One of the biggest reasons why high-end cinema cameras are better for shooting than digital SLRs or other prosumer cameras is their flexibility in post. Cameras such as the Arri Alexa, Sony F55 and RED Epic/Dragon all feature raw recording capabilities for maximum creative freedom when color grading. But ironically, the lenses for these high-end cameras often require less color work than their prosumer counterparts because their images look more accurate and natural straight from the sensor.
There is a very common misconception these days that in order for a camera to capture true film or cinematic images, it needs to capture raw material. While there are certainly some huge benefits to shooting raw (and I shoot raw all the time for a number of reasons), raw images by themselves do not mean better images. The vast majority of high-end movie cameras do have the ability to shoot raw material, but that’s far from the only reason they produce beautiful images. They have incredible sensors, powerful color science, and cinematic engineering that you won’t find on most lower-end cameras. So, yes, high-end cinema cameras do capture raw images, and yes, this allows you more leeway in post-production – but there’s more to it than just the ability to capture raw images content, that’s what this article is all about. We’ll look at why movie cameras produce such pleasing images and how to simulate this look when shooting with a digital SLR or other similar prosumer cameras.
The importance of true color balance
Many filmmakers fail to realize that the objectively prettiest images are almost always the most realistic (at least as far as color is concerned). We often think of color grading as a way of stylizing footage to make it look better or more moody than a real-life scene, but in most cases color grading an image to achieve realism will is a more efficient method. The logic behind this is the same as why people love IMAX movies… they look so real that the audience can become completely immersed in what they are watching. That said, when things get too real (such as shooting at a very high frame rate), the images can look “too real” and lose the magic of the movie.
When we watch a movie, we expect to see something that is very close to reality, but feels a little unreal – both in terms of imagery and story. So when we watch a film shot on 65mm film in IMAX, we think wow! It looks just like real life… They captured something like reality there, but also helped transport us into another world. This general principle applies very well to color grading, but the only real difference is that in narrative work you really want to push the grading far enough so that the film still feels like its own unique world rather than an exact replica of reality . You want the audience to be immersed in a new world and have that new world be reminiscent of reality, but with only subtle differences so that each scene visually guides the audience through the emotional ups and downs of the story.
Some films benefit greatly from extreme color palettes. Black and white films like last year’s “Nebraska” create a very unique feel by removing all color and leaving us with a raw sense of the story and characters, whereas a highly stylized film like “Traffic” Can go through a variety of bold, loopy looks as it fits the theme. But for most films, their stories are best expressed through a more natural palette. Check out the images below from four movies released in the past year or so – Boyhood, Nightmare, The Fault in Our Stars and Under the Skin. Even though they are both different genres and very different films, the use of natural color palettes works well overall.
Of course, there have been a lot of movies over the past year that went in different directions in terms of color (Dawn for the Planet of the Apes, for example), but even a movie like this does need a more hyper-stylized look to be careful not to go too far. Even though the grading is quite strict, there’s still some realistic look to these final images:
Movie camera and natural look
We’ve discussed why a natural look is desirable, but how exactly can we best achieve this look? For starters, shooting with a cinema camera designed for critical color accuracy will get you headed in the right direction (although you can certainly get great results on lower-end cameras too)… Obviously, many other factors come into play in achieving a natural look (e.g. lighting, exposure, etc.), but all things being equal, you need to rely on your camera to capture the right images of the day, and if you’re using a camera that can’t handle the weight If you’re shooting, you’ll need to compensate for this in post by carefully grading your images.
If you’ve ever graded Arri Alexa footage, you’ll know how stunning it can look straight out of the camera, just by applying a rec709 LUT to restore contrast/saturation. When grading Alexa footage, you have this sense of freedom knowing that you can push the image as far as you want, but at the same time you’ll probably never push it too far from the baseline because the original image was powerful…
However, when you color grade DSLR footage, you immediately realize that there is a lot of work to be done. Skin tones aren’t always correct, color temperature differences are more noticeable, and colors often feel less uniform. Typically, colors on a digital SLR don’t blend and bleed into each other as softly as they do on film or higher-end digital cameras, instead they feel stiffer, sharper, and separate from each other—more reminiscent of film. Since a DSLR lens (no matter how good it is shot) will never be at the same baseline as the Alexa, you’ll naturally need to level up further to get beautiful images. Speaking from personal experience, I often have to spend a lot of time working with DSLR footage, keying, denoising, and testing looks to get it just right, whereas with Alexa footage, the look can be achieved much faster, sometimes with just a single primary color correction . This is by no means to say that DSLR lenses don’t look that good…in fact, I believe that in the right hands, DSLR lenses can compete with the best movie cameras in the world. But I would suggest that you need to know the incoming status of your footage in order to approach the grade correctly. It’s easy to start pushing the grade of DSLR footage too far in order to hide some of the less-than-ideal colors, but a better approach is to color grade the footage first to make it look more neutral, and then stylize it later. Grading.
When tinting DSLR footage, the first step needs to be to correct the footage, rather than grade it. This will solve two problems: 1) it will give you a more accurate representation of the intensity of the image at a neutral baseline, 2) it will force you to first match all the shots in the sequence so that they are properly balanced before you compare them Before stylizing. To start the process, simply evaluate the shadows, midlines, and highlights of your image using whatever method works for you (scope, reference image, etc.), compare the image to a baseline, and then adjust the color wheel to make the image more balanced. Typically, on Canon footage I need to cool down the shadows and highlights, whereas on GH4 footage I may need to warm up the highlights a little and cool down the shadows. Every camera is different, but after colorizing a few photos from any camera, you can start to see its quirks and get into the habit of looking for potential problem areas. That said, don’t rely too heavily on past experience when grading footage for a particular camera, as lenses, lighting, and many other factors will play a big role in your images. No matter how you achieve this, the goal is simply to make your footage look as close as possible to the natural and balanced image produced by a movie camera with a more powerful sensor/color science. From there, you can choose to stay as is or push further.
In short
Although it’s tempting to push colors too far in post, you need to make sure you’re making the right decisions for your film. Nine times out of ten, movies work best with a color palette that looks at least somewhat natural, so don’t feel like you need to stylize your movie during the color palette process because you can. You do want to give your film a unique feel and look, but that doesn’t mean you need to overdo it with color grades to achieve that effect. If you’ve done your work in pre-production and on set, your film already has its own style to some extent, and the color work should be done in a way that accentuates what’s already there rather than fighting against it. If your film does fall into the genre that lends itself best to a stylized palette, then by all means go for it, just make sure before you start overgrading your images that you’re able to balance them to match a natural look so that they look graded More consistent.
I personally prefer images that have more of a “look” to them (even non-genre films like dramas), but in my own work I’m always conscious of the way I approach those looks – especially by making sure I’m adding in the look to each shot Always work from a neutral starting point to avoid color shift. I also try to push things far enough so that the viewer can feel it, but not distracting… Nothing screams amateur color grading like overdone color grading, so when in doubt, keep it natural !
For more information on achieving a film look, be sure to check out my DSLR film guide here!
