Netflix Originals camera requirements

AH..and who has the info?
but you know..Pannycam won't live off the C. Paperts. It will live of the wannabe Paperts. It's a "forum" ;)
 
I do love a good soap opera when I can't go to sleep. :)

All kidding aside.

Who is really pushing this. The consumer or the manufacture and I have no issue with making money as long as its legit. My personal opinion its all marketing. ' We're the only 4k network.' The manufacture has learned that the consumer is willing or has accepted a new iPhone every what year or so. Its just a new twists on keeping up with the Jones'.

Oh on a funny side. I was thinking Mitch shooting on b&w reversal. Yeah the first roll of movie film I ever shot was probably either Plus-X or Tri-X in a Canon Scopic. lol now I still won't be able to fall asleep because I'll go lay down and think how old I am. :)
 
Mitch Gross said:
Sttratos said:
I'm sorry Mitch. But I had the impression you worked as a DP before? If so, how can you say that? The way you expose does not control the way your camera rolls the highlights. You can protect for the highlights, sure. But that doesn't make the camera roll the highlights nicely or more nicely. It only avoids that the camera has to touch the highlights at all. This is not the same as rolling the highlights nicely. This does not give you the same nice look of rolling the highlights nicely. This does not make it as easy to work with the camera as a camera which rolls the highlights nicely. If I'm missing something, please do tell.

As for not being able to light my way to higher resolution, I personally prefer a nice image than a sharp harsh one.
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Yes I have worked as a DP. two dozen features, teo TV series and 100s of other projects large and small. And when I started it was in black & white reversal, where one only had a couple of stops to work with before the image went totally white or totally black. So you learned to light to that, plain and simple. And then if you wanted to roll of highlights or anything else, you worked with power windows and other tools in post to control and shape the image that you didn't have the ability to during production. It's far easier today and there's way more room to work in pretty much all aspects of the image.

I must have shot with 50 different camera models in my career, a dozen different film stocks and then various combinations of push or pull exposure and processing. Lots of shifting parameters to the image capture. The first thing I would do on any job is test the camera and/or stock & processing. I would learn how much I could get away with dynamic range, contrast, color channel saturation, noise, on and on. And then I would work and light creatively based on these factors. When DPs revert back to using the same camera again and again, it's usually because they are comfortable with the parameters and they feel they know what they can get away with on the machine without having to test it. I know people who didn't switch setups for a decade at a time because they just didn't want to. It didn't matter if something might be better for what they were trying to do, they didn't feel like learning something different. I never had that feeling -- I liked to challenge myself on every job if I could.

So anyway, that's how I can say what I say.
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Mitch, none of your reply to Sttratos refutes what he said with regard to highlight roll-off, so the reply to me comes across as a red-herring to distract from Arri's (generally considered) superior highlight roll-off and how it can make things easier to shoot and light. I agree with what Sttratos said here.
 
Eric Coughlin said:
Mitch, none of your reply to Sttratos refutes what he said with regard to highlight roll-off, so the reply to me comes across as a red-herring to distract from Arri's (generally considered) superior highlight roll-off and how it can make things easier to shoot and light. I agree with what Sttratos said here.
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How much highlight roll off is there in an Arri RAW file?

I suggest to you that the highlight roll off you see on the screen is due to the colourist in the grading suite not the camera.

If I were a member of the Netflix tech dept watching this thread I'd be still waiting for the killer reason why Arri should be allowed on the list. Not one person has articulated why the Arri image is better than the contemporaries. We've had the mythology, the Arri marketing propaganda feedback and the 'it looks more like film' mantra but no reason why the Arri image is better than the REDs for example. It's 2017 I'm not so sure looking like film is the killer argument.

Think bout the argument from the audience perspective, how would the Arri Alexa image improve the enjoyment of the average Netflix subscriber when watching House of Cards? If you cannot answer this question then you have no argument.
 
Nirv said:
How much highlight roll off is there in an Arri RAW file?

I suggest to you that the highlight roll off you see on the screen is due to the colourist in the grading suite not the camera.
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Better than the competition, perhaps aside from the Sony F65.

As far as I know highlight roll-off from a lower end camera cannot be perfectly recreated to resemble say an Arri in the grading suite, unless I suppose the colorist was to do a pixel by pixel recreation of the highlights which I assume would take a huge amount of time. You're essentially talking about creating information that was not captured by the camera.

Then there's also the issue of most colorists being idiots, as in, if you get a good image straight out of the camera, you don't have to worry about the idiot colorist not being able to make it look good. I'd imagine the average person who grades Red footage is not a top end pro colorist.


Nirv said:
If I were a member of the Netflix tech dept watching this thread I'd be still waiting for the killer reason why Arri should be allowed on the list. Not one person has articulated why the Arri image is better than the contemporaries. We've had the mythology, the Arri marketing propaganda feedback and the 'it looks more like film' mantra but no reason why the Arri image is better than the REDs for example. It's 2017 I'm not so sure looking like film is the killer argument.

Think bout the argument from the audience perspective, how would the Arri Alexa image improve the enjoyment of the average Netflix subscriber when watching House of Cards? If you cannot answer this question then you have no argument.
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Arri has better colors, better dynamic range, better highlight roll-off, a less course and overly sharp image (as Red sometimes has), a less complex menu and button structure, simpler workflow, among other advantages. I'd imagine House of Cards (which I've seen) would look better had it been shot on Arri, and as such would be more enjoyable to watch if it were to have a better look. I think Game of Thrones (shot on Alexa) looks better than any Netflix show out there, for example, and if House of Cards looked as good as Game of Thrones then it would be more enjoyable. The average audience member appreciates better cinematography, production value, and image quality.

Then you also have how complicated Red can get; I just did a shoot with a Red Scarlet MX, Red Scarlet Dragon, and Red Epic Helium, filming between 24-120 fps. I recall Geoff Boyle had complained about Red's various sensor sizes/crop factors, but it wasn't until that shoot that I understood how much of a pain it is to not know what equivalent focal length you're getting without having done various research, etc., and then having to deal with those different crop factors, when Arri just gives you Super 35 with no crop during slow-motion. Simple and straight forward. I could go on and on about things I don't like about Red.

But back to the argument, the argument is that the mere 20% increase in resolution that you get from Arri 3.2k to a 4K camera is not nearly as important to image quality as Arri's better colors, dynamic range, and highlight roll-off. So, Netflix has essentially put themselves in a position where they are promoting lower image quality for the sake of marketing to consumers who don't know any better, resulting in professionals being made to use tools that they know may be inferior, for the sake of a marketing scheme.

Whether or not that marketing scheme is smart and good business is up for debate, of which I'd just say if that particular aspect was so successful then you'd wonder why Netflix is the only one doing it. In any case, for the DPs (artists) it's not a good thing as a painter doesn't like to be told to use an inferior paint brush just because that paint brush may be better for marketing.
 
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Eric Coughlin said:
Better than the competition, perhaps aside from the Sony F65.

As far as I know highlight roll-off from a lower end camera cannot be perfectly recreated to resemble say an Arri in the grading suite, unless I suppose the colorist was to do a pixel by pixel recreation of the highlights which I assume would take a huge amount of time. You're essentially talking about creating information that was not captured by the camera.

Then there's also the issue of most colorists being idiots, as in, if you get a good image straight out of the camera, you don't have to worry about the idiot colorist not being able to make it look good. I'd imagine the average person who grades Red footage is not a top end pro colorist.



Arri has better colors, better dynamic range, better highlight roll-off,
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Wow...wow...wow...

I now understand where you're coming from i.e. a position of stultifying ignorance. Now it may come as some surprise to you but dragons don't exist and the ones in GoT are digital recreations, so too are the countless set extensions and sky replacements all of which have nothing to do with being shot on an Alexa. So when you say the Arri colours are better what is it you actually mean because a good proportion of the footage on GoT hasn't been close to an Alexa? So I think what you actually mean is the colourist working on GoT has done a fantastic job of grading the show producing the colours that appear on screen.

If you truly think most colourists are idiots, you're not alone on this forum I've seen that comment many times (normally from people who have Cinematographer, Editor, Colourist, VFX Artist, Producer in their sig lines) you've probably never worked with a real colourist just someone masquerading as one with a copy of Resolve. Colourists are one of the highest paid positions in post production because they're the ones with the perfect colour acuity and impeccable taste that take a merely superb image and makes it exceptional, they are the rock stars of the post production world. Advertising agencies will very often stipulate who they want to finish their spot so revered are some colourists even more so than some DPs.

Just continually repeating the mantra, better colours, better DR and roll off doesn't actually make it true.

*I'm sure I'm going to get down voted by the Cinematographer, Editor, Colourist, VFX Artist, Producers in 1..2..
 
... It's 2017 I'm not so sure looking like film is the killer argument.

Paul F said:
Ok, that's my favorite line in this thread. I may print that out as a banner for my office.
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lol I'm not so sure about that... then why are people buying and using Film Convert, Magic Bullet and adding grain to movies all the time to make it look like film?

I remember years ago a friend of mine who worked for Fox TV was joking. You film guys are always trying to remove grain and us video guys are trying to add it to make it look like film and we both remembered the old panty hose trick of putting a pair between the lens and body when we shot Vietnamese music videos on video to make it look like film...
 
GaryinCalifornia said:
... It's 2017 I'm not so sure looking like film is the killer argument.

lol I'm not so sure about that... then why are people buying and using Film Convert, Magic Bullet and adding grain to movies all the time to make it look like film?
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I don't know why they are adding grain. You'll have to ask someone else. While they are at it, add some scratches and jitter. It's like anything, people have a hard time letting go of the old. If video came before film, we'd be waxing poetic about the look of video noise and complaining about grain. 'Oh this film isn't so good. It has all this grain when you push the ASA... And why can't I get that look of video noise. Those were the days. You can't do that with film. Does anyone have a way to add that wonderful video noise? Anyone?'

Did any film DP of old ever ask Kodak for more grain in the film? "Geez Kodak, this emulsion is great, but can you add more grain?". Even Kodak touts how low grain their current negative stock is. From their website discussing their 5219/7219 negative film: "Our proprietary advanced Dye Layering Technology (DLT) gives you noticeably reduced grain in shadows, so you can push the boundaries of exposure further and still get excellent results. And when scanning low-light scenes, VISION3 500T Film yields higher signal-to-noise ratios for unprecedented image quality. "
 
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GaryinCalifornia said:
... why are people buying and using Film Convert, Magic Bullet and adding grain to movies all the time to make it look like film? ...
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But they're really adding up to digital video, not subtracting from it. Film, obviously, has some smoothness and texture that many find pleasing.

As a side note, the "Young and the Restless" tried a 'film look", including more film type framing and scenery, and then decided to go back to the "video". After forty years, their fans were used to it. It doesn't appear like an old half-inch'er, however.

As to the high end gear, one can program pretty much any high end cameras to look more filmic even before getting into LUT's. One needs a custom highlight roll-off - which will also require more room in the highlights and corresponding lighting/exposure - and a Pro Mist type filter.
 
Nirv said:
Wow...wow...wow...

I now understand where you're coming from i.e. a position of stultifying ignorance. Now it may come as some surprise to you but dragons don't exist and the ones in GoT are digital recreations, so too are the countless set extensions and sky replacements all of which have nothing to do with being shot on an Alexa. So when you say the Arri colours are better what is it you actually mean because a good proportion of the footage on GoT hasn't been close to an Alexa? So I think what you actually mean is the colourist working on GoT has done a fantastic job of grading the show producing the colours that appear on screen.

If you truly think most colourists are idiots, you're not alone on this forum I've seen that comment many times (normally from people who have Cinematographer, Editor, Colourist, VFX Artist, Producer in their sig lines) you've probably never worked with a real colourist just someone masquerading as one with a copy of Resolve. Colourists are one of the highest paid positions in post production because they're the ones with the perfect colour acuity and impeccable taste that take a merely superb image and makes it exceptional, they are the rock stars of the post production world. Advertising agencies will very often stipulate who they want to finish their spot so revered are some colourists even more so than some DPs.

Just continually repeating the mantra, better colours, better DR and roll off doesn't actually make it true.

*I'm sure I'm going to get down voted by the Cinematographer, Editor, Colourist, VFX Artist, Producers in 1..2..
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So are you disagreeing and actually saying that Arri does not have better colors, dynamic range, and highlight roll-off, or are you just saying that if you spend time and money on a high end colorist instead of on the Arri camera rental you can get similar results from inferior cameras?

Game of Thrones was shot mostly on the Alexa; just because there is CGI in it doesn't mean you aren't watching any Alexa footage, Alexa footage which I think looks better than House of Cards, for example. I'm sure the colorists of both shows did well, but I'm saying that the colorist of Game of Thrones had the advantage of working with better source footage/image quality than the colorist on House of Cards did. Now let's just say that the colorist from each show was of equal skill set, but somehow GOT footage ended up looking better, then perhaps that can at least be partially contributed to the camera.

Of course I'm an idiot colorist myself, basically a camera guy who does color grading sometimes. So, a short film I shot a few weeks ago was shot on the Arri Amira, and is then going to be graded by my co-worker (or perhaps me as well) who is also a camera guy who does color grading (idiot colorist). Fortunately, we shot on an Arri so we have a good starting point which means we don't have to figure out how to get the image to look like an Arri. So, we've gotten better results because if we had shot on say a Red, we'd likely have more trouble grading it, and we don't have the budget for a high end colorist who would have cost more than the camera rental.

Zacuto shootout may have showed that with tons of grading (90 power windows, someone mentioned here) and spending extra time lighting within its limitations, a GH2 can come close to an Alexa, but that really shows that if you just shoot Alexa then you can get the results you need without all the extra time and money on color grading and lighting. Of course I'm not saying that an Alexa doesn't need to be graded or lit, just that it's easier to do both with it and when it's easier to do a good job at your job, you'll often end up with better results, hence why Arri is so popular. Really, why would one want to make their job harder?

What is your experience with shooting on Arri?
 
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DLD said:
But they're really adding up to digital video, not subtracting from it. Film, obviously, has some smoothness and texture that many find pleasing.

As a side note, the "Young and the Restless" tried a 'film look", including more film type framing and scenery, and then decided to go back to the "video". After forty years, their fans were used to it. It doesn't appear like an old half-inch'er, however.

As to the high end gear, one can program pretty much any high end cameras to look more filmic even before getting into LUT's. One needs a custom highlight roll-off - which will also require more room in the highlights and corresponding lighting/exposure - and a Pro Mist type filter.
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It was a company called Film Look... lol if I remember right it might have been cheaper to shoot film if it was just a short project.
 
Glimmer and Pearlescent filters have been quite interesting. Occasionally a point of light will create annoying reflections. It is a bit of a catch 22. The highlights bloom faster and bigger, but also softer. You start losing detail in the highlights faster (because the bloom takes up more real estate, not that it is actually faster), but you get a better roll off.

Verdict out on which diffuser I prefer. A little goes a long way imho, with half and quarter being a little heavy handed. 1/8- 1/4 is more subtle. and full is stylized.
 
Nirv said:
Wow...wow...wow...

I now understand where you're coming from i.e. a position of stultifying ignorance. Now it may come as some surprise to you but dragons don't exist and the ones in GoT are digital recreations, so too are the countless set extensions and sky replacements all of which have nothing to do with being shot on an Alexa. So when you say the Arri colours are better what is it you actually mean because a good proportion of the footage on GoT hasn't been close to an Alexa? So I think what you actually mean is the colourist working on GoT has done a fantastic job of grading the show producing the colours that appear on screen.

If you truly think most colourists are idiots, you're not alone on this forum I've seen that comment many times (normally from people who have Cinematographer, Editor, Colourist, VFX Artist, Producer in their sig lines) you've probably never worked with a real colourist just someone masquerading as one with a copy of Resolve. Colourists are one of the highest paid positions in post production because they're the ones with the perfect colour acuity and impeccable taste that take a merely superb image and makes it exceptional, they are the rock stars of the post production world. Advertising agencies will very often stipulate who they want to finish their spot so revered are some colourists even more so than some DPs.

Just continually repeating the mantra, better colours, better DR and roll off doesn't actually make it true.

*I'm sure I'm going to get down voted by the Cinematographer, Editor, Colourist, VFX Artist, Producers in 1..2..
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I'm no colorist, but I do spend lots of time on liftgammagain because I find the art very interesting. They all seem to unanimously agree that the Alexa is easier to get them where they want to be compared to any RED camera.

I'm sure a talented colorist can make up for a lot, but I think they'll happily choose to work on Alexa footage if given the choice.
 
Arri is currently the only camera that gets the job done so well in camera. Canon has a good look, but not enough latitude to shoot by eye. I rarely work with an Alexa, but it is always nice not having to approximate and think about the grade so much, since the tone curve is closer to what I see by eye in the first place.
 
David Fincher used Red for "Gone Girl" as well as for the "House of Cards" and it, obviously, was a conscious choice. Some people like a given look; others prefer something completely different. I happen to think that the Dragon and the Helium cameras look just fine in terms of color (with a lot higher resolution to Alexa) and workflow is something people get used to anyway,
 
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