I have a special talent for LUTs and such that would make the workflow nearly identical to the mirroless/Atomos setup I'm running now, but with vastly superior, and more organic results.

I have little warning - LUTs craze so not such anymore and soon will be replaced by simple tools and science. :-)

It is also much fun to read about making fixed LUTs for system involving different film stocks (that vary significantly even due to storage conditions and how you process them) + film scanner.

As soon as hurdles are removed it is ideas, communication skills and all else that come to play, not LUTs or outdated crap.

@shian I meant in terms of shadows rather than reflections.

Are you planning on getting any of these new mirrorless bodies? I'm liking what I'm seeing from the X-T3 a lot. I've been shooting ML raw exclusively for a few years, not sure I wanna go back to 10bit, so the P4K is another option.

Lighting actors wearing glasses is my worst nightmare.

+2 to @CrazyPete.... that nose shadow bugs me to no end. It was a little 2ft circular foldable bounce "hollywooded" by a PA, and he couldn't keep it steady holding it up over his head, so he instead cocked his elbows in, held it in front of his face, and leaned back against the garage for support. Good eye. I make sure to always have larger rectangular mountable ones now - backed with styrofoam that just need to be steadied so they can be hung off a grip head in seconds, and steadied by said PA rather than hand held. All because this shot bugs me. Angles.... they matter.

@bannedindv nope it was a gold tinted reflector. The silver made her look too white next to the black car, and the shadows falling on the house. I balanced it out in grading, but the producer liked the warmer look better since it was a dream sequence, and I was forced to undo. The source being 2' bugs me a little. I like a bigger highlight in the eyes, and a bit more light wrap when shooting glamour shots.... so that bothers me a little but not as much as the angle.

The biggest challenge was: there was a wide shot that went with this. So keeping the PA hidden just around the corner of the garage while still getting enough bounce on her while still getting part of the bounce to wash the side of the car so it wouldn't get crushed down into the blacks was a pain. (Cameras were in the hero's driveway, she and the car were in the adjacent driveway next door. 35mm for the med wide and 85mm for the CU)

She’s lit with Tungsten hard light... maybe there is some gel on the light but not enough to balance the scene .

How easily you forget that I'm a cinematographer first... The color correction is fine... it's something else. A technique I teach, and couldn't apply because of the rush.

VK shame on you. Besides, I saw plenty of her naked body. She's a playboy playmate; Nikki Leigh... so if you want to see 'em that bad, you probably can. No, something I fucked up with the image.

It's been awhile since I posted anything of value. This popped up on one of my feeds this morning. It's a still frame from a pilot I shot a number of years back. It was a rush to get the shot, and had to be improvised as our producer's source for scoring us HMI's on the cheap, flaked. So I had to come up with something in a hurry.

Kudos to whoever can tell me the exact setup...(That's the easy part.)

+2 if you can tell me what I did wrong (and it still bugs me.)

Ehhh, OK. I think when you do it it practically, you learn more, and learn better, and learn in such a way that it can be scaled up. I know Cuz I started lighting in the computer, and the jump from doing it there and doing it IRL was quite large. And finding actors and getting together a bunch of gear and such can get expensive for just practice, whereas you can put together a setup on a desk or table for a vast sum less and practice anytime of day, for free (minus the figures, cardboard sets and lights.) The time consuming part is building the control devices.... flags, scrims, cookies, diffusion, snoots, et al) once you're there, then it's fun.

Workin' on something new. It's pretty elaborate, so don't expect anything soon (that's my MO) but I'm going to teach you how to light and shoot miniatures. I haven't settled on all the figures, and sets yet (building some sets), but I'm also getting ready to move, and won't get these done til after I settle in. and have a dedicated space to set everything up and leave it. I hope to cover all the bases in terms of how to scale things down, and also scale them up.

Just FYI...

Spectrum was born from the complaint that I was never available to grade certain projects cuz I was engaged in grading someone else's film, and couldn't feasibly grade two at once with any efficiency. But what If I could grade everybody's project before they ever even shot it?

Consider this the soft open. For those who can't wait any longer to know what it is and how it works, I give you:

ColorGHear Spectrum

In the world of big budget feature film and television production more and more often the creators are hiring their colorist at the beginning. They shoot test footage in various environments and work with their colorist to create a look (or set of looks) for the entire film which are then turned into Camera LUTs that are either loaded into the camera or monitors or both.

This gives filmmakers a what you see, is what you get workflow - where no longer do you need to trust your DP when he says, “Oh, just trust me, it’ll look right when it’s graded.”

By using a camera LUT on a properly balanced monitor you’re seeing exactly what the finished product will look like, which really allows you to make all the fine adjustments required to get those shots looking exactly the way you want, right there on set.

You’ll know without a doubt that the color is the way you want it -- if the exposure on one side of an actor’s face is too dark or too light, or if their eyes will look sunken, or whether or not that thing in the shadows you’re trying to hide will disappear, or the other thing in the shadows you’re trying to make sure is barely visible, is seen. You'll know if those highlights are gonna blow. It's like getting a live grade back from your DIT instantly!

learn more at http://www.colorghear.com/colorghear-spectrum

@shian any news on spectrum?