Martial Arts Action Drama "champion Road"

Hey RL, looks like a decent story in there. Trailer was pretty well cut, got the storyline. Is it just me having an issue with the sound?
 
The acting was good and the action looked great! The sound was terrible and the interlacing was killing me.

Maybe an upload issue?

I liked the trailer though. Very solid work!

Mike
 
I thought the trailer was pretty good. The shots used looked well composed. The lighting for the most part looked good as well.

However, I'm going to have to watch some movies from say Spike Lee, and see how his cinematographers 'light' for black skin. In still photography, where the subject is not moving, and one has 'all the time in the world to setup, some sort of 'side' lighting is used to give outline and definition to a black person's image. It is sort of strange, but a hint of sheen can also help... not so much as to look greasy... but just for facial feature definition.
 
Hey R.L. - another Atlanta guy here. In fact Shaun Mixon is in my movie. I've seen the trailer so many times. Shaun is constantly sending it to me when he does any updates to what is going on with him. The trailer is good - besides what's already been said. I don't have much to say.

What's going on with slums 13? I've read a million things about it, but would love to hear from the "horse's mouth" - so to speak.

j1clark@ucsd.edu said:
However, I'm going to have to watch some movies from say Spike Lee, and see how his cinematographers 'light' for black skin. In still photography, where the subject is not moving, and one has 'all the time in the world to setup, some sort of 'side' lighting is used to give outline and definition to a black person's image. It is sort of strange, but a hint of sheen can also help... not so much as to look greasy... but just for facial feature definition.
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I always find it funny the whole "lighting for black skin" - truth is there's not much difference. You light the same but you can do two things in order to have more of a "level" look from a lightskinned actor to a darkskinned one.

One difference is the Gamma. Basic gamma curves that are lower look better on lightskinned persons because they emphasize the darker areas of the skin while allowing the lighter areas to show up as well. In darker skin, you simply need a higher gamma curve because you don't need to emphasize the darker areas of the skin.

Look at it like this, we all exist in a grey world, not color. Light skinned people tend to be say White to Middle Grey, while darker skinned may be Middle Grey to Dark Grey. what we want to do is move the lightskinned to 1/4 grey down to 3/4 grey and move the darkskinned to the same range - as much as possible. If both are in the same shot there's nothing you can do - somebody will look bad.

My background is photography and I've taken pictures of White people, Asain, Indian people, Black people, and many interracial people. You always have to light for whomever is the most importaint. So when I shoot lightskined people (asians, white) I tend to use a little light as possible and set my gamma low. I watch to make sure I don't blow them out. With darker skined (Indian, Black) I tend to go up on my gamma, and keep them out of high contrasted environments.

Simply adding "light" which is what Hollywood generally does, blows out the color in dark skin, making it look ashy. It's better to go with a larger amount of smaller lights and lower the overall contrast in the scene, upping the ambiance.


---- And Oh Yeah! with this post! Senior Member! Yeah! :Drogar-SunGlass(DBG:Drogar-BigGrin(DBG):Drogar-Happy(DBG): ---
 
jls4 said:
Hey R.L. - another Atlanta guy here. In fact Shaun Mixon is in my movie. I've seen the trailer so many times. Shaun is constantly sending it to me when he does any updates to what is going on with him. The trailer is good - besides what's already been said. I don't have much to say.

What's going on with slums 13? I've read a million things about it, but would love to hear from the "horse's mouth" - so to speak.



I always find it funny the whole "lighting for black skin" - truth is there's not much difference. You light the same but you can do two things in order to have more of a "level" look from a lightskinned actor to a darkskinned one.

One difference is the Gamma. Basic gamma curves that are lower look better on lightskinned persons because they emphasize the darker areas of the skin while allowing the lighter areas to show up as well. In darker skin, you simply need a higher gamma curve because you don't need to emphasize the darker areas of the skin.

Look at it like this, we all exist in a grey world, not color. Light skinned people tend to be say White to Middle Grey, while darker skinned may be Middle Grey to Dark Grey. what we want to do is move the lightskinned to 1/4 grey down to 3/4 grey and move the darkskinned to the same range - as much as possible. If both are in the same shot there's nothing you can do - somebody will look bad.

My background is photography and I've taken pictures of White people, Asain, Indian people, Black people, and many interracial people. You always have to light for whomever is the most importaint. So when I shoot lightskined people (asians, white) I tend to use a little light as possible and set my gamma low. I watch to make sure I don't blow them out. With darker skined (Indian, Black) I tend to go up on my gamma, and keep them out of high contrasted environments.

Simply adding "light" which is what Hollywood generally does, blows out the color in dark skin, making it look ashy. It's better to go with a larger amount of smaller lights and lower the overall contrast in the scene, upping the ambiance.


---- And Oh Yeah! with this post! Senior Member! Yeah! :Drogar-SunGlass(DBG:Drogar-BigGrin(DBG):Drogar-Happy(DBG): ---
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Yes, the problem of 'just adding light' is that most people tend to just add more 'over all light'... well, black skin, as you noted, depending, runs 1-2 stops 'darker' than white, and so the result of an overall boost in light... is well, flat grey skin... hence my suggestion of looking to either good makeup that adds 'sheen' rather than 'shine', and side lighting that adds a hint of light in shadowed areas to separate the black person's skin or hair from 'the background'... often 'dark', especially in night scenes.
 
j1clark@ucsd.edu said:
Yes, the problem of 'just adding light' is that most people tend to just add more 'over all light'... well, black skin, as you noted, depending, runs 1-2 stops 'darker' than white, and so the result of an overall boost in light... is well, flat grey skin... hence my suggestion of looking to either good makeup that adds 'sheen' rather than 'shine', and side lighting that adds a hint of light in shadowed areas to separate the black person's skin or hair from 'the background'... often 'dark', especially in night scenes.
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I don't know.. we may be saying the exact same thing in a different way. When I was talking a boost in light, you can do it several ways. But most of the time I see people just adding more light to the dark skinned person via the key light, which adds to the contrast and doesn't fix the problem.

My current feature I think the lighting is pretty good based on my photography background. But I think it's different for me, since I'm black. It's more difficult for me to light - lightskinned people than to light darkskinned. Lightskinned people seem to come out pale for me. And that's when I learned about the gamma. I was using a 1.4 to 1.5 on average to "recolor" the images for Black People, this was destroying the white people's photos. Making them look pale and some of them complained. So I learned that instead of changing the way I light, I would simply adjust the gamma making their undertones darker with a gamma of 1.2 and 1.3. I also noticed that a lightskinned person with a nice tan would tend to be more of a 1.3 while a very pale person could go as low as a 1. Now for most feature work I think 2.2 is the average, but I did notice in Magic Bullet that I had to change the "basic" settings to fit black skin because I'm sure most of them were set for white skin. But truly I think adjusting is always importaint. If you wanted someone to look pale - say "Underworld" they would change the gamma there as well.

Most of our actors as far as makeup goes try to dull down their skin, only using matte makeup and staying away from any oil based items.

Now what I have done in the past for both white,black,and everybody else is use a slightly different color temp than the lights. So for instance when I take pictures of white people in the sun, I'll push the color temp in post to around 5800-6000K to give their skin warmth. I've also noticed many of the "new lights" are using slightly different color temp in the bulbs to perform the same thing. Instead of 5600K they sell bulbs of 5500K or instead of 3200K it might be slightly off.

I'd like to do a test of maybe lighting a scene in blue light but putting a small 100watt light on the subject. I once did this outside, using a tungsten light as the "bounce/fill" light. It seemed to work out pretty well.

I'm not trying to make this a war - so I hope you aren't taking it like that. I was hoping just to help out based on what I figured out for myself. I'm putting up a new website right now and if I get time I may put some images up of the differences in gamma settings. I think it would be a good informational for everybody and a good test for myself.
 
the choreography looks really, really good. the cinematography of the fighting also looks great. the audio and the acting, however, aren't doing it for me... (but the audio thing you probably already realized)
 
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Thanks for the feedback guys... and the info on lighting black skin is very informative. that's something I'm still working on and the lighting guy we used still has a way to go. I'm actually having some problems with my audio output when I render out any video, but besides that, the audio work in post is still not done yet. Slums 13 is going well, and I am actually relocating to LA in september. the producers want to shoot it out there. we have a couple of tv spots and a new trailer coming out next week.
 
jls4 said:
My current feature I think the lighting is pretty good based on my photography background. But I think it's different for me, since I'm black. It's more difficult for me to light - lightskinned people than to light darkskinned. Lightskinned people seem to come out pale for me. And that's when I learned about the gamma. I was using a 1.4 to 1.5 on average to "recolor" the images for Black People, this was destroying the white people's photos. Making them look pale and some of them complained. So I learned that instead of changing the way I light, I would simply adjust the gamma making their undertones darker with a gamma of 1.2 and 1.3. I also noticed that a lightskinned person with a nice tan would tend to be more of a 1.3 while a very pale person could go as low as a 1. Now for most feature work I think 2.2 is the average, but I did notice in Magic Bullet that I had to change the "basic" settings to fit black skin because I'm sure most of them were set for white skin. But truly I think adjusting is always importaint. If you wanted someone to look pale - say "Underworld" they would change the gamma there as well.
Click to expand...

When the first of the "Lethal Weapon" series came out there was a question 'how did they get Danny Glover and Mel Gibson in the same shot, bright sun, and not have either Glover as a silhouet or Gibson blown out... well in a number of shots, differential screening... puting Gibson in the shade knocked his 'brighness' down, and so an exposure could be made to keep Glover from going blank black with no detail.

One personal anecdote... I did a portrait of a black man in the early 70's for a friend, his girl friend, and eventually his wife... With good exposure, proper development, and paper selection, the portrait of the man had very rich black tones, and very clean highlights... her response... 'ooh this is beautiful... I love it'... his... 'I'm not that black'... well he was... but I learned that it is some times difficult to gauge how people are going to react to certain representations.

The other end of the spectrum... my wife did wedding photography for a number of years. On many occasions caucasian women would show up to their wedding with a 'deep' tan... well, against the white wedding dress, their skin was a couple of stops lower... there's no way in hell they are not going to be represented by the film as a 'dark complexion'... fortunately most of the brides in this category had chosen color coverage... but still often their facial makeup did not match their complexion on their visible chest and arms...

But back to your processing. I think we are somewhat saying the same things. However, I do thing attention to the 'image capture' end of things will assist in either minimizing having to adjust post production, or heck eliminate the need. There is only so much one can do with the image as captured, before the processing shows.
 
dam i wish i was african american. they look so good on camera. i belong in a zombie movie. the pasty white eaters directed by harvey weinstein. fukin sweet

movie looks sweet by the way. not alot of indie fight films. good to see one
 
j1clark@ucsd.edu said:
When the first of the "Lethal Weapon" series came out there was a question 'how did they get Danny Glover and Mel Gibson in the same shot, bright sun, and not have either Glover as a silhouet or Gibson blown out... well in a number of shots, differential screening... puting Gibson in the shade knocked his 'brighness' down, and so an exposure could be made to keep Glover from going blank black with no detail.
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Interesting enough - most black people did not consider themselves to start looking good in "movies" until around the time of "Waiting to Exhale." There were a few people talking about proceess. most black people considered that Hollywood had let them down when it came to color until that movie. Forest Whitaker took extra time to figure out how to light properly.

j1clark@ucsd.edu said:
One personal anecdote... I did a portrait of a black man in the early 70's for a friend, his girl friend, and eventually his wife... With good exposure, proper development, and paper selection, the portrait of the man had very rich black tones, and very clean highlights... her response... 'ooh this is beautiful... I love it'... his... 'I'm not that black'... well he was... but I learned that it is some times difficult to gauge how people are going to react to certain representations.
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I think the answer to that problem is simple - opinion. It may sound bad to a few people, but White (Fair Skinned) people see the world one way and Black (Dark skinned) people see it another. We as Americans are "used" to seeing a white model/platform. And I'm not here to complain about that. Black people make up 13% of the population to white people's 65+% (Latino is 15%). And then with much of our technology coming from Asia (1 billion+ people China/Japan) it only makes since that most things cater to the majority of the Purchasing Population. But it doesn't change the fact that most black people don't see themselves as dark at all. Somebody that's "caramel colored" like Halle Berry we consider the "norm" and somebody like Wesley Snipes we consider dark but not as dark as he looked in "Rising Sun". People like Alicia Keys are lightskinned (Redboned) to us and we consider it okay to pale them out slightly. watching movies like "Breaking All The Rules" then watching "Any Given Sunday" are great comparisons. In "Any Given Sunday" Jamie Foxx looks kinda dark in "Breaking All The Rules" he looks close to perfect. there's an actress in "Breaking All the Rules" Bianca Lawson, who is lightskinned black. The movie makes her so pale in comparison to Gabrielle Union.

I light, like i said for the "lead". In photography or movies, someone is going to look good and someone is going to look bad. I don't think there is ever a perfect solution.

Also I get a lot of Black Brides and White Grooms and the men generally say stuff like "Wow I look pale" and the brides are like "I look great!" and well to me - he is! LOL

j1clark@ucsd.edu said:
The other end of the spectrum... my wife did wedding photography for a number of years. On many occasions caucasian women would show up to their wedding with a 'deep' tan... well, against the white wedding dress, their skin was a couple of stops lower... there's no way in hell they are not going to be represented by the film as a 'dark complexion'... fortunately most of the brides in this category had chosen color coverage... but still often their facial makeup did not match their complexion on their visible chest and arms...
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Interesting enough - when white brides for us (we do weddings to) come with a nice deep tan, it's easy for us to make them look awesome. but when they are on the pale side, it's much more difficult. Last white wedding I did, the flower girl was so pale her skin was like a sheet of paper. And the bride was close to a paper bag almost. the bride shines in all her photos, like something awesome. And I made the little girl look great as long as she was alone. But in pictures with both of them(flower girl/bride), the little girl almost looks like a ghost.

We learned a long time ago (my wife and I) that processing was made for the majority. Robert Rodriguez once made a crack about it when Digital first came out. Many people in Hollywood hated the way digital made them look, RR said "Humph, I've never had a problem with that." My wife and I fell out on the floor. I'm sure many white people didn't get what he was saying.

Film had to be "made" / "processed" to make white people look good. It took Hollywood years to perfect. White skin only holds a little color, so the film has to be processed "dark" to enrich the skin. I've done my best to perfect this, because to be honest, I'm a business man as well and I'm concerned about that 65+% of the population. :Drogar-Happy(DBG): Digital looked closer to "real life" and there the color in mid skinned skin tones look awesome. And that's where most Hispanics lie. Between a tanned white person and a midskinned (caramel) black person When you allow someone else - say a company - to process your digital negatives they will process them in a way for the majority - making mid to dark skinned people look bad and doing their best to preserve the white or light areas fo the image. We (my wife and I) process all of our photographs by algorthims that we created ourselves to make sure everyone looks like the image of themselves in their heads.

- You'll also notice as an aside that many of the black actors in hollywood epecially women tend to be close to caramel colored.

j1clark@ucsd.edu said:
But back to your processing. I think we are somewhat saying the same things. However, I do thing attention to the 'image capture' end of things will assist in either minimizing having to adjust post production, or heck eliminate the need. There is only so much one can do with the image as captured, before the processing shows.
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And this is true, but when we shoot the iris is usually enough. For instance when I'm shooting say a Carmel Colored Black Bride outside in noonday sun in her white wedding gown. I could care less about the dress, the dress can loose up to 15% of it's detail and I don't care. When I shoot I only shoot for skintone and not clothes or anything else - no matter if I'm shooting white or black people. so my lighting rarely changes, only thing that changes in 1 to 2 stops in aperature/shutter speed.

go check out my wedding website - you'll see both white and black people on it. www.atlmediaworks.com
 
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portlandbozz said:
dam i wish i was african american. they look so good on camera. i belong in a zombie movie. the pasty white eaters directed by harvey weinstein. fukin sweet

movie looks sweet by the way. not alot of indie fight films. good to see one
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LOL - I can't say anything else.
 
R.L. Scott said:
Thanks for the feedback guys... and the info on lighting black skin is very informative. that's something I'm still working on and the lighting guy we used still has a way to go. I'm actually having some problems with my audio output when I render out any video, but besides that, the audio work in post is still not done yet. Slums 13 is going well, and I am actually relocating to LA in september. the producers want to shoot it out there. we have a couple of tv spots and a new trailer coming out next week.
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Sorry to loose you RL. Shaun has told me so many things about you and wanted us to meet. I'll pm you a couple of clips from my movie that Shaun is in.

I've found it hard to find a good lighting person in Atlanta, so I just figured out the trade myself. I think I'm pretty good at it now, better than most. Many of the people here light in 2 ways. either they light like a TV show OR they just blast the room with light and maybe point a softbox at the actor. they don't "paint" with light, which is the problem. Maybe when you come back to ATL, I can light up a movie for you - IF I'm not busy on my own.:Drogar-BigGrin(DBG)

I'll be lookling for the spots.
 
cool, sounds great bro. I have a fantasy action film coming up with CG effects laid in called "Sword and Soul"... could use some help.
 
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