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On Black Crush
I could have put this in color, but this gets a lot more “real world editor” traffic, so I put it in here…
So, I’m in the final stages of an indie film and I’m grading in color. Though there will definitely be a “premiere” in a theater, I don’t think it’s likely for any kind of theatrical release. The DP, who is a video DP, is famous for overcrushing blacks from “way back” in the Beta SP days, but we managed to get him to NOT do it for the film.
Trouble is, it’s a “horror/suspense” genre film, and though I tried to explain the grading process to everyone involved before hand, we ended up with a lot of stuff that’s underexposed. (On DVCPRO HD no less.) Key light highlights on skin at about 35 ire in some scenes because we have a practical in the scene that hits 100. (sigh.)
So, as a result, we don’t have a lot of detail in the “blacks”– the shadows all fall in the < 5 ire, and I'd be lifting it if it were film or analog video... The problem is, of course, that modern TV's crush the hell out of the blacks making what was a problem a nightmare.. (LCDs having especially bad dropoff, natch). DVCPRO HD, of course has major, major noise in the dark areas, so lift/gain etc is pretty much out of the question. I'm doing the best I can do on "calibrated" monitors, and the results look great on "tube TVs" but predictably all those modern LCDs & Plasmas are really crushing those blacks, so things look overcrushed on the Director's home TVs, and he is crazy concerned about sending the discs out to the producers/ investors, etc. 1) What is your general philosophy on this issue of "torch settings" on consumer sets? 2) Any "big secrets" I missed? Because we managed to get the DP NOT to crush the blacks, it looks a little "video." I have been taking the bottom 5 ire and so% and locking the luma curve, then crushing ABOVE that (slightly) to preserve as much black detail as possible. (after setting my lift, gamma and gain appropriately, boosting exposure, while minimizing noise..) Part of me wishes we let the DP do his thing so I could just say "Sorry, there's no detail there..." 🙂 Mostly, I just want to get opinions on black detail/levels on "calibrated" sets vs. consumer sets, and how you grade accordingly. Keep in mind they've got no budget left (for me anyway) to do multiple grades or anything like that....
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5 Replies
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[Cory Caplan] “Keep in mind they’ve got no budget left (for me anyway) to do multiple grades or anything like that….”
I think that’s part of your answer, right there. That plus “garbage in-garbage out”.
You can’t create detail where it doesn’t exist, and you can’t expect to get Tiffany on a WallMart budget. If they can’t pay you for the time it would take to really work creatively with the problem, then you just have to tell them that.
Arnie
Now in post: Peristroika, a film by Slava Tsukerman
https://www.arniepix.com/blog -
I recently rented David Lynch’s “Eraserhead” on DVD. Upon playing the movie, there was a little calibration lecture. It said “You will see a shadowy image of a man. Turn your contrast to 50% and adjust your brightness until you can just barely see him”. I’m not a colorist, but I thought I’d throw that out there. Maybe a little warning on the DVD to adjust the brightness beforehand.
Sean
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Tough situation… Sean’s idea might be the best. Even a poorly calibrated CRT can be alright for a client viewing… but the preset modes that I’ve seen on many LCD’s are beyond terrible. Uber crushed blacks, blooming whites, saturation pushed, edge enhancement cranked, 9500K white point….
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Yeah, I remember that actually. Many modern videogames have black level calibration, too.. (Zelda on the wii pops to mind) However, even if you put it on the disc, my feeling is that those who would take the time to do it have already run an Avia (or whatever) calibration disc through the system.. (Or the standard THX calibration)
Dealing with “investors” and “producers” is tricky– I don’t know how well they’d take to a “ya gotta calibrate your TV to watch your movie” thing– even though WE know you really should, anyway….
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What’s done is done, but what might have helped convince your “prince of darkness” to lighten up a mite in the shooting would have been to bring in some test footage before the actual shoot and show the magic of what can be done with simple transfer modes and layering of blend modes. Not that you’d necessarily have done those for the movie, but to get across just what’s possible in post IF you can give enough level and detail for the editor and colorist to work from, and count on them to take your dark vision the final ten percent…
As to putting a calibration guide on the front, we have that already, its called SMPTE bars. We don’t have to like it, but the bars are our guiding star, which we ignore at our peril.
That said…
I had some analog video long ago that was given to me all messed up for levels, and there was not a lot I could do but proc-amp the heck out of it, by which time the program no longer bore any relationship to house bars. So I did the only thing I could do: I fudged the bars, in such a way that if you brought the bars back into the proper levels by scope, the video would also look as decent as it could and be “legal”.
When people brought in elements with questionable pedigree, I’d line the tape up via the bars first, but then play and sample along it’s length every ten minutes or so, looking for the true peaks and the true blacks. Then I’d set that tape up using those points and forget about the bars, because they actually had no relationship to the tape. They’d been added-on afterwards.
This is a problem we see lots more of now with cheap NLE systems and DV camcorder users. They’ll add on system bars from an NLE that may or may not have any connection to the images shot on the tape. For them bars are just another kind of slate. Now that more and more people shoot without even tape, I don’t know what we’re really using as our “guiding star”, anymore. I mean I’d like samples of chip charts shot thru the same lens, to me that’s actually going to be more use than bars generated from the NLE. But you’re lucky if people bring their own white cards out to balance on these days, asking them t bring a MacBeth tester out is futile generally.\
But it sure could have helped THIS project, methinks.
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