Question about 'SHOOTING FLAT'.

David W. Jones said:
Not white balancing to the sodium lights sounds best.
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I have to second that. The lights do not look white to me in real life. What I do with night urban exteriors is to make the majority of the interior lights from the buildings in the shots look white, usually by setting the white balance pre-set for tungsten, 3200K, then letting the exterior lights go where they go. I have to admit that I have not done this kind of shooting on fictional narrative shoots. I have run into this with stuff I have been shooting for bands as BTS footage that we have been putting together as promo footage for them. I still think that If I was doing fictional narrative I would want window lights to be white and would filter exterior supplemental tungsten lights to match the street lights the best I could. I would not white balance to the street lights. I think that some of the best recent examples of night exterior urban lighting is the work by Newton Thomas Sigel ASC on "Drive"


and Bobby Bukowski's work on "Rampart"


Both of those master Cinematographers embraced the color of the urban night time. I regularly re-watch both of those films for visual inspiration.
 
ironpony said:
Yeah okay. Just determining what's best when shooting flat. I guess since shooting flat costs a lot of money in post, I will not do so since I am tight on my budgets.
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It is not about "Best", or "Never" or "Always". All of these techniques are tools that you have in your tool kit. Sometimes they are appropriate, sometimes they are not. I agree with the consensus that it is not usually appropriate, but like I noted, there are situations were it is.
 
Okay thanks. It's just a matter of figuring out where it is appropriate and where not. I have found mixed results.

As far embracing realistic light, sometimes I like to do that, but for a particular project, I want more cinematic unrealistic light. A lot of people are going for a look like in Drive, which is a nice look but kind of want something more cold looking at night. Rampart I did not really like the cinematography too and thought it was too documentary-ish looking, like a home video camera but not as bad of course.

I am aiming for something like this, but shot under real street lights for the wide shots:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJxrAUbBeoo

And this wide street shot example from the same movie:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSUR050VECM

For that scene like that, I could either shoot flat, or shoot with the saturation and color tone to specifics in camera if better.
 
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Yeah, I would do some serious test under the conditions you have at the location that you choose. I don't know if a flat profile would be appropriate for a scene like that at all. Good luck with that.
 
Okay thanks, I have done tests but their are a lot of variables and weather and brightness at night play a part too, so I have to take notes depending on the weather too maybe.
 
ironpony said:
Okay thanks. It's just a matter of figuring out where it is appropriate and where not. I have found mixed results.

As far embracing realistic light, sometimes I like to do that, but for a particular project, I want more cinematic unrealistic light. A lot of people are going for a look like in Drive, which is a nice look but kind of want something more cold looking at night. Rampart I did not really like the cinematography too and thought it was too documentary-ish looking, like a home video camera but not as bad of course.

I am aiming for something like this, but shot under real street lights for the wide shots:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJxrAUbBeoo

And this wide street shot example from the same movie:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSUR050VECM

For that scene like that, I could either shoot flat, or shoot with the saturation and color tone to specifics in camera if better.
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That wide street shot from "From Russia with love" looks very lit to the shot. Remember it was shot on film and while there were quite able editors back then, most of the time you'd get the look in camera.
But of course that shouldn't stop you from shooting flat. Everything is a tool, it only matters how you use it in relations to what you want. In digital you could do the same wide street shot and then mess with the contrast afterwards. That would probably give you a cleaner shot rather than nailing the perfect contrast ratio within a digital cameras dynamic range. If you mess up the shadows you could end up with noisy footage instead of a nice contrasty look.

Also keep in mind that the Russia wide shot have several placed light sources; I count at least 5. I'm not sure you can rely on natural streetlights to give you the same amount of overall contrast (depending on your location of course). Maybe you should also consider working with flagging some lights in the shot. A blacked out street light can make the whole difference.
 
I feel that the common misconception is here is "shooting flat" vs "shooting RAW" which are two totally different things.

Shooting with a flat profile doesn't emulate shooting RAW. You can add saturation, contrast, etc... But you're also manipulating information that isn't there.
 
That's what I've been told before initially, but when I shoot flat and add those things after, I seem to also get noise as well. I wonder if it either makes no difference with H.264, or it does and their is a catch.

As for From Russia With Love, I know they shot on film and can do whatever they wanted with their lighting but I would at least like to try something closer with natural street lighting.
 
David Jimerson said:
No, they couldn't. Lighting is a big concern no matter what you shoot on, and in some ways, lighting for film instead of digital is harder.
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Which was partially my point... .h264 should be light more or less to what you want to end up with because the range at which you can edit things is so narrow.

Like you say yourself Ironpony you get noise fast, and that's because the codec isn't very strong, you only get 8 bit which is very little color depth! So when you flatten your image in the shot and start grading you are forcing values on the shots that aren't really present and end up with noise or banding.
If you shoot flat on a DSLR it should be because you want that flat look in the end, which many apparently do...?

You can get away with .h264 a lot if you light within the reasonable dynamic range of the camera.
 
David G. Smith said:
I have to second that. The lights do not look white to me in real life. What I do with night urban exteriors is to make the majority of the interior lights from the buildings in the shots look white, usually by setting the white balance pre-set for tungsten, 3200K, then letting the exterior lights go where they go. I have to admit that I have not done this kind of shooting on fictional narrative shoots. I have run into this with stuff I have been shooting for bands as BTS footage that we have been putting together as promo footage for them. I still think that If I was doing fictional narrative I would want window lights to be white and would filter exterior supplemental tungsten lights to match the street lights the best I could. I would not white balance to the street lights. I think that some of the best recent examples of night exterior urban lighting is the work by Newton Thomas Sigel ASC on "Drive"
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That was my 'essential' advice to Ironpony in the several threads on the topic of Sodium street lamps and 'white balance'... Obviously IP thinks there is some 'magic bullet' and some 'small' adjustment that can be made to make everything look like it was lit with a $100M budget film production unit...

In the 60's when 'avantgarde' productions 'went to the streets', the production had to 'embrace film grain', since in order to get any shot on the street with the available street lighting they would have to push the film stock in development... yielding far more grain...

But this has now become a 'code' for 'gritty/realism'... so to with DSLRS and 'Sodium Yellow'... (One could shoot with B&W/monochrome in mind and forget all this color crap... but I digress...).
 
Okay I am open to doing other types of photography other than From Russia With Love. I just don't know what my options are. It was a DP before who suggested I white balance the sodium lamps to get the look I want, and he said to shoot flat, but then I got banding and wasn't sure if shooting flat was the best idea. Same with other scenarios. I know what I want when it comes to lighting and color looks, indoors, and during sun time, it's just at night under real street lights, I do not know what my color grading options are cause every movie I aspire too, is not 'do-able' I find out later.
 
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Ironpony, "Every movie I aspire to, is not 'do-able' " is not correct. Nothing personal, but I think that the disconnect is between the "What" that you want and the "How" that you ask would work. The scene that you reference from "From Russia with Love" would be very easy, IMHO, to replicate, especially with modern cameras. You could easily get a look like that with a small 3 or 4 light, moderately powered, Fresnel kit (650, 750 or 1000 watts). The thing is, you asked how to get that look with available ambient street lights. ...Apples and Oranges. ... You can not light a scene like you showed with available street lighting. ... And, as to the OP question about shooting flat... You would absolutely not want to set your camera profiles to a flat profile when setting up a lighting scenario like the one you showed in "From Russia With Love". If that is the aesthetic you want then you are going want to have very distinct and clear blacks. Flat profiles have a tendency to muddy the blacks.
 
ironpony said:
Okay I am open to doing other types of photography other than From Russia With Love. I just don't know what my options are. It was a DP before who suggested I white balance the sodium lamps to get the look I want, and he said to shoot flat, but then I got banding and wasn't sure if shooting flat was the best idea. Same with other scenarios. I know what I want when it comes to lighting and color looks, indoors, and during sun time, it's just at night under real street lights, I do not know what my color grading options are cause every movie I aspire too, is not 'do-able' I find out later.
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Let me explain something... there are 'outer directed people', and 'inner directed people'. People who are 'outer directed', tend to get bossed around, get 'told' what to do, and because they may internally think otherwise, they follow what they have been told anyway...

"Inner directed" people tend to take in 'what they have been told', process it, and then decide if what they have been told is worth it. More often than not this 'internal processing' is done without asking everyone on the planet for 'confirmation'... and for some part of the processing is 'just do it' and see how the results come out.

I'm going to make a gross assumption... nothing you do is done in regard to a 200+ Million dollar budget. So, if you spend an hour testing an idea, you are not going to be wasting 1000's of dollars.

Therefore... develop a more 'inner directed' attitude. Take someone's statement 'white balance to yellow sodium lights'... test it... and find that that doesn't work at all... then what ever comes out of the person's mouth can be conditioned with 'THEY DON"T KNOW WHAT THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT"... Now it is true that a broken clock is right twice a day... for a split second... and someone who is other wise shown to be ignorant can come up with an astonishing factoid... but for the most part they can be ignored.

It may be that I don't know everything there is to know about the capture of 'moving pictures', but quite a bit of experience in 'still' image capture, which I've done for 40 years, does carry over, and in particular the issues of color casts, light quality. The digital sensors may have different characteristics than Film film, but at the end of the day, if one understands that each capture method, digital or Film film, has specific responses to light, and reading 'specs' or discussions of that will inform you on how the sensor in your camera will most likely respond, will give you some of the answers you have been asking...

On to 'flat'... I tend to 'shoot flat' but that's always conditioned with 'small tweaks' to contrast in the post processing phase. And by 'small' I mean really small... not enough to see banding or 'enhanced' macroblock edges, etc... I also do an 'edge sharpening' which really is just an 'edge contrast enhancement'. But again, this is a very 'small' tweak... I look closely at 'sharp edges' in my shot, and make sure there is no 'ringing' an artifact of 'over sharpening'.

I may also give a 'small' color shift... but as I've noted elsewhere, I tend to think of my final output in terms of B&W(monochrome), and so, certain color problems due to not having 'pro' lights, are negligible.

But here's the operative word... 'small'... if you are 'adjusting' more than a few percent of the 'nominal value', you are probably adjusting too much.

How do you acquire the knowledge of what a shot needs, what can be done in camera and in post, and where is the best division, given your camera and lighting equipment...

BY TESTING IT... OVER... and OVER... and OVER...

I personally wish I had made better investments 20 years ago... so now I could be 'retired to pursue other interests'... but alas I don't have the time to spend days on my 'interests', and don't have much money to spend on production of short films... but I'm ever hopeful...

What am I doing for lunch today... taking the Wife's new Nikon D600 out and shooting 18% grey cards, to find its 'effective ISO' values relative to my light meters...

If you don't do that with your camera... well.. start... now...
 
Well here's the thing. I have done tests with white balancing to sodium, I have done quite a few. It seems that all cinematographers don't like it and think it looks bad. But when I ask people I know they say they like it and think it looks like a cool steel look. You say it looks bad, but I cannot figure out how really. So you are guys are the pros, so what is it that makes it look so bad? My only concern in the noise, and maybe a blue filter on the lens would be better, than white balancing the orange. Can you post any visual examples? I am uploading an example now, but if you can tell me specifically in the shot what looks so bad, that would help understand what my limits are.
 
ironpony said:
Well here's the thing. I have done tests with white balancing to sodium, I have done quite a few. It seems that all cinematographers don't like it and think it looks bad. But when I ask people I know they say they like it and think it looks like a cool steel look. You say it looks bad, but I cannot figure out how really. So you are guys are the pros, so what is it that makes it look so bad? My only concern in the noise, and maybe a blue filter on the lens would be better, than white balancing the orange. Can you post any visual examples? I am uploading an example now, but if you can tell me specifically in the shot what looks so bad, that would help understand what my limits are.
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You ultimately have to make the aesthetic choice of what looks right to you in the context of the film. Make a judgement call. Mr. Clark is on the right track here. Test, test, test and develop your own aesthetic sense in the process. This is what low cost digital cameras are really great for. There are no absolute right or wrong choices about the techniques you use, only your final judgement as film maker about what best serves the visual interest of the film. It is only wrong when you look at the end result on your monitor and think "Man I really screwed that one up".
:badputer:
 
ironpony said:
Well here's the thing. I have done tests with white balancing to sodium, I have done quite a few. It seems that all cinematographers don't like it and think it looks bad. But when I ask people I know they say they like it and think it looks like a cool steel look. You say it looks bad, but I cannot figure out how really. So you are guys are the pros, so what is it that makes it look so bad? My only concern in the noise, and maybe a blue filter on the lens would be better, than white balancing the orange. Can you post any visual examples? I am uploading an example now, but if you can tell me specifically in the shot what looks so bad, that would help understand what my limits are.
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You used the examples from "From Russia with Love"(1963). The conditions that this film was shot under and what you are trying to do with a DSLR and 'available lights' is totally different. In that era, 'big lights' were arc lamps, similar to 'search lights', which these days are only used for big 'splashy' pencils of light in the sky for events. I don't believe any current production used actual 'arc' lamps, but perhaps there is someone somewhere who did... but most current productions use some sort of 18K/20K Watt banks of HMI lamps, perhaps 10 or 15 depending... (just to keep this in perspective... one 18K requires 10 times your 'ordinary house plug wattage'...(for the US...)).

You can not get the same 'look' from your camera or 'available light'... accept that fact.

You can mitigate the yellow to some degree, by having a 'small' set of lights on your talent, 'yellow in the background', and balanced for the 'white' of the small set of lights you have on the talent. Small being in the 1K, perhaps several 1K's... even that 'small' amount starts to require bigger and bigger generators...

The only time you might not need such lights is if there is a 'white' source near, and has enough output to make for a reasonable exposure. Sometimes one can get this if one finds a spot where a store has a big lit front window or the like... but ordinarily most night lighting will be rather low.

I'll have to dig up a shot I did with 'street/parking lot' lighting and with a small LED light hand held to give a slight hint of lighting to shadows. I left the 'balance' with the LED light bluish, and the parking lot lights 'yellowish'...

I was going to reshoot but things fell apart with the 'producer'... which is a different story... in any case I had to live with the shot as is...
 
ironpony said:
Well here's the thing. I have done tests with white balancing to sodium, I have done quite a few. It seems that all cinematographers don't like it and think it looks bad. But when I ask people I know they say they like it and think it looks like a cool steel look. You say it looks bad, but I cannot figure out how really. So you are guys are the pros, so what is it that makes it look so bad? My only concern in the noise, and maybe a blue filter on the lens would be better, than white balancing the orange. Can you post any visual examples? I am uploading an example now, but if you can tell me specifically in the shot what looks so bad, that would help understand what my limits are.
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Well, why I don't like to white balance to the discharge source street lighting is what I said before, it skews the colors of all of the lights in the shot including the interior lights showing through windows, car head lights and what not. I think that if keep those ancillary lights looking "Natural" and letting the street lights go where they go is a more "Realistic" look for night urban exteriors. That is just one approach and I would never say that this is the only or best way to to do it. It is what I like.

Razz16mm said:
You ultimately have to make the aesthetic choice of what looks right to you in the context of the film. Make a judgement call. Mr. Clark is on the right track here. Test, test, test and develop your own aesthetic sense in the process. This is what low cost digital cameras are really great for. There are no absolute right or wrong choices about the techniques you use, only your final judgement as film maker about what best serves the visual interest of the film. It is only wrong when you look at the end result on your monitor and think "Man I really screwed that one up".
:badputer:
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+1!
 
True. I guess I'm just tired of the realistic night look for thrillers. I liked it back when it first started coming out, back in the early 2000s or before. But for the last 10 years it has almost completely dominated thrillers, and I feel I want to do something different than what's been done a lot recently.
 
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