Another RCA CT-100 discovery B8001599

[old_tv_nut]

In the early days, the limited dynamic range of the gamma correction in the camera, combined with some judicious black clipping, combined with the limited contrast of reflective CRT screens, could be and was used to produce the "subject in front of black void" effect. There were some puppet performances on TV (like acts on the Ed Sullivan show) where the puppeteers were in scene but covered in black, and the video engineers just clipped them out of existence.

This became much less possible with the advent of Plumbicon cameras with wide dynamic range including gamma correction down into the shadows. Current solid state cameras for HD and cinema have made the shadows even more clearly visible.

I saw a talk online by a well known cinematographer who said that with film they had figured out the lighting and exposure to give the director either visibility or invisibility in the shadows, but with current digital cinema cameras, they always see into the shadows. They tell the director what he wants to hear, and then achieve the desired effect in post production.

This was illustrated in the live NBC production of Sound of Music, where they had a transition from one location (set) to another by actually dollying the camera through a door with a dark surround; but instead of seeing a black void surround, you could make out details of the studio/set wall.

[etype2]

Originally Posted by old_tv_nut

In the early days, the limited dynamic range of the gamma correction in the camera, combined with some judicious black clipping, combined with the limited contrast of reflective CRT screens, could be and was used to produce the "subject in front of black void" effect. There were some puppet performances on TV (like acts on the Ed Sullivan show) where the puppeteers were in scene but covered in black, and the video engineers just clipped them out of existence.

This became much less possible with the advent of Plumbicon cameras with wide dynamic range including gamma correction down into the shadows. Current solid state cameras for HD and cinema have made the shadows even more clearly visible.

I saw a talk online by a well known cinematographer who said that with film they had figured out the lighting and exposure to give the director either visibility or invisibility in the shadows, but with current digital cinema cameras, they always see into the shadows. They tell the director what he wants to hear, and then achieve the desired effect in post production.

This was illustrated in the live NBC production of Sound of Music, where they had a transition from one location (set) to another by actually dollying the camera through a door with a dark surround; but instead of seeing a black void surround, you could make out details of the studio/set wall.

This subject is interesting. I don’t know if you have watched recent highly touted movies in the past few years that are of interest to this viewer, but there seems to be a trend with flat, very dark, low color content films. I read that this is the desire of the Director who wants to set a moody foreboding atmosphere. The new Bladerunner movie was particularly disappointing along with a recent chain of movies with dark, almost colorless scenes throughout. I may be wrong, but is this an excuse for Directors to use this trend as shortcuts in cinematography? I’ve spent hard earned money to purchase equipment capable of bring out the best in films. It’s not my equipment to blame, it’s important to me that all is properly set up and calibrated. A few movies come to mind, “Mama Mia Here We Go Again”, Brigerton are noteable stunning exceptions and others.

I want to see well calibrated color and excellent shadow detail in movies and content.

[old_tv_nut]

Originally Posted by etype2

This subject is interesting. I don’t know if you have watched recent highly touted movies in the past few years that are of interest to this viewer, but there seems to be a trend with flat, very dark, low color content films. ...

Preceded by the cyan/orange look, a fad and crutch for lack of real creativity in most cases. It's never a green/magenta look, because that is too unacceptable as a possible range of natural lighting color.

As far as dark scenes go, having the action mostly invisible most of the time seems stupid to me. Brief clips of unrecognizable motion to convey the frenzy of a scene are fine, but they live by contrast with the recognizable parts as far as I am concerned.

With the excellent contrast range of LCD and other current displays, the content can have dim but recognizable scenes for night, just as movies could be dark for night scenes in an unlit theater. This was not possible with a CRT in a normally lit room, so good practice was to brighten the dark scenes when transferring to video.

I recall clearly when local stations would run 16mm copies of movies that had no such adjustment. The dark scene of a train in the night was reduced to seeing only the round circle of the headlight, and multiple fading ghosts of it as well due to the lag of the vidicon film chain.

For a while, Kodak provided a special color print film that had a deliberate contrast-reducing fog in the shadows. It looked washed out to the naked eye, but reducing the black level in the telecine brought the contrast back to normal while reducing lag and loss of shadow detail.