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Check out Juan Zambrano’s 2499 DRT color pipeline, it’s free and provides a more film like image transformation. You’ll need Davinci Resolve Studio.
There is a thread on it over at LiftGammaGain.
Points 2-6 are nothing to worry about imo.
About reliability, I did not have more issues with Blackmagic cameras than with any other manufacturer but haven’t worked with that particular camera yet.
Like Roger I operate on instinct, albeit on a very different level. But also like Roger (I believe) I learned a lot from starting with documentaries, where I would move around quite a few times within minutes to get different angles and shot sizes of a scene that did not wait for me, in order to have a variation that would work for the editor – who often was me! It was a very exhausting way of shooting but a great and rewarding exercise – no time to ponder over rules!
I see youtube videos of “Roger Deakin’s favorite setup” all the time where they proceed to make something that looks not even close to the reference shot.
Don’t worry about the quality of LEDs these days…it is better than HMI and on par with tungsten. YouTubers failing to recreate scenes is not about the quality of the light but the relationship in size, distance, power, placement, diffusion ect of the lights to the subject/scene. There’s also a huge skill (and probably experience) gap.
The same goes for cameras. The gap between latest generation semi-pro hybrids and traditional digital cinema cameras is already too small to matter much. What does matter is the transformation from sensor data into a display space. You can take the same data from a cinema camera and make the image feel and look terrible or gorgeous. We cinematographers don’t like to admit it but it does make a decisive difference. Roger has one of the best transformations ever made with his custom Alexa LUT, which basically is an extremely sophisticated film emulation. The trick is to have it in place before shooting (loaded into the camera). A solid transformation will not demand a lot of grading in post as the look is already established and all decisions during shooting have been made under it. That is different than shooting with a standard transformation (e.g. standard Rec.709 LUT from manufacturer) and then changing the look afterwards.
One more thing as to why YouTubers fail to replicate scenes: In my opinion Roger’s biggest strength is not even lighting but to put the audience exactly where they need to be. I think it is impossible to replicate his intuition for that. I also think it is more significant than his lighting, even if that sounds crazy. I’m sure if he would shoot a film only with available light, it would still have that capturing quality. Putting the audience exactly where they need to be to witness a story unfold is his superpower in my opinion.
Also, gutted to report that my Amazon pre-order (placed ~6 months ago) just got cancelled out of the blue.
Mine too. Amazon Germany.
Ordered April, yesterday it said it would arrive today, today it suddenly says ‘order canceled’.
Most of them have magnets on the back, you could try and attach a thin metal to them to slide behind the mirror and see if it holds. These tubes can be quite lightweight, especially the cheaper ones.
Once the light is on it might not look much different to a regular fluorescent tube light, depending on the model’s design and light intensity probably.
How about adding a LED tube light above the mirror as a practical? They most often offer remote control, daylight/tungsten or full RGB light, battery and magnets. Newest generation all have decent light quality, even cheap Astera/Aperture/Nanlite knockoffs.
You could remotely and seamlessly adjust its output (and color temp, if window light changes).
I would say both and add set design (see the walls’ colour being closer to Alejandro’s suit than the white of the water tank).
But happy to be corrected by Roger.
If you have old footage of the same camera/colour space you want to shoot in you could create it with that.
“Show LUT” = custom look LUT that is used both during shooting and in post (directly or as reference).
So my doubt is that if it’s a common practice to use both a “pre” and a “post” LUT, or if the latter is just an unprofessional quick turnaround.
I think calling it “pre” and “post” LUT might be confusing as ideally they should not be two different ones. Rather think of it as “customised” versus “non-customised” LUTs.
“Show LUT” is basically just a word that is commonly used by colorists for a custom look that is then saved as a Look Up Table (LUT), so that it can be used in-camera while shooting.
Camera tests are being made to check if the LUT introduces unwanted artefacts under various circumstances, to assess if it looks and feels right or e.g. to make wardrobe decisions, as their appearance can change due to hue shifts and saturation changes.
As David pointed out, the “Show LUT” (custom LUT) itself then can be used in post or act as a reference while grading is done from scratch. There is no right or wrong here. If I remember correctly the LUT for “The Joker” was used in post as it was crafted very well and acted rock-solid (Jill and Mitch Bogdanowicz). Another famous “Show LUT” (custom LUT) example is Roger’s own, which I believe he shot every movie since 2011 under and gave the “look” to all of them.
The point of an in-camera Show LUT is that decisions on set translate well to the final look (of course you will still use your eyes and meters on set, not just the monitor). You don’t have to create a custom LUT for that, you could use any LUT you like – just decide on the look before shooting and don’t fundamentally change it in post – that’s the whole trick.
Which is probably what you meant with “pre” and “post” LUT: to use e.g. a standard Rec.709 camera conversion LUT while shooting but then apply some Look LUT in post. This can still work but it’s less ideal in my opinion.
