Scene Settings {HOSTEL}

fevercity

fevercity

Well-known member
Okay, so technically it should be "Hostel 2" since that's what Eli Roth was on Conan O' Brien talking about tonight. Regardless, the 'green' look is overdone these days but it was late and scene settings have been on my mind lately (obviously). They showed an interior torture / horror scene and it was time to try and simulate that look on the DVX. The green was off the charts for a straight in-camera tweak alone. CHROMA PHASE will not take you that far green.

The 'look' needed to be a repeatable white-balance fake. It needed to be more specific than "experiment with card stock from your local printing supplier". Enter the Smead UltraColor Envelope (No. 89531 - Purple). It's a letter-sized envelope with a string thingie but you only need enough to grab white balance and it's nice to know that their 'purple' will yield this creepy green.

My contrast and details are much the same. Switched to NORMAL MATRIX to cut down on low-light noise (thanks to gco of Virginia). CHROMA LEVEL determines how green you want it. Increasing negative digits on COLOR TEMP from 0 (-1 -> -7) determines how much you want to see underlying colors. 0 COLOR TEMP leaves it really green. Blacks are solid at -10 on the PEDESTAL. Put KNEE on AUTO as fluctuating knee-protection could be interesting for a shoot that called for this effect. Or not...

When you white-balance to the envelope or any colored material, sometimes it will tell you that it's NG (NoGood, NeGative, NotGonnadoit, NoGo, etc.) but it will still take the color info. It will even hold a 'BAD' white balance in whichever A/B spot you grab it to.... even after power-down.

As always, any and all input appreciated........



HOSTEL1.jpg




"Hostel"

DETAIL LEVEL -3
V DETAIL LEVEL -1
DETAIL CORING +3
CHROMA LEVEL 0
CHROMA PHASE 0
COLOR TEMP -4
MASTER PED -10
A. IRIS LEVEL -2
GAMMA B.PRESS
KNEE AUTO
MATRIX NORMAL
SKIN TONE DTL OFF
V DETAIL FREQ THIN
PROGRESSIVE 24p


White Balance Reference:
Smead UltraColor Envelope (No. 89531 - Purple)
SMeadCOMP1.jpg
 
k am i an idiot, or am i doing something wrong, i did those settings and then i white balanced a on a purple thing, and i dotn get the green result
 
Oh... My... God... I am digging this look... I just saw Hostel 2, I can appreciate what you are trying to do... Thanks for sharing... I can't wait to give this a shot.
Thanks again...
 
first of all hostel 2 sucked soooo much.

and also, that is WAY too green. It looks kind of silly. imagine a whole movie or set of scenes so GREEN. it would make me turn green.

i think a post effect is more in order here than ruining your footage by shooting it GREEN.
 
Very cool, Hows it look purple, shooting through the envelope as a purple filter...just kidding, but at first I thought thats what you were about to do. One thing I never understand is the A.Iris -2 thing. Does that actually have something to do with this affect? I always that this was underexposing your shot?
 
Nathan.Buxton said:
first of all hostel 2 sucked soooo much.

and also, that is WAY too green. It looks kind of silly. imagine a whole movie or set of scenes so GREEN. it would make me turn green.

i think a post effect is more in order here than ruining your footage by shooting it GREEN.
Click to expand...

I couldn't agree more. Trust me. I've re-visited this a few times while at work today and I think it should be renamed "Soylent Green" or "Jolly Rancher Sour Apple". I'll admit it wasn't looking that weird when I posted this morning at 3am. Just way over the top. Still had fun doing it.

Anyway, it should be an easy fix to back off that purple. The envelope's transparent - slide in true white and do some grabs that way or with another element.

If this were something I was going to figure out in post, I'd do it at work. That's what I do. There's a reason this settings attempt is in "DVX100 -> Technical" and not somewhere else; Smoke, DaVinci, Shake, AfterFX, Bullet, etc. I like the idea of getting looks in-camera and though entertaining here maybe a bit nauseating too. I'll keep at it.

Regarding the -2 on AutoIris, I don't use Auto for anything other than reference. I'll set my exposure, see what the camera thinks -2 should be and eyeball off peaking zebras. It merely shows up in all my settings because I just write them down in one pass. People have freaked out before if there's 1 digit missing from the laundry list.

It'd be nice to see some grabs of what other people are expeimenting with. Almost seems like there should be a 'sticky' for scene files.

You know the drill - this will inevitabely be buried by "saw this too good of a deal on eBay", "why not capture w/ my DVX?", "what battery should I get?" and on and on.......

Anyway - thanks for the input. Looking forward to finding a less "Incredible Hulk" / "Jolly Green Giant" look.

Share some scene files and grabs!
 
Well, you may not be diggin' it anymore, but if that Kenny Luby guy from "On the Lot" gets ahold of these file settings, we'll be seeiing it in his next short.
 
Deepfocus88 said:
Well, you may not be diggin' it anymore, but if that Kenny Luby guy from "On the Lot" gets ahold of these file settings, we'll be seeiing it in his next short.
Click to expand...

Sadly, I'm stuck 'in the dark pushing buttons' when "On the Lot" airs and am totally out-of-the-loop. Has he been ripping off people's stuff in gereal or just mainly a horror / sci-fi guy? Like I said - I have no idea.

I'm thinking "Hostel Lite" is going to back down the green and most everyone's curious what these settings will do to skin tones. Roger that.
 
Further research led not to more shooting but frame grabs and blank-staring st acopes. The Smead UltraColor Envelope produces such a strong 'green spike' in white balance that there's almost nothing left to warm back up. It's kinda like a strong sodium-vapor streetlight spike.

Just need a kinder, gentler violet. I think that's about it. Still a pretty trippy bizarro effect for 99 cents though. And, well, the settings were free too. Obviously.

Rather than reverse fluorescents, it looks like Milan Chadima actually played them up. Again - nothing new to that look either.

'Green scene' swatched pixel grabs from the film, Vortex's Minus Green (used to correct fluorescents) and the "Smead Spike".......



GreenQUAD1.jpg





Anyone actually try this crazy thing out?
 
Regarding Nathan's comment "that is WAY too green", I agreed. And still do. Especially regarding my use of the name "Hostel" for the scene file. Maybe it is too green for a copy of that film but maybe not for another use.


After all, an effect is an effect. Co-DP Charles Mills (CSI: Miami) had this to say in a recent issue of American Cinematographer:

"If you're going to suspend disbelief, just go all the way. People assume it's all done in post, but it's not - all the colors are done in camera with filtration and colored lights. The visuals are so important to this show."


Nancy Schreiber (as many of you know) shot "November" on 2 DVX's and she seems to be of the same school of thought:

“In the story, we keep returning to a convenience store, which we color balanced as a murky green. Then we had what we call the blue, golden and white ‘chapters,’ matching the emotional journey of Sophie. We tried to do everything in-camera in terms of color and contrast, which was facilitated by the camera’s Cine-Like setting and scene files. To achieve a film-like quality, I worked on the long-end of the lens, as wide open as possible, with not much depth of field. We had to do some wide shots—traditionally a liability with video cameras—but I thought these shots looked almost as good as if we’d shot with an expensive HD camera.”




NovemberSEXTET.jpg


 
Sure I would love to post some, except I don't own a DVX.. and I doubt you care about XL-1 grabs... cause I sure don't.

That much green isn't too bad, but not for a whole film... and it's not exactly how I remeber hostel 2.

I couldn't agree more with you about in-camera "colour correction." I hate the idea of adding filters in post as it never EVER looks good. Whenever I see before and after CC shots I usually like the original better... unless it's the "shoot flat ruin in post people." I only ever do a slight brightness or contrast adjustment for shot consistency, not to change the whole look of the footage.
 
You mean this one? I can't remember - it's been a long time since I saw the film. If not, still looks pretty green to me..........


"Cinematographer Robert Richardson's photography is stunning, and rivals Vittorio Storaro's work on Apocalypse Now (in particular the pharmacy scene which is shot entirely in fluorescent green, as if giving a sick and murky tone to the sequence)." {DVD Times}



NatBornVenom.jpg

 
I realize this is kinda going on and on but oh well..... There were questions about skin tones. Here's both that and exteriors. Again, the name's probably not the best choice but for the sake of consistency.....

"Hostel"

DETAIL LEVEL -3
V DETAIL LEVEL -1
DETAIL CORING +3
CHROMA LEVEL 0
CHROMA PHASE 0
COLOR TEMP -4
MASTER PED -10
A. IRIS LEVEL -2
GAMMA B.PRESS
KNEE AUTO
MATRIX NORMAL
SKIN TONE DTL OFF
V DETAIL FREQ THIN
PROGRESSIVE 24p

HOSTEL_EXT_8TET.jpg
 
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