Colour Correction

After conducting the natural lighting test and experimenting with colour correction settings within Apple Color, I thought it would be suitable to investigate into the grading used within David Finchers films, so that they can be matched within my final piece. I came across a number of screen shots from both 'Se7en' and 'The Social Network' and will explain and analyse the colours and grading techniques used to achieve that specific visual style.

SE7EN


Screenshot from David Finchers 'Se7en'

From the above image, it's clear to see that David Finchers films are very dark and contrasted. This can easily be achieved in post as long as the original footage is correctly exposed and lit. The reason for this is is the images are too dark, and need to be pushed in Color (usually by adjusting the shadow, midtone and highlight levels), large amounts of grain will appear in the image. This is because we are trying to add data to the image that isn't there, causing digital data to be created, thus meaning grain is added. This could also be the case however during the shoot. If incorrect lighting is setup and the ISO of the camera is adjusted to allow more light, the image again will become very grainy. It would probably benefit if I created an ISO test with my camera also to see what level of grain is added at different ISO levels.

Looking closer at the image however, it's also very clear to see that the image is very green. What should be bright white lighting above the characters head is in fact a very pale green colour. This is also common for the majority of the highlight and shadow areas of the image, with each of them being either a light or dark green shade. The midtones however (such as on the far right wall column and the characters face) are quite orange and warm.


Screenshot from David Finchers 'Se7en'

From the above image, the lighting and colouring within the scene can easily be depicted. The background area of the image is completely black showing no detail whatsoever. Morgan Freeman's character has only a small area of his face visible, clearly showing that he is only lit from one angle. The colour grade has clearly more blue data in regards to the previous shot that is far more green and orange. This gives it a slightly colder feel which is amplified by the shot also being quite desaturated, reducing the amount of vivid colour within the shot. The desaturated colour is common throughout the film, and is also common in Finchers other work such as the 1999 film 'Fight Club' and his latest film The Social Network.

THE SOCIAL NETWORK

With this being Finchers latest film (with the cinematography conducted by Jeff Cronenweth), it's interesting to see that the same colour grade technique and visual style has been applied to this film. I suppose this makes Fincher an Auteur in terms of visual style and grading, as the colour scheme is a trait that is common throughout his work. In fact if a film was put in front of me that had the same colour grade, I'd immediately think of David Finchers work.


Screenshot from the 2010 film 'The Social Network'

The dark, contrasted colour scheme returns within this film, and is especially noticeable within the interior shots throughout. The shadow areas are completely black in some cases, which can be seen on the chair and coat of Jesse Eisenberg's character, as there are no clear distinguishable difference between the two, which again is common in the previous image from Se7en. The lighter areas of the shadow detail and low areas of the midtones detail are also very green, with the higher midtones and highlights being that familiar orange colour and warm tone. Although this colour scheme is predominately green and orange (mixing both cool and warm colour within the colour spectrum), it doesn't feel as if the colours are incorrect, as obviously they are colours which we do not see in the real world.


Screenshot from 'The Social Network'

Exterior shots retain much more colour information than the interior shots, with a slightly lower green tint to them. The water shows how desaturated the image actually is, with the colours being close to a grey/dark blue spectrum. It gives the impression that Fincher portrays outdoor scenes to be much colder than the interior scenes, possibly showing the fact that interior shots have some sort of warm 'homely ' feel to them. However this isn't always the case, as although the colour correction is constant across each shot, it does change slightly from time to time.


Screenshot from 'The Social Network'

In this shot, the colour information retained is far more vivd than the previous exterior shot shown, although the colours are still slightly desaturated. There is much more blue information in the sky areas, and the shadow details is still graded a very dark green colour. Contrast is still heavily noticeable within the scene as well, so all these factors must be considered when completing my final assignment piece.

It's clear to see that David Fincher's films have a common visually pleasing style, which is something that really needs to be focused on in my final assignment. Over the coming the days I will upload a grading test, that focuses more on the colour side and grading aspects of the film.

"Red Letters" by Salomon

I came across this video not so long ago, and loved it from the word go. I thought I'd share it here as the creator, 'Salomon' says he took inspiration for the film from Se7en (I'd hazard a guess at the opening titles from the film). Here's the video below, and I definitely recommend checking out his other work, which can be found at his Vimeo page HERE.

Red Letters by Salomon

I love the grungey and scratchy look to the whole film, and cycling through this guys work it's clear to see he's good at what he does!

Natural Light Test

Within the last week I started to conduct tests, to get a better idea of what needs to be done on the final shoot. For the first test, I experimented with only using natural light as my main light source as I will be shooting on the Canon 550D, one of the latest DSLRs that are capable of achieving visually stunning imagery without the need of production lighting. I accompanied my friend Dan, who was shooting cut aways for his final peice in a local Church, and recorded various shots by just taking advantage of the lighting that was available on location. Below is the edited footage in a short sequence.

NATURAL LIGHT TEST USING THE CANON 550D

I recently purchased a new lens, the Canon 50mm 1.8, and I personally think that this really allowed me to take the camera further than I would have been able to if I was using the standard 18-55mm kit lens. The main reason was the 50mm lens lets in much more light than the kit lens, enabling me to yield greater results when shooting in lower light locations. The video was shot using an ISO of 400 as stated in the film, with the majority of them using an f-stop of 1.8 (this may have slightly increased to around 2.2 in a couple of shots), before then being colour corrected in Apple Color to try and match the visual grading style of my chosen cinematographers/filmmakers (Fincher, Cronenweth and Khondji).

From the video, you can see that the camera does as it says, and handles brilliantly in natural lighting conditions. The exposure values are consistent across the majority of shots, yet some parts do bloom within the highlight section (this is most likely due to the colour grading used however). I was really pleased with the outcome of this shoot, as I can now understand what light may be needed within my own final piece.

Films such as Se7en or The Social Network are really contrasted and dark, with what seems to be little to no light in some cases. This could be achieved in my final piece by using natural light that is available within the location to light the scene, then use other lighting to focus on a specific part or section of that frame.

I will upload more test shoots, testing ISO and Aperture settings to find the most suitable setting for my film.

David Fincher, Jeff Cronenweth, Darius Khondji and Se7en

Firstly, apologies for the recent lack of content.

After successfully uploading my proposal and selecting the visual style that is echoed within David Finchers films, and especially the work of cinematographers Darius Khondji (Se7en, Panic Room) and Jeff Cronenweth (Fight Club, Se7en, The Social Network). I watched Se7en again last night, to depict and analyse the films visual structure, style and tone, as Se7en is the main film that I want to base my cinematography project on.

Since seeing Se7en a few years ago, I have instantly become a fan of David Finchers work, and especially the attention to detail that he applies to the visuals and cinematography aspects of his films (which most likely is a collaboration between himself and the particular cinematographer on set, due to the ongoing visual style that he adopts). The main areas I focused on whilst watching the film were lighting; how the light affects the mood of the scene, where lights are positioned and the type of light that is cast, camera; what shots are widely used and how they are used in conjunction to what is happening on screen, how depth of field and focus are communicating emotions and moods, and overall, how all of these things come together to create tension and suspense.

I noticed that throughout the film, a very soft diffused lighting technique was used, with it also being apparent that characters are lit from just one side. On the shadowed side of their face, it was also clear to see that some kind of reflector board or reflective material is used to keep the shadows soft as well, but also let in just a slight area of light onto their face. As for camera, shots adapt a very deep focus look, instead of the shallow depth of field 'pornography' that most HDSLR cameras adopt. This may be a testing factor of my piece as I intend on shooting on a HDSLR, so will have to undertake several test shoots in order to get this look correct.

As well as Se7en, David Fincher's latest film The Social Network, also includes many of the elements stated above. The film certainly has a very warm, orange tone to its grading, which I will also manipulate within my final project, by using colour grading software such as Apple's Color suite.

The Social Network

A couple of days ago I saw 'The Social Network'. I obviously knew the theme of the film as I'm glued to Facebook far too much anyway, but I hadn't heard much about how good the film was. I didn't know who directed it, and just about knew who was in it, so I saw it kind of on the off chance.

When I saw that David Fincher was the director I was blown away! He'd previously done some amazing work such 'Fight Club' (1999), 'Se7en' (1995) and Zodiac (2007). I personally thought the film was incredible. The script was really well written and the way the actors seamlessly rolled the dialogue off their tongues was fantastic. It was overall a very well created film.

The cinematography (which was achieved via Jeff Cronenweth, someone who works closely with Fincher, and is also responsible for the cinematography behind Se7en, Fight Club & One Hour Photo) was also fantastic, and probably one of the main reasons I also loved the film. It had that familiar crispness and not too overpowering look (colour wise) that is common in Fincher's work). One scene I can pick out from the top of my head is where there is a large boat race happening, and each shot has been edited with a depth of field blur to give the impression that the characters and surroundings are miniature. Somewhat similar to the video seen HERE.

The scene didn't enhance the story in anyway (it was a sort of arty side to the film), but it just shows how important visuals are to the viewer, as this is a scene that I don't think I will forget in a hurry.

To finish this post, here's the trailer for the film. I definitely recommend you see this film soon!

Over the water with 52 Canon DSLRs

I came across this earlier today and found it to be quite an interesting short/advert. The video was created as an advert for the surf-wear company RipCurl, in which 52 Canon DSLRs (not stated which models were used) were used to recreate the 'Bullet Time' effect... but with surfers.

Although this hasn't got much to do with the cinematography aspect of the module, I thought I would share it anyway as it's exciting to see how this technology is constantly being manipulated and used in different ways to benefit the industry!

RipCurl 'Bullet Time' Advert
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlZPmABrLu8&

Some more details on the shoot:

"In collaboration with Timeslice Films, Rip Curl took on an ambitious bullet-time campaign shoot in Malaysia’s Sunway Lagoon Wavepool with lead surfers Mick Fanning, Stephanie Gilmore, Owen Wright and Matt Wilkinson. The revolutionary campaign captures surfing in a way never seen before, with the final visuals baring more resemblance to a fight scene from the famous Matrix movies than a promotional surfing video. The two-day rental of Sunway Lagoon Wavepool allowed Rip Curl and Timeslice to operate in a more stable environment than the open ocean offers. The Rip Curl surfers were repeatedly towed into the machine-controlled waves by Jetski and their operational space was determined by the 52-camera rig set up in the pool."

Below shows how the advert was made, and the troubles that occurred during the shoot.

RipCurl 'Bullet Time' Advert - Making Of
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyDVmIDv_4c&

Information gathered via CheeseyCam

The music video idea...

As I am new to DSLR film making, and having recently purchased a DSLR myself, I wanted to create a short film or project that would let me delve into the work flow and methods of production for DSLR film making, and find out why it differs from other styles and methods that I've used in the past. The particular camera I will be using will either be the Universities Canon 7D camera, or perhaps my own Canon 550D. As the two cameras are very similar in terms of their attributes however, I could possibly use both and combine the two lots of footage in the edit.

I then stumbled across a video on the 72 Hour Movie Vimeo page, in which they were testing the work flow of the RED camera. The particular shoot was of a girl dancing to a upbeat music track, which I immediately fell in love. I thought it was a perfect way to experiment with how the camera works, and what limits and boundaries could be assessed from it. I came up with my own shoot idea in which I would essentially do a similar piece, and film a girl dancing to a track, but however take cinematography inspiration from existing Hip Hop/RnB/Pop music videos that we all see nowadays.

Now I'm not a fan of this type of music, but whenever I see a music video that relates to these music genres I feel drawn to their artistic style and feel. So, I decided to select a few that stood out to me, and that shared similar attributes to each other, so that I could relay any techniques and styles found into the video test shoot I plan on doing.

The first video I came across was the video for Pixie Lott's track 'Turn it Up'.

Music video by Pixie Lott performing Turn it Up. (C) 2009 Mercury Records Limited
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvRDJe5a51g&ob=av2e

Now the first thing that jumped out at me whilst watching this, was the choice of warm and bright colours used throughout the video. Although there were some points where the colour scheme would change to a more darker spectrum, the majority of the shots had a very warm tone/feel to them. This was probably achieved during post in grading, but the cinematographer would of had to think firstly about how the grading would be able to achieve the warm colours in the first place, so careful consideration was taken on what was to be shown in the shot and where the shots were filmed. Many of these shots have large amounts of sky landscape in them, which gives the images a very visually pleasing style to look at.

The camera movement is also very abrupt. There are rarely any static shots, as each time the shot changes the camera is either shaking or moving to keep up with the flow of the music, and to keep the video interesting. Track/dolly shots are also apparent within the video which allows a sweeping motion from left to right or vice versa in the shots, again just adding diversity to each shot.

Now, unlike film, music videos don't necessarily have to follow a certain type of rule. For instance, the shots change VERY quickly, and switch back and forth between mid shots, wide shots and close ups all the time. In film however, a scene would usually start with a wide, then to a mid, then close, before going back to a mid then wide etc. This is however just a guide, but is usually what most films follow as their shot structure. These music videos do relate to film however, as each shot is correctly focused, and composed taking into consideration the rule of thirds, so it's true to say that film making rules do bleed into other styles of video production.

The second video I came across was the video to Jason Derulo's song, 'Whatcha Say'.


Music video by Jason Derulo performing Whatcha Say. (C) 2009 WMG
http://www.vimeo.com/13247361

Now very much like the Pixie Lott video, the colour scheme for this video is also very warm and bright. As with the previous video it also makes use of very fast paced and quick cuts, as well as the notorious camera shake and movement that keeps with the flow of the song. It still however takes advantage of film making cinematography skills such as the rule of thirds etc, and features a lot of close ups to catch the performers emotions, as well as show the audience whose song it is.

In conclusion, these things such as warm bright colours, lens flare on shots (which may or may not have been added in post), very quick cuts, extensive usage of close up and mid shots of the performer will be applied to the music video test shoot that I will be creating.

I will finish this post with a couple of links to other videos. The first is a music video that I worked on with Ballistic Productions, a Wolverhampton based company who specialize in RnB music videos. The video was shot on RED Camera, and I worked as Camera Assistant and general Runner, where I was able to pick up some tips from this independent company. As you can see in this video, it also takes some ideas from the previous videos, such as extensive camera movement and shaking so that there is always something happening in or on the shot.


Music video by 241 performing Sun Goes Down. (C) 2009 Global Melody Entertainment
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRHTzuJ5-PY

The final video is where it all started. Click HERE to see the 72hourmovie company doing a test work flow for the RED Camera.