If you are stumbling upon this page without having seen the associated youtube video I posted, start here: https://youtu.be/v-_OOcRAEdY
I recently widened these posts, so that the images take up more of the page. I am excited about that. The video linked above says a lot of what you need to know about the process and how things look, so here I am going to not use 7 words when 4 will do, and just show some frames.
We can start with the tree, a very high dynamic range scene, and an epic moment when we were out in the desert.
This is the look that was delivered to the lab, arri logc converted to rec709 with arri's standard 709 lut:
Here is that same shot, printed to 16mm kodak vision3 250d, and transformed to rec709 via a cineon to rec709 CST:
And untouched:
And finally, the full frame that was sent from the lab:
I sent a 3840x2160 prores 422hq file. Cinelab printed to super16, and delivered back a prores 4444 5128x3840 file. Maybe I ask them to fill the frame more on the next one. When I sent a 4:3 file, I received a much more filled frame.
I sent:
I received:
(the image above is graded)
All of the images in this post are being pulled from a 3840x2160 timeline, and rendered as jpgs straight out of resolve. So they are not at full quality, but enough to not make this page take too long too load, and to not have to have third party hosting that was costing $600/month when I first started this page and was uploading 600mb tiffs 😂. Hopefully we can get back to that soon though.
moving on...
One of the biggest things I wanted to test was what the best look was to deliver the footage. As mentioned in the video, my preference is just "normal rec709" but I did do some testing with other looks.
Delivered - a heavier look, a tweaked version of F1, with no grain softening or halation:
Untouched from lab:
CST to rec709:
Balanced-ish:
In my opinion, this is too contrasty of a starting point, and I don't find it worth it to build an entire look when you could just make it rec709 and send it. Film is pretty flexible in the grade, and has a look, so to deliver a "look" in some ways could be considered similar to adding 2 creative luts to digital footage. Not the same, but similar.
As mentioned in the video, sending as real life as possible yields great shots.
Same shot as above, but in standard rec709:
and a CST with balance:
This has less contrast, is more moldable, and has a better starting point, despite the heavier look being a better starting point for the digital only shot. The goal here is to deliver real life, what the camera saw, rec709, then work the final look on the film. This is my current stance, subject to change.
One more. Here is an untouched log shot (same shot as above) -
And the print, with a CST to 709:
This is not a starting point that interests me.
Moving on, I think i like 2383 more for exterior stuff. 2383 davinci resolve print lut:
compared to 709 CST:
and this is what was sent:
This was not straight off of camera, I shifted it towards magenta to see what would happen. The 2383 above looks great, I might boost the exposure up a little, like so:
love it.
I would love to do this with 35mm film asap. Cinelab uses an arrilaser and I have high hopes for what it looks like. It's 1:55pm right now and I said I would publish this at 2:00pm so I guess that's it for now. If you have any questions hit me up in the youtube comments or on instagram.
Lastly.. I have some new techniques and looks created with F1 that I will share to the private discord/youtube playlist. Stay tuned.
✌️