F55: Blacklist and F55

A

Alpha Beta Omega

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I've watched the first batch of The Blacklist episodes shot on F55 cameras. Frankly I'm very disappointed at the footage. Skin tones are often a bit odd and the interior car scenes are a joke. The more I watched the worse it looked and maybe due to viewing in 1080p. In a way the first four episodes looked better when I viewed them in sd than the last ones in 1080.

it made me think that 4k and 1080p viewing reveals to much flaws in the footage, make-up, effects and such? Could it be 4k cameras resolve to much and unless you pay the out most attention to detail it will look worse than 1080? These shows are shot on a tight schedule so maybe corners are cut. However I had to stop watching it because it looked so bad and distracted me from the action.
 
The show has a look that perhaps is too sharp but I don't think it's the camera. I think it's a choice. As far as I can tell the skin tones are very good. I am looking at a daylight exterior from the General Ludd episode where Spader is sitting on swing. The skin tones look very good.

What's different is how they light and grade. The blacks are deliberately very inky, especially in the interiors. The light is hard and so the shadows are sharp (which doesn't help the prematurely wrinkled), they will use a hot back light, there is always a conspicuous hair light, and the eye light could cut diamonds. It's sharp OK but it's exacerbated by that distinct lighting and grade, I think.

It's a look, I think they are going for. I think, where the light is not highly stylized the skin tones look great. What's odd about the skin tones?
 
Osslund said:
I've watched the first batch of The Blacklist episodes shot on F55 cameras. Frankly I'm very disappointed at the footage. Skin tones are often a bit odd and the interior car scenes are a joke. The more I watched the worse it looked and maybe due to viewing in 1080p. In a way the first four episodes looked better when I viewed them in sd than the last ones in 1080.

it made me think that 4k and 1080p viewing reveals to much flaws in the footage, make-up, effects and such? Could it be 4k cameras resolve to much and unless you pay the out most attention to detail it will look worse than 1080? These shows are shot on a tight schedule so maybe corners are cut. However I had to stop watching it because it looked so bad and distracted me from the action.
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I think the chief complaint from most very experienced DP's from the film days are that the new cameras and lenses are too sharp and too detailed. Quite a few are saying that they are putting some kind of diffusion on lenses in order to create a less harsh more film-like image.


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http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/ne...matographers-why-656281?mobile_redirect=false
 
I just couldn't believe they shot 16-bit linear raw. I assumed they had to have shot whatever they shot directly in Rec709 for it to look so inexorably 'TV'. I haven't been able to see the Michael J Fox Show yet, but I've looked at a couple of trailers/scenes for it, and though it doesn't seem as obvious as Blacklist, there is, again, a distinctly TV/Video look to the footage to my mind.

All of which seems strange give the capabilities a camera like the F55 puts in your hands.
 
Most people would be watching it in HD at which point 4k detail would go away. Having said that I have been scooping up 1/8 filters the last little while hopefully soon to run some tests on 4k and see what's good/bad about it.

Regarding Blacklist I saw a few images on YouTube and nothing really stood out as awful to me. I guess you have to watch full episode, but if there are any specific scenes I'd love to see frames or clips being referred too.
 
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Having lunch today with a DP friend who just starting operating B camera on Blacklist. Of late, most of his projects either as DP or operator have been on Alexa. So I'll be curious to hear his impressions of F55. Can't promise, though, that I'll be allowed to share anything.

Ned
 
At first look, yeah the gamma looks a bit sketchy to me, low dynamic range, high contrast with harsh clipping, but maybe they recorded using a gamma curve that left a lot unrecoverable? Or if they shot raw then maybe they skimped on grading and just used a REC709 LUT? I've seen plenty of shows shot on good cinema cameras end up looking like they were shot on low-DR broadcast video cameras. It's a sad sight considering a lot of dramatic shows a decade ago used to be shot on 35mm... My only thought is either a poorly designed workflow designed for short deadlines using some bad video LUT or maybe using multiple other specialty C-cameras that had to get matched to? Or maybe it's just a new asthetic we'll have to get accustomed to.
 
What I am able to say-- it is shot 4K 16 bit linear raw to AXS-R5 recorder. Also recording to SxS cards but not certain whether MPEG2 proxies or XAVC. They have 2 viewing LUTs just for on-set monitoring but the colorist never sees those LUTs. F55 with Angie zooms. For handheld, Panavision shoulder mount rig. All gear, in fact, rented from Panavision. It is graded in CA and they hold the colorist's secret sauce pretty close to the vest, so no idea if s/he is simply applying a Rec709 LUT as Noah suggests or just creating look the producers want. Can't comment on the lighting but if I can get on set I could get a look. But still may be limited in what I can discuss.

Ned
 
From my experience with the raw, it looks like the colorist is using the Sony provided Rec709 raw decoders, as opposed to the other choices he could have done.

The highlight rolloff is a bit harsh on that option, and the colors are somewhat traditional Sony. I could be wrong, but based on my playing around with the various ways to process Sony raw, that's what it looks like to me.

If you're wondering what his other choices would have been, if they were shooting raw:

1-Decode raw to S-Log2/S-Gamut, and then apply a LUT

2-Decode raw to S-Log2/S-Gamut, and then grade from there

3-ACES

4-Decode raw to some combination of S-Log-2/Rec 709 gamut, or vice-versa.


The thing I want to stress though, is that there are a multitude of ways to process Sony raw, and they all look markedly different. Different colors, different highlight roll-off, etc etc. If you don't like how Blacklist or Michael J Fox looks, there's about a zillion ways to skin that cat. BTW, both shows have the same colorist.
 
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To me there are a mixture of unnatural colours and shades appearing in faces. Sometimes it looks okay but not as good as I would think footage from the F55 could be. It's not bad as is but I really expected more. It does have a videostyle look to it also.
 
Any ideas why they wouldnt use Alexa's or F35's or something else that most people seem to already like? Why would any typical network TV show use something else in this time?
 
It's hard to judge a camera on a single application. Look at all the stuff shot on RED and how different that all looks, or even Alexa. With this level of camera I think there are myriad possibilities, especially in grading, and especially if acquired RAW. It is extremely sharp, that's for sure. The Good Wife was shot on F35 and I like the way that looks. I wonder if they still are?
 
Wow, I didn't know my little F35 shot The Good Wife, very interesting! Life in the old fella yet!
 
My point was not that the F55 is a bad camera, it isn't. I related the 4k resolution and the fact that we now can view 1080p and that these two factors put more demand on the production. It made me think that maybe, just maybe, you kick yourself in the arse making a production with a high resolving camera if you can't make the effort to match the higher resolution. Maybe it would have been better to use a 1080p recording and soften it more with black frost or similar.

I know I didn't notice these things when I watched the first four episodes in SD but I've watched other shows in 1080 that have looked really good. Maybe these were shoot with Alexa/F35 or soften to look better.
 
hscully said:
It's hard to judge a camera on a single application. Look at all the stuff shot on RED and how different that all looks, or even Alexa.
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If they shot RAW, then any "look" will be down to the postproduction far, far more than the camera - that's the whole point of RAW. I haven't seen the material, but it sounds like what is being talked about is deliberate on the part of the production team and grader - unpopular though the general reception seems to be here.
 
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