Alec Bray
I have submitted a complaint to the BBC about the picture quality on last night’s “The Apprentice: Unfinished Business”.
Basically, the guests’ faces were “washed out” – tonally compressed tonally – on my TV, they looked very white, with no definition in the features!.
On the left is the original as broadcast (although captured from iPlayer), on the right is my bit of a fiddle with what was there – not a lot to work with, unfortunately.
Alan Taylor
Short answer: it’s not a bug, it’s a feature.
I agree that it looks awful, but it’s a choice made by the DoP or director. Modern cameras ( both video cameras and still cameras ) offer LUT ( LookUp Table ) features, which is a bit like doing colour grading within the camera. The more complex types of LUT allow complex manipulation of the video signal, including adjusting things like RGB levels, saturation and exposure, rather like Photoshop Curves. LUTs can also be used in video editing. LUTs are often used to emulate the characteristics of certain types of film, or to give a characteristic look to a drama or commercial.
When done well, the results are impressive, transforming a good shot into something quite sensational. When not done well … you know the answer. In this case it looks as though the intention might have been to make the complexion of the lady look better, not too much definition, limited tonal range etc. You can easily get that sort of result in Photoshop by adjusting Curves too far away from the straight line.
I’ve worked on shoots where the ‘star’ always had to be shot with a particular LUT rather like this one, while contributors were filmed looking more natural. When cut together, it looked sloppy, as though two hopelessly mis-matched cameras were used, which in effect was what happened, even though it was a single camera.
Digital television technology allows an impressive number of tweaks which were not previously possible. That’s an excellent thing when handled in a tasteful and intelligent manner, but if the pictures get tweaked to such an extent that you notice it, then it diminishes the programme and becomes a distraction.
Alec Bray
Thank you, Alan, for that very clear and very helpful reply!
A long long way from my days in the mid-sixties on Vision Control!
Dave Newbitt
I would like to endorse Alec’s appreciation for Alan’s explanation of the way things are. As he said, a very clearly presented summary.
Nick Ware
Short question: when is a feature not a feature, but actually is a bug(ger)?
Too much technology in the wrong hands = too many opportunities to screw things up.
I’m frequently driven to despair by most visual aspects of what ultimately looks like amateurism. When things are good, they are good, but when they are not, they are (aptly named) a turn off. Sorry, but true.
My Sony Alpha camera can shoot stills and 4K video with all the optional AI post-focus, optical and digital image stabilisation, etc., and has all the LUT features you mention. Or I can turn all of that off as appropriate. And I do have global colour control and curve-shaping features in Paintshop Pro (similar to Photoshop), so I know what you are saying. Come to think of it, so does an iPhone! But surely, that kind of decision is something best left to be decided in Post under better considered and controlled monitoring conditions?
Once you’ve washed out all the detail in a face, you can’t get it back. Your last paragraph says a lot! Personally, I find it nigh-on impossible nowadays to set up a TV optimally, because there are so many unpredictable variables incoming. When you consider that most domestic TV’s come out of the box in “shop mode” and never do get set up optimally, incoming deviation from some sort of a norm can only be a bad thing. Ultimately, it is the viewer that matters, not some DoP or Director’s fads etc. So frustrating!
Ted Kent
I agree with Alex, I think his adjusted picture is an improvement. My Panasonic TV is over 10 years old (3D for the Olympics whatever happened to that?) On my TV it was more like the adjusted picture but I did notice that the wider shot was different to the close up.
My technical days are long gone but I remember on my basic time at Evesham I was on racks for our performance. I started off OK but I am a compulsive twister of ay controls. It was soon a mess, Maybe that was why I switched to sound.
Alan Taylor
I hope you won’t be offended if I point out that at Evesham, you did much the same thing as the Apprentice cameraman. The racks end of a camera has loads of controls. An experienced racks engineer can produce immaculate pictures, but if you don’t know what you’re doing, you can easily make things worse.
We don’t know if the Apprentice shots had the LUT applied within the camera or in post production ( or both
). My preference is always to record clean ( although using HPF to reduce wind noise ), capturing the greatest possible dynamic range. It then offers options for optimising in post production, where the best viewing and listening facilities are available. Once you mess about during the acquisition stage, you risk locking in changes which can’t easily be corrected. It’s especially important on a drama, where scenes are recorded out of sequence, often a month or two apart. It’s only in post production where you get a proper overview of how scenes work when edited together. Consistency is very important.
We can see examples of ill advised tweaking with cameras, sound, lighting and VT editing. These days a modest computer can run free, or professional software which allows complex manipulation of video or audio. People with no training and poor judgement start using these systems without knowing how they should be used.
The example that most annoys me is transitions on amateur ( and semi pro ) non-linear VT editing systems. Experienced VT editors rarely use anything other than a cut or a mix. If they use a transition, it’s for a very good reason and used sparingly. On the other hand, amateur VT editors discover this new toy with any number of flashy effects and incorporate as many transitions as they can. We saw the same thing with graphics on computers. A simple poster would be cobbled together using multiple fonts, bizarre colour combinations and flashy text effects.
There’s an important difference between what is possible and what is a good idea
