Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Snapshots - NAB 2008 Day 2

Adam Wilt | 04/15- 11:44 PM

Codex Digital, SpeedGrade, Tangent, SI2K, and Nila

Codex Digital Portable and disk pack

Highlights of my walking around the show floor on Tuesday…

Codex Digital showed working versions of their Portable digital cine recorder. $44K gets you the lunchbox plus a three-hour drive pack, and the superb Codex user interface.

Saturday, April 12, 2008

Find Me at NAB

Art Adams | 04/12- 08:35 AM

For a bit over a year now I’ve been consulting on a new broad-spectrum LED light for the motion picture industry. The idea is that this light, with six different LEDs, can change color temperate with a simple turn of a knob and dim without changing color temperature. The spectrum on this light is much better than current LED lighting products that use only one LED.

In order to see an object’s color accurately you have to light it with light containing that same color. Single LED lights typically use phosphor-based LEDs, which have a little spectral spread to them but not much. They only produce a very narrow range of colored light, so they are good an illuminating but not good at all for color reproduction. The Element Labs Kelvin Tile (the product I’ve been working on) has one phosphor and five dye LEDs mixed together, creating a much broader color palette.

I’ll be working the Element Labs booth at NAB, so come find me if you have a chance. Sunday I’ll be setting up, and Monday/Tuesday I’ll be giving product demos and showing off the new Kelvin Tile “paintbox” control system. Wednesday I’ll be wandering NAB in search of juicy new products.

Here’s where I’ll be:

http://elementlabs.com/nab.html

Come on by and say hi!

Monday, February 25, 2008

Dynamic Range and the RED One

Chris Meyer | 02/25- 02:17 PM

Stu Maschwitz ponders what would be a good digital cinema workflow with the RED One camera.

Stu Maschwitz (he of The Orphanage, Magic Bullet, and The DV Rebel’s Guide fame), is one of my go-to resources when I want greater insight on digital film production workflow and its corresponding correct practices.

He recently wrote an excellent article on his ProLost blog about Digital Cinema Dynamic Range, in the context of learning how to use a RED One camera in way that would give him the same latitude of exposure control that we would expect when working with film (or other digital cameras).

Click here for the short version
Click here for the long version (and you really should read the long version – it’s very instructive)

Monday, February 25, 2008

Half-color Fashion: Why Project: Runway looks “thin”

Art Adams | 02/25- 06:00 AM

Wherein I discuss the differences between DVCPro25 and DVCPro50 with my toaster

Today I had an interesting conversation about bit depth with my toaster.

“So, tell me,” said Harold the Civil Toaster (not civil as in kind, but because he spent some time in civil service), “why the color palette of Project Runway looks familiar without my being able to place where I’ve seen it before.”

Naturally, my jaw dropped in surprise. My toaster almost never asks me cinematography-related questions. Mostly he just complains about life and politics. He’s a crusty old fellow.

“I thought the same thing. The colors looked familiar, but also not--almost as if they were too thin or something.”

“Exactly,” said Harry. (He’s very informal as appliances go.) “The colors have the subtlety that I’m used to seeing in footage shot on Panasonic cameras, like the SDX-900 or the Varicam, with accurate secondary colors--something that’s hard for most video cameras to do, although Panasonic does it quite well.”

“I worked with a sound person the other day who’d done some time on Project Runway.” I took a tray of real butter out of the refrigerator. Harry frowns on margarines and all fats that are solid at room temperature. “He confirmed that the show was shot on SDX-900’s, but at 25 megabits per second (DVCPro25) instead of 50 megabits (DVCPro50). I think it’s safe to say that a lot of the information that’s not being recorded in DVCPro25 is color information.”

“That’s strange for a fashion show, isn’t it? You’d think they’d want to emphasize the colors more.” As toasters go, Harry is more thoughtful than most. “Is it really just about economics?”

“I s’pose. You get twice as much tape time, but yes--the colors drop off dramatically. DVCPro25 is essentially the same as DVCAM, and neither of us like how that reproduces colors.”

“I can’t tell the difference between wheat and rye on DVCAM,” said Harry. “I suppose that’s okay if you’re shooting sports, but it would be a sad choice if you’re shooting a cooking show.”

“I think they do the same thing on Top Chef. They use the right cameras but at the wrong setting. It allows them to shoot for longer periods of time, but the image could be a lot richer.” I really love the way Panasonic cameras handle color. In DVCPro50 or DVCProHD formats the color depth is complex enough to resemble film, although it’s not deep enough to create as much separation as one would see with film. My experience is that color film is much easier to light as the subtlety of color and shading helps separate subjects from backgrounds without a lot of effort. 8-bit HD and video require a lot more backlight and edgelight to pop objects away from backgrounds; even in HD it’s very easy for scenes to turn to mush if there’s not enough done to separate objects from planes.

Uncompressed and higher bit depth formats show less of this “mush” effect. The Thomson Viper, for example, reacts very much the way film does, thanks to its ability to capture a much wider range of color and tonality--although if one were recording the footage to HDCAM or DVCProHD (both 8-bit formats) instead of HDCAM SR that mushiness would quickly return.

I find that the SDX-900 and Varicam, right out of the box, are a little too subtle for my taste. I do like desaturated images if there’s enough color depth to support them, but neither of those cameras look good when the color saturation is reduced. People tend to look dead, which is great for zombie flicks but not spots or corporate projects. (Well… it’s appropriate for -some- corporate. The dead flesh tone occasionally matches the liveliness of the content.) My tendency is to go into both the color correction menus (primaries and secondaries, also known as “Color Correction 1” and “Color Correction 2"), and turn the saturation for each color up to +20. Unlike Sony, whose steps tend to be very dramatic, +20 is only a slight change and adds just a little more chromaticity. If I’m not working with a paintbox I’ll also go into the white balance preset (I believe it’s found under the Operations menu) and change it from 3200k to 3300k, just to add a tiny bit of warmth.

I’ve had great luck creating a “bleach bypass” look with the Sony F900, reducing the saturation by dialing -50 into all the colors in the multi-matrix and using a black net behind the lens. Sony colors pop quite a lot, which makes it easy to dial them back for a more subdued look. The additional resolution of the 1080 image makes color separation slightly less important. 480p and 720p Panasonic cameras fall apart very quickly when desaturated or diffused, but the palette is so soft and lovely that I never find the need to do either of those things.

“I guess money trumps quality, at least when it comes to that last 20% of quality that we’re always trying to sneak into our art,” said Harry. “Speaking of which...”

From the thick toast slot he ejects a single piece of sourdough, wearing a small tuxedo with a lavender bow tie and spats.

“What the hell is that?

“If you have to know,” Harry says smugly, “He’s the Toast of the Town.”

I’m no slave to fashion. I ate him.

Tuesday, November 05, 2002

Gobos and Gels

Chris and Trish Meyer | 11/05- 05:52 PM

To project interesting lights, you have to cast interesting shadows.

Finishing our tour of 3D lighting in After Effects, we’ll discuss gobos and gels. For those new to lighting, a gobo is an opaque object that blocks off some of the rays cast by a light, either to more carefully control where they fall, or to give the impression of light streaming through an object such as a window blind or the leaves of a tree. A gel is a translucent object placed in front of a light, which colorizes the rays cast by it. It is generally a solid color, but can be a graphic. Here are a few different approaches to replicating these inside After Effects.

Thursday, October 03, 2002

Lurking in the Shadows

Chris and Trish Meyer | 10/03- 04:51 PM

Managing shadows in After Effects requires tweaking both the settings and relative positions of layers and lights.

The second stop in our overview of 3D lighting in After Effects is the subject of shadows. In the Dark Ages (before version 5, when After Effects got 3D), in order to fake the all-important perspective clue of one layer darkening another layer behind it, we needed to use plug-ins such as the stock Drop Shadow effect, Real Shadows from Red Giant Software’s Image Lounge, and CC Radial Shadow (formerly part of Cycore Cult FX; now included with After Effects). With the introduction of 3D space in After Effects back in version 5, the correct casting of shadows between layers became somewhat “automatic” – as long as you know how to set it up.

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