Custom workflow on set that is definitely unique

CharlesPapert

CharlesPapert

Director of Photography
I was contacted a few weeks ago by a DP for a possible rental of my vintage broadcast cameras. After we talked it through and he sent a reference clip, I realized that the look they were going for was not going to be served by an old camera. Essentially, it was a 20+ year old music video that had been shot on 35mm film--obviously back then it would have been mastered on some high-end standard-def tape format and eventually uploaded to Youtube at limited resolution. In recent years the video has been uprezzed to HD, with notable sharpening applied. And this was the look they wanted to emulate for this video. As much as I would have liked to have rented them a camera, I suggested that this was a look that should probably be created in post to duplicate the path of the original. I was informed that they wanted the look created and burned in on set. Interesting!

Gamely taking on the task, I built a workflow that would take a 1080 24p image from camera, pass it through the DIT's cart to de-log and apply LUT via Livegrade, then it would pass over to my setup where it would be downscaled to 525 60i, upscaled back to 1080 24p, then fed into Resolve Live for downstream processing including sharpening, and finally recorded out to a Shogun. To my surprise, after testing it the resulting look is quite close to the reference material, and the important folk will be able to see it real time on set (I haven't measured the latency yet but I expect it will be a few frames at least). I also built an even more messed-up version where the downscale process will also convert the signal from digital (SD-SDI) to analog (composite) and back again. This one really looks funky, with noise, hum and color crawl added into the image. I'm offering both versions to the DP at a camera test on Monday, will be curious to see which one wins!

If anyone has actually made it this far (this is deeply wonky stuff), below is a workfow chart of the test setup. The gray shaded area represents the existing hardware on my DP cart--I'll feed the digital and analog versions into the system as if they are A and B camera, so I can switch between them on command via my ATEM switcher, or even do a split screen for comparison purposes.

This is honestly one of the kookiest things I've ever been tasked with in this business, but at the same time, it is really fun and stretching my brain in interesting ways. And hey, it's work and that's nothing to sneeze at these days...the struggle is real.

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I have reasons that today's film formats are not suitable for some stories, but they ruin, I have seen good and acceptable movies with ordinary hdv -4,2,0 cameras in their time, which if made them with today's cameras, form and story was ruined, so today's formats would not be suitable for everyone,

Of course I don't mean analog and VHS cameras. Thay are terible I mean hd, hdv cam 2000-2006 nearly,
 
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That workflow seems insane and just so unnecessary, lol...I mean, I wish you could rent the gear every week and make the money forever, but what a complicated solution for something that probably really, truly doesn't need it.

I watch a lot of music videos and there has always been that kind of visual experimentation in the last 5-10-20 years and it all works; they all look old and different and that can be done by just using an old camera as is?

But on more $erious shoots for bigger artists I guess the crews still look for specificity even for a niche.
 
NorBro said:
That workflow seems insane and just so unnecessary, lol...I mean, I wish you could rent the gear every week and make the money forever, but what a complicated solution for something that probably really, truly doesn't need it.
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I think the unusual part of it is doing it live on set vs in post where it would normally be done. That's what makes it exotic.

Music videos have always been about visual experimentation--probably the best part of working on them. I remember in the 90's shining flashlights down the eyepiece, opening the door to the camera to expose the film during the shot, baking film etc. I don't keep up on the music video trends so I don't know if the specific look we are creating is particularly innovative, but I do feel sure it's not being done live!

Once we are done testing, the signal flow will simplify to one or the other approach and I can trim down the amount of stuff I'm bringing. It's honestly not THAT insane of a build but I wanted to give the director the cleanest experience (live switching between options vs "hold on while I switch over a bunch of BNC's and reprogram the Decimators").
 
Yeah, that all sounds good. :)

I used to see a good amount where they mixed quality...like old (there's a shot of the cam at 1:01 but that could just be for show) with ARRI/RED. Maybe I'll post a few later but here's one for now (NSFW):

 
The reference for this particular job is more complex than simply a vintage video look. That would have been easy since I have those cameras on the shelf ready to go! It's high end origination (35mm) with low end mastering (standard def tape) with mediocre upscaling. This was the reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIy3n2b7V9k
 
Yeah that is a wild look—like quasi HD with way too much digital crispiness added. Very distinctive! While it may have been easier to emulate in post I love that you're essentially doing it in-camera, Charles.
 
I would def agree that this is pretty easy in post with many cameras, but the project (from an operator's perspective) is pretty cool, it's what keeps us young.
 
ohhh, thank you, that makes a lot of sense because I was so convinced it never looked like that...now I have to go back and check out other old ones because I've watched most music videos from those early-mid 2000s.
 
Basic rule of thumb, I think, is if the video was made pre 2008 or so and the available Youtube resolution is 1080 or higher, it's been updated with a new upscaled version.

In a lot of cases, the remaster is noted in the description. And many of them actually look great, like this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzZWSrr5wFI. I'm not even sure that video would look notably better if it was remastered from freshly scanned 16mm camera negative!
 
I'm still scratching my head trying to understand the logic behind burning in on set... but am curious on something you might be able to answer, Charles... what's the camera that will be shooting the 1080 / 24 image?
 
markfpv said:
I'm still scratching my head trying to understand the logic behind burning in on set... but am curious on something you might be able to answer, Charles... what's the camera that will be shooting the 1080 / 24 image?
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Venice 2.

I'm about to submerge into NDA territory on this, shoot is tomorrow...let's just say that as I've learned more about the shoot, my role in it makes more sense than it did at first. Wish me luck, here we go!!!
 
Just returned home from this shoot, a 14 hour day. Haven't done one of those in a while (and haven't missed them)! But I have been out of the music video loop for a long time so there that is.

After the camera tests I was able to rebuild my cart and simplify things a bit. We 86'd the digital to analog back to digital version as being too far out there. And I found the upscaling with the MD-HX to be a bit lacking in a few ways. So I replaced it with a rackmount Teranex converter I bought a few years back to help with my old tape conversions (performing the 60i to 60p conversion on the fly). It did a nice job. I was having trouble with the 60i to 24p reverse telecine even with the Teranex, it seems to be a tough one to lock in on the fly, so I ended up downconverting to PAL which at 50i is a closer frame rate to 24p and caused fewer artifacts. It still created some wild motion blur here and there which actually added to the look.

At the beginning of the day there was quite a lot of excitement over the live converted image. The peeps from the label at video village were wowed, and the artist/director seemd super happy. It was admittedly a really unusual look. To see the pristine image from the Venice side by side with this super crunchy and degraded version, you'd think it was two separate cameras. It is a bit ironic for those of us who came up with consumer/prosumer gear and dreamed of the high end imagery to see the process go backwards, but it was fun to see it how people respond to it as being radically different.

Once the video posts I'll be able to comment more.
 
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CharlesPapert said:
Basic rule of thumb, I think, is if the video was made pre 2008 or so and the available Youtube resolution is 1080 or higher, it's been updated with a new upscaled version.

In a lot of cases, the remaster is noted in the description. And many of them actually look great, like this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzZWSrr5wFI. I'm not even sure that video would look notably better if it was remastered from freshly scanned 16mm camera negative!
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What an amazing video! Never seen that before. And it looks incredible as you say.
 
patrickbaldwin said:
What an amazing video! Never seen that before. And it looks incredible as you say.
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One of my favorites from that era. Love the editing, feels hardly dated at all for a video that is closing in on 40 years old. I shot a number of music videos for the director of that one and asked him a lot of questions about that shoot (I also know the Steadicam operator seen in multiple shots and did the same with him). It was a lot more planned than it appears--they spent a week reinforcing the roof of the building anticipating the possibility of a crowd finding their way up there, the generators at street level were backed up with secondary ones on the room anticipating the police having them shut down. They made it through 8 songs in total (four times through the one featured in the video) before being shut down for good. Finally, fans of American Horror Story, true crime and/or ghost stories will recognize the Hotel Cecil towering above that rooftop (the painted sign identifying the hotel was just covered over recently).
 
CharlesPapert said:
Just returned home from this shoot, a 14 hour day. Haven't done one of those in a while (and haven't missed them)! But I have been out of the music video loop for a long time so there that is.

It turned out that my role in this was to give an on-set approximation of the final look, it will be properly dialed in during post. Essentially, a complicated version of a viewing LUT. Might seem extravagant, but this was a major artist and well, these things happen.

After the camera tests I was able to rebuild my cart and simplify things a bit. We 86'd the digital to analog back to digital version as being too far out there. And I found the upscaling with the MD-HX to be a bit lacking in a few ways. So I replaced it with a rackmount Teranex converter I bought a few years back to help with my old tape conversions (performing the 60i to 60p conversion on the fly). It did a nice job. I was having trouble with the 60i to 24p reverse telecine even with the Teranex, it seems to be a tough one to lock in on the fly, so I ended up downconverting to PAL which at 50i is a closer frame rate to 24p and caused fewer artifacts. It still created some wild motion blur here and there which actually added to the look.

At the beginning of the day there was quite a lot of excitement over the live converted image. The peeps from the label at video village were oohing and aahing, and the artist/director was super happy with it. It was admittedly a really unusual look. To see the pristine image from the Venice side by side with this super crunchy and degraded version, you'd think it was two separate cameras. Naturally it is ironic for those of us who came up with consumer/prosumer gear and dreamed of the high end imagery, to see the process go backwards, but that is the fashion of the day and it is fun to see it how people respond to it as being radically different.

Once the video posts I'll be able to comment more.
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Thanks for reporting back. Looking forward to seeing this eventually. And 14 hours... woof. Hope your next day is very light.
 
CharlesPapert said:
One of my favorites from that era. Love the editing, feels hardly dated at all for a video that is closing in on 40 years old. I shot a number of music videos for the director of that one and asked him a lot of questions about that shoot (I also know the Steadicam operator seen in multiple shots and did the same with him). It was a lot more planned than it appears--they spent a week reinforcing the roof of the building anticipating the possibility of a crowd finding their way up there, the generators at street level were backed up with secondary ones on the room anticipating the police having them shut down. They made it through 8 songs in total (four times through the one featured in the video) before being shut down for good. Finally, fans of American Horror Story, true crime and/or ghost stories will recognize the Hotel Cecil towering above that rooftop (the painted sign identifying the hotel was just covered over recently).
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I did wonder about the roof. Once i read in the comments that they basically shot each song multiple times it made it a little easier to understand otherwise the number of cameras just on the street would have been incredible. Fantastic achievement. Love that they had backup sneaky generators. Must have been an incredible atmosphere on the day.
 
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