Acheiving "the look"

[greenvette]

Can somebody please explain to me why TV shows look so different from other things? For example, I cannot go and achieve the same look as you see on CSI Miami. I cannot take my girlfriend and her friends, film some things in the neighborhood and have it look like Desparate Housewives. Even professional sports, like football, "look" different than broadcast TV shows, and we all know the NFL doesn't use cheap stuff.

I also know that it isn't necessarily because of the camera. Betacam and Digibetas are super high-dollar cameras and are used by remote TV anchors on location, but the footage shot by those cameras look nothing like we see on TV shows.

So what is the big secret? Is it a $200,000 MEGA SUPER DUPER LENS lens or what?

[Erik Bien]

Production Design. Lighting. Grip Equipment. Lighting.

Oh, and lighting is also important.

[Eugenia Loli-Queru]

Lighting, lighting, lighting.

Some ideas are here too though:
http://eugenia.gnomefiles.org/2007/0...csimiami-look/

[mrob7]

People these days always look for the right buttons to be able to press to make movies when lighting is without a doubt probably the most forgotten and imperative part that sets home movie making from professional productions. Yes other things do help such as dollies, stedicams, filters, etc but if you nail your lighting and pay attention to the small things such as cutting on motion, etc, you will set yourself apart from all the other amaturs

[DaveReporter]

Make up helps too. Most people's lips appear to pale and you also need foundation otherwise any sweat will cause people's faces to blow out (white patches).

Dave

[freezorburn]

I cannot take my girlfriend and her friends, film some things in the neighborhood and have it look like Desparate Housewives.

A few examples are needed: Please post video's of said girlfriend and friends in as little clothing as possible in diffrent light. This way we can compair your Video to Desparate Housewives.

This will be a very important prodject, so post asap.

[Perry]

i believe the "look" you are speaking of is a 24p framerate with a 180 degree shutter (aka 1/48). And of course lighting, but well lit things can still not have "the look".

[Halsu]

As many have pointed out, the most important thing is what's in front of the camera. Lighting, makeup, sets etc.

Yes, it helps to have a camera that has controllable depth of field, 24/25p cadence, good dynamic range and no artificial sharpening... but the photographer is much, much more important than the equipment used. Proper compositions, camera movement, exposure etc.

Then there's color grading. Every shot can benefit from some. Every shot NEEDS some ;-)

Finally, it's surprising how much excellent audio work can help making your images look good.

[zephyrnoid]

EVERYTHING else makes it look different when the pros do it. Oddly, the camera is the least of it!
Neophytes hate hearing that as it means a long experience curve lies ahead. There are few shortcuts to starpower. Just years of bloody hard work ( ie- tons of practice and mistakes made with lessons learned). For the look?
1) Excellent Art Direction, set design, wardrobe
2) Lighting excellence
3) POV
4) Shot list, camera moves
5) Direction
6) Lens action

Great movie shots are like a tasty and artful plate of food- It's all in the 'Prep'.

Production Design. Lighting. Grip Equipment. Lighting.

Oh, and lighting is also important.

[Perry]

i personally feel that depth of field's importance is over exaggerated my most people. im not saying its not important or that you shouldnt use it, but alot of famous films that def have the look are shot with deep focus. citizen kane for example.

[Ian-T]

Hey Perry, I aqree with your point about the over ratedness(if that's a word) and abuse of DOF use. I also see what you mean with your "Citizen Kane" example...but can anyone give a more modern day example of a film that does not use a short DOF? I too often see people use "Citizen Kane" or Hitchcock as examples but never anything in modern times.

I know there are many film techniques that have not changed since the beginning of the film industry but maybe the use of shallow DOF is much more important "today" to help you achieve "the look" than we think.

[Eugenia Loli-Queru]

DOF is important. Citizen Kane doesn't look like video because it was B&W and used different kinds of cameras and frame rate. If it was to be shot today, it would look like video in many ways.

Many people say that DOF is not that important, but I disagree. In order to direct your audience to what you want to tell them, you need to give perfect focus to your subject -- and that usually means unfocusing from the surroundings. It's a proven technique and I don't see why hobby videographers like most of us should not have a camera that does more background blur.

In the photography world, all you have to spend these days is $500 to get a DSLR that will give you just that. To do the same in the video world, you need to pay $17,000 to get a RED camera. Not even the DVX series and the XH-A1 don't give you that *out of the box* (without adapters that is).

I really hope that the next cameras from Canon are 2/3s CMOS which will start giving some good bg blur even when zooming at around 40%, while to get bg blur today on a stock HV20 you need to zoom in as much as 80%.

Especially in the CSI:Miami example, they use cameras that cost over $120,000 and special film so they can achieve this kind of bg blur which is extreme (and yet people like it).

[Perry]

Hey Ian,

Yeah, I'm sure some other people could give more recent titles, but some modern movies with deep focus that I can think of are

Terrence Malick's "New World"-2005
Stanley Kubrick's "Eye's wide Shut"-1999 or 2000...not sure
Pretty much all of the Orson Welles movies. (I realize these might not be recent, but Falstaff was made late 60's)
Going to older movies, most of the movies Gregg Toland DP'd for have deep focus, mainly because lenses were just being capable of doing this. "The Best Years of Our Lives" is another good example, but again, an oldie (1946).

Ultimately it comes down to whats appropriate for the scene. Hopefully some people can add to the list.


And Eugenia, I certainly think it is important, I'm only saying that it seems to be overestimated in achieving the film look. It's certainly a good thing for certain shots!

I disagree that Citizen Kane would look video like if shot today. I guess it depends what your definition of videolike is. Framerate and shutter speed have alot more to do with that then DOF. I've seen things with wonderful DOF that look very videolike and its because of framerate/shutter.

[Halsu]

Some feature films are shot in 16mm film, which has DOF characteristics similar to 2/3" video cameras.

Here's the first 200 of them from imdb:

http://imdb.com/SearchTechnical?16%20mm

;-)

In practice, most footage in those is probably shot at F-stops around 4-8, where the DOF characterisics are close to what 1/3" cameras (like HV20) give at full aperture.

[Ian-T]

Thanks guys for that rundown. I understand what you are saying...

Back to greenvette's original question though ..I think we might be saying all the right things but might be answering it out of context. Let me add to his question (and greenvettes correct me if i am wrong)...but I think what he is asking is even when shooting with the proper lighting, cadence, sound etc...the professional tv show's productions still look..."different".....not necessarily better....but different..... For example...have you ever seen local productions done by the average joe on your local cable television?? No matter how decent the production is...you can still tell it was a local home grown job. My thoughts are this....

There is some other processing being done to the material shown on national or commercial airwaves. Think about music and commercial radio stations. When local no-name artists make their music (whether in a pro recording studio or in their garage)...no matter how good or bad the production is, once it gets on a power radio stations....the music sounds "different"...."more preocessed." Of course most of us know that the music is later "mastered" at a mastering facility and then the radio stations add exciters, limiters, compression, eq..etc....but the point is...it does not sound like it did when it left your garage. This, IMHO, same principle is being used with professionally broadcasted tv shows. That is, the original "finished' product does not necessarily look like what we eventually see on the commercial airwaves. What we see is processed even further (VIDEO AND SOUND ALIKE). I'm just getting into filming but if someone else more experienced can chime in and let me know if I'm going in the right direction with this explanation that would be helpful.

[Erik Bien]

I hate to disillusion you, but if you're expecting a broadcaster or cable company to run your footage through a "black box" that makes it look better, you're in for a disappointment. They will plane off any out-of-gamut, non-broadcast-safe colors, apply a fairly tragic level of compression and send it out over the wires and airwaves.

As Mrob7 said, there's no "easy button" for filmmaking -- it rather comes down to the amount of equipment, time, money and talent you throw at the problem. There's no substitute for experience: a good gaffer can probably work more lighting magic with some china balls, worklights and foamcore than a beginner can do with a 5-ton truck full of equipment.

[Halsu]

As Mrob7 said, there's no "easy button" for filmmaking -- it rather comes down to the amount of equipment, time, money and talent you throw at the problem. There's no substitute for experience: a good gaffer can probably work more lighting magic with some china balls, worklights and foamcore than a beginner can do with a 5-ton truck full of equipment.

Exactly.

At least here in Finland, TV stations don't do ANY processing to either TV programs, music videos or TV commercials. The masters are just checked for levels, then broadcast as is. It's up to the production company to make it look and sound cool, not the TV station.

The commercials are broadcast from mpg servers nowdays at many stations. I've uploaded dozens of commercials i've "mastered" right here at home directly to TV station's systems - for those files, they do absolutely NOTHING before they air.

[tcindie]

Halsu: I'm pretty sure that's standard operating procedure just about everywhere.. as long as the levels are within spec it's aired as provided. Unless it's a promo the TV station is producing themselves, they have plenty of other things to do than to modify other peoples commercials.

The key is you have to provide them the best possible finished pieces you can, that are already broadcast legal, so they're shown the same as you provide it. Otherwise, if the colors are outside legal range and such they'll probably just clamp it down, and it could destroy the look of the finished piece.

[marketmd]

i personally feel that depth of field's importance is over exaggerated my most people. im not saying its not important or that you shouldnt use it, but alot of famous films that def have the look are shot with deep focus. citizen kane for example.

Lol, Kane was shot in deep focus AND 4:3! And it is routinely named best pic all time by the guild.

[dr jones]

1. framerate
2. shutter speed
3. lighting
4. camera angles
5. deep depth of field

[Sean Michael]

And in the case of CSI: Miami, extreme color correction.

[Ian-T]

I hate to disillusion you, but if you're expecting a broadcaster or cable company to run your footage through a "black box" that makes it look better, you're in for a disappointment. They will plane off any out-of-gamut, non-broadcast-safe colors, apply a fairly tragic level of compression and send it out over the wires and airwaves.

...

????...um...ok...don't know if you were knocking the point I was making...but the little bit you threw in here just proves my point. What you mentioned is just enough tweaking to make the product "seem" different (which is the original point i was trying to make). If you read over my "radio-station" analogy it shows nothing about a so called "black-box."

Cable company??? .......Did you even read my post??

[Ian-T]

Here is the deal...you guys give excellent advice on what one should do when "filming" but...I think Perry said it earlier "well lit things can still not have "the look"...this is true. Dr. Jons mentioned:
1. framerate
2. shutter speed
3. lighting
4. camera angles
5. deep depth of field

This is all true also. With the exception of #1 i've seen many soap operas that included all of these...but...they still "look' like a soap opera..videoy and in your face.

On the flip side, if Steven Speilberg did a hacked-up terrible job with lighting while filming a project on film...the end product would still look like ...well....FILM. A bad film maybe...but nevertheless...still FILM. So...though the above mentioned tips are great examples to follow by...but this still tells me there is more to "the-look' than these. This is where I believe post processing comes into play...which can take something that is mediocre and turn it into a masterpiece (or just maybe something better than average).

I'm only harping on this because I have the same question as greenvette....inquiring minds want to know.:-)

[SpiritCatcher]

I have a pen and paper, why can't I write like Mamet?

I have food and a stove, yet I can't cook like an Iron Chef?


lol
They make it look easy, just as any artist/pro does. And there is a crew/staff of 100's for each production and thousands for each network. If you understood the hours/money that goes into it......your at square one of thousands of squares, good luck!

[Perry]

Ian,

In regards to the "black box" as people have been calling it, I think I know what you mean, and I 'might' even have the answer! starting with AE7 and onwards, you can (at the end of the process, after mastering and CC, etc.) apply a certain film stock look to the clip as it was processed on whatever film stock you choose.

That, coupled with expert color correction (alot more than just dragging a magic bullet effect onto a clip) could be part of the difference... It certainly is noticeable.

I recommend everyone to buy Stu Maschwitz's DV Rebel guide. It's WELL worth the price and he guides your hand through the whole process as if you were a tiny infant crossing times square. Which, in this case, is a good thing.