Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?
 

Oh okay. Does the costume have to be teal though, as long as the background lighting is? Isn't that enough teal to create a contrast from the actors?

Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?
 

Don't forget that what is being done in the grades that use this cyan/pink split is the trick of using bluey light to evoke cold/fear/tense and the pink flesh tones being warm/friendly/happy type emotion split - not just a colour contrast.

Drop off is the phenomena you get when using too few light sources to light a larger area - double the distance, quarter the brightness - so the way will drop off in intensity, then go back up again as the next fixture takes over - so to light a 20ft wide wall, you might need 3 or even 4 light sources.

There's bit of a problem with gel. CTB OR CTO is colour correction, so won't give you the cyan colour you want. Lee and Rosco have plenty of gels in that rough category of cyan-blue/green. The only slight issue is that when you stick these onto LED light sources, the colour is often not exactly what you expect due to the phosphors in the LEDs, but tinting the white light on the scenery/set is possible, but you'll need to experiment to wash a set with the right colour - hence why colourists do it as shown in the tutorials. The gels reduce the light levels quite a bit anyway, so it will be more dark than you imagine, so you might not need the deep colour versions. Here's some of the range.

Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?
 

You're going to get teal on the costumes if you use colour correction, unless you're going to get into really involved work doing more that using just the skin tones.This is all part of an overall look and has nothing to do with the walls being the blueish colour. If you do it, the whole film should probably have the same look.

If you light the background walls using coloured gels, you can light the actor separably from the wall, so the costumes are their natural colour.

Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?
 

Oh okay thanks, and thanks for the gel options!

If I color the movie to have a very teal look, do you think that the audience will think it's motivation-less though, if the color is not coming from a source in the story?

Also, the thing about clothes, is, is that it's hard to get teal costumes. For example, the project I am working on the characters will wear business suit type attire, but no normal store sells teal colored suits, fashion wise though.

Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?
 

Ryan, people wear normal clothes. I don't think anyone does this trick with the physical people, it's post effect because to do this kind of thing is absurdly complex. You're the first person who's trying to create looks, LUT changes or colourisation by really changing the colour of the things in shot. What are you trying to do? There are fashions in cinema, but would you not edit the video with proper colour balance so white is white, and then when the edit is complete and you can view everything, look at the product and try some different looks - especially as there are so many just as presets before you tweak things.

I just don't see what you are trying to do by even considering trying to get clothes in non-normal colours.

Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?
 

Regarding orange and teal motivation, a whole raft of films have been made with that look, however, if you look around in the real world it doesn't exist, I suspect that it's taken as a visual style that's in at the moment by the audience. There are lots of different looks used in films and the director has to decide which is appropriate for the story and the way they're going to tell it.

If you have doubts about the motivation don't use it

If you have doubts about the practicality of the process, don't do it.

From your replies, you sound like someone way out of their depth.

Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?
 

Okay thanks. I have no doubt about the motivation, I was just told by a couple of others before when I asked about it, and they said that lighting the walls behind the actors to be blue, would look too strange. But if that is okay, cause cinema is not reality, than I am okay with it.

Oh it's just you said make sure that the costumes were teal to, so I thought you were talking about during shooting, since we were talking about getting it right in camera with lighting the walls to be teal.

Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?
 

With regard to LED lights, a lot has changed in the past few years. Besides getting less expensive, the color has got better, and color temperature is adjustable. One thing I don’t think has changed is the amount of light that gets lost with a gel. I’m appalled at how much is lost even with a 1/8 or 1/4 magenta. It’s an awful lot. This is based on my 600 LED Cool Lights.

Speaking of teal and that green color, in looking at the news from the Oscars there was a picture of Jennifer Lopez from an earlier Oscar presentation wearing a nice green dress. Besides being a singer and actress, she is also a producer. It’d be really nice to team up with her on a film and add some stardom to gain publicity.

Jennifer Lopez's Oscar dress: https://static1.therichestimages.com...p&w=738&h=1125

This is about lighting, costumes, and color so it's on topic, right?

Edit: One more thing. Thinking about lighting, one needs lots of room. In Hollywood they have sets set up do do all this stuff. The walls are higher and there's room to move the camera further back so there is frame to work with. When coming up with the script and visualizing the the movie, one needs to be planning for the place where this will be filmed. There's a lot of work to do. Might even have to adjust the script to fit the available set. Just thinkin'

Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?
 

Oh okay. Unfortunately I am forced to use real locations with lower walls, of course... I know the gels cut down the lights quite a bit, and have used them before on a couple of projects so far. However, if I am lighting the walls in the background blue, and the lights on the actors are suppose to be brighter than the background, then does it matter if the background wall lights are cut down, therefore?

Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?
 

Granted, you hav used gels, but dang, on LEDs it's mind boggling how much light they suck up. I'm thinking of the throw of the light that's needed to wash the walls behind the actors and how far away the actors have to be from the walls to get the wash without shadows.

This is not my expertise area but having worked with lights in what I'd call less than friendly spaces, because of limited space, it's amazing how much room is needed to get the cams, actors, and background the way one visualizes it in their head. Regular rooms and ceilings aren't your friend when one needs separation to avoid shadows. Hollywood has sets designed to be able to do this sort of thing but reading about all the importance of the background walls, finding something indoors that will work in the typical script, I think might be tough.

In your area, finding something outdoors with temperatures one can work in will be limited and then there will be longer days with many hours of daylight to further complicate things. Again just thinkin' ahead.

Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?
 

Okay thanks, and yes that's a good point as I never attempted to light an entire background wall a certain color before.

As for shadows, what if I just let the shadows remain there? I mean since my next short film is a crime thriller script anyway, maybe shadows are okay, especially since a lot of old crime film noir movies have shadows all over the walls? I watched Mildred Pierce (1945), and it's loaded with shadows. So I wonder, maybe that's okay for a crime genre, and I can just let the shadows be therefore?

Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?
 

I would test all this out before doing it on a film. It's probably the best way for you to see what happens to shadows etc when using different colours on lights. Plus the limitations that you'll have doing this on real locations and how long it'll take to get the look you want.

Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?
 

Shadows are good - they create suspense, add to mood and often look good. Alien would not have been so scary if you could see everything. Then of course you get the kinds of shadows that happen when you have bad lighting, or not enough lighting. One is good lighting and one is bad. One old lighting designer told me that he'd made his career in lighting people, not scenery. If you light the people properly, wherever they are on the set, that will always light the scenery in interesting ways.

Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?
 

Oh okay, thanks. Let's say the background is too much to light blue and I should grade the background separate from the skin in post, like in the color grading tutorials.

So it was said before that in order to do this to make sure that the wall is a neutral color so it could be separated correctly. Now I read that white counts as a neutral color. However, even when I tried separating on white walls before, the skin still did not separate successfully. So in order to do this, do the walls have to be really really white?

Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?
 

Ryan - how many different walls will there be in this script that need to be colored in order to get this background teal look?

Will some have to be painted then re-painted to match pre-existing conditions (color match)?

And there is one more thing ... have you started to put together a budget for this movie?
One can spreadsheet it out scene-by-scene with materials, equipment, staffing. man-hours, rental, etc.

Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?
 

I have budgeted some of it so far, but trying to keep it from going. I am assuming I won't be allowed to paint the locations at least not without tempting the owner with a lot of money... more than it would cost to paint it back, which is why I was asking if these alternative solutions would work.

Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?
 

You really need to budget the entire film, otherwise you can get into fantasy land.

A building with painted blue walls is different to you applying an orange and teal colour correction, because the latter is a "look" that has to be applied to the entire film and it affects more than just the walls.

Using lighting can give blue walls, but it may not give the feel of a real police station if overused.

On a very low budget film you have to keep things simple. If you wish to change the colour of the walls, ask the owner, the worst he'll say is no, however, he may insist on professional painters doing the work, You need to cover all the bases and you haven't covered this one. You can't make assumptions.

Blue walls aren't going to change the dramatic content in the film, so you have to be prepared to drop things that aren't proving practical within your budget. Not doing so can involve losing something that's key,

The audience don't know what the director would've liked to have in the film, they only see what is actually in the film and react accordingly.

Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?
 

Unless the script and the acting are really, really good - do not waste money on small things most viewers would not notice. What I mean is that if they spot bad acting, or unrealistic dialogue, or poor characterisation there is no point even thinking about grading and painting things. You have priorities all wrong.

Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?
 

Oh yeah, I know, it's just I was told in the past that my locations sucked and the walls were to white, in past projects, so I wanted to improve that, even if it's through lighting.

Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?
 

I don't know who commented on your locations, but you don't need to have blue coloured lighting on the walls to make them better. Keeping the lighting off the white walls can make a big difference.

Throw this at the art director and the DP, tell them you don't want flat lighting on the walls and you want interesting dressing on the sets. It's not your job to work these things out, it's their job to come up with proposals.

Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?
 

Well, the locations do suck to be honest, but the colour of the walls is not a problem to me. The acting was the real killer. When actors 'act', you're supposed to believe they are a real person, and real people don't behave like they do in your movies? If the actors are doing their critical role right, then there will be no need to even think about the walls, unless you want to use them as reflectors and bounce light off them. I'd produce a priority list - and we'd perhaps all have things in different orders, but most would be pretty fixed.

1. Script. Is it interesting and does it really have a plot and stand up on it's own, without actors.
2. Actors. When they play the character, do you recognise what they are doing as what real people do and say?
3. Sound. Natural capture of what people sound like - OK on a laptop and a fully featured home cinema.
4. Music. Appropriate and mood evoking music.
5. Image. Appropriate to the genre in quality, format and frame rate. Composition following established norms. Movement planned and performed.
6. Lighting. Suitable and appropriate to the image.
7. Costume. Fitting, colour, material, period, style
8. Scenery/set. Appropriate to the locations in the screenplay.

Then you should have something you can edit.

Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?
 

Oh okay thanks. I can concentrate on the script and actors as well, but that doesn't mean I should throw the look of the locations out the window entirely though, does it? I also didn't think that music was above cinematography, but I will keep that in mind. I as also told my sound and music has been good so far, so I felt I should pay more attention to the other areas, if that's true...

Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?
 

A good art director and DP can transform very ordinary locations for not very much. On screen, they can look totally unlike the way they appear in their normal life.

Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?
 

The idea was that you could justify how YOU would rank them Ryan, so some of them are misplaced. However, once you get your order right, the things lower in the list become the ones that can be allowed to be weak, but it's unforgivable to mess up the higher ones.

The music v image one is tricky. I suspect that an audience would notice music before cinematographic tricks. So depth of field, aspect ratio, grading, LUT tweaks and other clever stuff may simply not be noticed if the important thing in the frame is sharp and doesn't wobble.If the actors are poor, then everyone notices.

Movies that few have seen, and are in a foreign language can win Oscars. Some poor devil spent ages getting the audio sorted for that movie, and everybody reads the captions!

Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?
 

Oh okay, I thought that people of course would still pay attention to the audio while reading the captions.

I've been told my the cinematography was bad in mine so far, but not the music. So I thought maybe it was easier for a composer to make music, compared to a DP having to work with not that good of real life locations. But I can work with a DP, and production designer and see what happens.

Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?
 

I wouldn't say it's easier for the composer, usually it's the other way around, getting good music is a problem for many films without a budget.

Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?
 

Oh okay, so far it's been easier for me as long as the composer has a good repertoire of instruments in their computer packages, and are good of course.

Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?
 

I think that to be able to create music for video is a pretty tough process. I can assure you the collection of instruments in the computer is but a tiny part of the process.

Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?
 

Yeah for sure, it's just of all the shortcomings I was told of in my past projects, the composers' music was never one of them that was mentioned, so I thought I had that area probably covered compared to the ones that I was told to work on.

Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?
 

The music requirements can vary from film to film, so you need to ensure that the music composer can fulfill the needs of the film you are making. .

Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?
 

Yep for sure. For this one new one I was thinking of hiring someone different, but then again, I already have a good working relationship with the other composer I worked with a few times so far. So I am wondering should I stick to the one I have a good relationship with, or try someone new... Pros and cons to each. What I could do is listen to samples of new composers and then decide.

Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?
 

Here's a couple of things we've done over the past year or two. Visuals and the music from us.

Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?
 

Oh okay thanks. The first video wouldn't play but the second one did. Very good. Did you use a helicopter or drone for that shot? I also was thinking of shooting a feature in black and white, but thought maybe it's too risky, when trying to attract an audience. When it comes to music, what is the bass brass instrument in the video?

Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?
 

It one of the low brass in Spitfire Albion, but blended with strings and woods too - essentially a trombone but the raspy sort. Drone footage.

Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?
 

Oh okay thanks. A lot of people are using drones now, but it seems to me, that when I do the math on the costs, and the price for a drone licences and drone insurance, that's actually cheapter to rent a real helicopter pilot to fly you around. Is that true? But if that's true, than why are drones more popular now?

Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?
 

You can fly a lot lower with a drone and you don't get the downdraft. Helicopters cant go closer than 500ft to objects without special permission, while drones can't go higher than 500ft.in Europe or 400ft in the USA.

You also need the camera mount in the helicopter.

Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?
 

Oh okay, it's just that the drone cameras they use have such wide lenses, does the ability to go lower really matter if you have a telephoto?

Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?
 

You need a high end gyro mount to remove the vibration on telephoto lenses, quite apart from the look of a wider lens is very different to that of long focal length lens.

Get a high end drone, which allows you to change the lens on the camera.

The perspective changes as you move in closer.

The choice between a helicopter and a drone will depend on the subject matter, how high you need to go, the speed you require and the loiter time.

Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?
 

I am by no means an expert and fly mine entirely for pleasure now the rules make commercial operation far too expensive, and of course, the market is saturated - but helicopters are far too expensive, and often charges are down to the minute! They also suffer from severe vibration, so using them for movie making, rather than news gathering means engaging a firm with proper gyro stabilised pods, and permanent internal fittting - plus more people, who are always expensive.

Dronse fly in limited vertical airpsace, but this is exactly the right place for a wide angle lens to look good. Helicopters would be as Brian says, higher, and need to be tighter, which causes lenses to need stabilisation. In non-pod fitted helicopters shooting from them is horrible. Many pilots are not trained at things camera people ask for. Helicopters can fly sideways so allowing the camera to approach objects - but ask a pilot with 5000 hours in the logbook how many hours he has flying sideways and you'll discover the answer is painfully few. Some notable crashes over the years caused by pilot error carrying out aerial video work. Flying around a lighthouse - a common request - is a particularly dangerous activity to a lower hours pilot, but a common request from the video people.

Drones have typically short range - the rules mean that if you can't see them, you're too far away, and you can't go high - 400ft is the highest most will fly due to the geofencing and protection built into the popular ones. They're great things for a limited range of stuff. I gave up 6 months ago because of the hassle, rules and misunderstanding from members of the public - plus the understandable attitude of those who have spent thousands doing training. The new registration system here which I did, and took the test, still makes the damn things a pain. I now pass this to poeple local to me who do it better, have better gear, and carry the can if it goes wrong.

Re: What camera would be best for me when it comes to color grading?
 

Oh okay thanks, that's good to know. I think for my projects I will just forget about aerial shots, as I won't have enough on the shotlist for it to be worth it, I don't think.

Also when it comes to deciding on a new camera, what about night shooting? Do the blackmagics, which I was told to get have as good of an ISO for shooting at night, like the Sony A7s II for example? I know I keep being told to light at night instead, but when it comes to shots of an entire street, it's hard to light the entire street.

What about how these scenes are lit, in Dirty Harry I noticed. There is a scene in a park, where as a script I want to do, also has a scene in a park at night. In Dirty Harry, they light the park like this:


They still leave a lot of the park dark, especially in the opening wide shots of Harry walking through it.

Also in the scene, at 1:07 into the clip, they show a view of the street:


The street is still quite dark. So do you think with this kind of cinematography, I can pull off shooting at night, since this type is still darker than usual for movies, and does not have near as many lights by comparison?