New Rule: I WIll Not Shoot "Flat" Again Unless Requested.

nedcam

nedcam

Well-known member
Ugh. Last week I filmed a documentary for an agency and they specifically requested I shoot as flat a profile as possible to enhance their grading in post, their editors requested Cine-D as the setting. So yesterday I had a fast moving documentary shoot, the producer is a highly experienced editor, so I kept that same scene file.

When we downloaded the footage to his drive after the shoot I opened it on my laptop in FCP and was surprised as how "bland" it looked, 90% of the time I send the footage onto the client without seeing it myself so I really don't know what "flat" looks like, on my 9" field monitor it looked OK, the subject was backlit from the sun, under a 4x4 silk so that in itself had a flat vibe. When I saw the footage I thought perhaps the sun had hit the front element?

The editor/client called me this morning and wanted to give me a heads up that "something was wrong with the camera".

So, those of you who are freelance shooters and must pass the footage on, why shoot "flat" if you may get this reaction? How does shooting "flat" help them in post? Why bother? Perhaps they won't even have time in post to play with it. What if they make a QT and send it to their client for selects? I think it's best to look like a video hero rather than shoot flat.

Thanks for your ideas.
 
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Shooting flat is a great way to ensure that you deliver horrible-looking, washed-out, bland, terrible footage. I would never do it unless specifically requested, and with a clear understanding that they must, must, must do extensive grading to "fix" the footage in post. I would never want an end client to see "flat"-looking footage! The AF100 is capable of producing rich color and wonderful tones, so to rob it of that in pursuit if a "flat" image is a decision that only should be made when the understanding is that they are now creating more work for themselves by ensuring that a thorough grading pass is necessary.

Now, that's in general. Your case is perhaps specific -- we'd have to see an example to know if what you're talking about is a general reaction to properly-shot but flat footage, or if there was indeed a problem such as a front-element lens flare that excessively washed out the footage.
 
I used to try to shoot flat when I first got the AF100. I think a lot of people think that they can get some sort of "s-loggy" thing going by doing that and give themselves more "latitude." I just think it looks lousy. I'll use Cine-D when I'm shooting a narrative, especially where the production design and location have good contrast and color contrast ratios AND I'm going to work with it in post.

I don't know what others have found but I think a great way to get good clean pictures for modern looking, crisp shots suitable to documentary or event type work is to use HDNorm and get your exposure right. Then you can quickly pull down the blacks a little bit in post and you're good to go.

The only value to "flat" I guess is making sure that you set your color right at say -4 so that your highlights behave nicely.
 
Well the client did say that when he brought it into the Avid it cleaned up nicely right away. However, I agree with you Barry that "flat" should be reserved for special instances where you know the client's post people are expecting it and have the time, tools and experience to do that correcting. Live and learn. I have had several editors ask me to "shoot as flat as possible", gave me settings, but I never saw the footage.

Since I was shooting the subject back lit I was aiming towards the sun. My grip was stabilizing the 4x4 silk due to wind so he wasn't flagging the lens. I kept checking to make sure no daylight was hitting the front element. However, I will not shoot flat unless the editor requests it ahead of time.
 
I always ask ahead of time.

"Can you handle Log gamma footage?"

Nine times out of ten, the response is, "What's Log?"

So the I shoot Rec.709...and get it as close in-camera as I can.
 
I shoot so that it looks good in camera.

Period.

Have been burned too many times by producers who have no flipping idea what they are talking about.
 
Shooting Log on a camera like the Alexa makes sense because it has an awesome sensor with the ability to pick up a massive dynamic range. Log is a way in which all that data can be recorded and the information retained. It also helps that the recording formats (ProRes and RAW) are very robust and can take a lot of manipulation.

The AF101 sensor however isn't able to capture that amount of dynamic range and even if it could, the AVCHD codec is so highly compressed that it is very difficult to push the image in post without it becoming visibly degraded.

Which means that us AF101 owners will have to carry on trying to get the desired image on set within the camera using our monitors and WFM.
 
nedcam said:
90% of the time I send the footage onto the client without seeing it myself so I really don't know what "flat" looks like, on my 9" field monitor it looked OK...
Click to expand...

I never send clients footage straight out of the camera anymore, I always preprocess it through After Effects and export it as 10-bit 4:2:2 Cineform or ProRes. That gives me an opportunity to normalize the exposure levels and color balance, trim off garbage and delete bad takes. One lesson I've learned is to never expect your client to know how your footage needs to be processed.

One other thing to bear in mind: there is no "log gamma" setting on the AF100.
 
Lpowell said:
One lesson I've learned is to never expect your client to know how your footage needs to be processed.
Click to expand...

And when the clients rep can grab stills on his DSLR on location, that look way better than the 'flat' you shoot ..
you got trouble even before you pack up.

Cheers.
 
It's the old theory of "garbage in, garbage out". Shooting AVCHD is like shooting jpeg stills. If you get the look you want in camera the images pay off and you still have some room to make adjustments. But trying to get a log image will just bite you in the rear.

Best thing is to have a great quality 10bit monitor calibrated on set to dial in the look then shoot away.
 
We are mixing terms. Some of us are referring to gamma and some are referring to muted colors as if they are the same thing. So what was the client referring to when he requested it? The sensors are b/w, the color is added later. Gamma is luminance only, (per color channel). He specified cine-d gamma for the luminance, so flat muted colors is what he must have been asking for and expecting. He wants them muted enough that there remains enough addressable 8-bit space within each color channel to adjust the color while keeping legal values, not clipped. The green channel is normally recording luminance for green but not red or blue. But if you wanted a b/w image you would record the red and blue luminance to the green channel as well. Once that's been baked that into avchd, all you're able to do in post is shift the overall hue of the b/w image but you can't make it a full color image anymore. So as the saturation is reduced, the addressable memory is being consumed by duplicated values for r,g,b. With less and less to work with as saturation is reduced so far, the r,g,b values that describe a pixel's unique color are being lost, forever, and it gets harder to work with in post if muted too far. On the other hand, if saturation is too high, then you start running out of adressable space and the channels will clip, causing color shifts.

For video, luminance needs to be kept within 16-235 but the individual rgb channels can use 0-255. So if you delivered video that kept rgb within those legal values, it should grade well if properly exposed.
 
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