The Aesthetic

[kye]

1 hour ago, Django said:

Just because h26x was designed for lower bitrates doesn't mean it has to be (just like other lossy formats like mp3).

Today most cameras offer 10-bit 4:2:2 high bitrate ALL-I h26x recording options.

ProRes is also a lossy codec. It just ensures minimum quality requirements like 10-bit 4:2:2 ALL-I at various set bitrates.

Its mostly appreciated by editors as the low compression ALL-I decodes and cuts nicely on most systems.

I guess what I'm trying to say is there is a wide range of h26x compression settings so saying the codec looks "harsh & digital" is a bit of a blanket statement.

That said ProRes is an excellent pro standard capture codec and I do think it's great it's making its way in consumer/prosumer cameras.

It is a blanket statement, but it's my experience.  I've heard it frequently mentioned from others too.

I shoot on the 200Mbps 10-bit ALL-I 1080p mode on my GH5 and it cuts really nicely, so the ALL-I definitely makes a difference, but it's not just the editing performance that I've heard pros say they appreciate, it's the aesthetic too.

I am also glad it's starting to appear in more and more low-priced cameras.

[Django]

Well yeah like I said ProRes ensures minimum "pro" requirements, that's what makes it a popular pro standard VS h26x which has no rules. Editors/VFX don't like common h26x files because its hard to know/guarantee the encoding/bitrate settings. 

That is why Canon developed XF-AVC format ensuring high bitrate 10-bit 4:2:2 or Sony XAVC-I ensuring Intra 10-bit 4:2:2.

ProRes 444 also goes beyond h26x max settings with 12-bit 4:4:4 making it the highest quality lossy file after RAW/ProRes RAW.

[kye]

Noam Kroll just posted a new blog post comparing Prores vs h265 on the iPhone which makes interesting reading.  Some aspects of the comparison are specific to the iPhone, but others apply more widely.

https://noamkroll.com/filmic-pro-log-vs-prores-sample-images-test-results/

Incidentally, Noam is an example of someone who prefers shooting high-quality HD rather than lower-quality 4K or more because of the associated aesthetic, as well as practical considerations.  His blog is excellent and contains lots of articles discussing various aspects of film-making.
In todays internet landscape I find that he's a rare glimpse of working film-makers who are balancing aesthetic and practicalities to get the overall best results from a film-making perspective.

[HockeyFan12]

On 2/10/2022 at 7:06 PM, Django said:

Truth is: you will never access and view any Hollywood film/show material in ProRes or RAW. 

You can download sample Alexa footage here and here in raw and in ProRes:

https://www.arri.com/en/learn-help/learn-help-camera-system/camera-sample-footage

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xs1dS8pMvRw

I can't think of a softer digital camera in use today.

I suspect this is because Arri was originally looking to emulate a 2K film scan. Which is pretty soft.

But they've since discontinued the film emulation matrix.

And added the 3.2k mode, the LF, etc. Each iteration feels less and less like "film."

And with each iteration, Canon and Sony and Red (and lately Panasonic and Black Magic) look more and more like Alexa. Everything looks the same now!

[kye]

8 hours ago, HockeyFan12 said:

You can download sample Alexa footage here and here in raw and in ProRes:

https://www.arri.com/en/learn-help/learn-help-camera-system/camera-sample-footage

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xs1dS8pMvRw

I can't think of a softer digital camera in use today.

I suspect this is because Arri was originally looking to emulate a 2K film scan. Which is pretty soft.

But they've since discontinued the film emulation matrix.

And added the 3.2k mode, the LF, etc. Each iteration feels less and less like "film."

And with each iteration, Canon and Sony and Red (and lately Panasonic and Black Magic) look more and more like Alexa. Everything looks the same now!

I agree that the early Alexas were emulating a 2K film scan and that with more resolution they are further away from that look, and that the look of cameras is converging.

What is interesting to me is that on the one hand we have resolutions that are going up exponentially, which are taking us further and further away from the resolution / sharpness of film (specifically the resolution/sharpness of the film you would see in the theatre, which was a few generations removed from the original), but on the other hand we have a continued obsession with film-emulation in colour science.

Now, don't get me wrong.  When it comes to the pros, DPs are tempering the high resolution sensors with vintage lenses / filters / haze, and in post the same people that are applying film-emulation in the colour reproduction are also emulating the resolution / halation / gate-weave / grain, which all also reduce the effective resolution of the image.  The pros seem to be taking a more holistic view of the overall look.  

However in the amateur / low-end space it seems to be only about high resolution sensors and lenses and emulating the colour reproduction of film.  It seems very strange.

Keen to hear your thoughts on if you think the target aesthetic is changing, or if people have just lost sight of the whole picture and got swept up in the hype of the camera market..

[webrunner5]

I think video  is getting more stupid by the day.  It looks less and less like reality, HDR and high resolutions make for a fake look that one does not see with our eyes in real life. It is like there is a magnifying glass on every scene. It is just silly where this is headed.

 I am not saying it is supped to be Filimic or Cinematic as heck, but the direction it is going, well it has already gone too far, is not going to be to anyone's best interest going forward. It is ugly and surely going to get uglier.

Clean like a Canon C100 1080p is ok, Blackmagic colors heck yes, razor sharp, cut your face look, nah that is crazy. I don't think a trend toward pumped up Olympus colors in video is a goal we should be pushing. Leave cartoon colors to kids on Saturday.

[Emanuel]

C'mon pal, don't ignore the Rise of Unicorn aka Transformers 6, 7...?!

 

[TomTheDP]

31 minutes ago, webrunner5 said:

I think video  is getting more stupid by the day.  It looks less and less like reality, HDR and high resolutions make for a fake look that one does not see with our eyes in real life. It is like there is a magnifying glass on every scene. It is just silly where this is headed.

 I am not saying it is supped to be Filimic or Cinematic as heck, but the direction it is going, well it has already gone too far, is not going to be to anyone's best interest going forward. It is ugly and surely going to get uglier.

Clean like a Canon C100 1080p is ok, Blackmagic colors heck yes, razor sharp, cut your face look, nah that is crazy. I don't think a trend toward pumped up Olympus colors in video is a goal we should be pushing. Leave cartoon colors to kids on Saturday.

I think the future is something aside from video we have now. We aren't lacking in resolution at this point. Our images just look flat because they are. I am not sure if 3D is the way forward as I hate it but maybe something like that.

[Emanuel]

Reality nowadays is transformed into this sort of examples coming from the gaming world:

https://playcrazygame.com/2022/02/11/police-in-portugal-arrest-student-who-planned-attack-at-the-university-of-lisbon-02-10-2022-world/

[webrunner5]

1 hour ago, TomTheDP said:

I think the future is something aside from video we have now. We aren't lacking in resolution at this point. Our images just look flat because they are. I am not sure if 3D is the way forward as I hate it but maybe something like that.

I think most of what will happen in the future won't even be considered reality. Just a bunch of computer generated whatever seems in favor that year.

[HockeyFan12]

13 hours ago, kye said:

I agree that the early Alexas were emulating a 2K film scan and that with more resolution they are further away from that look, and that the look of cameras is converging.

What is interesting to me is that on the one hand we have resolutions that are going up exponentially, which are taking us further and further away from the resolution / sharpness of film (specifically the resolution/sharpness of the film you would see in the theatre, which was a few generations removed from the original), but on the other hand we have a continued obsession with film-emulation in colour science.

Now, don't get me wrong.  When it comes to the pros, DPs are tempering the high resolution sensors with vintage lenses / filters / haze, and in post the same people that are applying film-emulation in the colour reproduction are also emulating the resolution / halation / gate-weave / grain, which all also reduce the effective resolution of the image.  The pros seem to be taking a more holistic view of the overall look.  

However in the amateur / low-end space it seems to be only about high resolution sensors and lenses and emulating the colour reproduction of film.  It seems very strange.

Keen to hear your thoughts on if you think the target aesthetic is changing, or if people have just lost sight of the whole picture and got swept up in the hype of the camera market..

I don't think there's as much difference between what pros and amateurs are doing as you'd think. But upgrading an entire "pro" workflow takes a lot longer and costs a lot more than an owner-op upgrading one computer and camera. 

The platforms are converging too. I don't think you need that much resolution for cinemas or normal sized tvs – film prints were I think around 720p. For stills you need more resolution, for anything on a computer too with retina displays since it's close to your eyes. On retina screens you need more resolution whether you're on Netflix or YouTube.

Where I would go, if I were a manufacturer, is not hybrid but special-purpose cameras. I think the S1 is the best deal on the market because it does everything well. But it doesn't do anything THAT well. Sony seems to be doing the best job of this with the A7 line but I don't think there's enough differentiation even there. Or maybe convenience wins. I dunno.

I suspect we'll get more and more and better and better "faux" vintage lenses. And better and better LUTs. Consumer-priced Tribe7-style lenses, I think, might find a market. I think we'll probably just get sharper and sharper images with more and more exaggerated "film look" characteristics everywhere else.

I do think if you have a lot of talent and money you can get away with being more subtle. Like Deakins. Or Steve Yedlin. And for long-form content you don't want the image to be distractingly aestheticized anyway imo. But I dunno.

 

 

[kye]

6 hours ago, webrunner5 said:

I think video  is getting more stupid by the day.  It looks less and less like reality, HDR and high resolutions make for a fake look that one does not see with our eyes in real life. It is like there is a magnifying glass on every scene. It is just silly where this is headed.

 I am not saying it is supped to be Filimic or Cinematic as heck, but the direction it is going, well it has already gone too far, is not going to be to anyone's best interest going forward. It is ugly and surely going to get uglier.

Clean like a Canon C100 1080p is ok, Blackmagic colors heck yes, razor sharp, cut your face look, nah that is crazy. I don't think a trend toward pumped up Olympus colors in video is a goal we should be pushing. Leave cartoon colors to kids on Saturday.

"looks less and less like reality, HDR and high resolutions make for a fake look that one does not see with our eyes in real life" .......well said.  

I think this is the fundamental aspect that I dislike - it's that the image looks unnatural because it's too sharp.  Reality just isn't that sharp, and so I think it gives a completely artificial look.  When I see lots of images they look like they've been slightly embossed.

Video and film are essentially creative fields, so everything is allowed, so using this hyper-real look for Transformers or an action movie or tech startup is appropriate, but using it for a romantic comedy or period piece is silly.  

People have taken "cinematic" and made it apply to something that never actually occurred in the cinema.  So we all end up with specialist VFX cameras that fall short in other ways.

5 hours ago, Emanuel said:

C'mon pal, don't ignore the Rise of Unicorn aka Transformers 6, 7...?!

 

No problems if you're creating a spectacle, but is it really the best situation for Canon and BM and Sony to be making cameras for Michael Bay and thinking that we all do the same type of work as he does?  I don't think so!

I'd much prefer the camera they'd make for Werner Herzog!

4 hours ago, webrunner5 said:

I think most of what will happen in the future won't even be considered reality. Just a bunch of computer generated whatever seems in favor that year.

There will always be that element - trendy stuff sells.  But in the background there will always be people making things of substance that stay relevant for 10 years instead of 10 days.  

Maybe you're watching the wrong stuff 🙂 

11 minutes ago, HockeyFan12 said:

I don't think there's as much difference between what pros and amateurs are doing as you'd think. But upgrading an entire "pro" workflow takes a lot longer and costs a lot more than an owner-op upgrading one computer and camera. 

The platforms are converging too. I don't think you need that much resolution for cinemas or normal sized tvs – film prints were I think around 720p. For stills you need more resolution, for anything on a computer too with retina displays since it's close to your eyes. On retina screens you need more resolution whether you're on Netflix or YouTube.

Where I would go, if I were a manufacturer, is not hybrid but special-purpose cameras. I think the S1 is the best deal on the market because it does everything well. But it doesn't do anything THAT well. Sony seems to be doing the best job of this with the A7 line but I don't think there's enough differentiation even there. Or maybe convenience wins. I dunno.

I suspect we'll get more and more and better and better "faux" vintage lenses. And better and better LUTs. Consumer-priced Tribe7-style lenses, I think, might find a market. I think we'll probably just get sharper and sharper images with more and more exaggerated "film look" characteristics everywhere else.

I do think if you have a lot of talent and money you can get away with being more subtle. Like Deakins. Or Steve Yedlin. And for long-form content you don't want the image to be distractingly aestheticized anyway imo. But I dunno.

Interesting thought about specialist cameras - I agree.  Phantom have done well to carve themselves the high speed niche.  In a sense ARRI have too with the best colour lower-resolution space (I hazard to call this a niche as it's really all non-VFX films and TV).  

I wonder about the GH6 and if it will try and do something super-well or if it will be an all-rounder at launch.

"if you have a lot of talent and money you can get away with being more subtle"..  totally agree, but I would rephrase this to be less subtle....  I'd say that if you have talent and almost any budget at all then you can make a film worth watching without having to resort to using party tricks from the tech to get people to keep watching.

 

[Django]

I feel there is still some misconceptions here that need addressing concerning high resolution.

High resolution adds detail, not sharpness. Sharpness is usually due to camera image processing. Fortunately most recent cams allow you to bypass sharpening when shooting log. 
 

One of the main reasons you may think 6K/8K footage looks over sharp is when viewed windowed on a small screen. You need to view in full screen on a +4K monitor to appreciate it without it looking over sharp.

That’s why in photography you don’t rush to a 50/100MP camera if you never plan on doing big prints or if you’re not a cropper.

8K today is a speciality use. Personally I wouldn’t mind having the option but it’s because I can think of specific cases/projects that could benefit from it, not to mention the stills extractions.

Also nobody delivers in 8K yet. It’s a capture resolution. We’ve been through the type of tricks it can allow for a 4K or even 2K delivery. Just like when you’re shooting in 60p/120p, you’re doing that to create slow mo on a 24p/25p timeline. Nobody is complaining about high frame rate options. Well similar principle with resolution, you’re capturing with the intent to allow a certain flexibility in post.

Getting back to sharpness, best way to offset it from the get go is through lenses (and filters). But there are subjects you may wanna soften and others sharpen. Greig Fraser (The Mandalorian) explains it best here:

“The Ultra Vistas were a great choice for us because they have a good amount of character and softness,” Fraser continues. “Photographing the chrome helmet on Mando is a challenge — its super-sharp edges can quickly look video-like if the lens is too sharp. Having a softer acutance in the lens, which [Panavision senior vice president of optical engineering and ASC associate] Dan Sasaki [modified] for us, really helped. The lens we used for Mando tended to be a little too soft for human faces, so we usually shot Mando wide open, compensating for that with ND filters, and shot people 2⁄3 stop or 1 stop closed.” 

The thing is most people use modern mirrorless photo lenses that are optimised for high resolving power and minimal aberrations. The stuff the modern photographer wants to avoid but that the videographer/filmmaker may seek.

And that’s were I think there is a bit of a missed opportunity from makers like Canon who release these bodies with amazing video specs but still not a single RF cine lens.

[Django]

By the way that Mandalorian article had other interesting parts pertaining to aesthetics and creation/use of custom film stock LUTs:

“Our desire for cinematic imagery drove every choice,” Idoine adds. And that included the incorporation of a LUT emulating Kodak’s short-lived 500T 5230 color negative, a favorite of Fraser’s. “I used that stock on Killing Them Softly[AC Oct. ’12] and Foxcatcher [AC Dec. ’14], and I just loved its creamy shadows and the slight magenta cast in the highlights,” says Fraser. “For Rogue One, ILM was able to develop a LUT that emulated it, and I’ve been using that LUT ever since.”

“Foxcatcher was the last film I shot on the stock, and then Kodak discontinued it,” continues Fraser. “At the time, we had some stock left over and I asked the production if we could donate it to an Australian film student and they said ‘yes,’ so we sent several boxes to Australia. When I was prepping Rogue One, I decided that was the look I wanted — this 5230 stock — but it was gone. On a long shot, I wrote an email to the film student to see if he had any stock left and, unbelievably, he had 50 feet in the bottom of his fridge. I had him send that directly to ILM and they created a LUT from it that I used on Rogue and now Mandalorian.”

And on a side note while the show is shot on AlexaLF, all the backdrops used in the virtual production were shot on Canon 5DIV & 5DS.

A 5D3 was even used in season one to do old-school first trilogy type stop motion sequences:

 

Who would have thought Canon DSLRs would be so prevalent in such a cutting-edge high budget show?!

[MrSMW]

8 hours ago, kye said:

I wonder about the GH6 and if it will try and do something super-well or if it will be an all-rounder at launch.

They won’t ‘win’ whichever route they have chosen!

The ‘specialists’ will crit if it’s not specialised and the ‘all-rounders’ will crit if it’s niche…

I am more inclined to go down the specialised path myself these days.

If a hybrid covers my needs great, but if not, specific tools are fine.

No hybrid currently meets my needs 100% so I have specific video tools and specific stills tools.

None of which has to do with ‘The Aesthetic’ but hey ho 😜

[Eric Calabros]

Just look at this from Ewa Wants To Sleep 1958

Painfully low resolution, low DR, no color. But its like a painting. We don't see shots like this anymore. 

[Emanuel]

Great shot man, thanks for sayin' and sharing it : ) People need to figure it out, this is what art is all about, not tech... No matters how huge our geek component is ; ) I love technology but nothing beats art : P Not once, nor ever :- )

- EAG

[kye]

5 hours ago, Eric Calabros said:

Just look at this from Ewa Wants To Sleep 1958

Painfully low resolution, low DR, no color. But its like a painting. We don't see shots like this anymore. 

Simply wonderful!

3 hours ago, Emanuel said:

Great shot man, thanks for sayin' and sharing it : ) People need to figure it out, this is what art is all about, not tech... No matters how huge our geek component is ; ) I love technology but nothing beats art : P Not once, nor ever :- )

- EAG

The tech is needed and is a necessary discipline and skillset.

The first challenge we have (especially in forums such as this) is to remember that the tech serves the art.  

The second challenge we have is to understand how the tech serves the art.  How shutter angle makes the viewer feel.  Colour.  Motion.  Lighting.  Depth of field.  Composition.  Dynamic range.  etc.  All have tangible emotional impacts on an audience.

The third challenge we have is to understand how to align all the tech to push the art in the same direction so that the desired aesthetic and emotional experience is clear and strong, being supported from all angles and with all factors.

Most discussion doesn't acknowledge these challenges even exist, let alone satisfy the first challenge, and then the others.

[MrSMW]

55 minutes ago, kye said:

The first challenge we have is to remember that the tech serves the art.

Yup.

We can chase that next bit of kit if what we have is preventing us in some way on a technical level, but the rest is 'the art'.