BMCCP raw color correction

[Vesku]

Have you BMCCP raw users any idea why often colors become very weak and with green/brown cast like old photos? Is there some systematic error in cc procedure?

 

Here are some examples

 

http://***URL removed***/forums/post/52756637

[Sean Cunningham]

Those examples are mostly due to limitations on the part of the person grading.  Using canned or popular LUTs found on the internet is going to proliferate the same look and/or mistakes.  Color is a more difficult subject to master than operation of the camera itself.  Professionals have been struggling with it since the arrival of the earliest raw cinema cameras.  

 

Look at early Red and Alexa and you see looks and mistakes repeated again and again, creating the false assumption in a lot of people there was a "look" for them.  That lie lives on but now we have, as colorists have become more sophisticated and specific in their handling of these cameras along with improvements in color pipelines, films that share no similarities with the early footage and radically different aesthetics from the same camera.

[Axel]

And isn't that just great?

Watch The 36th Chamber Of Shaolin before you start grading ...

[Sean Cunningham]

And isn't that just great?

Watch The 36th Chamber Of Shaolin before you start grading ...

 

Problem is, then you have these wankers that come out and complain that the color is too rich and the contrast too intense.  They've seen so many films shot with modern low-con stocks that they have the impression that "film" is both desaturated and low contrast.  

 

Kids these days.

[Zmu]

At a quick glance I'd say inexperience of the grader[an experienced grader would have solved the problem] - eg depending on what app was used to grade: possibly an incorrect interpretation of camera Metadata on import?

[Axel]

At a quick glance I'd say inexperience of the grader[an experienced grader would have solved the problem] - eg depending on what app was used to grade: possibly an incorrect interpretation of camera Metadata on import?

 

Point is, everything is interpretation. If you didn't seriously under- or overexpose during recording, you have total freedom to extract any graduation or colors you want. Insofar there is no right or wrong way.

 

See >here. 

[Sean Cunningham]

Yes, there's not accounting for taste and choice.  For instance, I've been going back and watching Season 2 of Game of Thrones the last couple days and the overcast, daylight exteriors would cut very well with the "worst" examples up there with its weird, often dingy salmon flesh tones, ugly browns and pale blues.  You have to figure, HBO isn't hiring guys working out of their basement to color such an expensive show so, at some point, either a producer likes that look or simply doesn't dislike it enough to change it.  It's certainly not baked into the Alexa footage.

[thecook]

Why did one of the replies say this? Is there something inherently wrong with the BMPCC's motion?
"And I'm not talking about stabilization issues. The intra-frame motion - of people walking, for example - isn't good at all. It reminds me of the stutterframe look of 8mm home movies from the 1950s. It'sbad.

The picture quality is fairly nice, yes, and I'm sure it grades nicely - but with motion like that, I'd never consider buying it.'

[Sean Cunningham]

There was initially (corrected with firmware a month ago or so, I read) issue with 180 degree shutter.  The solution before this was to run at 172.8 like you were shooting PAL (even when shooting film some British DPs default to this shutter).