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The cinematography of Drive

H

harmonica44

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBiOF3y1W0Y

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kq2a7MWbmJU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_z5LXyWn3-w

I really like the cinematography with the sunlight scenes, and trying to get right in my camera. It seems the best way to do it is too shoot with the color temperature around 12000 to 15000, depending on the time of day. In that scene in the second video they may have changed it for clouds too. The chase scene looks like it was done lower, more around 9000 but trying to get that one right too. I've been trying to get it right, but something feels off.

http://youtu.be/jVK4ESOV-bk

Does anybody know what they did to get those colors?

Thanks.
 
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I've frequently stated that time=money is a viable mathematical exchange when scheduling/budgeting filmmaking. Expensive can mean either as they're interchangeable. How long do you want to keep your cast/crew on set.

If you're doing it in camera, expect that rather than paying the colorist (singular), you'll be paying the crew (plural). Where are you going to spend your resources? If you were the camera department, I'd say go for it... but YOU keep performing tests that you're then going to trust someone else who hasn't performed the tests to perform on set... that belies the point of the tests - not just "is this possible"... but "what is the specific technique, so that I as DP/Cam Op can perform them on the day."
 
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Yeah true, I just want to be able to tell the DP what I want. I could shoot white and color correct later. I did that before on here and I talked about how the actor's lips came out pink, or how the streets turned pink in another scene. Basically I get unwanted colors in the shot, when I color grade in post. I was told before that it was because my DSLR shoots in H.264 which sucks for color grading in post compared to RAW.

I read on a site that for DSLR users, deciding the color in camera is a better way to go, since their is not much room for color grading in post. That's why I started doing it before, as I was told to for that reason, but as long as these pink lips and other unwanted colors, are banish-able without effecting quality, then I can shoot white. I don't know any good colorists so I would have to trust that I shot it correctly to be graded the way I want later. I don't want a colorist saying I shot it wrong to being with, and they cannot grade the look I want.
 
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I'm not expert on color grading. But there's more to coloring then just making general color changes to a whole scene. You can use primaries to do general color correction, and secondary's to isolate certain parts of the clip to adjust very specific things. That's why colorist are important.
 
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Yeah. It's just going through frame by frame and masking out certain parts could literally take months and I was hoping to focus on other projects and other aspects of filmmaking. So I was thinking maybe I should just do close to the look I want quickly since I do not have a large crew or anything to take on all the different post tasks.
 
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I heavily grade every shot in everything I do, which included the MiniDV days - much less colorspace to play with than my HD DSLR footage I'm dealing with now... you tend to correct a single frame in a shot, then the rest of it works itself out with minor tweaks and tracking.

Post is part of the process and you need to budget time for it -- including grading.
 
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ItDonnedOnMe said:
Exactly. What you want is not achievable through changing white balance alone. Now that you've discovered this for yourself it's time to start thinking about the alternatives.



The difference is that frame rate, shutter speed, and DOF are difficult or impossible to change effectively in post. People make those decisions when shooting because they do not have the option to make them later.

Color, on the other hand, has a huge range of adjustability in post - significantly more than is easily achievable in camera. So smart filmmakers take advantage of this fact to use color correction where it's most effective, where they have the most control, and where they aren't holding up the rest of their crew trying to get things exactly right in camera.
Click to expand...

Tell that to my friends who are making a feature film. They want to shoot at 60fps at a high shutter speed, and then they will convert 24 and add motion blur, IF that's what the distributor wants, once picked up.
 
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In case the distrubutors want 30fps or 60. They don't know what they want so they are shooting in 60 just in case, but if the distributors don't want that, they will convert down. Every distributor seems to want 24 though I told them.

Okay I will white balance beforehand. Their are a couple of locations I want to use with multiple light sources. One is a parking garage with at orange lights, and white-blue lights. The other is down streets at night, with different lights everywhere. Which light should I decide to white balance, since the actors will be passing through different ones as the walk, which I am not allowed to gel.
 
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Did you dial in K values for those shots, or use some sort of AWB feature on a white card under a given light.

Regardless of what look you want, don't AWB to those orange lights. They only emit a handful of wavelengths and will jack up your skin tones in your shot pretty badly.

If you want to balance to them and make them white, do it numerically.
 
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First, I want to congratulate you on your recent series of tests!
Hallelujah. Welcome to the practical side!
More practice. Less principle.

Next, something I learned off my first few shots was that my brain works faster than the camera, so slow down all the unnecessary fast panning ur doin'. Slow your movements down a bit.

And be mindful of your shutter speed (NOT FRAME RATE - in addition to frame rate! :yes:)
That fast panning makes for blurry frames as the shutter stays open longer to allow in more light.

There are several solutions.
  1. Pan slower
  2. Open the aperture
  3. Add more light
  4. Lock set the shutter speed double the frame rate
  5. Change location
IDK if it's just common sense, but zooming in mechanically allows less light in, so... try to keep your mms small.

harmonica44 said:
I could white balance either light but not sure which is better for post really.
Click to expand...
TEST.

Although we all know AVCHD/MPEG-4/H.264 compression is technically a limiter to color grading in post, it's worth more than a "college try" by yourself to see if it makes any practical difference.

Take that MVI 5373 video and run several color grade tests on it yourself on a slow segment.
Monkey with those color wheels and the brightness/saturation/hue settings your NLE provides.

"They say" and "The books say" and blah blah blah. Just try it.

Good luck!
thumbs2.gif




CraigL said:
Unless you have a constant aperture zoom... =)
Click to expand...
Yay!
H, you got one of those?
 
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Okay thanks. I did not use AWB, I just adjusted the temperature till the lights turned white for each test.

It was a prime lens and I had it open at 2.8 the whole time.
 
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I find the idea of a distributer dictating what frame rate they want a film to be in bizarre... isn't it like a record label saying to a band "Nice tune but we need it in the key of A"...

H44 - like RayW says do more tests but please for the love of god! stop whipping the camera around so much.. get a tripod.. that way you can compare exact shot for exact shot whilst changing the settings.
 
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Well I think my friends are just really paranoid of the distributor turning them down for any reason and want to have the most options available just in case it happens. I told them I cannot find any movie that was rejected for being 24fps, but that did not give them any confidence. I know what it's like, I am scared too that the slightest thing will be disliked. But definitely comfortable shooting 24fps at least, since almost all movies do.

K I can use a tripod. I also want to try to make handheld look good too, since sometimes I am forced to go with it, such on city streets, where the cops are okay with handheld but not tripods, and dollies so much. Some movies have quick panned handheld, like Paul Greengrass for example, and he makes it look good, so I was thinking of getting better at that style maybe.
 
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