BEST PRACTICE HDR FOR HETV
The dynamic range of an HDR monitor is much
closer to the dynamic range of the camera sensor than what you would see in SDR. A log image on an SDR monitor might look a lot less ‘contrasty’ than a log image on an HDR monitor. We do focus on the highlights but that’s not the sole purpose. We can’t crush the blacks in HDR like we can in SDR. It’s really important that we use our monitors and scopes, so we come away with a good negative. From my own on set experience, if we set up lights
outside a window, in SDR it can look amazing. But in HDR you can see all of the lights outside of the window. If you’d been monitoring in HDR you might have chosen to light that scene differently.
TM We might be looking at some of the more technical details within exposure, but as an artist you might look at your palette and if you can’t see the end result, the second best option you’ve got is an instinct of what it might look like at some point in the future and a visual memory, but you’ve got to build up that catalogue of visual memories in the first place. Monitoring on set is essential to getting that visual feedback. When we moved over from film to digital and HD, we had that immediate feedback. We don’t want to go back to the old days, where there’s one monitor on set for the cinematographer, because everyone understands the value of that feedback. But it’s almost like going back to the old days if you only have one HDR monitor on set and no one else can see it. For on set HDR monitoring, you need a fairly
decent HDR monitor and Sony have a comprehensive range. You’ve already got all the software and all the tools for doing it including LUT boxes. You might also need scopes calibrated for HDR. There are monitors coming on to the market that are more affordable, and that cost barrier is being lifted. The combination of HDR being available to the
consumer and the drive for HDR content is moving us towards the tipping point. The streamers want high quality, premium content to attract subscribers with a 4K HDR subscription. But to be able to do that they want to have HDR content that looks good. HDR is no longer considered a secondary deliverable but a primary deliverable.
ACES AS THE DEFAULT
DW ACES is a well-crafted solution to a variety of problems. The idea that you create this container with a wider colour gamut than the human eye can perceive, that can store 30 stops. The container is bigger than anything you’ll put inside of it, so there’s never going to be any clipping or loss at that point. And an environment that replicates the image in the way that it was acquired by the camera;
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televisual.com Summer 2021
Tom Mitchell
Technical Director Mission
truly representing the way the light behaved in a particular environment. It’s particularly useful once it’s understood by all those involved. If you work in a collaborative environment. Tom
and Josh are working on material that very frequently will be looked at and worked on by somebody else. Proprietary is fine if you’re going to do the beginning, middle and end of a project. But these days I think it would be unusual to work on a project where there wasn’t collaboration with other vendors and working as much as possible within a universally understood format and methods for changing images allows a much smoother transition of work from one vendor to another. You see this in feature film work, and the streamers also want to use the best company for the project and will work with multiple vendors. You don’t necessarily know that when you start a project so working in as universally understood a way as possible, the greater of working with the right people at the right time.
DW ACES is our default recommendation unless told otherwise. Almost every job now is a mixed camera shoot and mixed format delivery work. You can have ‘secret sauce’ colour management workflows or you
Mitchell is a co-founder of Mission providing DIT, dailies and workflow consultancy services, supporting hit Netflix shows like Behind Her Eyes, the BBC and Netflix’ The Sepent and the BBC and HBO’s His Dark Materials.
can have ACES. It is being continually iterated on. You can have a hundred post companies working on their own proprietary workflow or a hundred working on the same solution and that’s far more powerful. Virtually every production is a collaboration.
You’re dealing with multiple VFX vendors and sometimes the finishing is separate to the DI process. You might have different DITs, different dailies labs and different deliverables, like the BBC or Netflix or HBO. They need to archive, and this is where ACES was initially born to solve the archive challenge; to revisit the material for future formats yet to be invented. It’s a good pipeline to use throughout with
everybody knowing what they need to be doing. It isn’t perfect but is in a continual process of development. One issue is having a baked-in look that is difficult to unravel but those issues are being addressed.
See the full virtual discussion moderated by Televisual and hosted by Sony
bit.ly/HDRforHETV
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