takes us farther and farther, delivering cheaper, faster and better increasingly requires working smarter.” The problem is, people think films are made with equipment and technology, and they forget to use that powerful computer that’s positioned between their own two ears.
David
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los AngelesPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.
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[Asmund Voll Tesdal] “Just one thought; how does the cost of extra time spent grading less-than-ideal footage compare to the savings of renting cheaper cams?
“The camera wasn’t the source of “less than ideal” footage. It was the operators. I’ve seen HDV footage come through here that looks like very low quality DV because they let the whites blow out and the crush the blacks. I’ve also had HDV footage that looks like high quality HDCAM because the operator knew how to set levels correctly and even enhance the image. The Sony Z1U seems to be the best of the HDV cameras in terms of quality of image.
We use Apple Color for just about every project that comes through our shop as it gives you opportunities to do looks and grades you simply can’t do with any other tool on the Mac. I spent no more, no less time on this particular project than I do with anything else. I spent about 1/2 day color enhancing that particular project.
If you’re going to do a “major motion picture” you better plan on 4 to 7 days of color enhancement anyway.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.STOP STARING AND START GRADING WITH APPLE COLOR Apple Color Training DVD available now!
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David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los AngelesPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.
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Personally, I have gotten so spoiled with so much of the good color grading being done on shows and movies today, that when I see a show that is broadcasting the straight from the can shots, it looks unfinished to me.
There is a visual polish that color grading often (not always) brings to a project.
I have also seen a lot of over-blown grading but when it’s done right, I’ll take it anytime over the natural image.
But hey, that’s just me.
Best regards,
Ron Lindeboom
Creativity is a type of learning process where the teacher and pupil are located in the same individual.
Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
– Antoine de Saint Exupéry -
[Ron Lindeboom] “when I see a show that is broadcasting the straight from the can shots, it looks unfinished to me. “
As it should. It is unfinished. If film or video are shot properly, they have maximum latitude for grading in post, which means that, from a color standpoint, dailies should not be particularly exciting to watch.
If you look at 2K and 4K dailies shot on the RED cameras, they look rather gray, as if they’ve been stripped of color. Again, that’s because neutral color allows increased color latitude during grading.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los AngelesPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.
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I think everyone sees it essentially the way I see it. That is, movies are about telling stories and the tools used are just that, tools. If the end result is something that can engage, entertain, and enrich the viewer, it is a successful movie.
That said, the same criteria can be applied to any story telling. Nobody cares if a book was written on a $6000 computer with two 30″ screens or scrawled on the back of used placemats with a dull pencil. If the book is good, it’s good. Now if the book is bad photocopies of that illegible, grease-stained scrawl, the story is effected buy the fact that I can’t make out a third of the words and a feeling that I should wash my hands every time I touch the book. Proof reading, spell checking, type setting, layout, are all parts of the idea of a book. Leaving these out reduces the value of the best story. That is what we have with this movie. It is not an attempt to re-evaluate the tools. It is a disrespect of the craft.
I will never waste the time or money to see this movie in a theater. I did watch an online trailer in high res. The images looked over processed and abused as if from an attempt to compensate for the poor results of what was shot. Yes, that is my opinion. The thing is, as much as story, writing, acting, directing, editing, music all play a part in a successful movie, at the end of the day, film is a visual medium. We should expect a treat for our eyes as much as we expect compelling catchphrases or gratuitous violence.
There have always been financial limits that come into play in the creation of a movie. Nobody storms out of a theater in a rage because some self-financed independent didn’t have an explosive train crash or an accurate recreation of ancient Rome. The filmmaker just has to be honest with the story that can be told based on the limits of their situation.
“Crank” is not art. That is fine. It’s disposable pop, meant to titillate. 14 year old boys will love this movie. No one though should treat this as legitimate invalidation of a tried and true craft. Crank is not a subversive blow at some impenetrable industry aristocracy. It is a cheat of the audience that should expect a certain minimum standard of respect for our willingness to hand over our money in exchange for a visual experience.
We as image makers/manipulators should always strive to create the best possible visual experience we can. Don’t ever let, what you can get away with, stand in for, what you should do.
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That last line reminds me of what a school counsellor once told me about the fifference between a good and a bad job. A good job pays you for what you can do….a bad job pays you for what you can put up with.
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