macgregor
Veteran
I had some free time yesterday so i though it could be funny to summarize some mistakes people tend to do. This is a positive feedback. So we can all learn and do better. I myself have done some of this horrible things sometime.
1.- Never shoot with a shutter speed of 1/24, 1/25, or any combination of fps/360º shutter angle. You deserve to die in a fire for using 360º. Michael Mann deserves death (unless someone can proof he went blind in 2001).
2.- Magic Bullet Looks has some good and very interesting filters. But that probably is not going to turn your miniDV footage look Hollywood film. I´ve never seen any feature films that resemble the Magic bullet mojo. Godfather, Pulp Fiction, Schindler's List, Star Wars, Batman begins or Fight Club don´t look like any magic bullet preset.
Also, heavy color correction is going to ruin your film even more in 99% of cases. Stay natural. Natural is timeless.
3.- Highlights. Blown out highlights don't look like film. In fact, they don't look good at all. It's the number one difference between amateurs and pros. I've never seen anything good with overexposed highlights. If you think clipped shirts look ok to you, just keep walking to the end of the corridor, where it says Room101.
4.- Crushed blacks. This is the opposite. For the last 2-3 years, people tend to crush the shadows. So much that everything looks digital (in the cheap way). I've even seen some music videos shot on film that look like video because they crushed the blacks too much. Dark doesn't mean crushing your blacks. It's usually a wrong choice in gamma + a colorist has Parkinson's, bad taste, or a combination of both.
5.- Wrong gamma. Yep, most modern HDV cameras and HDslrs have default gammas that boost midtones as well as low highlights. This produces clean faces and bright images. Film doesn't look like this. In fact, reality doesn't look like this neither. Almost always, the number one reason why your footage looks like plastic or digital is because you need to lower your highlights with a curve.
6.- Cleanliness. Digital is too clean. Film is "dirty". Even the cleanest film scanned at 2K/HD resolution looks really bad. Grain everywhere. The truth is that we like this. If the image is too clean, it looks stationary and artificial. Add a bit of grain to your footage for a more natural and pleasant viewer experience (MB is good for this). BTW, noise is not grain.
7.- DOF. In the beginning, God created 1/3" chips. Everything was sharp. Everything was in focus. Close ups were boring because the background was too distracting. Today, it´s the opposite. With 35mm adapters, RED1 and HDdslrs everyone shoots wide open. Take it easy, blurriness hides your movie. I sometimes like to see sharp edges and a frame in focus. Keep in mind that most Hollywood movies are shot between T4 and T5.6 in normal light conditions. That is a good compromise between separating the elements of the scene and keeping an interesting composition. A close up of a girl with her nose out of focus because you are shooting with a 100mm at T1.3 is not pretty. Remember the rule: It might look sharp in your 3" screen. Believe me, it´ll be out of focus in the theater. So do not abuse of DOF.
Bonus rule: Sound is usually the difference between good and bad movies.
Of course, as any decalogue, you´re not supposed to follow it.
1.- Never shoot with a shutter speed of 1/24, 1/25, or any combination of fps/360º shutter angle. You deserve to die in a fire for using 360º. Michael Mann deserves death (unless someone can proof he went blind in 2001).
2.- Magic Bullet Looks has some good and very interesting filters. But that probably is not going to turn your miniDV footage look Hollywood film. I´ve never seen any feature films that resemble the Magic bullet mojo. Godfather, Pulp Fiction, Schindler's List, Star Wars, Batman begins or Fight Club don´t look like any magic bullet preset.
Also, heavy color correction is going to ruin your film even more in 99% of cases. Stay natural. Natural is timeless.
3.- Highlights. Blown out highlights don't look like film. In fact, they don't look good at all. It's the number one difference between amateurs and pros. I've never seen anything good with overexposed highlights. If you think clipped shirts look ok to you, just keep walking to the end of the corridor, where it says Room101.
4.- Crushed blacks. This is the opposite. For the last 2-3 years, people tend to crush the shadows. So much that everything looks digital (in the cheap way). I've even seen some music videos shot on film that look like video because they crushed the blacks too much. Dark doesn't mean crushing your blacks. It's usually a wrong choice in gamma + a colorist has Parkinson's, bad taste, or a combination of both.
5.- Wrong gamma. Yep, most modern HDV cameras and HDslrs have default gammas that boost midtones as well as low highlights. This produces clean faces and bright images. Film doesn't look like this. In fact, reality doesn't look like this neither. Almost always, the number one reason why your footage looks like plastic or digital is because you need to lower your highlights with a curve.
6.- Cleanliness. Digital is too clean. Film is "dirty". Even the cleanest film scanned at 2K/HD resolution looks really bad. Grain everywhere. The truth is that we like this. If the image is too clean, it looks stationary and artificial. Add a bit of grain to your footage for a more natural and pleasant viewer experience (MB is good for this). BTW, noise is not grain.
7.- DOF. In the beginning, God created 1/3" chips. Everything was sharp. Everything was in focus. Close ups were boring because the background was too distracting. Today, it´s the opposite. With 35mm adapters, RED1 and HDdslrs everyone shoots wide open. Take it easy, blurriness hides your movie. I sometimes like to see sharp edges and a frame in focus. Keep in mind that most Hollywood movies are shot between T4 and T5.6 in normal light conditions. That is a good compromise between separating the elements of the scene and keeping an interesting composition. A close up of a girl with her nose out of focus because you are shooting with a 100mm at T1.3 is not pretty. Remember the rule: It might look sharp in your 3" screen. Believe me, it´ll be out of focus in the theater. So do not abuse of DOF.
Bonus rule: Sound is usually the difference between good and bad movies.
Of course, as any decalogue, you´re not supposed to follow it.
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