# Best movie settings?



## NewFilmmaker (Nov 23, 2012)

Dear Canon friends,

I'm doing a short fiction film next Tuesday, using the 5D mIII for the first time.

Need some quick help here: what are the best setting for the 5D mIII shooting video (short film)?

What about Cinestyle from Technicolor? How does that work? Is it a post color correction thing or in camera? Good option?

Thanks, and have a nice day.


----------



## HurtinMinorKey (Nov 23, 2012)

5 blades. By far the best setting.


----------



## Policar (Nov 23, 2012)

NewFilmmaker said:


> What about Cinestyle from Technicolor? How does that work? Is it a post color correction thing or in camera? Good option?



Technicolor mode is marketing, mostly. In theory it's for integrating a dSLR into a show that's otherwise shooting on log, but it does not resemble a log scan or Arri's log c one bit and it offers no more DR and worse latitude. 

Google prolost flat. Use that.

Meter using a calibrated incident meter.


----------



## Jesse (Nov 23, 2012)

Yes, I recommend shooting Cinestyle if you plan on colour grading/correcting. 

Shoot 24 fps ALL I, with a shutter of 1/50. Manual white balance.


----------



## Jesse (Nov 23, 2012)

Policar, it's marketing? It's FREE.


----------



## Axilrod (Nov 23, 2012)

NewFilmmaker said:


> Dear Canon friends,
> 
> I'm doing a short fiction film next Tuesday, using the 5D mIII for the first time.
> 
> ...



I would try and avoid Cinestyle, in my experience it's just not worth the trouble. I generally shoot Faithful 1,-2,-2,0. Turn off all noise reduction and Highlight Tone Priority. Try to use ISO's in multiples of 160 (160,320,640,1250,1600), as they produce the least noise. Your shutter speed is the only thing that stays fixed, 1/50th if shooting 24fps and 1/60th if shooting 30fps. Also try to get your white balance as close as possible, as fixing it in post takes away from the limited amount of color grading you can do with compressed footage.


----------



## Jesse (Nov 23, 2012)

Cinestyle takes 5 minutes to download and install and 2 seconds to put the setting on the camera....


----------



## TrumpetPower! (Nov 23, 2012)

A few things come to mind.

First, I don't think anybody can offer any advice about picture style without knowing your post-processing workflow.

If you're just going to be using consumer-level tools such as iMovie, then you want to get everything exactly the way you want it to look in the camera. If you like the way it looks on the back of the camera, that's the proper setting. If you don't like what you see, fiddle around until you're happy and then use that.

If you're going to be doing the post-processing yourself using more advanced tools, the same advice applies. You don't have enough experience and knowledge to properly make use of more advanced camera settings.

If somebody else is going to be doing the post-processing, ask that person to set up the camera for you.

Next...cinematography is a hugely complicated skill. If this is the first movie you've ever shot, accept right now that you're going to screw things up, and don't beat yourself up over the fact that you will. And make sure that nobody is relying on you to get everything right the first time.

Here's enough to keep yourself from hurting yourself too badly:

1. Shoot manual exposure. Either use 24 FPS and 1/50 second if you want a film-like presentation, or 30 FPS and 1/60 second if you want more of a TV-like presentation. Set the aperture for your desired depth of field. Then, get the proper exposure ideally by adjusting the lighting of the scene, by using neutral density filters (a variable filter is especially handy) if that's not practical, and lastly by adjusting your ISO. Whatever exposure you go with, you'll very much want to stick with it through the entire scene. The pros use expensive meters to get the light right, and their insanely-expensive lenses are calibrated in T-stops to let them do so. You're better off just putting the camera's built-in meter in evaluative mode and trusting what it says. Point the camera everywhere you will when you're shooting, and pick the least-worst compromise for your manual exposure.

2. Use a custom (manual) white balance. See the camera's manual if you don't know how to do this. If you don't, unless you've got superb lighting, your movie will have a distracting color cast to it.

3. Use a tripod. The cheapest video tripod you can get at your big-box electronics store will be horribly inadequate and a thousand times better than hand-holding.

3a. If you must hand-hold and you don't have a Steadycam rig (and somebody who knows what to do with it), use a lens with image stabilization. The results won't _quite_ look like the _Blair Witch Project_ that way.

4. You're going to have to use manual focus, no matter what. "Pulling" focus for video is a special talent all unto itself, and ideally performed by somebody other than the person operating (aiming) the camera, generally by watching an external monitor and by knowing exactly where to physically turn the ring to based on where the subject is on the stage. "Good luck with that," as they say. If there's any doubt, go with the smallest aperture you can live with to get the most depth of field, and then see #1 above again. If there's nothing distracting on the set that you need to mask with out-of-focus blur and if you've got enough light, pick a hyperfocal-style combination of aperture and focus distance that will cover the entire stage, and then tape down the focus ring.

5. Record audio externally. If you were planning on using the camera's built-in microphone, get a Zoom H-series recorder and use it instead. Just put it on a mic stand next to the camera, and be sure the stand doesn't get bumped. You can use the recorder's auto-levels feature to figure out what the "good enough" audio level is, but then turn the feature off and manually set the audio level for the actual shoot. Changing audio levels during a shoot is as bad as changing exposure. Just let the audio run during the entire shoot. You can sync the audio afterwards very easily if you use a clapboard, and almost as easily if you just have a person on camera clap hands.

6. Practice, practice, practice. Do the above and you're probably not going to embarrass yourself too badly, maybe, but you're obviously not going to win any Academy Awards. The more you practice, the less your chances for embarrassment. Practice enough and you'll get past the danger of embarrassment and towards the possibility of actually doing something with merit.

Good luck!

Cheers,

b&


----------



## NormanBates (Nov 23, 2012)

Check this: 
http://www.similaar.com/foto/tuten/600.html

And this:
http://www.similaar.com/foto/flaat-picture-styles/index.html


----------



## Basti187 (Nov 23, 2012)

i had the pleasure talking to a award winning cinematographer the other day at a BBC event, he recommend something like this on the 5dm2, which will go hand in hand with the mark3

go to picture style

user def

Sharpness - all the way down
Contrast - all the way down
Saturation - half way down
hue/color tone 0

essentially the same effect as cinestyle giving you the washed out effect making it useable for post + a few other bonuses


----------



## LetTheRightLensIn (Nov 23, 2012)

Jesse said:


> Cinestyle takes 5 minutes to download and install and 2 seconds to put the setting on the camera....



Yeah but it is hard to bring the compressed, messy 8bit signnal back that far in post. I've found it works out worse for the most part.


----------



## NewFilmmaker (Nov 24, 2012)

Thanks guys!

Some more questions:

- how to use a custom (manual) white balance? this is one of the preset white balance options in the menu?
- in post I use FCP for editing, does that make any difference for all the comments I got?
- so, Cinestyle is not the best option, I guess?


----------



## paul13walnut5 (Nov 25, 2012)

1- Take a bit of A4 paper. Hold it unfolded / unwrinkled under the exact same light as your subject. Take a still image of it. Go into custom WB menu, choose that image as the reference. Select manual WB in the WB menu.

2- Depends which version of FCP. Forget colour profiles for now. Get used to handling the camera. Use MF. Shoot 24. It what vimeo and youtube want and will work in PAL and NTSC regions. 25 or 29.97 gives you issues, if you aren't shooting exclusively for a region (I shoot 25 always, but I'm shooting for PAL broadcast)

3- No. If you are interested in cinema profiles then you want to be shooting on a dedicated movie camera. And will have access to a gaffer, a truckload of HMI's and gels and davinci colourist interface. If I'm talking double dutch then don't worry about it (I will be or you wouldn't be asking - no offence)


----------



## TrumpetPower! (Nov 25, 2012)

paul13walnut5 said:


> 1- Take a bit of A4 paper. Hold it unfolded / unwrinkled under the exact same light as your subject. Take a still image of it.  Go into custom WB menu, choose that image as the reference. Select manual WB in the WB menu.



Actually, paper makes a miserable white balance target. The substrate itself is almost always decidedly yellowish, and then they add fluorescent dyes that glow slightly blue to trick your eyes into seeing something that's brighter than white. There are a few high-quality inkjet papers out there that would make good targets, but it's frankly not worth it.

My best recommendation would be polystyrene. It's spectrally flat and just the right lightness. Get a disposable beer cooler and use the lid, or see if you've got any packing material left over from something. For event photography, shoot a styrofoam cup; you can then eyedropper sample the light from any direction. Or, fit the cup over the lens, take a shot, and use that for your custom white balance. (It'll average all the light in the scene, which is often an excellent choice for white balance.)

Tyvek is another possibility. Your local office supply store probably sells Tyvek envelopes. Watch for glare, though...I'd really only recommend it for copy stand work, in which case it's excellent.

The gold standard would be Spectralon, but that's just a wee bit outside of your price range, I'm sure....

Cheers,

b&


----------



## NewFilmmaker (Nov 25, 2012)

Thanks again!

One more question: when shooting 24p, should I put videosystem to NTSC or can I also shoot with PAL?


----------



## Policar (Nov 25, 2012)

Jesse said:


> Policar, it's marketing? It's FREE.



Most marketing is free.

The cameras aren't.

I've used both neutral and log extensively. I recently shot some B roll for a made-for-tv feature (A camera was Alexa, B camera Epic) and because it was a log show I shot most of the footage in cinestyle. (Cinestyle was introduced for intercutting with log footage and NOT as a "flat" high DR alternative, as it offers no additional DR over neutral with contrast set at low.) I accidentally shot some footage in neutral with contrast low, too.

Ultimately, even in a log show, there was no material advantage to shooting cinestyle. Sure the corrections were closer to the corrections for the Alexa footage, but not significantly. And there was no more DR and tonality was slightly poorer. A total wash when the footage was exposed well, but cinestyle footage exposed wrong looks dreadful.

As for manual white balance, I disagree very strongly with suggestions to white balance manually. I shoot 3200K for tungsten lit scenes and night exteriors with uncorrected HMIs (personal preference) and 5600K for daylight. Fluorescent preset for fluorescent to ward off the green cast. Then adjust in post. I can understand using cloudy white balance for cloudy scenes or to add a warm pop to a daylight image, but if you white balance every shot or set up manually you will have catastrophes in post. Not all light sources are meant to be neutral and when they are 3200K, fluorescent, and 5600K have you covered for 99% of set ups. I've heard stories of very inexperienced first timers doing this--white balancing every shot--and the cast and crew laughing behind their backs and the footage coming out just horrible. DO NOT do this. It's such a bad idea it's almost comic. At best it's innocuous; at worst it will ruin your footage and cost tons of time in post. DO NOT white balance each shot manually unless you have a very good reason to.

24p is NTSC. PAL is 25fps.

Basti187's recommendation is excellent. You can try cinestyle but you will come to the same conclusion the rest of us have--it's useful in theory for intercutting footage with a log show. In practice, all it does is hurt tonality. Look up prolost flat. That's what his recommendation is similar to.


----------

