JulioD

22 minutes ago, seanzzxx said:

I can't stress enough how much I believe external recorders suck, it's just one more thing to fail (and I've seen them fail multiple times, whether it was due to a bad cable, a cable getting yanked, an Atomos locking up, an output setting from the hdmi being checked/unchecked) etc. Sometimes it won't even register until there's playback.

Totally agree. Avoid at all costs. 

Don’t shoot the messenger. 

I’m just talking about the way BMD see it.  

They are known for how good their color science is, and now workflow, especially on their own cameras.  I mean most of the best looking images shot on other cameras are still going through Resolve for final color.

They made a great codec that works on even the oldest computers. BRAW 12K plays back faster than 4K ProRes even on Mac. 

Don’t kid yourself that 4K or 2K delivery means you only need 4K acquisition.    Because right now you can shoot 12K BRAW for a SIMILAR file size as ProRes 4K.  So why bother with a legacy codec.

If you are BMD why would you bother supporting a legacy codec anymore. It’s not just KINDA supported.  The only KINDA supported is FCP.  In everything else BRAW works, especially the big boys like AVID.  And until recently the ONLY way to shoot ProRes RAW internally is on a Nikon.  I’m not sure that problem has been solved yet either.  You’re currently FORCED to use an external recorder to record PRR.

And from what I understand, PRR won’t easily support the higher resolutions like 12K because the file size is then massive.  It can’t scale up.  And before you say I don’t need 12K, again, with BRAW it can be a similar file size to 4K ProRes BUT you get the super sampling advantages.  I’m not saying that’s what everyone actually wants, but think about it from BM’s perspective. 

They made an awesome raw(ish) codec that plays back on any computer often faster than 4K ProRes, in most editorial and finishing systems that can handle and scale to higher resolutions with no real file size cost.  It could be implemented by other manufacturers if they wished, but they’d be happy just using it for their own eco system anyway.

I think the main reason that people aren’t using BRAW more on other cameras is that they don’t like the recorders that Blackmagic make, not because they don’t want BRAW.

18 minutes ago, IronFilm said:

That is why I hope in a few months time BMD releases a firmware update with ProRes, once Apple has taken their sweet time to approve it. 

No, don’t think so.  Above 4K res the file sizes alone become huge.

18 minutes ago, IronFilm said:

ProRes is the widespread industry standard, that's an easy enough reason to support it. 

No.

BRAW is a widely implemented standard.  Why continue with an older inferior codec - From BMD’s perspective - Not my opinion, just channeling how Blackmagic see it….

I mean 264 is a widely supported codec too and we’ve only just seen it introduced for the first time and I’m assuming we’re only seeing 264 because of future cloud workflows

ProRes RAW is pretty popular and they don’t support that in Resolve either…see where this is going?

5 hours ago, seanzzxx said:

If there's a prores upgrade it will be paid, since Apple takes a hefty licensing fee for that as I understand it.

No Apple don’t take a fee.  They are very strict about compliance though and each model has to go through an arduous process to be “approved” which can take a long time.  This has been a barrier because it requires the manufacturer to open up their code and manufacturing to Apple for an unspecified amount of time for a maybe, maybe not.  You can’t even announce it as having ProRes support unless it’s been approved.  Understandably a lot of these companies can’t just sit around for 6 months on a finished model waiting for Apple to say yes or no before they announce.

I believe that this is strategic.  BRAW is their codec now, it’s widely supported and there’s even decent ways to work with it in FCP.  BM don’t see the point in supporting ProRes anymore.  BRAW is better with lower file sizes.  We users feel differently of course but I would be amazed if any more BM cameras have ProRes.  I don’t think that since the 12K they’ve even introduced a camera with ProRes have they?

On 11/9/2023 at 12:55 AM, ac6000cw said:

 

Film projectors have basically the same mechanism, except that usually the shutter operates at twice the rate to create 48 Hz flicker which is much less noticeable/annoying to viewers than 24Hz.

Most cinema film projectors are three bladed so 72Hz actually.  Also the sweep is not only short but ALL of the frame is being exposed for almost all of the same time interval.  In a rolling shutter CMOS sensor they are line by line so there is a TEMPORAL or time offset from the top of the frame to the bottom.  That doens’t happen on a film camera even though the shutter is “rolling” across the image.

So it’s a confusion of terminology. The shutter in a film camera also appears to ROLL across the frame but what’s happening at an exposure level is GLOBAL whereas on a CMOS rolling shutter sensor the exposure is line by line within the exposure interval.

24 minutes ago, Llaasseerr said:

Interesting to raise that point, although the FX6 is still pretty small and light and the Kowa anamorphics are famously compact for what they are. But yeah, maybe that was too much for the gimbal, and a few extra pounds shaved off was okay. I do feel like this is rooted in the director's personal choice as well, whatever the reasons may be.

It’s not just weight. It’s about balance. Where can you put the center of gravity.  The lenses make it very very front heavy. You have to then push the camera way back to balance.  And then you can even start hitting the physical dimensions.  If the camera is too long to push back farther to get the center of gravity forward. 
 

I know some of the crew and it’s all about the director who was operating (not the DP) using the shoulder mounted ronin as a hand held / gimbal hybrid. 
 

19 hours ago, TomTheDP said:

lmao, why the hell did they not use the FX6. It's such a way better ND option than a vari ND. It's not even a pound difference 1.4lbs vs 2lbs. 

I don't think the Creator will become hollywood standard as its just way too smart of a way to approach making a movie. Hollywood is too dumb to make that a standard. The high end film industry knows how to waste money like no one else. 

Likely because even a slightly heavier camera would have precluded them ever balancing the lenses they were using on the gimbal they were using FULL TIME.  Have you seen the way the camera was operated?

@kye I think you missed the point. 
 

Just because you can over or under doesn’t mean it will grade the same way.  It’s not linear.  Especially once you get into a few stops over / under. 

If you want shot to shot consistency in grading maintaining the same exposure level helps a great deal. 

Of course you can recover a stop over or a stop under. But you’re going to have to park and grade it to match.  

Even in variable outdoor lighting it’s not too difficult to float your exposure using ND so that it’s very similar.  Notice I say alter your exposure to MAINTAIN the established exposure level / ratio.

That’s all Im saying. We seem to get very bogged down in individual shots and grades but chasing exposure shot to shot makes it so much harder to grade later on.

ETTR is a classic dead end in this regard in my view for MOTION work. It causes your exposure to roller coaster and while each individual shot may well look ok in-itself, you quickly find it can be impossible to make them all look good TOGETHER on a timeline. 

ETTR works great for photographers.   Not so great for cinematographers. 

5 hours ago, hyalinejim said:

If was able to nail exposure and white balance in every shot I wouldn't need any tweaking other than contrast.

But I don't think anyone expects there to be a magic transform that doesn't require some small bit of work. We also want to leave ourselves a bit of flexibility in deferring some decisions until post.

I dunno.  In this thread that’s been the complaint no?  One rule I took on from when I started way back shooting on film was to try to shoot the SAME exposure for each shot in a scene.  So don’t go changing it shot by shot, just have the same exposure once you’ve lit it the way you like.  Just set the exposure and don’t effin touch it again.  I often have colourists tell me how pleasant my work is to grade because it’s consistent.  Changes in post tend to be the same across shots then.

4 hours ago, hyalinejim said:

Lol! I have used just one LUT for every single client job I've done over the last 5 years.

It emulates the colour response of slightly overexposed Portra 400 film.

I pop it on and adjust brightness, contrast and white balance in ACES space before the LUT. It takes 15 to 30 seconds to do most clips, and makes matching shots a breeze.

I've made a new version for myself every time I get a new camera, so technically it hasn't been just one LUT, it's been three. But it does the same thing for each camera.

What you’re doing though is grading using a LUT as a shortcut to a look you’re trying to achieve.  
 

The point being there is no magic transform that just works without further tweaking. 
 

I bet too, if you had to grade footage I shot and lit it would react differently to the way you work because you’re grading your own material. 

LUT’s and color are about TASTE.

Most conversion LUT’s are for a standard like REC 709 and guess what…they don’t look that great.

But they are accurate.

So they make a technically correct transform that accurately maps a larger than REC709 gamma and gamut from their sensor into a very limited TV ENGINEER STANDARD transform that is super accurate (to REC 709).  And even though we all say we want accurate color we really don’t, and not accurate color in a small restrained container like REC709.  

We complain.

Fuji have at least some other transforms they ship with their camera and that’s the right way to do it.

But if it’s a REC709 transform, it’s never going to look good.  It’s not meant to.

It’s impossible to have a one size fits all LUT or else we would all be buying it. 
 

There’s so much variation in lighting and even sensor to sensor copy variation. Most people don’t realise that the color of a lens is usually DIFFERENT you shoot it wide open compared to three stops down. 
 

There’s no magic bullet for this. AI can maybe take over the color balancing at some point. Maybe. 

I don’t find the tone condescending at all. 

And color correction can work for opportunistic shots just as well. Maybe even better.

I see so many LUTs being advertised packaged and sold and it’s actually not THAT hard to create your own unique individual look with only a little bit of effort.  
 

The thing no one seems to talk much about is MATCHING a look shot to shot. That’s where it gets difficult. And that’s where you are helped or hinder by the person shooting it. 

Things worth knowing.

1.  The Director operated most of the time.

2.  They mostly operated with a kind of hybrid Ronin hand held on the shoulder.  Imagine the ronin inverted and with a shoulder pad and handles.

3.  The film only cost 8 million to shoot and the rest of the 80 million was post.

Once you know that, and the lenses used, it makes more sense that they made these choices.

27 minutes ago, stephen said:

Blackmagic application for iPhone is a good one. However Filmic Pro already has an affordable alternative. CinemaP3 application has all the functionality and is not that expensive at 16 or 17 $/E if remember well. Latest generation Android phones like Xiaomi 13 Ultra + Motioncam give 4K RAW video 24/25/30/60p and really good image quality that IPhone cannot compete with. Those smartphones + Motioncam are the TRUE pocket cinema cameras of 2023. They really do fit in a pocket 🙂

But it doesn't stream your files straight into a DaVinci cloud project nor do they record 4444 ProRes?

3 hours ago, kye said:

Prores HQ in UHD is ~700Mbps, and BRAW UHD 5:1 is about ~670Mbps.  So BRAW goes to a higher bitrate than most Prores implementations (in the BRAW 3:1 mode), and also goes lower (Prores Proxy UHD is ~150Mbps and Prores LT is 328Mbps and BRAW 12:1 is about 280Mbps, so in the middle of those two).
 

Actually in the Q5 mode it goes even to higher compression rates.  And it's 12Bit.  ProRes is only 10 bit remember unless it's 4444.

A lot or peeps don't seem to realize pixel for pixel, BRAW is usually the same size or smaller than ProRes at a higher bit depth.  Now that's it's supported on everything except FCP, I don't miss prores.  I love ProRes, but I love BRAW more.