Makeup

D

D_and_G

Well-known member
I was having a debate with a DP the other day. He says that film makeup will be more than effective for RED 4K/2K acquisition - indicating that there's no need for specially formulated makeup/airbrushing for highend HD. Having only really dealt with film issues, I was wondering what anyones experience here might be.

I ran across these guys in ASC (designed specifically for high end HD). http://www.numericproof.com/contenu.php?theme=4

Marketing hype ?

Will the traditional sponge and brush be replaced by airbrushing ? Will your lead actress rebel at the particulates ?

Does anyone know what makeup they used on Miami Vice ? It seemed pretty natural.

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Also, did the RED team use specifically formulated makeup ? (it wasn't distracting either)

:beer: :beer:

RED#'s cautiously optimistic
 
I, for one dont care.

It's a beauty department issue; God bless them; they make us look great sometimes. In the meantime, they can stick it in their flip flops, Von Dutch hats, racing Pumas and tear-aways while hogging the monitors, flirting with NY clients and chewing Thrills gum....

.02$ worth
 
Well applied make up is all you need in any medium. What stands out,(looks bad) is low skill or not enough time to do it properly.
Aloha
-A
 
Jannard said:
Standard makeup used on all our shoots.

Jim
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Good to know :)

I know it's a slightly off topic discussion, but was curious...

If you can get those results with standard makeup for 4K uncompressed, then standard film makeup and technique should suffice. Of course, the makeup could be standard but the girls ? Never! :beer: :beer:


RED#'s cautiously optimistic
 
Two NAB's ago at the Sony CineAlta festival, the first year with the 4K projector, they showed clips from the last/newest Star Wars movie and clips from Star Trek Enterprise, both shot in HD.

Although there were major differences in production value between the two shows, one thing was equally bad in both... the prosthetic makeup work. It looked fake. Lifeless and dead. I think both shows used hot foam plus PAX and undoubtably some of the more advanced silicon makeups would appear more natural, but it was a real eye-opener.
 
What a DP would be worried about in so far as makeup with the red is finally being able to see the details on the skin that previous digital cameras have done away with for us-- for closeups we should all be using filters to make sure we don't see the pores on the actresses' faces, etcetera

But this is all because we're now with digital ALMOST equaling the information provided by a film negative and projected via a good film print, so whatever has been done for film for the past half century of color will be just fine for RED.
 
I think the special makeup needed for HD is because it is so low rez, and it needs artificial sharpening. Once you move to real resolution, and a low need for any sharpening, you won't emphasize any makeup defects. Any makeup that's good enough for 35mm film should be fine for RED.
 
Acutance v's Resolution

Acutance v's Resolution

As Graeme mentioned, the difference in look between high resolution media such as film or the RED camera, and sharp media such as HD is in the use of detail circuits in the latter to raise acutance. This is what shows up makeup blemishes..

See this tutorial

http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/sharpness.htm

The top image of the shirt / sweater is all too familiar in video.....
 
I think it's interesting that the TV show "The View" w/ Barbara Walters, just recently went HD. But then they turn around and use filters to make BAB's look younger...
 
Thanks RED team (Jim, Graeme, Stuart), as me Nan used to say you're nice as pie :beer:

Why I mentioned it is another producer I talked to knows the DP on a film called "Vidocq". I don't know how familiar people are with it, but I believe it was shot on the Cinealta. We were talking about how they shot at T5.6 ? with an E.I of around 200 (if I recall correctly). They had to bring in a lot of lights, and dealt with highlights (burns out) from the perspiration of the principals. I believe they came up with an extra-matte makeup to avoid the highlight issue. There were only a few scenes where it's noticeable (mostly in the DV footage), though.

However, seeing the RED footage looked good in keeping the detail in the flesh tones, I think (as Graeme and Stuart mentioned) that standard film makeup will be more than fine...The lengths you've gone to with regards to making a digital cinema (chocolate) image should have benefits in departments most don't think about - Especially if you're shooting RAW. Sauvaire would have loved to have that option on set. As I too look forward to it for balancing/manipulating highly stylized looks in post as opposed to on set (keeping more optionable detail).

Here's a couple pics of Vidocq (in case anyone wants a reference):

1165199821.jpg


1165199864.jpg



:beer: :beer:




RED#'s cautiously optimistic
 
I think that Vidocq was listed as the first film shot (mostly) in HD 24p - a very beta CineAlta ver.1. Much of the film was 1080i and upresed PAL (50i) because Sony was still tweeking their beta cam (not betacam!!!). Weird, crazy, sometimes gorgeous, sometimes bad looking film. Probably the deepest consistent DOF of any film I've seen. The director Pitof was vfx supervisor for Jean-Pierre Jeunet before he ditched Caro... the good 'ol days.
 
based on RED images i've seen to date .. based on experience (25years) shooting film ... = i would start with basic film type makeup using RED camera ...
 
boothba said:
I think that Vidocq was listed as the first film shot (mostly) in HD 24p - a very beta CineAlta ver.1. Much of the film was 1080i and upresed PAL (50i) because Sony was still tweeking their beta cam (not betacam!!!). Weird, crazy, sometimes gorgeous, sometimes bad looking film. Probably the deepest consistent DOF of any film I've seen. The director Pitof was vfx supervisor for Jean-Pierre Jeunet before he ditched Caro... the good 'ol days.
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Yeah. Used in conjunction with a S16 Angie (for steadi ). A lot of the issues they had are addressed by RED's specs ( I think) - bit depths, color space, RAW workflow, for example.

The film is based off a famous French detective, sort of like our Sherlock Holmes, but more theatrical.

Sauvaire and Pitofs commercials are pretty original too. At the time "Vidocq" was one of the most ambitious budgets for the French. Although, the project would be much easier today (with the lightweight primes and dynamic range).

Do you know if they're (Pitof and Sauvaire) still invested in Eclair ? I haven't caught up on the labs/finishing services sector in France (although I've heard some positive things about them). :beer:

It'll be interesting to see who gets out in the forefront with finishing, effects, and filmout of REDcine/RAW footage workflows...

RED#'s cautiously optimistic
 
D_and_G said:
Do you know if they're (Pitof and Sauvaire) still invested in Eclair?
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No idea. Havn't even heard Pitof's name for a couple of years.

D_and_G said:
It'll be interesting to see who gets out in the forefront with finishing, effects, and filmout of REDcine/RAW footage workflows...
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Heh heh... That's almost a topic for another thread. I think any post shop with an established DI department and a quality film recorder (like the Arri laser recorder) will have an initial advantage. Also most telecine suites are configured for 2K and below, and are optimized for film scanning & tape-to-tape, not data. I don't expect to see a clear leader, though. They won't be reinventing the wheel, just replacing the film scanning stage with a hefty data ingesting stage (and don't forget that things will slow down immensely when you move from the elegant and light RECODE RAW into uncompressed tiff or DPX files.)

What's more interesting to me (hens the "heh heh...") is how labs and one light transfer facilities will react to the lost revenue due to the move to data acquisition. My guess is - - - not fast enough.

Some established post shops see this as the same thing as the gradual move from film acquisition to HD acquisition that has happened in the world of episodic television. BUT there's a difference... HD is still a tape paradigm and so productions still require the support of big post facilities for logging, re-synching, dubs & down-converts (before the footage even gets to the editor) simply because of the high cost of HD-SR & D5 decks. Nice little revenue stream based on that one fact alone. But soon with RED on the horizon, labs won't get the processing bucks, and the one-lights will likely be done directly in REDCINE.

Many big post houses expect their role to move to that of data management in the digital future - "give us your digital negative and we'll manage it from beginning to end". And in most cases they will design the best pipelines, ensure security, produce backups, and do some of the laborious tasks like logging that an editor would not want to do - - - but all at a premium. So tell me... if you were a production company with a feature or episodic show in the works, would you pay to have a big external company manage your RED data? Or would you just rent another G5, add that to your in-house editorial department and manage every bit and bite yourself? That is the reality that post facilities face in the future. Online editing, VFX, DI, final grading and film outputs are another matter - that's where post facilities will likely continue to shine - after all they've had years of experience with HD, 2K and even 4K. But in other (pre-offline) areas the post shops may be in for a surprise. :huh: :huh:
 
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I think the RED camera will be a little more lenient than 35mm on makeup. Grain IMO tends to enhance skin defects. A sort of perceptual sharpening effect.

I agree with some earlier posts that HD makes good makeup a very tricky operation.
 
boothba said:
... So tell me... if you were a production company with a feature or episodic show in the works, would you pay to have a big external company manage your RED data? Or would you just rent another G5, add that to your in-house editorial department and manage every bit and bite yourself? That is the reality that post facilities face in the future. Online editing, VFX, DI, final grading and film outputs are another matter - that's where post facilities will likely continue to shine - after all they've had years of experience with HD, 2K and even 4K. But in other (pre-offline) areas the post shops may be in for a surprise. :huh: :huh:
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That's where I'm coming from. As a small boutique production outfit, it makes sense to minimize the time in expensive post bays. I still believe there is going to be a need for specialization (color grading, VFX, filmout etc...). After all, Talent is talent. But it's the move to less physical asset management (?) to asset enhancement (human beings & artistic impulses) that may occur - if that makes any sense.
Like you mentioned, it seems the offline processes will be shrinking, leaving more of the online (creative decisions) to be the lions share. My hope is that the post/lab companies don't try and raise their rates to compensate, but instead, try and broaden their market share, or reach out to untapped markets. Right now (at least with theatrical) there are technological and logistical barriers to entry; for example, if taking a digital cinema film to filmout. But, with the emergence of an online toolset at small biz prices (which will eventually happen) then the only thing to do is to offer services and talent that can't be found in the small shop. Whoever makes the leap first will have a headstart, IMHO. Although, they may want to protect their profit centers as long as they can ;)

If I can get the most out of my money on the artistic collaborations (sound mix, VFX, color grading) instead of the preparatory/management stages then the final product will benefit immensely. Even previewing LUTs and filmlooks (deciding on definitive directions) will be great for content producers, and I know when sitting in grading sessions, the pros will be happier.

Sorry for the long post, but you brought up some interesting points (it's your fault, lol) :beer:

And Gavin has a good point. But, I guess it depends on the characteristics of the emulsion & sharpness of lenses. Even with the resolution, RED seems to get that creamy/peachy look down right (so far), so you can concentrate on the reasons behind your makeup/styling choices instead of working around it. Although, I'm not a makeup expert, for sure...

:beer:


RED#'s cautiously optimistic
 
I'm budgeting a 35mm project right now. My largest expense is going to be processing and one light telecine.

I'm planning on a DaVinci 2k scan and DI, and that's the cheapest part. So the RED model could save me tons of money, even if I still go to a colorist. It would possibly even convince me to take it to a Lustre suite for the same price.

So what I think you'll see is: all of the colorists working at labs are going to just move into DI suites over the coming years as film slowly fades out of existance.

There is going to be a tipping point though. And I'm going to refer to other real world experiences this time in still photography. Unfortunately (for those of us still shooting 35mm stills) digital cameras came down in price just a litttttle bit too early. As a result, the infrastructure for a high quality digital scan of a negative is rediculously expensive (think about $3 a frame). So in order to really maximize the full potential of your celluloid you have to fork out a huge amount of money, the other option is just to shoot digitally.

Digital Motion Picture cameras didn't come out before we developed a pretty damn good, affordable, digital workflow based around film. So it's not going to disappear overnight like film stills did. But I think you'll see the same thing eventually happen. Eventually *enough* films will start moving over to digital that what was previously a large volume enterprise is going to squeeze and put an economic pressure on the remaining film projects. As more and more people skip processing and go straight to a DI suite, the cost of a scan is going to go up and up and up until eventually the economics will be out of touch with the quality and you'll see a rapid polarity shift. I think film will hit a tipping point where the digital economics will cause a logrithmic increase in digital productions.

And with the volume of productions that a standard post house deals with in a year, I don't think it would require that large of a shift.
 
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