Filmic image possible just by grading?

[Valentin Gstöttenmayr]

Hi,

 

I’m a young colorist from Austria and I’m currently working in one of the biggest postproduction-facilities here as a Junior Colorist. I’m working with a lot of Alexa material and find it really hard to get rid of that digital feeling (I think its something about the highlights, but I’m not sure). On this page and a lot of other sources, I’m always reading how Colorist solve this problem by using their inhouse Luts. 

Also Steve Yedlin, Stefan Sonnenfeld, Tom Poole, Walter Volpatto and many others are talking about Luts and how they use them.

I’m aware that good lighting and Set Design are really important to get a filmic look, and with well lit scenes it really seems to be easier, but even when I watch some Low-Budget-American movies their grading style seems to be much better and filmic than major productions in Austria.

Also, I think Walter Volpatto talks about how he works on making digital images more filmic and how their Color-Scientists help them create specific luts for specific films but in Austria we have no Color-Scientist. Damn Color-Scientist!!

 

I don’t want to beg for Luts or anything, I just want to ask if the Pro-Colorists use Luts like Filmconvert, Linny, Impulz, Koji, or if they really have their own hand-crafted „Pro“ Luts which helps them achieve that kind of grades. 

 

For example movies like „The Nice Guys“ or „White Boy Rick“ looks incredible filmic but are shot on Alexa so I ask myself if that kind of look is possible just by grading, or do you need some special manipulation with other software or Luts.

 

As I said, i don't want to beg or find the easy solution instead of practicing. I'm just curious.

 

Best regards,

Valentin

[Emily Haine]

My take on this is that the key is to understand brightness and contrast. The colorists you are referring to primarily run all their contrast adjustments through a curve. Understanding a thing or two about color harmony also helps. 

 

[Valentin Gstöttenmayr]

Hi Emily,

Thank you for your answer. Yeah, I really need to start using the curves more. Also, about the right brightness and contrast, i always have the feeling that this digital vibe comes from clean or too bright highlights. May you have a look and give some input? 

Edited October 18, 2018 by Valentin Gstöttenmayr

[Emily Haine]

I didn't necessarily mean to say that you need to work with the curve controls. What I ment is that you can reach a more filmic contrast by sending primary contrast corrections through a custom curve or a pre-defined one in a LUT. The corrections on your first layer will then be altered by how the curve on your next layer swing and that combination will give you more control of in which range the deep black falls.

Film bend of the top of the curves very gently and I can agree that lowering the brightest values can look more cinematic. Pivoting the deepest black towards the mids is also a thing many colorists do. 

 

 

[Valentin Gstöttenmayr]

Ah ok, thanks a lot. Can you recommend an Article/Blog/Video on this to get a deeper insight?

Edited October 18, 2018 by Valentin Gstöttenmayr

[Emily Haine]

Can't think of a better place than Lowepost for these things, it's really mentioned everywhere, you just have to know what to look for. 

From the Hobbit article:

"Luma curves are one of my favourite tools to use in achieving a richer, bolder look. By grabbing a still of how a shot sits with the desired exposure levels etc and playing with the curve in conjunction with Lift Gamma Gain, you are able to get some extra tone into areas of the picture that the standard tools can’t reach alone. Often you end up in the same place as your still with no perceivable difference, but sometimes, with enough experimenting, you can come up with some beautiful richness and depth and still keep the same exposure level to what you started with and desired in the first place, just a much richer frame in certain subtle areas. This doesn’t always work so you have to be judicious."

 

[Emily Haine]

Watch your corrections through a curve and see how the image acts. For every little curve adjustment you make, the prior corrections will behave differently and you will get a different result. Good luck. 

[Valentin Gstöttenmayr]

Emily, thank you very much for your time an tips, you really helped me on this!! 

[Jeremy Dulac]

@Emily Haine Sorry for the naivety, but could you elaborate a bit on what you mean by pivoting the deepest blacks toward mids? Or more so, what is the best tool to make this adjustment? I guess I am unclear on if you literally mean bring your black point up or something else.

Thanks,

Jeremy 

[Emily Haine]

Hi Jeremy. I simply mean that a film image often have deep blacks in the mids.

[Jannik Altgen]

@Jeremy Dulac you can achieve this a couple of ways, basically in a Lift-Gamma-Gain way of thinking you can raise the Lift significantly so your blacks rise from the bottom to maybe 15-20% of the waveform. Then you probably need to lower the mids to create adequate contrast and compress the blacks. Another way to achieve this is by, as Emily suggestesd, using curves. You can raise the overall black point and then give a dent to the mids to achieve a similar alteration.

[Nicolas Hanson]

Input = Log

1. Node 2 = Draw an S-curve
2. Node 1 = Adjust lift, gamma gain

What Emily is telling you is that the adjustments made on node 1 will be altered by the shape of the curve on node 2, and this way you will get to more interesting results than the single tools alone.

[Jeremy Dulac]

@Jannik Altgen @Nicolas Hanson

Thank you for the explanations! I understand what Emily was saying now. 

[Marc Wielage]

I do so much with windows, masks, filtration, and keys, that LUTs are not part of what I do for the look 99% of the time. On the rare occasions when people bring in a LUT, I'll make a stag at telling them we'll match it "or their money back." As I said elsewhere in another thread, it's possible to completely duplicate a LUT with the controls you already have in Resolve (or any other good color-correction system). A "filmic image" really boils down to great lighting, great art direction, great exposure, and great lenses, and that happens long before the project arrives to the colorist. 

A lot of it just entails experience, hard work, having an open mind, and being willing to experiment. I stumble over little tricks and techniques all the time, and I've been enmeshed in color and post for almost 40 years now. Try new things, read the manuals, watch the tutorials out there, and find ways to solve the cinematographer's problems. 

[Kevin Shaw]

I agree with the others here - the main factor in film look is the s curve that used to be caused by the film stock but is now done in the grade. You don't need a LUT - the big facilities that you mention do use LUTs, but more to manage the color pipeline from set to finish than because it looks like film. I suggest you start with the contrast control but my preference is to work in ACES. The RRT has a very nice print look to it and there are so many other advantages you owe it to yourself to give it a go.

[Joseph Owens]

The S-Curve.

Up until about 15 years ago, everything or about 80% of it was stock negative-origination, exposed for digital scan. Most cinematographers still wanted a "print" look as a final result, but the hand that was supposed to go in that glove was the transfer characteristic of the electronic scan - CCD array or photo-multiplier tubes.  Eastman and Fuji did provide targets for us -- I suppose that was our first "LUT" that was what the manufacturer thought that a certain stock would do if printed '25-across'. Which would be where we tried to place one-lights for dailies so that the dP could get a fix on where their exposure was, until instructed otherwise. So whatever density was there in the negative wended its way through the matrices that dropped out the other end as if it was printed to 2386 stock or similar. The relationship is not one-to-one, because video transducers just don't have the horsepower or range of a theatrical projector and the aim is to have a bright picture and opaque blacks -- after all it is a shadow-and-light process.  You are right it is a big challenge to synthesize that experience with a completely different technology -- an emissive screen on top of all that.

A counterfeit-currency enforcement officer was once asked if they spent a lot of time looking at bogus money. The reply was that it was exactly the reverse, and they spent most of their time looking at the real thing. The fake ones are easier to spot when you know what you are looking for.  I spent so much time looking at camera neg that my native "look", if colorists have a "fingerprint" winds up being *filmic* -- more often than not, when I am left alone to deliver a grade, the comment will come back that "it looks like film."  I don't do anything special at all... yes, very careful contrast placement, *rich blacks* *graceful fall-off*.... if you want harsh, we can do that, too.  

Very often trade comments around so-called "LUTs" -- really, every correction is a look-up-table. You take a set of RGB values and re-map them to another set of numbers. That's all they do, that's all we do. Artistically.

 

jPo, CSI

 

 

[Jannik Altgen]

Thanks for being clear about this I like the "we'll match that look using controls" approach

[Ross Wilson]

Great topic with some useful tips. I basically followed the advice that's on the training videos on this website. 

Add volume to the highlights. This simulates the clear base layer of celluloid film on a positive print that used to be used to project films. Luma curve to bring really high highlights into range with the rest of the shot and to flatten them out so the transition is smoother. Most important on really dark scenes with exposed light sources. Tone curve, which is mentioned here a lot. Roll off the highs and compress the lows a bit.

These techniques are all simulating the way actual film behaves. I do a lot of colour darkroom printing from negative film and also use printer lights there so they make sense to me in Resolve for the actual balancing too. All colour goes at the start of this chain. This is all on log footage.

Then key or mask out coloured objects that upset the harmony of the shot and bring in power windows to focus the attention a little or create light level variation if the shot is a bit flat.