Lighting Blog - breakdown

cousinavi7 said:
Great points you guys! Svart I tend to agree with you. Its interesting to think that we are trying terribly hard to mimic and find the exact placement they found. But we have to keep in mind that they were not mimicing and trying to re-create anything. They were just adjusting to get a feel they liked (bearing in mind that they couldn't spend 4 hours setting up a CU shot. They probably had the 10-15 mins that most DPs have and they went' with it. Also thats years of practice making them very efficient at what they do.
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That 'way they feel like' is the result of years of doing certain things in certain ways. When I was learning to set up strobes for still photos, early on I would try to mimic images that I found. Usually for inanimate objects/sets such as products, or architecture. When the Wife was doing the wedding business I would set up the lights either for the formal wedding party shots, or facilities (because I was 'good' at that...). Anyway, I did not plan out in excruciating detail each lighting setup... I pretty much went auto pilot 'knowing' what would work for a given situation.

For moving pictures, because of the 'moving', some lighting that works for stills, doesn't work for people in motion. And because in film one is looking for certain dramatic lighting effects, perhaps the flat or not-too-much-contrast that I'd set up for for the wedding shots, would not work for the drama. The Wife preferred the big soft box on the couple and perhaps 'dramatic' contrast with the background, but for her, for her 'wedding' aesthetic, 'Rembrandt' lighting was too harsh... more like van Eyck... or even pre-Raphelite lighting... was preferred...

The other issue with shooting film is getting talent who understand The Light, and try, appearing to do so effortlessly, to find the light, ether for their own shots, or for example when they are in an over the shoulder two shot, not 'shadowing' their partner...

In the several examples, if the head of the talent moves much, the 'dramatic lighting' will be lost, half the face illuminated, or unfortunate shadowing, etc... so this requires the director to be on top of this, and obtain performances from the talent without a lot of head bobbing, gestures, and body movement...
 
thats good feedback on the flourescents. I would like to play with egg crates when I get my hands on them! When you say 216 are you talking footcandles???


One thing I don't understand on your lighting diagram. Why there is a 15/40 watt practical?? I don't see it in the wide shot tho, is it block by the actor??
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In the upper right side of the frame there is a table that is lit(behind Rush). Not sure how they lit it, but for my purposes I had a table with a practical light on it.

so another note... why in the world would you shoot at F4/ F5.6 most of the time.... since you have control of your lighting set up, go F2.8. If you have that...
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When I look at these frames I dont' see f/2.8. do you guys? In my experience 2.8 is very hard to nail focus and rack focus following talent. Or am I mistaken. I heard many DPs talk about f/4 being a good range for a MCU still giving soft DOF . I've been re-visiting short films I've shot and realized shooting f/2 f/2.8 gives it that "I'm a film student and love my t2i with fast lenses" feel. Not sure that opening wide up always gives the feel for the story that is required. But I could be wrong...
 
216 is a white diffusion gel.

I'd say that shot was around F5.6. If you focused on the nose then F2.8 would be out of focus by the time you reached the ears, much too shallow DOF.

And I tend to agree, most movies are shot in the range of F4-F8, and having attempted focusing on moving objects at F2.8 and below I can say that it's almost impossible to do, even with rehearsals.
 
I have seen AC pulling 500FPS, 12+ feets dolly shot. Nailed it in 2 takes. It all depends on how good the AC is.
For film, F4-F8 is a sweet spot, since more light hitting on the film, it will have a more dense negative.

Well what i mean was, MUNICH 59 exercise, does call for a F2.8 for my opinion. it seems like the re-creation need more softness and less DOF. F2.8 can help you fix those two problems.

I suggested F2.8 so you can have more light to spare for adding diffs. but then again it is a digital camera.. I should have say.... change the ISO, so you still have the DOF you want and still can add diffs. Totally forgot about that. Wasn't in the right mind, wasn't trying to be a jerk.
Read your thread first thing at the morning today. must be half of mind was sleeping. so can't compose sentences well. And now replying again, last thing before heading to bed. LOL.
 
you blown out whites with contrast bump, original doesnt have that.​
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I would agree. Any thoughts on keeping those white from blowing out while changing the contrast? Is it as simple as stopping down once or would a flag create more contrast during acquisition?
 
Just change contrast using curve and dont allow it to bend on brighter areas or dont change contrast but change brightness to darken the picture.
cliafpboard5.jpg

Theres a problem around collar but i dont have a time to fix this now, needs decreasing red in shadows of the shirt.
 
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Im using curves and i spent a lot of time to see how plugins work and i just think logically not to lose any detail by moving curves when adding contrast, i hate overexposing in color correction, im not a fan of this high contrast look that makes his face kinda like all in sweat but its closer to original that way.
I just crushed blacks a bit first and then applied S curve but with gradiation curve to correct only luma, you cant just move slider of contrast, not all contrast adjustment settings are implemented using the same formula, sometimes they overexpose quickly and some other contrast plugins overexpose much later, i prefere to move curves by hand i think scenes are too different and using curves is better to get desired look.
I wanted to get match of his skin colour, im still learning all this.
Im using Virtualdub plugins cause most big apps are so crippled with features for color correction its not even funny, most of them dont have CMYK color profile which is essential co bring out this Cyan from clothes you see on many new movies.
I dont know what youre using for your color correction.
 
thats a great point bwwd. I've never played around with curves to change the contrast without massive results to the image. can you expand on applying an S curve with gradiation? I'm grading in apple color. Also Im lost when you say CMYK. I understand in photoshop changing RGB to CMYK for print work, but are you doing the same thing in apple color? changing the whole project to CMYK? If so, how?

Pardon my questions, but I'm really happy with your grade and want to pick your brain on how you got there.

Much appreciated! Hoping other people learn from this post and blog as well!
 
Im on windows and im using virtualdub to correct vids, i bumped up saturation to have it over the top in original and yours and then tried to match sjkin tone in yours, its easier when you go ovre the top with saturation cause all small changes are more visible, when you will get similar skin tone then you can disable saturation bump.
I dont know if CMYK is available in apple color, with CMYK you can change only chosen colors blue,purple and yellow without changing other colours, for example i could change blue tshirt into green without changing skin and i can change skin tone into yellow or purple withour changing anything else.In RGB when you adjust R G or B then you change everything in tthe frame - clothes, skin, walls etc. you cant do selective color correction like with CMYK.
This color correction you often see in movies where they have green/blue stuff in the frame
http://images.blu-ray.com/reviews/4427_6_large.jpg
is not made on the set, its made with color correction using CMYK color profile.
http://images.blu-ray.com/reviews/4434_6_large.jpg
Matt Damon wardrobe wasnt green/blue, it was black but changed using cyan channel from CMYK.
 
I thought I'd try this, as I don't do too much in the way of color 'grading'...

attachment.php


The 'S' Curve for the 'luma' attempts to mimic in some small way the response of real(tm) film, which has a toe, at the low end, a linear region in the midtones, and a shoulder at the high values.

Since currently electronic sensors respond linearly, and so, need 'modification' to better match what film does.

For my experiment, I used Photoshop Curves and PS Hue/Saturation adjustment layers. I used RGB mode. The way I used curves to get the 'S' curve, was to set 'fixed points' at intersect points between the initial linear 'curve', the straight diagonal line in the curves graph window, and the grid. First grid box down from the top right, and the first grid box up from the bottom left. I then adjusted to form an 'S' cure by pulling those fixed points up and left for the top right corner, and down and right for the bottom.

That gave the basic contrast. I then added a hue/saturation adjustment layer, and adjusted the 'colors' to better match the guide image of Munich.

I didn't really try to match the shirt color, and perhaps when to 'grey' on the facial color... hey I don't do this for a living...

One can tell the 'dominant' colors in an image by moving the saturation slider far to the right, super saturating things. Then you can move them back or down as need to try to match, or if experimenting, find a look that 'looks good'...

I also added a blue filled layer and set the transparency to 5%, and used the 'color' layer mode for blending the solid color with the layers underneath...

The one think about the Photoshop Curves adjustment is that it can be used by After Effects as a preset, so you can work in Photoshop on a still/frame grab, and then use that preset in AE. I find the AE curves interface to be less than wonderful...

Unfortunately that seems to be the only adjustment that can be traded.
 
Thanks for the feedback guys. Your grading is looking good. I've love some input as far as grading in apple color. Im feel pretty confident in photoshop and know I can get the image there on a still, but am trying to tackle video clip grading. To my knowledge grading your video files in photoshop is possible but a bear-cat and not a valid workflow. Any thoughts on this? I've been trying to manipulate in Color and learn to be as good there that I am in Photoshop, but its still a learning process. I wonder how we can apply the "s-curve" to color that bwwd talks about? Thoughts?
 
cousinavi7 said:
Thanks for the feedback guys. Your grading is looking good. I've love some input as far as grading in apple color. Im feel pretty confident in photoshop and know I can get the image there on a still, but am trying to tackle video clip grading. To my knowledge grading your video files in photoshop is possible but a bear-cat and not a valid workflow. Any thoughts on this? I've been trying to manipulate in Color and learn to be as good there that I am in Photoshop, but its still a learning process. I wonder how we can apply the "s-curve" to color that bwwd talks about? Thoughts?
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I've not used FCP, I used FC Express for a number of years, but due to how I got into using 'movie tools', I had After Effects, and needed just enough NLE to edit 'live video' rather than AE. The 'S' curve thing really is a visual thing on the 'curves' interface to manipulating the image. After Effects and Photoshop have it, as well as Premiere. But the Photoshop interface is the 'best' in my opinion, and the fact that one can trade 'Curves' presets between Photoshop and AE, means I can work on a frame from a clip, get the curves 'right' for me, then take that back into AE... works...

Otherwise, working in PS, getting 'the numbers' also works for filters/effects that don't have such easy transfer capability.

I have not used the color grading tools that are in AE. That's something I'll be working on but not at the moment.

You may be able to 'adjust' low tones, mid tones, and high tones, independently in some of the FCP widgetry.
 
bwwd said:
you dont have curves in your software ?
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If you were referring to me... both After Effects and Premiere have a Curves effect. However, I prefer the Photoshop version, as it now gives a histogram under the curve, rather than to the side or not at all. Also for 'tweaking', once you select a control point, you can use the arrow keys to nudge the value by a small increment (something like two counts), which allows me to make really minor adjustments and see the results. The Premiere version does not allow for 'nudging' of the values, nor entering in specifc input to output values. If you had a grey card in the setup shot, you could use the fact that 'grey' is supposed to be equal values of R, G, and B, to correct for color shift due to the set lighting conditions, if you wanted to go in the direction of 'accuracy', or at least get to a known starting point.

Using a 'dropper' may work well for some things, but it's not so hot for others.

I don't think FCP has a 'graphical' curves interface... but since I don't use FCP, and FC Express didn't, I can't say for sure...
 
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bwwd said:
Im on windows and im using virtualdub to correct vids, i bumped up saturation to have it over the top in original and yours and then tried to match sjkin tone in yours, its easier when you go ovre the top with saturation cause all small changes are more visible, when you will get similar skin tone then you can disable saturation bump.
I dont know if CMYK is available in apple color, with CMYK you can change only chosen colors blue,purple and yellow without changing other colours, for example i could change blue tshirt into green without changing skin and i can change skin tone into yellow or purple withour changing anything else.In RGB when you adjust R G or B then you change everything in tthe frame - clothes, skin, walls etc. you cant do selective color correction like with CMYK.
This color correction you often see in movies where they have green/blue stuff in the frame
http://images.blu-ray.com/reviews/4427_6_large.jpg
is not made on the set, its made with color correction using CMYK color profile.
http://images.blu-ray.com/reviews/4434_6_large.jpg
Matt Damon wardrobe wasnt green/blue, it was black but changed using cyan channel from CMYK.
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The bit about color correction with cmyk isn't completely accurate. I can guarantee a large amount of both those shots is good wardrobe and set design. Ie: Damon's suit was not color corrected from black to blue, it would have started off as dark blue and others around would be dressed accordingly.
 
Then you are wrong and i can honestly say i know what im talking about and while wardrobe has something to do with it, this look can be made on all movies,no matter if wardrobe was made with this kind of color correction in mind, just give me one movie frame on which you think it cant be done and i'll show it to you.
1 condition tho, it needs to have at least something black in the frame and frame cant be all red, some items can be gray, you cant change red into this cyan colour but you can change gray/blue and green wardrobe parts and set decoration parts.
His wardrobe was not black but blue youre right but it was corrected to have a bit of green in it using CMYK profile.
clipbd4.jpg

Original is the bottom one of course
It works as well on certain shades of black/ almost black clothes or you need to pull down red channel a bit from shadows.
Here wardrobe is black on bottom one
clipboa2.jpg

This works similar to chroma keying but its changing one colour only, kinda like HUE change for blue/green colour.
And here?
cliard6.jpg

You can see that middle man has a hat in a bit different shade and thats why correction does not work.
 
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