austinchimp

i goggled "music video" and this came up. director is some guy named paul thomas anderson. doesnt seem to match your formula. first time director maybe? clearly not a "pro"
 

I find massively pushed-up black levels irritating! They work when there's a big light source in frame as then it's contextually relevant, but otherwise they're a sort of Instagram affectation...
the colour palettes is nice though

bit harsh don;t you think?
I don't know.  From the looks of it, they spent quite a few hours driving around the streets taking an awful lot of effort at night risking arrest and personal injury, for an artistic/political cause.  I expect at the time the shooter was under a lot of pressure to get the shots while keeping a look out for authorities. At least he's made a finished piece!  
 
I personally enjoyed the film.  looks nice.  well edited. serves the purpose.

"A7r ii nothing but headaches".  Hasn't been for me.  I'm sure I am clearly in the minority here not hopping on the anti-Sony bandwagon, but having owned the a7r / a7s I find the colors of the a7r mark ii noticeably improved over the first series a7's.  Are they as pleasing as the 1dc or the 5d3 raw?  Of course not - just different.  I don't shoot Slog-2 often and leave the picture profiles completely off, and I make sure I manually set my WB first every time.  I'm loving this little camera, and in s35 mode + the Metabones speedbooster I'm getting great footage with it and my Canon glass.  I shot the 85 1.2 II handheld the other day and was amazed by how steady the shot was.
Shrug.  There is no perfect camera yet.  I think the UHD downscaled to 1080p from the a7r2 looks stunning, and I shoot people and landscapes mostly.

I don't have my 1DC anymore - I moved to a A7Rii for the weight, convenience and video features. But the other day I was working with some of my old 1DC footage and wow - there's so much information in the codec. It feels real, tangible.
For me the codec is the key. It has such an influence over the feel of an image, it's robustness and 'crunchiness'. I feel like Sony's codecs smooth out the image somehow, making it technically great but somehow lacking a bit of soul. It feels like it's been denoised, with some of the reality taken out of it somehow.
On the upside though the A7Rii colour is much improved from my A7s, and it's great for the one-man-band corporate work I do. I do like the image. I just don't LOVE it.

I don't have my 1DC anymore - I moved to a A7Rii for the weight, convenience and video features. But the other day I was working with some of my old 1DC footage and wow - there's so much information in the codec. It feels real, tangible.
For me the codec is the key. It has such an influence over the feel of an image, it's robustness and 'crunchiness'. I feel like Sony's codecs smooth out the image somehow, making it technically great but somehow lacking a bit of soul. It feels like it's been denoised, with some of the reality taken out of it somehow.
On the upside though the A7Rii colour is much improved from my A7s, and it's great for the one-man-band corporate work I do. I do like the image. I just don't LOVE it.

I don't have my 1DC anymore - I moved to a A7Rii for the weight, convenience and video features. But the other day I was working with some of my old 1DC footage and wow - there's so much information in the codec. It feels real, tangible.
For me the codec is the key. It has such an influence over the feel of an image, it's robustness and 'crunchiness'. I feel like Sony's codecs smooth out the image somehow, making it technically great but somehow lacking a bit of soul. It feels like it's been denoised, with some of the reality taken out of it somehow.
On the upside though the A7Rii colour is much improved from my A7s, and it's great for the one-man-band corporate work I do. I do like the image. I just don't LOVE it.

I don't have my 1DC anymore - I moved to a A7Rii for the weight, convenience and video features. But the other day I was working with some of my old 1DC footage and wow - there's so much information in the codec. It feels real, tangible.
For me the codec is the key. It has such an influence over the feel of an image, it's robustness and 'crunchiness'. I feel like Sony's codecs smooth out the image somehow, making it technically great but somehow lacking a bit of soul. It feels like it's been denoised, with some of the reality taken out of it somehow.
On the upside though the A7Rii colour is much improved from my A7s, and it's great for the one-man-band corporate work I do. I do like the image. I just don't LOVE it.

I agree with everything stated above. Let me just elaborate on an aspect apparent in any Micro/Pocket-clip and particularly in the Training Day clip: sensor size vs. focus vs. aspect ratio. I think the cinematographer did a good job, considering it was handheld and focussed manually, but ...
For 16x9 (or 17:9, cinema widescreen), S35 (or APS-C, let's not split hairs here) seems (to me) to be the ideal sensor size. Yes, I know, a lot of factors contribute to sDoF, bokeh (aperture with or without the need to compensate for light conditions, pixel size with circle of confusion, sensor dimensions), but generally S16 is an unfortunate choice. Like full frame in the other extreme. Full frame is best for 3:2 photography. When I look at my old Praktika 6x6 stills, how creamy everything flows into focus (but still is soft, you need good resolution for that), it looks threedimensional instantly, very sweet. For scope, however, there is little good in anything else but absolute DoF (exceptions prove the rule). Framing has to do with how the motif is accentuated and therefore it influences focussing.
I totally dislike the artificial look of Sony cameras. Even without prominent artifacts or something I could nail down, the image looks processed. The Micro would have been the answer to everything, had it only a bigger sensor.
 

Remember folks that LENS choice has a HUGE impact.
The 4k cameras can very easily suffer from TOO sharp an image. That's one reason the NX1 usually dosn't look nearly as smooth as the 1DC or the BMPCC. The Samsung lenses can be extremely sharp. 

Motion cadence is unique to each camera maker usually.
Some folks can see the difference, others can't.
If you ask enough people, the Blackmagic Cinema and Pocket cameras frequently rank very high, as do the Canons if they are shooting an all I-Frame codec

Having seen many test comparisons done, I can tell you this - you'd be shocked by how similar many cameras can look when you put the exact same lens on them and shoot the exact same scene.

Yeah, somehow the 1D C has got it down and got it down good. It might not compete well in the numbers game (well, maybe launch price, ey), but delivers you something that, and I hate myself for saying this, because it's stupid, just looks filmic. It's less robot... less clinical, less emotionless, less efficient, yet sooo efficient... it's more like a living creature that breathes, has soft skin, with some freckles perhaps and when you look the creature into its eyes, it's not pitch dark and empty, but there's something expressive, a spark, a flame. There's emotion. Confidence, richness. I don't like the camera one bit. I'm really all about mirrorless and practical things, lots of digital aids, love specwars and getting the latest and greatest. But I just have to admit... there's something about that 1D C... the footage I've seen that comes out of this is hard to touch and it makes it look so effortless. Maybe everything else there is just trying too hard...

You may be on to something, but in some degree I think it may be a red herring. I have noted discrepancies in WB from cam to cam in the Sony line. I owned an FS100 and EA50, and white balancing them gave significantly different readings. But the issue is more than colour (as in skin colour)--it's skin tone. I don't have the technical lingo to describe it in precise terms.
I use Color Finale to do most of my colour correction. The vector tool feature in Color Finale isolates colours, enabling you to do fine adjustments of the six colours on the wheel. And no matter how I toggle between yellow and red I can't make the Sony's achieve the tone and colour in skin tone that comes virtually out of the camera on the Canon.  
I also note the X-rite Color checker goes haywire on the Sony cams, and doesn't work dependably. On the Canon it works like a champ.
Equally as frustrating to me is how Sony, Canon, and most all the manufacturers provide the scantiest information on how to best use the features they provide to get the best results. This means countless hours of individuals trying to figure it out for themselves. Such time can't be avoided altogether, but surely it could be minimized with the proper information. But, this subject really is another post, isn't it?

This. Noticed it when I did the comparison R II vs S II in the other thread. Both cameras interpret WB values very differently and are probably both pretty far off.

I've used the A7S II extensively at the moment, and I'm finding that a lot of these colour issues might come down to white balance. It just doesn't work properly.
You light a scene with 5600k top end lamps for a daylight scene, yet when setting the 5600k on the A7SII, skin looks green-ish. 
When lighting an indoor scene with only 3200k lamps, and setting 3200k on the camera, skin is blue-ish. 
Auto white balance works, but the colour shifts to red in tungsten and magenta in daylight. 
The most accurate I've found for white that is white, is Underwater Auto! However this makes everything that isn't white into purple. 
This is across all picture profiles. 
FS7 and F55 don't do this at all. 
I'd do a proper in-house test but after this post I'm busy for the day!
It seems a similar thing happens with the FS5. Maybe Andrew can feed this through to his contacts? 

For all sony shooters I would strongly suggest reading this manual about picture profiles:
https://docs.sony.com/release/Help_C198100111.pdf
With the FS5 you have the ability to change pretty much everything you need to get the color response the same as any other camera. 
For skin tones look at color phase and color depth settings and also expose for the skin. 

Oh, and the stills?  Here are crops all from one picture.

I agree with Andrew's points. I've been thinking about writing about my experience of going from an A7s to 1DC and then back to the A7rii actually. It's been a slightly confusing but very illuminating journey in the development of my skills and tastes.
In my experience I'm yet to find a 'bulletproof' consistent workflow for s-log. It's maddeningly different depending on the light and color temperature. Having said that I haven't used S-log3, just S-log2.
If you're running and gunning then I'm not sure s-log is ever going to be easy.
But I am finding the Sony (with the right post work) to produce a more modern look, if that's what you're after. By modern I mean more on trend with adverts and music videos thesedays, but not necessarily a 'better' image per se.

I agree with Andrew's points. I've been thinking about writing about my experience of going from an A7s to 1DC and then back to the A7rii actually. It's been a slightly confusing but very illuminating journey in the development of my skills and tastes.
In my experience I'm yet to find a 'bulletproof' consistent workflow for s-log. It's maddeningly different depending on the light and color temperature. Having said that I haven't used S-log3, just S-log2.
If you're running and gunning then I'm not sure s-log is ever going to be easy.
But I am finding the Sony (with the right post work) to produce a more modern look, if that's what you're after. By modern I mean more on trend with adverts and music videos thesedays, but not necessarily a 'better' image per se.

BM Pocket with an optical AA filter?

The Trump lens series is a perfect match for the F35, right down to the black and gold!
I wanted to get a general idea of the look from the Trump series of lenses  in a simple natural daylight setting without flaring. Realize there are a million variables, attributes, characteristics, mechanics, etc... The optical characteristics the Trump lenses are most famous for (wide open low contrast, flaring, custom bokeh) are not shown here.
Camera settings:  1DC      iso 400, roughly 180 degree shutter, standard profile, daylight wb, 4k 8bit 422 (log is my preference, but wanted to use a profile all Canon cameras have in common so it would be easier to see the lenses characteristics without a custom grade getting in the way)   
                              F35      cine ei mode, adjusted exposure slightly in Resolve, slog, sgamut, 180 degree shutter, daylight wb., 1920x1080 12bit 444 dpx, upscaled to uhd (for easier comparison to the 1dc files) keep in mind the scaling probably doesn't do the F35 any favors.
Apertures:             T3.1 very roughly for the Canon and Trump, T3.9 on the Cooke
I used latest version of Adobe media encoder to export tiffs with best settings possible.  I delogged the F35 footage in Resolve with Sony's  F35 Aces input transform with an srgb output. Captured stills and exported as tiffs from Resolve 12.
Below are low res jpegs.  Srgb Tiffs to download here :https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B6dC48Sfvqr4c3k1aVh4UkhBS2M&usp=sharing
 
 

Man. To me, this was the most Kubrick film since Kubrick. Not as far as lighting or shot design, but a film where subtext and symbolism seemed far more important than the story - almost at if the story was an afterthought, a face to stick over a very different skeleton. I spent most of the movie marveling that europeans were able to eventually conquer north America, and found the juxtaposition of nature vs. human nature to be the real story; from nature itself and its power (storms, rivers, bears), to the native people who seem one step removed from nature and can be as viscous as nature, to the trappers who are almost proto-humans by today's standards, up to the guy at the fort trying to enforce notions of honor and law when surrounded by people reduced to a near-animal status. And how this played out against human desires - the trapper and the chief both on journeys based on the breaking of familial bonds (recall a bear and her cubs put the story in motion), how tenuous the more evolved ideas of morality and character become in the face of greed, vengeance, and self-preservation, the size of the stakes (from starvation to freezing to a pretty awful death at the hands of the natives) and how different people respond to those fears.
I don't go into movies seeking this stuff (I usually just wanna see shit get blowed up, and some boobies) but was very surprised that those thoughts kept me more rapt than the plot. Not trying to sound all intellectual and I don't have the vocabulary to express some of this - but in novels and films "tone" and language, rhythm, symbolism - they hold my attention much more than plot does. For me, one of the absolutely best films I've seen in years. (But as you can tell, I'm weird).

I was literally gripping my seat throughout much of this film. Two things are known to me. I loved this movie and we have become total pussies since 1820.

This is half the reason why I got a C100 instead of the 4K options in that price bracket (think GH4 or A7S II). I can make it look the way I want it in camera. I don't need labor-intensive color correction beyond basic gamma and RGB tweaks. I certainly don't need to fool around with LUTs. I grew up shooting on film. I'm comfortable working this way. And needless to say, I find HD perfectly usable for my needs.
The other half is form factor. So nice to have a proper camera with proper XLRs and an ND filter.
I actually just came home from watching The Revenant. Most of it was shot in 2.8K Arriraw on the Alexa M. Some of it was shot in 6K on the new Alexa 65. I couldn't tell which shots were which camera. And that's a massive gap in resolution. In the right hands, resolution is practically irrelevant. That said, I'd rather see what Emmanuel Lubezki could do with a VHS camcorder than what 99% of other DPs can do with a Red Dragon and Master Primes. He's a true wizard.

I see comments like this a lot and it always reminds me of the revenge of the great camera shootout 2011 where they compared among other cameras an Iphone and G2 to an Alexa. They had an identical scene set up and the DP could modify it as needed by adding lights or adjusting intensity of the lights that were already there. Yes the G2 and even the Iphone to a degree where made to look pretty good and it showed that a good DP could make them look great. Some took away from that video that even the much cheaper DSLR's could be made to look almost as good as the Alexa, the camera tech doesn't matter it comes down to the talent of the DP.
While true I took a different lesson from it. If you watch the video the Alexa team says that they only adjusted the intensity of the lights that were there to add some contrast to the shot since the camera could handle the scene as it was just fine. The G2 team due to the limitations of the camera went through a long list of like 15-20 changes they made - adding lights, etc... Not to mention the extra time it takes in post as well. Now take that scene and multiply it by 100, all that extra time you spend dealing with the limitations or quirks of the camera. Yes you can make the image look great but it can take a lot of extra effort to do so. 
The big players use cameras like the Alexa because they are rock solid reliable with a flexible and fantastic image. They can spend their time being creative, not trying to over come the limitations of a camera. When you have millions of dollars on the line why risk it only to save some rental money on a quirky or unknown camera when you can use a tried and true proven work horse that you know will get the job done smoothly?

His last album is brilliant. Check out the other video too, nicely shot -
Very sad he's gone. Every artist on earth today has lost a part of themselves somehow.