This IS the Avid L2: Re: [Avid-L2] So Many LUTS of so Little Value?

Wednesday, July 8, 2015

Re: [Avid-L2] So Many LUTS of so Little Value?

As you say back in the day the choice of Film Stock was made by I assume the Cinematographer and his crew. Having not worked in that arena but have seen what happens these days I'm sure similar things happened back in the day too. I'd bet Kodak, Fuji etc... would vie for their use either to the DPs/Cinimatographers etc... and even producers claiming their stock had "That Look."

What is different nowadays is back in the day supposedly the film stock choice was made based on previous experience with that stock and that assumes a consistent developing process. Or as consistent as the Lab techs could muster. To me that type of development of the film in a standard manner would be like applying a standard Arri to Rec 709 or Sony S3 Gamma to Rec 709.

Back in the day you didn't have the DP mixing a chemical additive on set to modify the development process back in the lab. I'm finding in my limited LUT usage in my reality TV documentary world that the LUTs I'm getting appear to be more of a monitor LUT which would actually make the image look bad down the line in Post.

On my current project had it been handled in the typical manner it would have been given to the AE who would have blindly applied the supplied LUTs and that would have been baked in for the rest of the food chain. That's a real issue that is only going to get worse in my experience.

I will say this from what I've experienced this week. Using Avid 8.3.1 for the F-55 media some that was 4K and some regular HD with the XAVC Intra-100 codec things were very smooth. With the Avid automatically applying the Sony S3 Gamma to Rec 709 color transform the images appeared correct in Avid right out of the gate. This was truly a real world doable workflow for existing shops without having to add scopes on every station etc... It's the way I would want LUTs to work in a standard way. It reminds me of old audio cassette where it either had the dolby on or off. That to me is better in a workflow sense just to avoid LUT miscommunications through the production food chain.

To me a LUT standard for a given camera/codec would be more like the back in the day standards of Film Stock choices based on a consistent Lab treatment. More knobs in production might be more of detriment than an asset.

I'd be curious if those who really do a lot of work with LUTs from production find that it is really speeding things up. From what little I know it seems more of a way to show intention from the field and I wonder if the metadata food chain is more expedient than a chat with the production folks once we have the media in house.

---In avid-l2@yahoogroups.com, <Steve@...> wrote :

Obviously the DP creates the look with lighting. The LUT isn't really "camera trickery" though.

Think of it this way: Any good DP "back in the day" would also be very "look" conscious in their choice of a film stock. That choice would dictate color saturation, sensitivity towards certain colors and contrast and grain.

That no longer exists with RAW and LOG. The only way you determine the "look" of the "film stock" is by the choice of a LUT. A LOG image NEEDS a LUT if it is to have any DP-dictated "look."

With that said, many, many colorists that I've talked to dismiss the LUTs they're given, but they usually at least see what the LUT is trying to do to the image first. And if you're not the "creative force" behind the look (DP or real colorist) then you should definitely "obey the LUT."

The DP or on-set colorist created that, hopefully in collaboration with the director, and that's what they're expecting to see.

Not that I know anything about any of this stuff.

Steve

On Jul 8, 2015, at 12:15 AM, Mark Spano cutandcover@... [Avid-L2] <Avid-L2@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

"Perhaps I'm just more traditional in my approach but shouldn't "The Look" be created by the lighting and composition of the scene and not with camera trickery?"

That is the traditional approach. This is a new one. Many tools for the toolkit, technology keeps adding them. Sometimes the DP and DIT collaborate on set to refine things.

" I would think anything you can do with a LUT on set can be repeated in post from the raw media."

Absolutely true. Hence the previous opinion of removing LUTs prior to color correct. Either way works, and it's then a matter of who's attending the grading and how much they remember from set. (i.e. are you going to get a question about 'hey this looks different from what we saw when we shot it', and if so, you have the on set LUT to apply to recover that look)

I am too, but my guess is that newer video viewing and on-set grading solutions are how this is done. Could be Scratch, Nucoda, LiveGrade, etc. - any ilve grading system, where the camera output feeds an intermediary which can apply a grade or LUT. These can be saved with the camera file name in its metadata, so they can be easily recalled later.

On Tue, Jul 7, 2015 at 9:18 AM, bigfish@... [Avid-L2] <Avid-L2@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

Valid point, I guess if I saw what appeared like a look, which doesn't seem to apply to this show I would have contemplated the use of the specific LUTs over the generic. Also given this will be offlined and onlined in Avid 6.5.x I had to commit to something and I'd much prefer to start with something in the legal ball park and balance from there. Any look they want to achieve can be added once things are balanced.

Perhaps I'm just more traditional in my approach but shouldn't "The Look" be created by the lighting and composition of the scene and not with camera trickery? If you want something to look cold and blueish the lighting should accomplish this not the camera setup. I would think anything you can do with a LUT on set can be repeated in post from the raw media. IIRC Mr. Jay had responded to a similar question I had on how the real world application of LUTs usually happened and I believe he said the LUTs were used primarily as a guide but usually removed in color correction.

I'm curious how the LUTs are adjusted on set. Is there a remote video control like interface that tweaks the LUT remotely for a camera. This was a multi camera shoot so I would think any tweaking would be done in the production truck looking at a program monitor but I don't think there was any TD and switcher like a traditional show use to be shot. What little I've seen of the production truck/bus is more of a multi viewer set up for the director to see all cameras much like a quad split etc... on a sitcom stage.

---In Avid-L2@yahoogroups.com, <cutandcover@...> wrote :

As far as I've seen, LUTs generated on set are LOOKS. Production will sometimes establish a look for certain setups, and these get passed along to post so that everything remains consistent. If you ignore these, you're ignoring the on-set look. Fine for you, but might not be come time for show review.

They are not legal because legal is only necessary on final output. You can make anything look like anything up until then.

On Mon, Jul 6, 2015 at 7:17 PM, John Moore bigfish@... [Avid-L2] <Avid-L2@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

I've asked before about the use of LUT is the real world and if they are taken as gospel or just as a suggestion. The response before was they were used as a reference point and then usually taken off in post once in online/color correction. Today I have a myriad of media some F-55 4K and other XAVC- Intra 100 and I believe some go pro footage just for fun. I was given a bunch of luts for each camera and the section of the show like open, Exterior Act etc... As I've previously posted today Avid 8.3.1 automatically added the "YCbCr Sony SGamut3.Cine (SLog3 gamma)" Color Transformation. To be thorough I went ahead and imported all the LUTs I was given from production and for the most part they are useless. They all go well below 0 millivolts and over 700. They aren't too far from the Avid default LUT but in every case I look at the standard LUT Avid applied is more accurate and completely legal. I can see sometimes they added a bit of blue and lessened the Red but nothing major. I'm basically ignoring the field LUTs as they aren't helpful at all. I figure they were developed so things look okay on the set monitors but clearly they weren't looking at any kind of waveform.

Is this typical for those that get LUTS from the field? I haven't been in the field in a long time so I don't know much about the workflow of Video Village especially for these multicamera no production truck setups. Or I should say minimal production truck without a full tilt switcher etc... Are the LUTs generated in the Camera on the video tap to feed the control room monitors. I assume the Cameras are recording their raw data and the LUT is introduced just in the on set monitors but where does it come from? The DIT gives me these files for different cameras and different show scenes. Did he create them in a monitor interface box or pull them from the cameras? Curious how this works in the field. TIA

John Moore
Barking Trout Productions
Studio City, CA
bigfish@...