Best Picture style to use for weddings, documentaries and short films? and why?

JoeJITSU

JoeJITSU

Veteran
I am in the process of looking for more picture styles for my camera. I do a lot of wedding documentaries and short films. I would need to know which ones are best for each event and why you think it is better, Thank you guys, I really appreciate it.
 
I created the Cinema picture style to avoid too much post color and to go straight from the camera to on air without hassles, and with a ready to go image that is pleasant. I already produced 2 documentaries with it for the Swiss national broadcast tv (SSR) and by the way they beated the audience records with a 41% share in a 100 tv channels situation.
 
Why does your signature say Philip Bloom and how is he "certified?". Who certified him and how did the certification process work?
 
JoeJITSU said:
Wow, any chance that I can see the footage? Also where can I get the Cinema picture style?
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Don't bother. His picture style reduces dynamic range, makes wildly inaccurate colors, and poor skin tone on 60D, T3i, and T2i. But.... you are a certified P Bloom Cinematographer, so... maybe you should get it. ;)
 
lillet said:
Why does your signature say Philip Bloom and how is he "certified?". Who certified him and how did the certification process work?
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it means that Joejitsu IS THE MAAANNN!! Ask him anything about dslrs and he will reply in an english accent.. -its required when youre PB certified ;)
 
Personally, what little event shooting I do I use a baked in look not a flat profile. On that kind of gig, the last thing I want to have to do is spend time ( = money) doing a lot of color correction.

For narrative I always shoot flat.
 
Can you define baked in? I would love to know. I am looking for the simplest solution as possible. Thank you
 
JoeJITSU said:
Can you define baked in? I would love to know. I am looking for the simplest solution as possible. Thank you
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A picture style where it gives you the final look you want without color correcting. You can create them yourself in the picture style editor or download ones others have made. I use a faux "Kodachrome" profile a lot.
 
"Baked in" usually has a negative sound to it, because it is often used to describe the high contrast low dynamic range look of consumer cameras. Skin often looks a bit burnt too. Also, because of the high compression used on dslr, color correction can only go so far to reverse the look, so it is considered somewhat "set" or "baked in".

The Kodachrome is a bit heavy, from what I remember, but it definitely makes your footage pop. Very saturated and high contrast. Some viewers will probably prefer it.


I do numerous informal picture style tests with non-industry people and they almost always prefer the higher contrast, higher saturation image. Another positive attribute that happens when you use a "baked in" picture style is: what you see is what you get. No guessing how it will look in post, or if you have the right exposure, because it is right there, you will see it and know. Whereas, I see with flat users, that they often expose improperly, thinking they have more latitude then they actually do.

So, bottom line is... give kodachrome a go, you might like it.

Download Kodachrome25.pf2 here:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/37533131/Kodachrome 25.pf2
 
I'm one of those idiots who basically uses Technicolor Cinestyle for everything -- weddings, short films, events. Main reason: if you Google, most people seem to think it gives you the most flexibility in post. And, indeed, most of the time, Cinestyle suits me fine. Occasionally, when I'm trying to get colours to pop, I find this hard to do with Cinestyle. I put this down mostly to my own lack of colour-correcting ability, and partly to limits of the colour space and codec. Note: I do have a preference for slightly desaturated images, and this, for whatever reason, is what I usually end up with with Cinestyle after I've tweaked levels, curves, hue and saturation, and exported into YouTube-friendly output.

By the way, to speed up colour correcting for Cinestyle -- download the free Magic Bullet LUT Buddy plugin and the LUT for Cinestyle.

If you know exactly what you want, I'd imagine you'd get a better result by baking it in in camera, since there's limitations to what you can do to compressed DSLR files without things starting to look weird or noisy. Maybe any colour correction at all will always lessen the quality of the image (so I think anyway). So a more careful answer to your question would take into account the nature of each particular project -- eg, is it more a narrative or documentary-type wedding, is it a horror film or a comedy...

It also seems to be worthwhile (I've never done it) to investigate customising a picture profile style for your camera, rather than simply dropping Cinestyle on it, as I lazily do, since every camera has slightly different biases. Shane Hurlbut has a post about this.
 
Paper_bag said:
I'm one of those idiots who basically uses Technicolor Cinestyle for everything
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Haha! I love the humility!

I do not think there are too many rules about flat vs regular. It is mostly workflow and style/look.

For example, I generally dislike the Nuetral 0,-4,-4,0 look, but some users have made a style out of it, usually shooting very melancholy beauty or stark disparate future look. Of course, a simple desaturation in post would suffice with any picture style to get the same effect, but that is how those users decided to do it, and it looked great.

One thing I tend to say again and again, is how awful flat profiles look under low contrast low dynamics lighting. This is one of the few rules I think that applies to the "flat vs normal" debate.

It is easy enough to figure out wether lighting isn't dynamic enough, just look at the cameras built in histogram and see if the entire range is registering information, or just over half the range. If just over half, or less, then don't use flat or -4 contrast. switch favorite canon pic style and set to -3 to 0 contrast.

But if that is confusing or gets in the way of your work, than forget about it. Few people will care about the end look. And usually moving around and getting a better angle and lighting scenario is the better choice anyways.

Hope that helps.
 
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Even when I shoot cinestyle, which I always do for narrative, I expose with Kodachrome then switch to cinestyle before I roll. That's how you avoid the underexposure problem.
 
James, just wanted to say that histogram + adjusting contrast is definitely one of the best tips anyone's given me in the last few months, so thanks very much!
 
James0b57 said:
Haha! I love the humility!

I do not think there are too many rules about flat vs regular. It is mostly workflow and style/look.

For example, I generally dislike the Nuetral 0,-4,-4,0 look, but some users have made a style out of it, usually shooting very melancholy beauty or stark disparate future look. Of course, a simple desaturation in post would suffice with any picture style to get the same effect, but that is how those users decided to do it, and it looked great.

One thing I tend to say again and again, is how awful flat profiles look under low contrast low dynamics lighting. This is one of the few rules I think that applies to the "flat vs normal" debate.

It is easy enough to figure out wether lighting isn't dynamic enough, just look at the cameras built in histogram and see if the entire range is registering information, or just over half the range. If just over half, or less, then don't use flat or -4 contrast. switch favorite canon pic style and set to -3 to 0 contrast.

But if that is confusing or gets in the way of your work, than forget about it. Few people will care about the end look. And usually moving around and getting a better angle and lighting scenario is the better choice anyways.

Hope that helps.
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What do you think of Marvels 3.4?
 
JoeJITSU said:
What do you think of Marvels 3.4?
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I almost replied to this post this morning, but found I was just trying to be too unbiased.

Personally, I do not care for the Marvel Cine series. My experience with 3.4 is limited. But after playing with the earlier versions, I gave up on it. I absolutely abhorred all the v1's. v3.4 is much improved. They have at least gone from complete theory to some practicality.

Marvel v3.4 has the trademark magenta skin tone that most Canon video dslr footage has. So, right away, I am not excited about it.

The curve is a little wiggly in feel. (That is why I am eager to test out Flaat pic styles by NormanBates, because of the more predictable curve, in theory.) Marvel has started using a -3 contrast setting which is good. The -4 really kills mid tone contrast/gradation, because Canon is using a generic inverted S-curve which gets petrified in a weak codec. In my limited use of V3.4 I found grading the mid tones with more contrast than highlights and shadows brought a more natural look. But this entirely depends on the subject matter. My subject was exposed for the mid tones.

I like a lot of the theory that goes into Mavel Cine picture styles, but since I do not like the skin tones, I just don't further investigate it. The curve is a good balance of noise efficiency and flat. One of the best flat curves in that respect. But grading can be difficult if you don't use good methods. I find many users create a muddy mess with the picture style.

If you are grading for a human face, export some screen shots and play around with them in photoshop. I find it is far more easy to make adjustments there and become familiar with pic styles. I use a curves layer adjustment over the screen shot. I select the "eye drop" tool (shortcut "I"), and with the curves adjustment layer selected, I hover the tool over the lighter part of the face (usually the lightest part of the cheek) hold down 'command' on a mac, and click the tool on that area. That creates a reference point on the curves layer. I do the same for the darker part of the face (usually the darker area around the chin, but nothing absolutely black), hold 'command' and click the area. Another reference point is added to the curves layer. Then I can adjust those two points as a base. Finally, I will color correct and apply saturation adjustment. Of course, this is more for practice and becoming familiar with the footage curve behavior. But once you do it in photoshop, it makes it easier to do so in AE are FCP etc...
 
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