"Cinematic" colors/hues and edits

Eric Xu wrote in post #13135698
I see high local contrast, a fine grain structure, understated flesh tones and the same teal push in the shadows and warm highlights I talked about before.

It's not just processing, but has a lot to do with lighting the scene. The film look is in a large part created on set.

Yeah, seeing a film studio setup or an outdoor filming setup can be pretty intimidating to a lot of us amateur photogs! Just thinking of the amount of production that has to go on so that a film won't just come across as crappy can, well, blow your mind. It's no coincidence that filming requires a whole crew!

Eric, nice to have you giving this kind of insight!

Eric Xu wrote in post #13135698
I see high local contrast, a fine grain structure, understated flesh tones and the same teal push in the shadows and warm highlights I talked about before.

It's not just processing, but has a lot to do with lighting the scene. The film look is in a large part created on set.

The main thing I see (and I could very well be wrong) is
-desaturation
-curves messed with (mainly blue) <-- again, this could be the lighting of the pic as you stated
-contrast
-maybe noise added

Here's a cool example from Triune Films, the producers of Filmriot: Losses. Recent shoestring budget action short they shot. The scenes from the interrogation room and the bad guy's office show that kind of contrast through lighting look.

Erik, have you gotten involved in the Video sub-forum here? I haven't because I no longer have anything around that "does" video (my DSLRs are older). But it sounds like you would be a valuable participant there, if you aren't already!

Take a look at this video:

http://www.redgiantsof​tware.com/videos/redgi​anttv/item/23/

to get a sense of how another pro (Stu Maschwitz)visualizes and produces the cinematic "look" - it may not be the look you are attempting to emulate (ignore the first minute or two of promotion) but he lays out his thought process in a logical and understandable way. While Maschwitz uses a particular tool in After Effects to get the look, the same generic tools are available to manipulate color in LR and PS.

Take a look through the videos in Red Giant TV to get similar tutorials by Maschwitz and others. Get's one thinking about cinematic color and grading and "looks."

kirk

Eric Xu wrote in post #13136030
Here's a cool example from Triune Films, the producers of Filmriot: Losses. Recent shoestring budget action short they shot. The scenes from the interrogation room and the bad guy's office show that kind of contrast through lighting look.

Link all bad.

kiss-o-matic wrote in post #13136358
Link all bad.

My link to the Red Giant TV episode was bad as well - try this:

http://www.redgiantsof​tware.com/videos/redgi​anttv/item/23/

i edited my post above as well.

Kirk

Eric Xu wrote in post #13130668
Either 2.39:1 or 2.35:1 is considered CinemaScope, which is my favorite aspect ratio.

I can show you guys my first film, which is a little rough and not my best work, but it shows what I'm talking about regarding framing and color correction. It's called iRelationship. You have a lot less room to grade with HDV, which is what that was shot on (Canon XH A1). Raw files have so much more flexibility, plus stills are compressed much better than H.264. So the result is photographs will be much crisper and look nicer!

Quick example from a random shot on the Great Wall:

[IMG]]

telling story of technology and youth... umm... even adults!?! in some cases...
(by the by, 4:30 "....bring some money" on one phone, shows, "....bring some food" on the other phone).

very nice cinematography, Eric. Very good indeed

kirkt wrote in post #13136442
My link to the Red Giant TV episode was bad as well - try this:

http://www.redgiantsof​tware.com/videos/redgi​anttv/item/23/

i edited my post above as well.

Kirk

tried to follow the "terminator" style from the video

HTTP response: NOT FOUND | MIME changed to 'image/gif' | Redirected to error image by FLICKR

mikewinburn wrote in post #13136537
telling story of technology and youth... umm... even adults!?! in some cases...
(by the by, 4:30 "....bring some money" on one phone, shows, "....bring some food" on the other phone).

very nice cinematography, Eric. Very good indeed

Haha, yes, that particular scene was rushed. As our crew's first endeavor focusing on the details wasn't an option with everything that was going on. Surprises myself as I'm a stickler for detail and the classic perfectionist. :P

Thank you!

Here is the link: http://www.youtube.com …ature=channel_v​ideo_title

i think they turned out great. i'm going to try this one out later today...

I always wondered how to get that cinematic look. I know you are all talking about CS for pp, but is it possible to accomplish this type of look with LR3 alone?

boingy wrote in post #13145846
I always wondered how to get that cinematic look. I know you are all talking about CS for pp, but is it possible to accomplish this type of look with LR3 alone?

For the tones/colors, sure! Then you can crop to your desired aspect ratio. For the border, you can use the LR plug-in Mogrify with good flexibility.

tonylong wrote in post #13146138
For the tones/colors, sure! Then you can crop to your desired aspect ratio. For the border, you can use the LR plug-in Mogrify with good flexibility.

I'm going to try and play around with it when I get home later tonight. I don't know if I have any past candid shots that would fit the cinematic look, but I'll take a look. I tried to dl the free version of Mogrify, but it didn't work for some reason...I probably installed it wrong and I kind of just forgot about that plug-in...I can add borders my ghetto way, by using MS Paint, which I've done for fun. I just do a background at 16:9 and then add the photo at 2.35:1 ratio.

From reading some of the suggestions given by Eric Xu and others I'm guessing to get this type of look in LR3 I would use the split tone by warming the highlights and blue/teal on the shadow...balance as needed. Play with curves, but unfortunately no R.G.B curves to mess with...Maybe add some contrast and play with the saturation/vibrance sliders...Add grain as needed. Make other adjustments as needed.... Of course the photo itself and lighting involved will play a huge role of how it will turn out.

Off topic, but my friend of mine got Perfect Layers for LR3 a while back when it was on sale, but then got CS5 and said he never even used it...He said I can have it so I wonder if that's worth using? I would love to just get CS5 right now, but that aint happening yet...

Most movies today, esp. action pictures, thrillers etc. are going to a harder edged, Michael Bay look with deep teal shadows and almost orange skin tones. Some movies (Live Free, Die Hard) are pushing that extreme look. I'm not particularly a fan of this trend of color grading myself. For thrillers, I've always liked the fine line between beauty and horror and so decided that for my recently completed movie, a thriller, I prefered going back a few decades to the Vilmos Zsigmond, Brian DePalma etc. type of color and lighting look. I'm a bit old school so I think about the look of a film long before shooting it rather than trying to create it last thing in the computer.

Shot 2.35:1 using Technicolor Cinestyle.