A few quick DVX grabs.

filmismymedium

filmismymedium

Well-known member
Shot a drama a while back and never posted any grabs. Tell me what you think. I had a lot of low light problems on this project but i picked a few that i thought looked ok. Try not to be too harsh. :cry:

church1jb.png


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I have had people tell me that the pictures are extremely dark on their PC's however on my Mac they look fine (or fine for the mood of the movie) A lot of this may be due to compression :)
 
In the first (as well as the others) the blacks need to be pumped a bit, they don't match your letterbox bars at all. They're pretty grainy and underexposed.
 
like Slimothy said, the blacks in the first two are a little bit grainy and don't match well. I had the same problem recently, so don't feel bad. :) other than that, I think the lighting looks pretty good.
 
yea i didnt do any sort of image correction so the blacks definetely arent black enough. Also, since i used no additional lighting so they were bound to be grainy. Take a look at the 3rd one down on the left in the black space. It seems there is Gain-like noice in there but i am positive that no gain was used. What i should have done for a lot of my shots is shoot them lighter and then "darken" them in post. O well. Live and learn. More comments?
 
filmismymedium said:
yea i didnt do any sort of image correction so the blacks definetely arent black enough. Also, since i used no additional lighting so they were bound to be grainy. Take a look at the 3rd one down on the left in the black space. It seems there is Gain-like noice in there but i am positive that no gain was used. What i should have done for a lot of my shots is shoot them lighter and then brighten them in post. O well. Live and learn. More comments?
Click to expand...

If you shot them lighter, you wouldn't really need to brighten them in post right?
 
In the first one, it looks like he's holding a gun to the kid's head.

I like these. Do some minor post adjustments and you're good to go.
 
Hudson: Im afraid im still fairly new to the whole color correction side of DV and use it very little. Im assuming that you took my picture and adjusted it to look better (less dreary?)...am i right? Because on my screen the one you posted looks too light for the feeling that i was trying to capture. The image you posted looks to have a big increase in grain and fuzzyness especially on the left side. I can see that you got the full spectrum of complete white to complete black but it still looks odd on my screen. Maybe you werent showing me that at all and i look stupid now but im just trying to learn more about how to make my image look as best as it can. All comments/tips are happily appreciated.

Horse: Yea it's funny i didnt notice that until i posted them here. Kinda ironic especially if you know the storyline of the movie. (of course i meant to do that ) :grin:
 
If you were going for the ZERO LIGHT SOURCE look; you achieved it

I barely even touched the CC side of the Grading; just the levels.
If you are going for the original grabs and your monitor is properly calibrated then what can I say? The originals look horrible for me.

Its all just too dark. Even on the picture of the two dudes, the highlight on homeboys ear peaks at like 40 IRE or something. Gotta get highlights up a bit. Even the statue peaks at like 35 IRE.


image03vm.jpg
 
You need more than to use your scopes, You need to throw yourself hardcore into teaching yourself lighting and build the confidence to capture as much as possible in camera upfront so your not tearing your hair out later in post trying to adjust the footage.
The cc is just sugar you sprinkle on top. I've seen stuff captured raw that looked jaw-droppingly beautiful with no cc whatsoever. I'm almost at a point where I'm saying screw cc as much as possible.
Too many people use it a safety net (not saying you are) But it seems to be a popular mentality amongst many newbies.
I suggest "Cinematography: Theory And Practice" by Blain Brown. Awesome book.
:)
 
Well put Pana-Man.

He's absolutely correct. There is no substitute for executing the shot pefectly in camera from the get go
 
Pana- Yea i never used CC as a dependant tool and try to make my stuff look good from the start but there are a couple of things that you gotta take into consideration. One: The entire 50min movie i did in about 3 weeks. Two: I had no real additional help on the project (with the exception of the writer. I shot directed, edited and organized everything) Three: I got my DVX about 2 weeks before the project started. Four: I had no money for lighting whatsoever (cept work lights) Five: I was 16yrs old when i shot it. Im not trying to justify my bad shots but im just saying. Im sure you can imagine juggling high school while trying to pursue a passion like filmmaking.

So yea, i am still working on getting the best image out of the camera. My main thing now is to stop shooting night movies. I have shot several short films w/ mostly day shots and they look a hell of a lot better but i posted these[night shots] b/c they are the ones i need the most help with. John and the rest, much thanks for the info and ill definetely check out that book. Any other comments (crosses fingers) are gladly accepted.
 
filmismymedium said:
I have had people tell me that the pictures are extremely dark on their PC's however on my Mac they look fine (or fine for the mood of the movie) A lot of this may be due to compression :)
Click to expand...

Additionally, Macs and PCs have a different gamma, so the same image will always look brighter on one than the other.

And that's why everybody needs a production monitor. (Hey, Santa!) Adjust for the production monitor and the onus is non the end-user to make the image look right on whatever they are using to watch it.
 
Hmm...don't know. Apples are 1.8 and PCs are 2.2 (which is also the internet standard for sRGB)

The problem is I've only found gamma info as it relates to computer monitor viewing, and not "real" video viewing on a TV or prod monitor.
 
A mac equipped with an apple-branded LCD display is closer to what NTSC would give you. Its an excellent indicator, but it still is not a replacement for an actual NTSC CRT monitor (which start at 500 and up for a teeny little box.)

Mac OS X has color calibration tools (ColorSync) to correct (different profiles) for television gamma. You could probably just put a regular tv next to your monitor and use the built in calibration to build a profile to match more closely, which is more useful if you're using a CRT monitor or non-apple-cinema display LCD. If you're lucky to have an apple cinema display I have found that default profile for the display works very, very, very well.
 
First, I like the composition of the grabs.

Just a suggestion going forward, in my experience it is much easier to overlight and then reduce the light/darken the image in post than it is to try and add light in post.

Chris
 
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