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Not Roger but one thing to consider is that different colors of light can be more or less flattering on skin/subjects. Red light e.g. is very flattering (hence ‘red light districts’). So maybe a good idea is to start by choosing appropriate colours/gels for the par cans and go from there.
Let’s say you are lighting a face for a ratio, say 4:1 or something. Does metering the contrast levels reference the LOG image, or the image after converted to rec709,etc.? For example if you do use a light meter to light these ratios exactly, will converting to 709 or P3 crush those levels even more?
Different manufacturers have different LOG curves but they all only serve the technical purpose of storing the best possible information into a compressed file. LOG is not ‘viewing ready’. It needs to be converted in an image that our eyes perceive as ‘normal’ (display), only then contrast ratios will represent what you have measured on set.
To do that you need to know what color space / gamma your monitor is in and use the appropriate conversion. Your external camera monitor might be Rec.709, your Macbook Air would need a Apple P3 (P3 D65 + sRGB gamma) conversion and so on.
I think copying is a natural part of the journey, but it should happen in the very beginning.
From there people usually develop their own way of doing things down the road.
As David said, LED technology is advancing fast. You can get very affordable units today that render good and accurate enough colours. If you get a relatively new LED light by one of the established LED film-light manufacturers, I don’t think you need to worry about color rendition these days.
He used the same LUT on all movies since shooting digital with Alexas, afaik created in collaboration with Joachim Zell of Arri, based on print film data sets.
It is the most wanted LUT in history and I don’t think you’ll ever see a side-by-side comparison frame with a standard conversion 😉
I’m shooting on a Canon C70 (Super 35), which isn’t the best camera for low-light situations.
Don’t worry, the C70 is excellent in low light due to its DGO sensor (Arri Alexa’s sport the same technology). It retains colours and detail many stops under and is even on par with the Alexa Arri LF. For best results, shoot RAW.
“Army of the Dead” (2021) by Zack Snyder, shot consistently at f0.95 with Canon Rangefinder lenses.
The movie is as shallow as the aperture used and a prime example of putting style over substance.
I like the book series “Master Shots” by Christopher Kenworthy.
It’s more of a picture book, analysing scenes from famous films, directors and DPs, all organised by themes. It’s a very practical tool, basically showing you ways how some of the masters went about specific scenes/tasks (e.g. a dialogue between two people with changing power-dynamics, ways to reveal something ect).
I never found myself copying something, it just inspires and helps to find your own solution when stuck.
So interesting that the analog/digital debate in film is the same as in music.
Major mix engineers like Andrew Scheps mostly work with software plugins today. But in my personal experience, their skills determine how good the music sounds.
I tried every possible software synthesizers the past 15 years until this year I finally got a small, analog hardware synth and to me it’s a fundamentally different. Anything I play instantly sounds satisfying, no chain of plugins needed anymore only to get to a satisfying base sound. One could also re-record a soft-synth through a speaker or amp: the way sound moves the air is unique in every room and setup and can never be replicated digitally.
In film/video I think it’s similar. There are countless film emulation plugins, LUTs and power grades but none magically turns video into film with the press of a button.
There’s a reason filmmakers crave to get their hands on Roger’s excellent film emulation Alexa LUT or that colorists crave to replicate Steve Yedlin’s display preparation.
In my opinion there is no visual or audible benefit of analog over digital anymore but it requires more skills to get as satisfying results as with analog.
I currently don’t own a camera but if I’d buy one I’d want it to be a S35mm equivalent sensor.
Especially affordable entry cinema cameras gravitate towards large format sensors nowadays, which is a bummer for me personally. So:
+ S35mm sensor
+ large dynamic range
+ internal RAW recording
+ internal ND
