HD- We need to be careful

Jay A. Kelley

Jay A. Kelley

Well-known member
Hello everyone,

This is my first post I think...

I hope I am not off topic here, but I want to comment on something. Let me say right off the bat that I am very excited about the RED camera. I believe it will cause a lot of changes in many areas, and most, if not all of them, will be for the better.

I am a Director of commercials and various dramatic narrative projects who also deals with shooting. My camera of choice up to now has been the Panasonic AJ-SDX900. Put simply, this camera gives me the look and feel of film, while keeping my post costs in a reasonable area.

As a person who is consumed by story and the "look" of the story, I must say I have been very unhappy with the implimentation of HD so far. To be more to the point, while we are busy happily geeking out on the new power the tools of the HD world are offering us, the REST of the crew continues to move happily along as if nothing has changed.

Two examples would be production designers and make up artists. Just last niight I was watching a recent episode of "The West Wing" in HD... Oh my god, the actors all looked 200 years old. The makeup was inconsistant and sometimes even ugly. In any other world it would look fine, but the HD world requires a much higher-end type of makeup.. Of course no one has offered the makeup artist more money for this evolution, and they will just keep doing things the same old way until someone stands up and takes a look at the whole picture, not just part of it.

As most if not all of you know, a sharp picture is NOT the goal of a good story unless there is some dramatic purpose to it. As the Red camera enters our world with it's 4k chip, we will be tested even further in mantaining a proper "look" to our work.

I am rambeling a little bit. Sorry.. There just more to it guys. We've always had high resolution footage, it's called 35mm. But NOW we have monitors that can show us a LOT more that they used too.

So talk to your makup people, talk to your production designers, do some real R&D in post and find out in advance what you intend to do in order to give your project the right look based on the format it's being viewed in.

I am happy about the cameras, I am looking forward to RED. But we need to remember these are simply paint brushes with which we tell our stories.

As for me, while I am hired to shoot in HD, right now I tend to push clients BACK to SD if the project deals with a lot of closeups on actors. Why? Because I end up having to blur the image using a special filter in order to get that soft skin tone anyway. Shooting 480 24P in SD does this for me and saves the clients a few thousand dollars in the process.

So am I anti HD? Am I anti-RED? HELL NO (Get it? Red - Hell?.. Nevermind)

Why am I excited about RED.. 4 reasons: More resolution for effects work. Overcranking and Undercranking, Latitude, Latitude. It' gonna be fun~!!

I hope there's something here that useable.. If not, feel free to forget I wrote it.

Jay A. Kelley
www.dreamwelder.com
 
Great post. I agree 100%. But let's face it, if we can have a 35mm sensor PL mount camera for the same price of a 2/3", being that both make HD, except the first has potential for a much better picture, well, that's just great news!
 
I'm pretty sure with lens that beautiful the images will be aboslutely marvelous. I mean, I'm using a LETUS FLIP for my DVX now and it's like a brand new camera. sheesh.
 
I'd rather be blurring the image to soften actresses features and have all the rest red has to offer then the other way around. I just saw an article about make-up artist job changing because of HD. I say they need to get with the change and become real artist, the days of a little powder may be gone for ever, and frankly I'm glad.
 
Gopher_Greene said:
I'd rather be blurring the image to soften actresses features and have all the rest red has to offer then the other way around. I just saw an article about make-up artist job changing because of HD. I say they need to get with the change and become real artist, the days of a little powder may be gone for ever, and frankly I'm glad.
Click to expand...
Well I understand your point Gopher, but I want to point out that there are aspects of "a little powder" you are going to miss as well. Gone will be the days of the makeup person dashing in between shots and doing a 5 second "touch up".. Make up can already slow things down to a crawl, it will be much worse now.

Jezz I sound so damn negative.. I'm not honest.. But HD is a change from the bottom up, not the top down. I would like the see more discussion about the over all creation of the image from all depts. Not just the camera. Of course I need to get on a different forum for that, so I think it's time I shut up and get with the program.

As for blurring a high rez image.. IT can be pretty tricky.

GO RED!!

Jay
 
Last year at NAB 2005 I went to the CineAlta feastival. As usual, they had clips from movies and TV shows shot with the 900 or 950 projected via the brand new 4k projector. As always, a terrific experience with the various producers and DP's.

What was very interesting was how bad a showing the makeup FX had... a clip from low budget TV Star Trek Enterprise and a sequence from the high budget Revenge of the Sith shared this in common... the moment the foam latex hit the screen it was laughable. The images screamed "Rubber! Run for your life!".

I didn't get the chance to get to a mike and ask the question of what the industry intended to do about this. But it was interesting that this was a problem that plagued both hi and low end efforts.

Having said this, I'll also state that I just don't care. It's up to the collective industry to raise the bar on ALL areas of production in general to match this new playing field of detail and quality. Sets will have to be made better. Make-up will have to be more of an air-brushed nature, and make-up on men will have to be very, very well done so as to NOT look like make-up.

For years the IMAX and Showscan folks have had to deal with these issues... and now with RED at this incredible price-point, so do we. How cool is that?

I can't wait to look these folks in the eyes tomorrow at NAB...

Regards,

Jim Arthurs
 
So why is it that these same effects and the same makeup techniques are acceptable on 35mm film, but not for 720 or 1080P video (which is arguably LOWER 'resolution' than 35mm film)?

I can't help but think that the issue of makeup and effects has been overblown, much like the need for "HD" lenses has (in my opinion).

For years people have been saying that "one day" HD will be as detailed as 35mm film. Now that we're getting close to that why is it that suddenly the same tools we've been using with 35mm film for decades aren't good enough for a format that is less detailed?

Granted, 4K resolution is up there.
But 720P? 1080P?

Either way - right or wrong - I hope to God we all have to deal with these problems some day soon.
:thumbsup:
 
Luis, you ask a very good question. And the reason I believe is because many people have their cameras set far too sharp. Film just isn't as good at mid frequency detail as high def cameras. High def cameras also have a lot of edge enhancement out of the box. In fact the F900 is ridiculously sharp even with the detail switched off. Which is why many cameras now have the ability to go into negative detail.

It should be made a law for people to turn off detail circuits in high def cameras! It also makes a difference to the perception of judder at 24/25p as well. Switch the detail off and it softens it a bit. This is because the main perception of judder at these framerates comes from the sharpest edges in the frame. If everything is edge enhanced then almost every detail in the frame has a sharp edge, thus making the judder more intrusive.

So going back to your original question, with the detail turned on and left at factory default every wrinkle and imperfection will be enhanced and made to stand out. There is also the difference in capability between makeup artists. Artists who work in features know that their work has to stand up to higher standards due to the increased size and detail of film. TV people not so much, so they have had to raise their game to a higher standard now that high def has arrived.
 
Hey guys,

Thanks for running with my topic.. I feel so important!! What's the difference between 35mm detail then and now? Nothing.. It's the MONITORS that are different.. 35mm blown up on a movie screen softens. But on a 60" HD monitor showing that print saved out on HD you see a LOT more of the detail.

I hear what you are saying about all depts need to step up.. But try to walk in their shoes for a moment. These people are not being offered more money, but are being asked to drastically increase the time and effort needed to do a good job. I am sure everything will balance out, hopefully soon.

I own a panny AJ-SDX900 and I turn off the detail on that camera as well.

Jay
 
Thanks for that article Isaac. It's nice to see a below-the-liner so kindly reflected on by someone of Tom Hank's stature.

e
 
By the way, I watched the West Wing episode too and found the makeup to be a part of the story - they had just completed an exhaustive presidential campaign, and the main character was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Compared to episodes from a year ago, the difference was huge. So yeah, I think it was on purpose.

In the Star Wars Episode III extras the make-up person talks about how good monitoring on set helps them do their job better - all the little imperfections hidden by 35mm film grain structure are now completely visible. It's more work for them, but they can handle it as long as they have proper HD monitoring where they can spot the problems. In Star Wars' case I think they had 40" Panasonic professional HD plasmas, so that got covered (and the makeup got an Oscar nod).
 
its funny because most post guys try to make all scanned film look like film. anything in the digital realm has sharpness limitations.
with commercials and music-videos, to reduce or erase blemishes, during the scanning process sream and shout are used to select grain structure isolate it together with all irregular spots, soften the images, add cleenly sampled grain, before resharpening. this combined with power windows saturation and coloring takes all the blemishes scratches out. vfx films are shot with slower speed film these are more organic and softer.
this is too expensive for long form drama.
I did not know the west wing was shot on HD, i thought they have been switching between super 16mm and 35mm 3 perf. they could be shooting on the new kodak hi def teledrama stocks. but logically syndicated teledrama programming for worldwide distribution will traditionally originate on film, due to the multitude of video deliverables internationally.

I stand corrected if this is the case.
 
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I’d like to chime in, having been a professional special make up effects artist for 15 + years, this conversation about make-up and other art depepartment efforts "holding up" has been an on-going problem. HD is not the first wrinkle to challenge artistic quality. In the 90s people at the top of this field were being to squawk about the new film stocks (vision etc), that their old ways of doing things could and would no longer hold up.

From what I can see, this was one of the greatest kick-in-the-pants to make-up in a half century. The work that followed solving this problem has been not only good enough to “hold up”, but also superior in nearly every way to what was happening a decade earlier.

People will always rise to the challenge
 
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