Sony cameras and the "video look".

Chris Johnston said:
Just to be fair, Tarantino is still to this day, of the same mindset. Says he'll quit shooting/directing when theaters quit projecting in 35mm.
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Let's hope that day comes sooner rather than later. Tarantino has shot his bolt, Inglorious Basterds was the most miserable cinema experience I've ever had.

Kholi said:
Apparently that means a lot of us are just crazy in the same exact way. I dunno, I guess whatever makes people feel better about it.
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Sorry Kholi, I wasn't meaning to be rude just not able to understand how the motion could be different for humans than inanimate objects. I think Sam may well be right on the money with the rolling shutter explanations. My vfx work has shown how much rolling shutter affects the image when match moving even with slow steady camera moves it infects the whole image at different degrees. Sam is probably barking up the right tree.


David G. Smith said:
You might really like the quote from director Nicolas Winding Refn ("Drive", "Valhalla Rising" and the "Pusher" trilogy) talking about color grading, "...“The grader is the new gaffer,” Refn quipped...".
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Thanks for the article link. Gaffer is a really good description in many ways. Refn is one of my favourite directors working today along with PT Anderson. Both capable of challenging what cinema is.

I think digital vs film in cinema terms is in the exact same place as still photography. The new digital systems give much greater clarity and detail but remove some of the aesthetics that we have come to think of as cinema, we watch cinema through a veil of grain and a dreamy soft image. It is possible to make digital look like film with film stock grain simulation, grading and filters. But directors are choosing not to and are clearly enjoying the new aesthetic.

The only time I have sat in a cinema and though that I didn't like the digital image was Soderberg's Che Pt1. shot on an early prototype Red One. It just looked like very high resolution video with terrible blown highlights. Possibly due to not fully understanding the new medium. If this was still the case today then I'd be agreeing with Tarantino but all the main high-end camera systems are delivering vastly superior and cinematic images.

I have to say I'm not a fan of the current state of art with digital projection though, for me the cinema experience still does have to be film projection. The digital projection in my local cinema is very video-ey and they're changing as many screens over as possible to be 3d. A great shame.
 
I still hold that content originated on film, in the hands of outstanding artists, presented on film under optimal conditions beats anything that digital capture and presentation can offer now, and for a good while forward... thank you very much.

The problems is that having the opportunity to see film originated content as a film presentation under optimal conditions has become as rare as being able to see original art work by the great masters of the Renaissance or what ever... It is sad.
 
groveChuck said:
Could be something about how we're hardwired to see humans, like baby faces, etc?
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Now you are on to something.... IMHO.

Human visual perception is a very complicated thing, but one of the most important components, evolved over millions of years, has to be the evolution of the recognition and interpretation of faces.
 
Love Digital ,but when I went to film School I learned that film catches a light spectrum that digital can't Fact. and other differences that you all are aware of. But at the end of the the day I love Film and Digital, both have a unique look and feel to them they both will always have a place in my heart.
 
Ruben/Sheri said:
.. that film catches a light spectrum that digital can't Fact. and other differences that you all are aware of.
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I feel the same with "non natural light" like LED or florescent vs. sun and tungsten.
Nothing I can put my finger on, but it´s there.
It may have to do something - like in music/audio - with the secondary harmonics (hope that´s the right English term) - something you miss if it´s not there.

And yeah, some may call Kholi and me esoteric, but seeing a car passing by in some odd cadence is different, from seeing humans move that way - at least for me.

As I said in an other tread, in the theater, you see 24 frames captured material, but they show you each frame - at least -twice in projection.
So it´s a 48 frames projection of 24 frames material. This is different from capturing 48 frames in the first place, which doubles the resolution of movement. (which may be a good thing only for 3D projection IMHO).

If you look at 24 material on your computer screen or digital projection you look at just 24 frames, so it strobes.

So here is a experiment I gonna try today: Shooting in 50i (since there is no 48i) and deinterlacing the material down to 25p with RedGiant frames.
That should get me as close as possible to real cinematic movement.

Frank
 
Postmaster said:
Could you elaborate a bit more about that audio thing Paul?

Frank
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I had huge problems with the Apple TV and transcoding for it. The motion would be smooth yet judder in a seemingly random fashion - not every second as if the frame rates or Hz was wrong. I tore my hair out with tests to isolate what was happening then finally did some without audio and realised that the way you multiplex the audio made a difference here. I was using Xmedia recode for bulk conversion and it wasn't doing a good job. This was a few firmware versions back as before it was okay then suddenly stopped working (which drove me mad because all the stuff i had transcoded before stopped working). Even slowly moving graphics in after effects would cause an issue at that point. With the v5 firmware i don't know if they fixed the audio issues. I ended up transcoding using some mac based software (mp4 edit or something similar). I had loads of audition videos to review so needed something in bulk.

cheers
paul
 
Postmaster said:
As I said in an other tread, in the theater, you see 24 frames captured material, but they show you each frame - at least -twice in projection.
So it´s a 48 frames projection of 24 frames material. This is different from capturing 48 frames in the first place, which doubles the resolution of movement. (which may be a good thing only for 3D projection IMHO).

If you look at 24 material on your computer screen or digital projection you look at just 24 frames, so it strobes.
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24 fps flashed twice (or three times by some projectors) won't differ in strobing compared to 24 fps watched on a monitor with a decent refresh rate (multiple of 24hz). On a 120hz display you "flash" (render) the frame 5 times. Both take advantage of persistence of vision. I am not sure waht you mean with the last stentence.

Postmaster said:
So here is a experiment I gonna try today: Shooting in 50i (since there is no 48i) and deinterlacing the material down to 25p with RedGiant frames.
That should get me as close as possible to real cinematic movement.
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This depends a bit on the way the image is deinterlaced, but in essence you will have 50 fps motion (in half frames, but so what) blended down to 25 frames. You won't really get cinematic movement, rather you will get something similar to fluid high frame rate movement. Pretty much the thing Jackson's opponents disagree with about 48fps. Unless, of course, Red Giant do some magic that subtracts motion, instead of blending it.
 
Red Giant Frames has two modes, blending and motion.
Motion does a nice job, without throwing away half of the resolution.

Frank
 
I took in a lecture by Prof Martin banks a few weeks ago, he was showing some work in progress, research into high frame rates and how we see.. it was a really interesting evening...

I could not find any material from the lecture on the lab's website, but if you have time, click on the projects page, and check out what they are doing;

http://bankslab.berkeley.edu/
 
Postmaster said:
Red Giant Frames has two modes, blending and motion.
Motion does a nice job, without throwing away half of the resolution.

Frank
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Interesting, thanks.
I will check it out. Although I must say their marketing blurb is raising a flag with me:
You will instantly get the smooth, professional, de-interlaced look of 24p film.
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Why would they call 24 fps film smooth when interlaced is smoother is beyond me.
 
Just tried it, it´s not juddering, really smooth, but doesn't cut it motion wise ether - still looks like 5o frames - meh.
 
Dermot said:
I took in a lecture by Prof Martin banks a few weeks ago, he was showing some work in progress, research into high frame rates and how we see.. it was a really interesting evening...
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I am looking forward to seeing The Hobbit to see if the high frame rate has been a success.

I know tests have been performed with high fps in the past, 72 rings a bell and reports were that there was a hyper-real sensation to the footage. I wonder if the logical conclusion to frame rate tests would be variable frame rates in a film. I can see that frame rate could be another tool in the filmmaker's box to convey the full gamut of emotion from dreamy low fps to high fps hyper-reality.

Digital projection would make it possible.
 
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It would be interesting to play with a high refresh rate monitor.. lets say 200hz

You could project 25p by playing each frame 8 times

Or maybe make frame 7 have 50% opacity and frame 8 be black (to emulate a projector drawing forward the film?)

You could film your faster scenes (or medium pans) in 50p and get judder free footage

or you could start the next frame before the previous one has ended a kind of frame by frame cross fade

(I think CRT does a frame by frame cross blend as the cathodes do not instantly go black when switched off, I think this makes CRT easier on the eye than LCD)

etc etc

Personally I dont think 48FPS will work, - I find even switching to 50p on the camera and the image gets a woozy ill smoothness..

S
 
At least this has turned into an interesting thought provoking conversation now.

It's interesting how fast cinema is developing. So little is acquired on film and projected on film these days, everything seems to be poured over - frame by frame in the DI and tweaked and fixed. Obsessing about all sorts of details we can now change, whereas before we would have had limited choice. Almost too many options these days.

The attempt to keep people in the cinemas with 3D and promise of other experiences, 4k, 5k, 48fps etc,. is laudable. I hope the Hobbit pulls it off but i suspect being the first of a new style or genre means it will be panned critically. The question is whether the audience buys it - through of years of conditioning as to what 'film' is supposed to be - will be key.

I've not seen a 3D film i thought was any better for it. Hugo, which has become one of my favourite films so far this year, was infinitely better in 2D. The colours and motion juddering in 3D was borderline painful and frankly added nothing to the story. Avatar perhaps benefitted from the spectacle.

Then the shrinking of the screens and the portability of media seems somewhat mutually exclusive with the production design and cinematography of movies to be projected on a big screen.

When you produce something now, there is so much variability in how it might be consumed that the i fear the dumbing down of the visual language. Much like the dumbing down of so much these days (but lets not go there)

Back to topic and i think Sam could well have hit the nail on the head. Or at least hit a nail somewhere painful. The FS scans at a pretty high rate though, compared to dSLRs and something like the GH2 which has been held up as a good example would scan less and suffer more, surely?

I could never use dSLRs unless they were rigged carefully. The micro motions that you'd make when hand holding in a normal camera configuration would make for utterly awful jello and shutter - very obvious. Perhaps all digital cameras suffer that in some imperceptible but subconscious level.

So is the feeling of incorrect motion worse when the camera is moving itself - hand held. Compared to a locked off shot?

cheers
Paul
 
It's either way, for me. Doesn't matter if it's locked off, doesn't matter if it's panning, doesn't matter if it's handheld.

Not trying to turn this into a thread about different cameras, but if you check the Magic Cam footage from John Brawley (http://vimeopro.com/johnbrawleytests/blackmagic-cinema-camera) particularly the one of the two guys testing the C300 near the sea, watch the shots where the guys are moving or even sitting still.

To me, the motion is perfect (if perfect describes what I've grown up seeing most of my life in film aesthetic). And, sometimes, the micro jitters from it being handheld crop up but never interfere with the motion at all.
 
@Kholi,

It looked like a 90 degree shutter or a lens with no stabilisation on to me.

You've really made me scratch my head and I've just checked some footage of my FS100 + Nikon 50mm and I have the same movement. The footage I have with the kit lens is with IS on and it has a slightly different feel.
 
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Yeah, I dunno what to tell ya. I think it's just some people can see it and some people cannot, but I'm willing to take a look at what you're referring to. Upload it if you can, then.

There isn't an example on the internet to my knowledge that's even close from the FS100 and honestly, any Sony camera. I couldn't get it there no matter what shutter, what lens, etc. Not from the internal compression, not from the NanoFlash. There could be a combination. Maybe I just haven't seen it, though.
 
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