motion blur film vs video look

[Gibby]

There is no ego in my comment. You are reading that in.
I am looking down at no one. You are saying that all "motion photography" is the same game and I am saying it's not. If you are a photographer on CBS's "The Great Race" you are doing great work and have reached a high level of success doing a network show. But to compare that with the game Vittorio Storaro and others bring to the table is wrong. To say everybody comes from the same creative mind set or has the same aspirations or visual styles is wrong.

The ego comment was not pointed at you, but rather at prevailing attitudes in general. I am not saying that all motion photography is the same. I've enjoyed a long career as a photographer, cinematographer and videographer, and I have a good handle on the differences between the three, and the similarities. Network shows? As a producer, director, editor, and/or cinematographer/videographer I've done around 800 broadcast and cable network programs that aired on 12 different networks, thus I also have a solid handle on production values called for in each genre of production that airs. I did not say everybody comes from the same creative mind set or has the same aspirations or visual styles. I did say that there is a large and growing group of shooters who are versatile enough to shoot any genre or style of production, and that increasingly many productions require a mixture of styles to effectively tell the project story. The previous divisions between film shooters/film styles, and video shooters/video styles are much less clearly defined than in the past. If I'm producing and the aesthetics of my current production are all film style, I'm obviously OK with bringing in someone who only has a film style shooting background. But increasingly television programming (and movies like Apocalypto) requires a versatile shooter who is adept at both styles and can switch gears on the fly. No matter what I'm producing, directing, or shooting, I demand the best possible quality from others and myself. I can shoot a highly filmic style one hour and shoot to the streets reality footage the next. There is no need to be niched into being just one style of shooter, and cameras like RED play perfectly into that versatility scenario.

We're not at odds here...in essence we agree. Perhaps semantics are getting in the way.

 

[ProLost]

I just want to jump in and clarifty my point(s) here:

• If you want The Film Look, is a 180º shutter or less, regardless of shooting frame rate, and project at 24 (or 25) fps.

• If you want to experiment with the new imaging possibilities afforded by digital video, then do whatever you like. There's plenty of room for making moving images look "more real."

• "More real" does not mean "better cinema."

-Stu

 

[agwah]

What does it take to have a 48 fps frame rate, but have the exposure time be more than 360 degrees. This way you could keep your motion blur, but avoid the kind of flicker that comes from 24 fps projection.

Is it possible on the RED to design the sensor to let each frame "borrow" information from the frames in front and behind itself. Say at 48 frames per second each exposure could be a 15th of a second.

 

[nycfilmmaker]

So you want 4k50p on camera? That's currently impossible, but my job is to solve the impossible We'll have to see if I can think how to do that then, won't we?

Graeme

why impossbible?

 

[glenn chan]

Can't the Phantom 65mm camera do 4K (its sensor is 4K; resolution I don't know) at 50fps (and higher)?

I'm not sure how pragmatic the Phantom will be for dcinema use.

 

[Graeme_Nattress]

• "More real" does not mean "better cinema." And neither does it mean worse - just different, that's all! Different.

" If you want to experiment with the new imaging possibilities afforded by digital video, then do whatever you like."

Yes indeed. Let's see what new minds, and new creative people come up with. It's sure going to be interesting. The style of 'cinema' has always been changing. It's not a static thing - it's new and creative and different and I for one are looking forwards!

Graeme

 

[Graeme_Nattress]

"why impossbible?" - answer: just the sheer bandwidth of data that has to go through the chips that do the compression in camera.

Graeme

 

[TimurCivan]

Nope, not a soap at all. That's as much lighting and and edge enhancement as anything else. It's a cultural thing. In England we grew up watching good quality, well lit drama on video and it doesn't look wrong, and it doesn't look un-cinematic.

Dark shadows......

 

[Stephen W]

Of course, there is the slight problem of someone coming up with a 4k system on which to actually show 4k50p...

 

[freezer]

If you want The Film Look, is a 180º shutter or less, regardless of shooting frame rate, and project at 24 (or 25) fps.

Following the discussions here for some months, I would like to jump in for this one.

Please correct me if I am wrong:

• standard film cameras use a 180° shutter per default
• 180° shutter in film equals 1/48 shutter @ 24p in Video and 1/50 shutter @ 25p in PAL Video
• 360° means 2 times longer motion blur than with 180°
• 360° equals 1/24 (1/25) in video land
• video look comes from using fields @ 50/60 fps, short shutter times like 1/100 or shorter, edge enhancing (sharpening), wide DOF, low resolution compared to film, lack of film grain, bad or no lighting, low production values

So if a shutter angle of 360° means more motion blur, while normally in video you get less of it, why should that make a film more video like?

Wouldn't you have to use a shorter shutter like 90° where you get the strobing effect like in the arena scenes in Gladiator?

 

[Anders Holck]

Probably comes from the fact that a 360° shutter is impossible on a film camera. So It's never used when the origin is from a negative, and therefore a motion pattern that look's wrong.

 

[Thomas Mathai]

Maybe not, but I've heard a few punters say parts of collateral look "cheap" - they might not be able to explain why, but they know enough to know that say, the stampede scene in King Kong, had crappy special effects. It's up to the EXPERTS - the people who do this stuff professionally, to know better, and to know why.

and anyway, we arent here because we are aiming for the lowest common denominator - we're here because we want to raise it.

Well it can be said that that's all we've been doing for the past decade or so.

In fact it is a given, when it comes to production value, we raise the bar or at least maintain it.

But as a result, at times there is way too much effort spent on details, especially earlier in the post production stage, and as hard deadlines rush closer and closer, the quality level drops just so that the shot(s) can make it into the final cut.

I wouldn't be surprised that's why shots like the dino stampede looked subpar compared to the Kong shots. They probably ran out of time and had to live with it for the theatrical release, but will go back to fix it for the DVD.

I'm not saying filmmakers have to compromise their vision, there's no reason for that.

I'm just saying it's easy to get caught up in details and lose sight of the whole project.

We're making movies after all, it's all about suspension of disbelief and creating an illusion of reality.

 

[jamestmather]

To you, you may think bits of Collateral looked cheap, but to the director or cinematographer who made the movie, they are expertly chosen aesthetic choices that are neither right nor wrong, but their own personal choice on what they wanted the look to be.

Well yes and no, Michael mann opted at certain times to hop the Gain up on the cameras (which will enable the unit to use less "movie" light and therefore shoot much faster) which not only increases sensitivity on 2/3 inch chip cameras but greatly emphasises the "video" look for want of a better word. The contrast range gets compressed in a very video way and any highlight handling is compromised as a result. The myth propagated at the time was that Hi Def can "see" further into the shadows is not completely accurate (film if pushed to a similar ASA will deliver superior results, I can say this having shot material using a "hard" push and was delighted with the results.) In this scenario I don't believe that either Paul Cameron or Dion Beebe (Collaterals cinematographers) chose this aesthetic other then when required to by the director.

"We therefore found ourselves running a fine line,” he continues. “We’d light beautiful night exteriors that looked amazing and natural and had so much detail, but when we went in for the close-ups, we had to overlight the actors to reduce the noise on their faces. On the monitor, it looked horrible and incredibly overlit. It was very hard to wrap my head around what we were doing, and it went against every instinct I have as a cinematographer. It was a constant battle between what looked good on set and what would look good at the film-out every weekend.” The filmmakers discovered that any levels below 20 IRE at +3dB or 30 IRE at +6dB on the actors’ faces rendered an unacceptable amount of noise on the projected film image. Respectively, 20 and 30 IRE are roughly equivalent to 21⁄3 stops and 11⁄2 stops below medium gray (about 55 IRE) on a video signal. According to Cameron, at those gain levels in VideoStream mode, the Viper was actually more sensitive to low ambient light, with less noise, than the CineAlta. Mann was also insistent about the kind of lighting he wanted for the taxi interior, which Cameron describes as “no light, really. Michael wanted it to feel like ambient light with no specific source. That, coupled with the challenge of filming in a real cab that had little or no room to place any kind of lights, made it incredibly challenging to design an effective plan.”

That - for a cameraman - is a nightmare IMHO. :zombie_smiley:

Moreover I have just finished a TV film using 2 f900 mk3 sonys and I have to say if never see those cameras again it'll be too soon. They caused a nightmare in post for colour and contrast matching (utterly impossible - Arri london threw up their hands and said "it's not unheard for there to be some differences between cameras" - and gave up - One camera had more contrast ratio than the other - the only solution was to compress the range of the good one), electronic moiring moving through the image on one camera, apparent resolution differences between the cameras (only apparent when they were cut together on a hidef monitor - we lost our on set monitor the day before the shoot) and finally an intermittent fan on one camera that rendered sync shooting impossible. I've shot film for fourteen years and never had problems like these. Is it my aesthetic? - certainly not. But I rolled with it because it was what the production wanted. And the eventual look was merely "okay", I would have said. A little cheap. Not worth the effort. :crybaby:

A similar thing seems to happen on Miami Vice which looks mostly to me like a TV episode of Cops - daytime telly.

It's a cultural thing. In England we grew up watching good quality, well lit drama on video and it doesn't look wrong, and it doesn't look un-cinematic.

I appreciate that you never found the look un-aesthetic. I also grew up watching English TV and never liked the film OB/video Studio z-cars aesthetic - it always looked rubbish to me and, even as a child, couldn't figure out why American TV looked better. If this is not the case then why are video cameras moving towards progressive as a shooting option if not to be more film like.

For TV, sports etc I appreciate 60i is great.

But whatever rocks your boat.:thumbup:

 

[Stephen W]

I appreciate that you never found the look un-aesthetic. I also grew up watching English TV and never liked the film OB/video Studio z-cars aesthetic - it always looked rubbish to me and, even as a child, couldn't figure out why American TV looked better. If this is not the case then why are video cameras moving towards progressive as a shooting option if not to be more film like.

I'm so glad there's someone else (originally) from the UK who thinks that! I feel like I'm banging my head against a brick wall when I get into this argument with TV types over here, who think that the appalling standards of UK Drama are perfectly acceptable and, in one recent example, even want me to believe that poorly made video-productions that currently hog primetime on the BBC are "35mm quality" :crybaby:

James, have a :beer: on me!

 

[Nick_Shaw]

I think most people would agree that film originated quality UK drama (eg Cracker, Inspector Morse etc) stands head and shoulders above the the sea of video shot crap that surrounds it. Buit there is obviously a lot more to it than the film/video divide. I don't think anybody would say that the only reason ER looks better than Casualty is because it is shot on film!

I was recently watching some old (Tom Baker era) Dr Who, and there was a change between one episode the next from the all film style, to the film/video mix. My girlfriend immediately said that the latter episode looked 'cheap' in comparison, and she is not technical when it comes to this sort of thing.

But I was watching this on a DIVX download, so I was seeing everything 25p. A major difference between the film and video segments in those 70s programmes is the difference between single camera exteriors, and flat studio light interiors, shot with 'smeary' tube cameras.

Anyway, I'm rambling, and don't really know where I'm going with this! I think my point is that Red is giving us a tool which takes electonic acquisition to the next level in terms of quality, but people will no doubt still make cheap looking crap with it.

Nick

 

[Stephen W]

WELL...

As you've brought up the Doctor Who subject...

Two Doctor Who stories in its history have been shot entirely on film. The second of those was the Paul McGann TV Movie, which looks amazing - because it was shot on 35mm, and is an American Production! Shame the story's so rubbish. The first of the two was Jon Pertwee's first outing (and the first colour story) which even now looks amazing compared to the video episodes around it. And yeah, Tom Baker's stuff always had a big jump in quality when shooting on location (film). Peter Davison once said if he could have his time on Doctor Who again, he'd insist it was shot on film 'cause of the quality.

ER looks better than Casualty 'cause it's better lit, better shot, uses film (has it gone HD yet?), better acted, better written etc. etc. etc.

I can see Red being a real bonus for people like me who are striving for a quality film style but may be hampered by budget. The likes of the BBC (if they use it - it'll have to spend several years going through Tech first!) won't know what to do with it so will just make things the way they do now, but maybe with a bit of a better picture!

 

[Nick_Shaw]

I absolutely agree with your ER/Casualty comment (apologies to readers in the rest of the world who probably have never heard of Casualty – you're not missing much). That was what I meant.

As for Doctor Who, I realised I was slightly confused there. It was in fact a change over to an episode where the exteriors were also shot on video (maybe to make electronic effects easier?) which prompted the 'cheap looking' comment. I saw the Jon Pertwee episode you refer to when it was recently screened on BBC4 (possibly re-telecined from the original film master?) and agree fully that the quality looks fantastic in comparison to the much more recent episodes I had previously been watching.

Nick

 

[HKSC 2007]

Hi all here,
Genesis was not, and will not showing Video ( HDCAMSR ) anymore, and on Firday 15th Dec., in HKG. 35mm films from Film projector to demonstrate their Dynamic Range and Lattiudes ( F.Stops ) from their nearly 5K CCDs Camera Head.

Anyway, Panavision won't sell the " Genesis " to us, and they are earning $$$ from their boxes of LENSES + CCDs Camera Head.

Mr. Netwon Thomas Sigel ( DOP of Superman returns ) was spending his time with us in HKG just for his 12 hours.

REDie
CHINA - Hong Kong
A member of REDHKSC

 

[jamestmather]

Sorry HKSC didn't quite get your post - is the genesis not going to do a demonstration against the RED camera?

James

 

[alacritymedia]

Conditioning or measurable specs

Conditioning or measurable specs

I find that the correlation rate between trained observers impressions of "quality" and that of laypeople (girlfirends, wives, many clients rogar-Evil(DBG): ) is greater than can be easily explained. We experts should be able to reliably diagnose the common factor (shot on film, better lighting, etc.) but often we can't. I believe that over many years of viewing we have built such a powerful set of schema that we respond more like Pavlov would expect, than any objective technical measure. That said, IMHO the quality of the optics used to shoot film have a big impact.

Ultimately the classic refrain may be the most cogent, that is comes back to the suspension of reality. I contend that the technical "flaws" of 24fps film, like a particular amount of motion blur, glowing highlights, etc touch a chord in the viewer that has been built by all those special moments we have experienced all these years. Thankfully with cameras like the RedOne and the powerful software tools now available in post we can match that "feel" without the expense, time and environmental impact of actual celluloid.

Blair S. Paulsen
RedOne #19