C300: How do you make C100/300 footage look less digital and more cinematic

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thomas diehl

Active member
I don't care about specs - just about the way the images look. So C300 - 8bit 50mb is no problem for me - but I just find the image too sharp, too clean - a great HD-TV-camera but not "cinematic". But maybe it is just because I don't know how to grade c-log properly. Do you use LUTs? Which ones? How? Colorista? How?
With FCP-3-way-CC I am just getting boring results ... Any help is highly appreciated ...
 
Cinematic is as much about lighting as grading and the camera you use is. Get some frame grabs on films you consider very filmic and try to duplicate the look. In post you can add lights to subjects and do all kinds of cool stuff to add contrast and separation.
I like Colorista II It's a easy tool and is very powerful. A good starting point for grading inside your NLE.


Here is a whole page of tutorials on grading with Colorista.

https://vimeo.com/channels/coloristaii
 
Protect your highlights. Use back light. Get good white balance. Apply a simple S-curve. Shoot on antique lenses...

...pretty much the same with all digital acquisition.
 
thomas diehl said:
F3 - ununsable for handheld, no broadcast codec
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Use a rig. Use S-Log on an external recorder. Done.

thomas diehl said:
bmcc - Way too "basic" for docu-work
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Depends on the doco, but yes, I tend to agree.

thomas diehl said:
5d - no nds, codec, no xlrs etc.
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Using NDs isn't a problem, a pain at times but not a problem. I use Tiffen filters rather than variable ND. Codec sucks, but not that much. No XLRs, not a problem if you have a sound recordist.

C300 is a good workhorse. Pictures can look great. It has it's faults though, much like every other camera.
 
If the images look to sharp then blur them. Try different kinds of blurs. Try bluring different colour chanels, etc. etc.

What people consider film like thends to differ, so just bluring probably isn't going to do it. Alot depends on the art design, lighting, etc. Just shooting under the sun isn't going to produce film like images. Heck even film doesn't look like film shot only with avaible light...:) If you know what I mean...
 
Maybe we've got differing opinions on what makes an image "cinematic" but for me personally sharpness doesn't rank very high on the list. Here's a video I shot on the C300 that I think looks pretty cinematic, particularly at 1080p.


I think lighting, framing, and movement are more important to creating a cinematic aesthetic.
 
..sorry, not the best example. this look very 'lit'. i can't identify real motivation of lighting, it comes from everywhere.
cinematic lighting is more like establishing a source of light, working with practicals, making it plausibly and atmospheric. in this scene for example it might have looked better, if main light source was coming from above and not being that harsh on actors faces.
also skintones look quite off to me.
sorry, if i might sound harshly, but you gave it as an example for "cinematic".
 
Finnegan said:
Maybe we've got differing opinions on what makes an image "cinematic" but for me personally sharpness doesn't rank very high on the list. Here's a video I shot on the C300 that I think looks pretty cinematic, particularly at 1080p.


I think lighting, framing, and movement are more important to creating a cinematic aesthetic.
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How come the bad guys forget about u in the bomb option? They ve already noticed you before the choice...
 
THe big failing of the C300 IMHO is the lens mounts. We are forced into either an EF mount or pl mount which each have their strengths but you have to choose 1 or the other. I also have an AF100 which is the dream world of lens options. One can use smart photo glass with auto focus and other smart features or with a PL adapter use completely manual cinema glass. In between there are adapters for almost any other kind of lens you can imagine. I have a set of arri std mount lenses that work with a proper adapter on the AF . THe C300 in comparison is very limited in terms of lens options compared to the AF 100, which is the first step on the way to creating a look whether cinematic or not with a camera.
 
nebular said:
..sorry, not the best example. this look very 'lit'. i can't identify real motivation of lighting, it comes from everywhere.
cinematic lighting is more like establishing a source of light, working with practicals, making it plausibly and atmospheric. in this scene for example it might have looked better, if main light source was coming from above and not being that harsh on actors faces.
also skintones look quite off to me.
sorry, if i might sound harshly, but you gave it as an example for "cinematic".
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I think your definition of cinematic lighting is very restrictive. There's hundreds of movies with aesthetics that I'd call "cinematic" that don't try to motivate their light sources, don't include practicals, and favor style over plausibility and aesthetic over atmospheric. I mean...look at every film noir movie ever made. By your definitions, film noir lighting isn't cinematic.

Screen Shot 2012-12-30 at 6.22.43 PM.jpg

To me, cinematic lighting is the lighting that best fits the project. For some projects that is super stylistic non-motivated lighting, and for others it's atmospheric, motivated, natural, and submissive. The piece I linked in my past post is based on a video game called Dishonored, the art style and tone of which I tried to maintain in the lighting and framing. Look at this still frame of Nic Cage. That lighting looks similar to the lighting I did in the Dishonored piece, right? Is that not cinematic, either?
 
Finnegan said:
There's hundreds of movies with aesthetics that I'd call "cinematic" that don't try to motivate their light sources, don't include practicals, and favor style over plausibility and aesthetic over atmospheric.
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OK, then please just give me 3 titles :)


Finnegan said:
I mean...look at every film noir movie ever made. By your definitions, film noir lighting isn't cinematic.
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but film noir WAS a cinematic style. it was like over-stylized art form of cinematography and lighting. if you get that style right, of course your film looks cinematic.

look at Kaurismäki. at least his last film 'le havre' you might know. he nearly exlusivly uses harsh direct tungsten lighting, sometimes non-motivated. but it looks right, because he shoots on film, uses the right colors and kind of imitates an established 'film look' (like 50's/60's studio productions).


Finnegan said:
Look at this still frame of Nic Cage. That lighting looks similar to the lighting I did in the Dishonored piece, right? Is that not cinematic, either?
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that's a close-up. i'm quite sure, (somewhen before or after) there comes an establisher, where it's somehow 'explained' where this harsh cold lightsources are coming from.
then you brain says, this looks right and natural, not lit by a film crew with big lights.

Finnegan said:
The piece I linked in my past post is based on a video game called Dishonored, the art style and tone of which I tried to maintain in the lighting and framing.
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i didn't know that. that makes sense. but then it tries to imitate video-game aesthetics, not cinematic looks.
 
I just watched "Man and Beast" on Vimeo, shot on a C500 in 4K with Canon RAW. Not a C100 or C300 or XF codec, but same sensor. Amazingly filmic imagery, due to an ASC DP and top colorist/s, but it starts with the front end of the camera/optics. I feel good that I own a camera with the same front end. Proves to me that Cine EOS can be very cinematic indeed!
 
Personally, I think the c300 looks more "cinematic" out of the box than nearly all it's price-nearest competitors. But, hey, to each his own.
 
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