Hollywood workflow VS. rest of the World...?!

M

Maest

Member
Do Hollywood studios and post/production facilities have some proprietary tools and software on their disposal as opoosed to us mortals and indie production crowd who has to rely on standard products manufactured by same companies?


I know that pixar and blue sky for example, have their own stuff, rendering programs and such, that can not be bought and are not off the store shelf but acctualy developed in house by them for their own productions and needs.


When there is a news that A-list big production movie with A-list talents was shot on Alexa, edited in FCP X and CCied in Resolve, does that means they used same Alexas, FCPs and Resolves like the ones I can by at B&H?


Or their product is different and altered according to their demands/needs/knowledge and they have their own stuff that people outside their facilities can not buy or rent?


What I am realy after is to find out is, does Hollywood has different tools and means to fix codec artifacts, off colors, bandings, ovewblown highlights, crushrd blacks etc. then the rest of us?


In which case, it means that only dfference betweeen us and them is the knowledge and skills, so my frustration and anxiety can and should be articulated towards obtsiningvthe knowledge and not worrying for not having enough money and access to their toolbox :)
 
Alexas are the same. Glass is the same (if you're using Cooks too). Lighting is far more elaborate and time consuming to set up. Locations are more varied. Talent is more recognized and higher paid. Post is more ehaustive with custom tweaks on pretty much everything (depending on the budget) from DIT to colorist to audio, etc.
 
Maest said:
Do Hollywood studios and post/production facilities have some proprietary tools and software on their disposal as opoosed to us mortals and indie production crowd who has to rely on standard products manufactured by same companies?


I know that pixar and blue sky for example, have their own stuff, rendering programs and such, that can not be bought and are not off the store shelf but acctualy developed in house by them for their own productions and needs.


When there is a news that A-list big production movie with A-list talents was shot on Alexa, edited in FCP X and CCied in Resolve, does that means they used same Alexas, FCPs and Resolves like the ones I can by at B&H?


Or their product is different and altered according to their demands/needs/knowledge and they have their own stuff that people outside their facilities can not buy or rent?


What I am realy after is to find out is, does Hollywood has different tools and means to fix codec artifacts, off colors, bandings, ovewblown highlights, crushrd blacks etc. then the rest of us?


In which case, it means that only dfference betweeen us and them is the knowledge and skills, so my frustration and anxiety can and should be articulated towards obtsiningvthe knowledge and not worrying for not having enough money and access to their toolbox :)
Click to expand...

It has always been just about skill.

Ok back when we only had standard definition 4x3 interlaced cameras yes the gap made a difference but not so much anymore. I mean Hollywood isn't exactly shooting on H264 with a wannabe HD DSLR but the gap is much smaller now. So no they don't have a special Alexa camera made just for them. An Alexa is an Alexa.

What makes a Hollywood production stand out is production value. This includes lights and taking the time to shoot something well along with acting talent that is trained to work in movies and not just a few buddies or local theater actors. Talented directors also make a huge difference. A great actor can have a poor performance with an inexperienced director and a inexperienced actor can pull off a decent performance with a skilled director.

RED and other super35mm cameras are actually not all that great in low light but it doesn't matter because movies are lit very well and very carefully. No magical light sucking camera will ever take the place of this no matter how much an indie film maker wishes for it. Light is about sculpting a scene to add depth and character. Going rogue with a super low light camera will never replace or replicate this. This is why I always tell my students don't worry about the camera as much and invest in some good lights. A good set of Kino-Flo's will last you well over a decade and never go out of style the way cameras do. If you do not light a production well then you are only using half of what your camera can really do. This can even affect what the camera sensor and codecs do to the final image

I have shot on RED and if you just take it and shoot skate boarding videos with the light as is you will get something that looks just like every other camera out there. In fact it may actually look worse without a huge amount of extra work.

Another interesting thing about Hollywood is many big budget FX movies like most of the Marvel movies, Ender's Game and most others are edited at 2k. They are shot with 3k, 4k, 5k or 6k but that extra resolution is down converted to 2k before any editing, color grading, or visual effects are added. Indies obsess about staying in a 4k workflow like it will make their productions worth more but Hollywood typically doesn't even bother with a full 4k workflow. These are movies pulling is hundreds of millions of dollars in sales and they are basically 2k movies. Some movies do use a full 4k pipeline but they are more rare and most people can't tell the difference. lower end 4k cameras can be treated the same way. Most of us that shoot 4k on cameras like the GH4 don't do so to deliver 4k but to get better looking 2k material through a smilier process Hollywood uses to convert 4k to 2k for higher fidelity and cleaner results.

Artistic tools all have to deal with this. Take musical instruments for example. I could walk into a music store right now and ask them for the most expensive saxophone the industry has ever created. Would it make me a better musician? I have never played the saxophone so absolutely not. I would still suck at it and sound like a cow giving birth to a calf. I could practice with it but in the end I would still be far off from a skilled saxophone player for a very long time. It takes a lot of raw talent and many years of practice to get really good at a musical instrument. Cameras are no different really. Sure anybody can flip the power switch and hit record but then again anybody can pick up a saxophone, wrap their lips around the reed and blow. Doesn't mean what comes out of either will be pretty. Cameras are rather easy to use today but that doesn't mean they are fool proof. You still have to have oodles of raw talent to get something good out of them.
 
"Hollywood" uses the same Alexa as you and I can rent, however, sometimes "they" get the ability to rent it before we can (or they can be part of the testing) for certain camera companies. But really, that only gives them a 3-6 months window to use "the pre-latest stuff", and it is only for a handful of productions/directors/cinematographers that can get that. The more common thing they can get though is lenses customized for their needs, panavision will gladly work with Nolan/Tarantino to help them shoot 65mm... But once again, that is like a handful of movies a year I would think that get that special treatment from panavision.

Now, I can only speculate about VFX-studios that they have a lot of proprietary software, and the older/bigger they are the more they have accumulated. However, I do think that "special sauce" they have won't really make your product much more special. I see it like brushes for painting a canvas, they have more tools, better brushes, etc. than you, but you can still do amazing work with the simple brushes you have. The thing is I think they have lots of programs/scripts that help with the workflow that might take time for a new VFX-house, but starting now today is much easier than it was 10-20 years ago (the industry is probably worse to start in) because now there are more programs available for workflow, or dynamic simulations, etc...

So in reality I think that today there are so many programs available that deal with all the workflow issues (and that more and more support open standards like alembic, FBX, OBJ for 3D, ACES color, EDLs for editing, etc...), so that it shouldn't be "that much" of a difference between "Hollywood".
 
Thanks for posting this. In the old days they were using 35mm while we were using SD interlaced. But today I have been curious as well. I've seen ILM talk about custom software but I've also heard about some studios using a farm of computers running after effects.
Lucas had sony make the cameras for Star Wars ep1, right?

But for most of Hollywood I have wondered exactly what you asked.
 
Hollywood films also have a ton of VFX work on practically everything, and it isn't just things you would obviously think of like CGI characters, explosions, etc. There is a ton of paint / roto work done on practically every shot in some big films. If they don't like the background, they'll replace it. If there are reflections of the camera / crew in a window, they will paint them out. If there's too much judder on a pan, they can fix it, or at least minimize it. With tools like Smoke, Flame, etc, they can fix things that filmmakers of the past would have never thought of fixing in post.

A big movie will go through numerous VFX reviews where these shots are tweaked again and again until they are perfect. Lot of money spent on these things.
 
agcohn said:
Hollywood films also have a ton of VFX work on practically everything, and it isn't just things you would obviously think of like CGI characters, explosions, etc. There is a ton of paint / roto work done on practically every shot in some big films. If they don't like the background, they'll replace it. If there are reflections of the camera / crew in a window, they will paint them out. If there's too much judder on a pan, they can fix it, or at least minimize it. With tools like Smoke, Flame, etc, they can fix things that filmmakers of the past would have never thought of fixing in post.

A big movie will go through numerous VFX reviews where these shots are tweaked again and again until they are perfect. Lot of money spent on these things.
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Wow, just wow. That Wolf of Wall Street stuff - is so subtle in some places, but you can see how it makes the scene.

Thanks for sharing.
 
Most studios use similar basic tools to Indies. The difference is that they have more resource (people) to customise those tools and pipelines. When studios talk about proprietary software what they really and usually mean is they've customised commercial software or written some specific plug-ins but more often than not these customisations are sitting on top of commercially available tools. The larger studios will have more people and dedicated resource for R&D, areas to differentiate themselves from the competition. Dneg wrote a renderer for Interstellar, ILM does a lot of work in simulations etc,.

Also a given facility would have it's own preferred methods for dealing with footage based on their own people and experiences.

With Nuke for example i've written python scripts to automate creation of shots, link to web based databases or shots and customise as much as i need. In Nuke again you can even create GPU based scripts for image processing (Bink script). Nuke is a powerhouse for getting stuff done. You can script After Effects too (i've done and it can be really useful) but it's not quite as open as other tools.

There are even whole suites and platforms for customising and gluing together the tools.

But taking a step back, in terms of dealing with footage there's nothing you can't do at home. Resolve et all give the basic toolset. What is usually missing is the experience and knowledge of colour science, formats and how to get the best out of everything. And you'd be working slower than a studio would. But there is nothing stopping you achieving the same results.

There's a white paper called cinematic color, it's worth a read. Written by someone at SPI and details some of their pipeline. It's really well written and a great place to start

cheers
Paul
 
firehawk said:
Thanks for posting this. In the old days they were using 35mm while we were using SD interlaced. But today I have been curious as well. I've seen ILM talk about custom software but I've also heard about some studios using a farm of computers running after effects.
Lucas had sony make the cameras for Star Wars ep1, right?

But for most of Hollywood I have wondered exactly what you asked.
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Star Wars episode 1 was shot on 35mm film.

Episode 2 was shot on a Sony F900 HDCAM camera. I used to use one of those and while they record 3:1:1 1440x1080 for Episode 2 they used external capture of 1920x1080 4:2:2. My compositing instructor in college worked on the clone war battle on Geonosis and shared a lot of details with us on the horror of working with the F900 material. Basically is wasn't any better than HD 4:2:2 formats we have today. In fact we have off the shelf codecs today that are better than what they had to work with back then.

Episode 3 used a Sony F950 camera which recorded to HDCAM SR which was a 1920x1080 4:4:4 tape format. I have never used that camera or tape format.

So normal cameras anybody could use if they had the money and none of them were custom made cameras. The F900 was a $100,000 camera at the time so very out of the price range of many people. The production company I worked for had one before they upgraded to the original RED One camera. Honestly H264 internal 4k from a GH4 is vastly superior today to what Episode 2 had in a $100,000 camera.
 
It's quite remarkable what is possible if you are dedicated and hard working today.
When I started 25 years ago there was just no way to be able to compete regardless of talent, simply because the tools were way beyond reach. A normal guy couldn't afford to shoot with 35mm cameras, much less do special effects with film and motion graphics. Crane shots and aerials cost big $$. 3D animation was another non-option due to immense cost. But now tools are so much more affordable and competitive that it narrows the gap.
 
Thank you, Thomas. Great info! I had read somewhere that George Lucas had input with Sony regarding the production of those cameras. He wanted to cut out the analog film step knowing there would be much digital compositing. I obviously had the ep # wrong. I know the cameras were sold retail to the public, but what I meant was that (I thought) he talked with Sony ahead of time when he was trying to determine which digital camera to use.
I should have better worded my earlier response but I was typing on my phone, and try to be brief.

Anyway, thanks again for the information. It's cool that our cheap cameras today are better than what they had in Ep2 :)

Thomas Smet said:
Star Wars episode 1 was shot on 35mm film.

Episode 2 was shot on a Sony F900 HDCAM camera. I used to use one of those and while they record 3:1:1 1440x1080 for Episode 2 they used external capture of 1920x1080 4:2:2. My compositing instructor in college worked on the clone war battle on Geonosis and shared a lot of details with us on the horror of working with the F900 material. Basically is wasn't any better than HD 4:2:2 formats we have today. In fact we have off the shelf codecs today that are better than what they had to work with back then.

Episode 3 used a Sony F950 camera which recorded to HDCAM SR which was a 1920x1080 4:4:4 tape format. I have never used that camera or tape format.

So normal cameras anybody could use if they had the money and none of them were custom made cameras. The F900 was a $100,000 camera at the time so very out of the price range of many people. The production company I worked for had one before they upgraded to the original RED One camera. Honestly H264 internal 4k from a GH4 is vastly superior today to what Episode 2 had in a $100,000 camera.
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Take a look at this VFX breakdown for a few scenes from the old "Ugly Betty" TV series and you will quickly see that we are not in Kansas any more. ( I was blown away when I first saw this, because I had no idea that this was how they were creating this TV show )

 
TheDingo said:
Take a look at this VFX breakdown for a few scenes from the old "Ugly Betty" TV series and you will quickly see that we are not in Kansas any more. ( I was blown away when I first saw this, because I had no idea that this was how they were creating this TV show )

Click to expand...

Thanks for sharing. Though possible for us smaller guys to do this, it would take a long, long time and lots of work to composite so many scenes. This shows how much work can go into just a walking or kissing scene. Viewers have no idea! :)
Us small operations just don't have the man-power, time or budgets to put that much work in, even if we have the tools and software.
 
I used to day-play on Ugly Betty and remember once doing a crane shot on their greenscreen brownstone set. I was surprised that they took hardly any notes for VFX like I was used to--just focal length I think, no inclinometer readings or diagrams with distances and whatnot. I hadn't realized until later that they regularly did these sort of shots on that show. Interestingly the last season or two they moved the show to NYC so they no longer had to create the backgrounds virtually!

But again, it does depend on how much money is being thrown at a problem. Those Ugly Betty clips are nearly 10 years old and quite sophisticated (thus obviously not cheap). Compared to a sequence I shot last year on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, we simply had to comp foreground elements into plates of Paris that were shot to our specs. I think it's safe to say that this was done for far less...and I think it shows, in that there's some strange virtual zooming going on in with the backgrounds, particularly at :21.

 
firehawk said:
... Us small operations just don't have the man-power, time or budgets to put that much work in, even if we have the tools and software...
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I've long thought that, at some point, there'll be sufficient amount of the pre-made VFX that would allow a low/no budget production to simply shoot in front of a green green. The various VFX packages would, obviously, cost per scene/camera angle and the scripted narrative would, obviously, have to fit the existing and reusable composites but, IMO, it should be doable. How long would it take to put together a cafe or a park look anyway? How much would a low/no budget production be able to pay?
 
DLD said:
I've long thought that, at some point, there'll be sufficient amount of the pre-made VFX that would allow a low/no budget production to simply shoot in front of a green green. The various VFX packages would, obviously, cost per scene/camera angle and the scripted narrative would, obviously, have to fit the existing and reusable composites but, IMO, it should be doable. How long would it take to put together a cafe or a park look anyway? How much would a low/no budget production be able to pay?
Click to expand...

You are talking virtual sets which have been around for a long time but they start to look cheesy really fast. I remember using some with the Video Toaster and Lightwave (modern PC version not the Amiga version) They were neat for about five minutes.
 
To the person who started the thread: keep concentrating on your knowledge, skills, and most importantly, your sensitivity and creative vision (for lack of better words).

Yes, what separates Hollywood from us is still massive amounts of cash (as evidenced by all the posts above). However, massive "Hollywood" cash is routinely trounced (in terms of critical reception and emotional impact, not box-office results) by a singular creative vision executed well. If you look at the history of best picture oscars, just as a quick example (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academy_Award_for_Best_Picture#Winners_and_nominees), you will see many, many films that could be (and many which actually were) made for a small budget accessible to many people.

The key is in knowing what is achievable for that small budget and tailoring your project to suit that. If you set out to try to make a VFX-heavy action-adventure blockbuster type movie on a small budget, you will most likely fail (like, 99.9999% chance of failure). However, if you set out to make a movie with real emotional impact that is suited to a small budget, this is where your knowledge, skills, sensitivity, and creative vision can really make a huge difference. This could give 1,000 times better chance of success (in other words, only a 99.9% chance of failure. :))

For a great example of what I'm talking about, look at just about any film from the Dardenne brothers (they're a huge inspiration to me). In terms of resources required, their films could be made by pretty much anyone (good grief, they don't even use a tripod :)). Yet because of their talents they are part of a very small club of people who have won the Cannes Palme d'Or more than once: only 8 filmmakers have done this (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palme_d'Or#Multiple_award_winners).
 
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