Scene Settings {Golden Eye}

fevercity

fevercity

Well-known member
Nope. Not James Bond. Long before Pierce Brosnan took his turn as 007 in '95, John Huston released a very strange film in 1967, "Reflections in a Golden Eye" starring Marlon Brando & Elizabeth Taylor.

I used a Smead UltraColor Envelope 89532 (BLUE this time) for WHITE BALANCE. Add some adjustments in-camera and you've got a cheat on this weird look.


"To emphasize the film's psychological oppressiveness and find a visual equivalent for the novel's brooding, interior spirit, Huston," according to Tony Thomas in The Films of John Huston, "evolved a costly and complicated process of desaturating the film's color until only a gold and slightly pinkish image emerged. [Cinematographer Oswald] Morris called the effect on the film's mood "quite extraordinary." Warner Brothers didn't agree, however, and released the film in full Technicolor, which made the film pictorially striking and quite beautiful to look at, but decidedly worked against the emotional impact Huston wanted Reflections to have."


"GOLDEN EYE"
(need Smead 89532 or weird blue for white balance)

DETAIL -3
V. DETAIL LEVEL -3
DETAIL CORING +3
CHROMA LEVEL 0
CHROMA PHASE -7
COLOR TEMP +5
MASTER PED -5
A. IRIS LEVEL -2
GAMMA B.PRESS
KNEE HIGH
MATRIX NORMAL
SKIN TONE DTL OFF
V. DETAIL FREQ THIN
PROGRESSIVE 24P


GoldenEyeCOMP1.jpg




"Warner Home Video recently released Reflections in a Golden Eye as a stand-alone DVD and as part of the Marlon Brando Collection boxed set, and the picture looks the way Huston originally intended. The anamorphically enhanced presentation restores the picture’s widescreen aspect ratio, and Warner Home Video has seen fit to add the golden sheen back to the image — a disquieting visual detail that only adds to the film’s strange, tension-filled narrative."

Why would you want to use this? I have absolutely no idea.
Why did I do it? Well, I had the envelope and a little too much time on my hands it seems.
Warner Brothers hated it, maybe you will too......

Fever City Studio, Denver, CO
 
Fever, I've come to really look forward to your posts. It's nice to actually see what these looks look like, instead of just raw scene settings. Keep up the good work!
 
Thanks, Joshua. It is very much appreciated. And - it's been fun cooking these up.

I'll admit some of my white-balance fakes have been over the top. I figure anyone can dial in subtler scene settings so why not go balls-out?

Not to get too far OT but I can't imagine Phoenix today. It's cooking even here in Denver.

Lake Films was kind enough to begin dialogue on a "horror / Se7en / See No Evil" look. Any other requests {or input} is always appreciated!

As far as "Golden Eye" goes, you should try staring at that look through an entire film. Your eyes are literally screaming out for the slightest hint of "real" color underneath. I won't spoil it but the final shot of the film is laugh-out loud funny. And - it's not supposed to be.
 
Fever,

It would be awesome if you could create a simple web site gallery with these looks on display. From there you could have links to the specific products you need to buy to cheat the white balance.

Josh
 
I had debated about that very thing. I just wasn't sure if there were really going to be enough 'look's to warrant the space.

Worst case, I could park them as a blog or find a nice WordPress hack. If you think there'd be enough interest, I'd definitely do it.

As you're well aware (and I've mentioned before), threads can get buried here with so much traffic. Every post done w/o a search first just piles it on.

Now - I guess I'd really have to come up with some new looks. Yowzaz.....
 
You are correct.... the manual really isn't much help in that regard. Parts of it look to be written in Japanese and then translated to English. That's the case w/ a bunch of Sony manuals I have anyway.

I don't know if you have Barry Green's "The DVX Book" or not but he goes into GAMMA settings more than the manual (obviously). GAMMA's not only a whole other thread - that's like a whole other realm altogether. GAMMA'S how your camera's gonna handle the contrast, latitude and dynamic range of your image (the highs, mids and lows).

I just happen to like B.Press. I used to like CineLikeV. Most of the scene settings I've posted have much more to do with color-manipulation. I just provided each & every setting for redundancy.

Hook up your camera to a monitor (or TV if you don't have one) and frame something up. Make sure that VIDEO OSD (on-screen display) is turned off so that you don't see the menus on your TV / monitor. Looking through the LCD or viewfinder, navigate to a scene file and 'step into' the GAMMA settings. Now, look at the TV and just toggle up/down through them, watching the changes. Don't even look at which GAMMA you're on. Stop on one you like, see which setting it is. Go shoot some stuff with that until you get sick of it. Read about it in Barry's book. Bring it into your editing software and see what it's doing on the scopes.

Probably the best thing to do is shoot with a GAMMA curve until you don't like it anymore or it's not doing what you want to your footage. It's much easier to find a setting you do like by process-of-elimination.... You will dislike a setting much more quickly when it's YOUR footage and not some obscure paragraph sidebar in a Panasonic manual. Hope that helped.
 
thanks man, great help, im gunna go do that later on, (the tv settings) awesome, ya i make films, so i use ciniike for the "film" look, and 24pA
 
I just wanted numbers that could be repeated elsewhere without the old "experiment at your local art store" vagueness...

Plus, my finace stole those.... er, I mean, administratively relocated those from her last job. Wait - did I just type that?!??!? singing off......
 
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