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Camera settings vs. make up.

H

harmonica44

I was testing out some camera settings for an upcoming project, which I am directing for an aspiring producer.

I have to decide which is better between the two. I have been playing around with the Canon T2i, picture style settings. If I turn the contrast all the way down, a lot of details in the face are gone, such as eye bags. They are really softened and the detail of them is removed. This helps people look better and younger too.

However, you have an image with no contrast in it as a result. The producer wants to nail the look in camera to make for less color grading in post. I could shoot with no contrast, and perhaps add it back in later, or I could shoot with it already in camera, cause then you have it in it's originally, with the 8 bit, untweaked.

I could have the actors wear make up to cover up eye bags and wrinkles, or I could shoot with no contrast, and not bother with make up. Or I could do both.

Another thing I talked about before on here, were people on camera having their lips be oddly really pink. I figured out that if you turn the color tone to +2, you can reduce that, and the lips look much more normal. There will be a little yellow in the face though, which I don't really find distracting but others may, or you might decide later, than you didn't want that hint of yellow skin.

I could use lip concealer on the people on camera, or I could just use the color tone option. Or I could do both.

But when you want people to look a certain way, skin wise, do you use the settings to get it, or do you use make up? It's probably a combination of both, but is their one you rely on over the other, when it comes down to these scenarios? I know there is probably no right or wrong answer for this, I was just curious as to what others prefer as to what they think is better.

Thanks.
 
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I don't know the first thing about makeup so unfortunately I can't give much advice here. However..

The producer wants to nail the look in camera to make for less color grading in post.
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How flexible is the producer on this? I would much rather do the extra work in post. Has the producer seen the test footage with the changes you made? If you change all these settings in camera and he's not happy with the footage, it could be much more difficult and time consuming to add those details back in later.
 
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1) Use a real tool to calibrate your monitor

That being said:

Use make up.
Camera settings influence the whole image, not just the faces.
Make up influences the face only, which seems to be the problem.
So it would be silly to wash out the whole image to fix the faces.

Another thing: instruct your actors to sleep a lot before you shoot.
They'll have less visible eye bags.
Ask them not to smoke weed* (just in case they sometimes do) for days in advance: some people seem to get dark brownish eye bags from that...

*) I'm from the Netherlands: there are weed smokers... ;)
(Most aren't btw, I'm not one of those smokers either)
 
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I'm a believer in makeup under all circumstances. It's one of the positions I always pay a pro to do. Modern HD photography didn't get rid of the need for it. It did however, make it even harder to do well.
 
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I personally would never mess up the image just to try and hide facial flaws, as others have noted you are basically sacrificing the look of the rest of your shot over one detail.

Use makeup, definitely, for things like evening out skintones and bags under the eyes - naturally after you've urged your actors to get a good night's sleep before the shoot. You've also got a lot of options in post - you can key off skin tones in a secondary and drop midrange contrast or adjust the gamma curve in just those areas to minimize fine skin detail. If you're not that skilled with grading there are plugins that streamline the process and let you dial out skin detail as much as you like - you can basically turn your actors into flawless plastic if you want to (not recommended).

In any case, there's not a single simple solution - you'll want to combine various techniques to get the overall best results for your entire image.
 
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Okay thanks. As far as shooting flat goes though, that will cause a lot of the flaws to go away, so a make up artist will not be as needed. It's only shooting non-flat that the flaws show, so it seems that shooting flat is also changing the image instead of just covering up with make up. I have Canon T2i which doesn't give a lot of room in post for making changes if you shoot flat.

If we don't want a flat image though, and don't mind adding contrast in camera, how high do you think you push it, as long as you have a good make up artist to cover up the face ageing, that will come with it? Cause if you can cover that up, then you can have a contrasty image for the rest of the movie.
 
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harmonica44 said:
Okay thanks. As far as shooting flat goes though, that will cause a lot of the flaws to go away, so a make up artist will not be as needed.................
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You still don't get it.
You shoot flat to add contrst later.
So what you hide by shooting flat, will re emerge at least partly when you add contrast.

You are the only one I ever heard obsessing so much about this.
The rest just uses/hires MUAs.
 
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+1 to makeup.

I have my own makeup kit. I am basically an amateur at using it, but simple things like foundation and concealer don't take much talent and can provide a much better look

it will also keep things consistent. What happens if an actor gets a pimple a week later when you're doing a reshoot. Or what happens to your continuity if he has a blemish day 1 then it goes away.. keep skin clear with makeup, it's simpler
 
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Okay thanks, I will hire a make up artist for a future project. I don't mean to obsess too much about it. I was watching and reading tutorials on how to get certain skin looks, and they see things, like turn the contrast to this number in the camera, or turn the color tone to 2 to get rid of pink skin, things like that.

The tutorials didn't mention make up, which is why I asked, but I suppose the tutorials were for shoots, where make up was not an option maybe.
 
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harmonica44 said:
Okay thanks, I will hire a make up artist for a future project. I don't mean to obsess too much about it. I was watching and reading tutorials on how to get certain skin looks, and they see things, like turn the contrast to this number in the camera, or turn the color tone to 2 to get rid of pink skin, things like that.

The tutorials didn't mention make up, which is why I asked, but I suppose the tutorials were for shoots, where make up was not an option maybe.
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Your job in-camera is to preserve skin tone, no matter what else you do to the image. If you lose that, good luck getting it back in post... especially with the h.264 footage from a DSLR.

As for flat vs. in-camera, again with the h.264 codec being as fragile as it is, only shoot flat if you absolutely must for extreme looks in post grading. A professional colorist can work with this kind of footage while doing minimal damage to it, but that takes a lot of practice and skill. There's much to be said for getting the look right in camera and avoiding putting the footage through too much later. Have you tried the picture profiles from VisionColor?
 
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No I haven't tried the picture styles from that site yet, but I have been trying the ones from this site:

http://davidstafford.wordpress.com/2011/07/24/123-free-canon-dslr-picture-styles/

So far my favorite picture style is one that came with the T2i, Landscape. But there are several more to go through and will find other great ones too. I asked my friends opinion and they like the way the skin tone looks with the color tone turned up to +2. They said that it doesn't just get rid of pink lips but it also gives the movie an old film look from the 90s that looks cool, compared to new age computer graded skin tones. But those are just a few friends' opinions so far, and if I should leave the color tone at 0, and use make up instead, than I will.

I will also try the picture styles from vision color. However, the ones on the other site are free though. While we are at it, is their a picture style that emulates the look you get from movies like Witness (1985)? I haven't been able to find one yet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J215p0P-ieA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmdcbtSwX6Q
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nS0fxM7sCHs
 
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