Axel

Stop lamenting. Learn the scopes and then take pride in lecturing us all!
First of, it has good colors for sure. That's not what we are here for, we are testing. If anybody wants a perfectly fine neutral basic grade he should better buy a PMW300 or something like that and stop worrying (and grading). You mix up color correction and grading. And secondly, there clearly are some stylistic choices in Neumanns original Beyond The Grid clip, as we can tell by a closer look at the few shots he let us to play with. So, no, André, you are wrong. It's not perfectly neutral.
Where is the dislike-button?
True, sadly. It certainly isn't the easiest thing ever.
I advise all here to brace themselves against any harsh and arrogant critic. And not to trust any perfect stranger who tells you it's you're just using the wrong software. Maybe wolf33d is a talented colourist. Good for him. Are we here to brag about our talents or to learn something?

Also tried this shot and find your's close to perfect. Here is why (arguable, as always, but please try to describe what you object to, not just say bad grading): You'd expect the sunset's light to be yellow or orange (there still is the choice which you prefer), you would for the sake of color contrast have shadows tinted in the complementary color, but just a hint of cyan is enough. Everything that's directly hit by the sun should be well saturated, the rest should fall off. You probably crushed the blacks just a bit, I expect the edge of the table (first few frames) to be indistinguishable. The brightest part in the image is the horizon between the branches, it may or may not clip.
All in all, this is no subject for an HDR approach in the classical sense, you don't care if the tree trunks or her rucksack lose detail. The compositional setup of this shot is the direction of the light, which is too prominent to ignore. You'd see all you needed to see if she was a complete silhouette. The tension in the image comes from the three directions of sight, her looking at (and recording) the setting sun, the sun shining in the opposite direction and the viewer looking onto this frame, framed by the dark trees, having depth of field through a stark contrast between foreground and background, known in classic landscape painting as the natural absorption of colors (air contains particles that gradually reduce contrast and saturation the farer an object is away).

I use to shoot my vacation videos with my iPhone which has no DR worth mentioning, but given that I use filmicPro (allowing me to set exposure), I dare say it wouldn't have been overchallenged with that shot. I also shot with BM 10-bit and raw and had some 13 stops to play with in post. That's when I finally realized that the best shots were those with either not too extreme contrast (which could be adjusted in post) or those I did not at all costs try to preserve shadows and highlights to show off the camera's virtues. Too many detail can come in the way of a clear and strong composition. Landscapes (because part of their beauty is related to the sky) of course sometimes need more DR.
This!
I am a big fan of van Hurkman who often contradicts professional dogmata.
And for the arrogance of many commentators see this:
To be honest, I would have been among those who dislike Faris' grades. But he is right nonetheless. Say, for God's sake, why you dislike an image. And be precise or forever hold your peace!

And as a side effect some grades turn out to be "better" (liked by more people), than others. But I get it, I should leave it a side effect

Trying to get a bit of contrast into skintones at 8bit 4:2:0 reveals macroblocking, still visible when downsized to 1080.
I'm finding it hard to avoid the classic Panasonic colour palette with that one without resorting to LUTs, despite the malleability of 10bit. The detail in the image is amazing, though.

I must admit I completely dislike at least 95% of other peoples graded shots. Not because I think I can do better, it's probably mainly (but not exclusively, see below!) a matter of taste. My own attempt, with explanation:

On top of Panasonic V-lut (usually not recommended) I desaturated the shadows and also (like mercer) added some blue to them, but not so much. Is her jacket really a very dark blue? I substracted some magenta globally, thereby unwillingly adding more green to the trees, but fortunately the muted shadow saturation counteracted this (don't like the green in any of the shots). I boosted the saturation of the midtones, I like vivid colors, but not to the degree that the image looks artificially colorized.
I admit I am not good as far as serious grading is concerned. I think I know a lot about it in theory, probably more than most here. If you say my version is terrible, you are probably right. Do better, show, explain.
The point of this rant is, people - including me - can't grade. So why are they considering log the Holy Grail? I'd rather have a picture style that spared me all those steps and just left some color correction (which isn't a matter of taste and an artist's "eye" but merely cooking by the book with scopes). I would really love if the skin looked better. It's not wrong, it has the right tones, but it has too few nuances to look really alive. It's a pity that the above face is not in 10-bit, I'm curious to see if that made a difference.

Imo the best one so far is that of EOSHD member cantsin, who posted it in another forum. I am sure he will forgive me for putting the link in here:

My image looks like from a Christmas carol TV show (too kitschy skin). You can imagine she's just about to sing let it snow, let it snow, let it snow ....
cantsins image looks as if it was from a film with Julianne Moore. 

Ah OK I get it now, people on the thread are trying to break the footage.
That must be why it looks so horrific.
Either that or V-LOG colours are off.

Also tried this shot and find your's close to perfect. Here is why (arguable, as always, but please try to describe what you object to, not just say bad grading): You'd expect the sunset's light to be yellow or orange (there still is the choice which you prefer), you would for the sake of color contrast have shadows tinted in the complementary color, but just a hint of cyan is enough. Everything that's directly hit by the sun should be well saturated, the rest should fall off. You probably crushed the blacks just a bit, I expect the edge of the table (first few frames) to be indistinguishable. The brightest part in the image is the horizon between the branches, it may or may not clip.
All in all, this is no subject for an HDR approach in the classical sense, you don't care if the tree trunks or her rucksack lose detail. The compositional setup of this shot is the direction of the light, which is too prominent to ignore. You'd see all you needed to see if she was a complete silhouette. The tension in the image comes from the three directions of sight, her looking at (and recording) the setting sun, the sun shining in the opposite direction and the viewer looking onto this frame, framed by the dark trees, having depth of field through a stark contrast between foreground and background, known in classic landscape painting as the natural absorption of colors (air contains particles that gradually reduce contrast and saturation the farer an object is away).

I use to shoot my vacation videos with my iPhone which has no DR worth mentioning, but given that I use filmicPro (allowing me to set exposure), I dare say it wouldn't have been overchallenged with that shot. I also shot with BM 10-bit and raw and had some 13 stops to play with in post. That's when I finally realized that the best shots were those with either not too extreme contrast (which could be adjusted in post) or those I did not at all costs try to preserve shadows and highlights to show off the camera's virtues. Too many detail can come in the way of a clear and strong composition. Landscapes (because part of their beauty is related to the sky) of course sometimes need more DR.
This!
I am a big fan of van Hurkman who often contradicts professional dogmata.
And for the arrogance of many commentators see this:
To be honest, I would have been among those who dislike Faris' grades. But he is right nonetheless. Say, for God's sake, why you dislike an image. And be precise or forever hold your peace!

I must admit I completely dislike at least 95% of other peoples graded shots. Not because I think I can do better, it's probably mainly (but not exclusively, see below!) a matter of taste. My own attempt, with explanation:

On top of Panasonic V-lut (usually not recommended) I desaturated the shadows and also (like mercer) added some blue to them, but not so much. Is her jacket really a very dark blue? I substracted some magenta globally, thereby unwillingly adding more green to the trees, but fortunately the muted shadow saturation counteracted this (don't like the green in any of the shots). I boosted the saturation of the midtones, I like vivid colors, but not to the degree that the image looks artificially colorized.
I admit I am not good as far as serious grading is concerned. I think I know a lot about it in theory, probably more than most here. If you say my version is terrible, you are probably right. Do better, show, explain.
The point of this rant is, people - including me - can't grade. So why are they considering log the Holy Grail? I'd rather have a picture style that spared me all those steps and just left some color correction (which isn't a matter of taste and an artist's "eye" but merely cooking by the book with scopes). I would really love if the skin looked better. It's not wrong, it has the right tones, but it has too few nuances to look really alive. It's a pity that the above face is not in 10-bit, I'm curious to see if that made a difference.

I must admit I completely dislike at least 95% of other peoples graded shots. Not because I think I can do better, it's probably mainly (but not exclusively, see below!) a matter of taste. My own attempt, with explanation:

On top of Panasonic V-lut (usually not recommended) I desaturated the shadows and also (like mercer) added some blue to them, but not so much. Is her jacket really a very dark blue? I substracted some magenta globally, thereby unwillingly adding more green to the trees, but fortunately the muted shadow saturation counteracted this (don't like the green in any of the shots). I boosted the saturation of the midtones, I like vivid colors, but not to the degree that the image looks artificially colorized.
I admit I am not good as far as serious grading is concerned. I think I know a lot about it in theory, probably more than most here. If you say my version is terrible, you are probably right. Do better, show, explain.
The point of this rant is, people - including me - can't grade. So why are they considering log the Holy Grail? I'd rather have a picture style that spared me all those steps and just left some color correction (which isn't a matter of taste and an artist's "eye" but merely cooking by the book with scopes). I would really love if the skin looked better. It's not wrong, it has the right tones, but it has too few nuances to look really alive. It's a pity that the above face is not in 10-bit, I'm curious to see if that made a difference.

I must admit I completely dislike at least 95% of other peoples graded shots. Not because I think I can do better, it's probably mainly (but not exclusively, see below!) a matter of taste. My own attempt, with explanation:

On top of Panasonic V-lut (usually not recommended) I desaturated the shadows and also (like mercer) added some blue to them, but not so much. Is her jacket really a very dark blue? I substracted some magenta globally, thereby unwillingly adding more green to the trees, but fortunately the muted shadow saturation counteracted this (don't like the green in any of the shots). I boosted the saturation of the midtones, I like vivid colors, but not to the degree that the image looks artificially colorized.
I admit I am not good as far as serious grading is concerned. I think I know a lot about it in theory, probably more than most here. If you say my version is terrible, you are probably right. Do better, show, explain.
The point of this rant is, people - including me - can't grade. So why are they considering log the Holy Grail? I'd rather have a picture style that spared me all those steps and just left some color correction (which isn't a matter of taste and an artist's "eye" but merely cooking by the book with scopes). I would really love if the skin looked better. It's not wrong, it has the right tones, but it has too few nuances to look really alive. It's a pity that the above face is not in 10-bit, I'm curious to see if that made a difference.

Quality is mind-boggling.
V-LOG looking a lot less noisy.
Do you have anything shot on Standard though?

On Vimeo you wrote:
Excuse me for emphasising some points you already made. This camera needs only a very basic and minimalistic "rig" (there are terrific solutions in other threads, two of them my own) to get rid of the shakiness. But one has to admit: it can't be operated without.
By far the best lens combo for it is the BMPCC speedbooster with Sigma 18-35. Less moire in ProRes = better resolution (moire is a symptom for poor resolution), pristine, sharp image. Easiest lens to focus perfectly due to the buttery smooth manual focus ring. Imo it doesn't need the VAT filter, but definitely an IR-cut. Some of the weird colors and noise in your clip apparently come from IR pollution (worse with an ND), which cannot be fixed in post. 
I repeated the same test shots with an A7Rii and compared them to my two years old Pocket shots. Comparing apples to oranges? Yes, but I could just cry and really rue having sold the whole stuff because of UHD.
Next week I'll borrow the UM 4,6k. Know the manual like the back of my hand and think I can operate it from the start. Now that the latest firmware fixed the FPN issue, I think that's the ultimate answer to my prayers, camerawise.
*Don't* *sell* *your* *Pocket*. I should've kept it and shoot all my test shots and video sketches with it. 
 

Whew what a year, I think I have tested nearly every brand of camera and I keep getting pulled back to the BMPCC. I briefly had it back in October, but my copy had some overheating issues and I returned it. I quickly got caught in my day job and didn't get the chance to process any of the footage. Since then other cameras caught my eye, but I recently sat down and spent some time with ProRes HQ footage. This is what I came up with...
Even with my color massacre, I find the image out of that camera to be the most robust, filmic image I have ever achieved on any sub-$1000 camera... so is the BMPCC still a relevant option with all of the 4K consumer cameras on the market and soon to be on the market?

http://menexmachina.blogspot.com/2018/07/skin-tones-with-premierefcpxresolve.html

My buddy does have some good clients. One success story was when he invested a lot of unpaid private time in second-guessing the 'corporate identity' of the firm who made the announcement. He met the woman responsible for public relation with concepts ready to present. But he was wise enough to make her feel it were her ideas. They accepted his offer (reasonable, but not cheap) without batting an eye. The communication worked from the start (what's the right idiom? They were on the same wavelength?). He had thought out everything in advance, he could control the situation. The client came back several times despite cheaper competitors. If the client feels you are just some guy with a camera you will not be treated with respect. A successful professional must be a prostitute sometimes. The good ones make their sugar daddies think they love them. 

My buddy does have some good clients. One success story was when he invested a lot of unpaid private time in second-guessing the 'corporate identity' of the firm who made the announcement. He met the woman responsible for public relation with concepts ready to present. But he was wise enough to make her feel it were her ideas. They accepted his offer (reasonable, but not cheap) without batting an eye. The communication worked from the start (what's the right idiom? They were on the same wavelength?). He had thought out everything in advance, he could control the situation. The client came back several times despite cheaper competitors. If the client feels you are just some guy with a camera you will not be treated with respect. A successful professional must be a prostitute sometimes. The good ones make their sugar daddies think they love them. 

My buddy does have some good clients. One success story was when he invested a lot of unpaid private time in second-guessing the 'corporate identity' of the firm who made the announcement. He met the woman responsible for public relation with concepts ready to present. But he was wise enough to make her feel it were her ideas. They accepted his offer (reasonable, but not cheap) without batting an eye. The communication worked from the start (what's the right idiom? They were on the same wavelength?). He had thought out everything in advance, he could control the situation. The client came back several times despite cheaper competitors. If the client feels you are just some guy with a camera you will not be treated with respect. A successful professional must be a prostitute sometimes. The good ones make their sugar daddies think they love them. 

Of course with complete honesty I didn't mean saying everything that crosses my mind. That was idiotic. Nor a complete confession of all my failures and delusions. Or if I find the other sympathetic at first sight or not. Just in the well-considered personal evaluation of the things behind the current conflict. After I have been honest to myself whether some of it is possibly my fault alone. I'd admit this too. And I won't accuse the other directly, just report my own view, without holding back. If it was too biased, good chance to clarify this.
Not at this stage. My point is that many many false notes accumulated over time and that this caused all this bitterness. In management training courses the outcome is called lose-lose (as opposed to win-win).
I recommend Tarkovskys Andrej Rublev. Spoiler: in the last scene the famous bell founder just died. His 12 year old apprentice says the old man has taught him everything to make the giant bell for the newly built cathedral himself. But it's a lie. Because the bell is so big, he has to command the work of the villagers. He has to punish disobedience, he can't tolerate others questioning his authority. Accidents occur due to his inexperience. He hopes (but you can clearly see he doesn't believe) the bell will ring in the right key - and not break apart with the first hit of the clapper. Tradition demands that all workers will be beheaded then. Time is running out, and in the end the boy is full of regret and self-hatred. In literally the last minute, the prince with his entourage and everybody already surrounding them, the heavy bell is lifted and the clapper swings back and forth, slowly building up momentum. The boy runs away in horror. And from a great distance he hears the bell, clear and majestic.
Most likely intended as a parable for creative challenge. All capable people in this field are also impostors. They don't know better, but they may. They have to stay consequent or the outcome will be mediocre at best. If they sense hesitation in others, they take over responsibility. And they are held responsible in the end.

I think it's as simple as those two examples representing the two opposite extremes, and people here want something more in the middle- a detailed image without artificial sharpening making it look gross.
6D footage has issues outside of resolution and sharpening- mainly awful moire and aliasing- and you can't really fix them.

I think as well, like relationships, expecting things to change is a lost cause. It's key to accept that a cheap and difficult client will always be a cheap and difficult client. Time spent trying to shape them otherwise is time *much* better spent by finding better clients. I'm definitely guilty of this trap.

Everyone makes this mistake and there is no echelon too high for it. “Flat rate” bankrupted Rhythm and Hues. 
Learn that you’re more talented than the upper echelon now. Charge accordingly later. Learn how to charge way, way more so the even higher echelon that awaits won’t screw you over. (They got there by being good at screwing peons over, even screwing over Fincher on Alien 3!) But don’t worry about the credit hurting you. Either the project goes nowhere and no one knows about it or it goes somewhere and it’s a good credit. You’re potentially more fucked, however, if you’re above the line. Drop the directing or producing credit if you have one but don’t want it... but do so carefully. Drop the financial stake immediately.
An artist with a supervising role (one step down from above the line) on a historically top grossing blockbuster and a senior artist on features that have grossed billions told me this about free work (which I don’t do, so I apply this dictum to low rate work, but higher end people often will do free work to curry favor): stipulate a number of revisions and charge way more beyond them, but have that in the contract. If you don't, you'll be working free forever because the contract says you can and you will until you can't unless your client is fucking awesome. I've seen it. At the highest end.
Failing that, if you truly have no leverage, distance yourself and run out the clock. Time is money. If you have a flat rate as regards money, find a way to leverage your time. Don't let others' credits impress you. That's how they know you're a sucker. Deliver slowly. Establish an end date. Then run out the clock.
But also don't let the resentment build up and make things toxic. No, you can't be fully honest, but you need to change the relationship because it's bad to start with. Create a timetable and a reason why you need one (or maybe convince your client to create one around a festival submission or color grading date). Express at least some frustration. Push back. If you don't, your partner will assume you're behind this as much as she is and then you're leading her on in bad faith and that helps no one. It's toxic to you both. Find the leverage you still possess (time and skill are usually it if the contract doesn't specify money per revision or day) and leverage it, but do so honestly. She's not leading you on in bad faith. The real top brass will use the hell out of you, but it sounds like she's merely enthusiastic and naive in this particular capacity. It's not her fault, it's just bad communication.  Make things as good as you can, get what you can out of it, learn, fail, learn more, fail, learn, thrive.
Do so well and in five years you'll be directing Star Wars.

So, trying to function as professional in the industry is more about people skills than not.  At least that's been my experience at the level I'm at.  No one's ever going to hire me because I have a craft level that's superior to those in the upper echelon of film making.  I'm just not that guy.
Which leaves me in a precarious situation --as most of the time the work I'm doing has been quick boutique "one-offs" wherein I go in for a day or two, gather footage, then take it back to the homestead and edit it together.  Rather simple, small and fun stuff to do.  Nothing special about that.  12 year olds have better equipment and do the same.
The tough situation I'm facing is that my ability to tolerate a difficult client has diminished.  Maybe it's a sign of getting older?
This is no small thing.  Seriously, the desire to coddle a client has seemingly disappeared.   For instance, I'm working on a documentary thing where the client is so maddeningly absent minded, she has forgotten about shoots, called me in at the last minute to locations, sent me on location for shoots that are irrelevant to the product, has failed to produce shoots that offer any useable coverage, won't stop talking (about herself) to the documentary subjects on location to allow clean b-roll of said subject, doesn't seem aware that words from an interview require some sort of image to cover the endless droning of a talking head, refuses provide interview (trans)scripts with accurate time-code, etc, etc, etc.... 
Basically, she's kind of incompetent (from my point of view) to direct documentaries.  Nice person, but her choices and process are maddeningly pathetic.  Nevertheless, she's paid me a flat rate to do all this stuff for her.
Aha!  Therein lies the problem.  
Never, ever, work with a bad client on a large project for a flat rate. --AND ALWAYS assume first time out of the gate, no matter how sweet they are, that you're getting in bed with a potentially difficult client.  You'll end up being exploited and resentful; resentful to your client and resentful to yourself for agreeing to such ridiculous terms to begin with.
Anyway, that's my advice.  How to y'all cope with a shitty client?  I drink lots and lots of wine and get fatter.  You? 

What we learnt at school was that whatever small work we did, there should always be a foolproof contract that ensures that both parts understand what's included and what's not, even if it's a project that takes only a few days. A properly written contract can save you a lot of stress by providing you an exit from terrible clients.
A well written contract will also protect the client and make them feel safe about buying services from you. If the client would want to avoid using a contract - that's a warning sign!
 

I shot one wedding with my Pocket. It has a notoriously bad internal mic, utterly useless even for reference audio in most cases. Being a one-man-band and not into wiring anyone (which I did on one occasion, good audio, but too much interference and affected "performances" too much, aside from being a hassle), I was thinking about a "lenshopper" and my usual two Zoom H1's I place or ask people to hold. I researched and found a product from german private inventor Wolfgang Winne, then called Ohrwurm (ear worm), in my case the particularly ugly big headset with the ridiculous dead cats that makes you look like an idiot. I plugged one cable into the phone jack, the other to the mic jack, set the mic level manually to 70% once, done! The microphones have an incredible dynamic range, capturing quiet sounds with no noise and don't clip or distort below 130 dB (that's when it starts to hurt). They are practically dummy head mics that let you record what you hear. I originally planned to get useable reference sound for the Zooms (mono recording), but I didn't use their sound at all.
The smaller earwigs have no headphone-control (I don't know them personally), but they have a very good reputation. Even if you mistrust them for the final audio, they will deliver better audio than any built-in camera mic.