O...K... then go FULL on Gurrr!

Start getting even MORE creative and the Red issue just aint..... Worry not about the reds . . or blues . . or yellows . . start getting more Funky and Bad-A.

Can't wait to vaga the final doobry . . .

Dah][G-Man . . .

[I]" If I had budget, crew, locations, lighting, time frames, I would "[/I]

I've shot a no budget indie, not something for the faint of heart so I understand all too well the challenges.
In the interests of full disclosure I should say I had people to handle catering, makeup and costume and the director / executive producer had done a course at film school. Unfortunately the film she made at the end of the course was with a crew and two truck loads of gear, it was a very abrupt education for her when her and I had to work without those two trucks, a crew that knew what they were doing, no shooting permits.

Still, the one thing I kept screaming about was the LIGHT. I made it very clear to everyone involved that if I can get out of bed well before sunrise, drive 50KMs, lug all my kit through the bush and be ready to roll for FREE, they had better be willing to do be on set, with makeup and lines rehearsed.

Now looking at that photo from a passer by I can see exactly the challenge you face, look at your right leg! At the same time a I see a fix, wait until you're in the shade. I know even shooting at the best time can be a problematic but it is the most fundamental thing you can wrangle, for free, to a huge advantage.

Even Grazie's very apt suggestion of using a polarizing filter is dependant on sun angle and which way the camera is pointed. Grad ND filters, plain ND filters, there's a whole host of other things that can help but there's nothing simpler than changing your time of day.

In the end there's always challenges, if the business of taking great looking video that tells a compelling story was easy everyone would be doing it. Or as a client of mine puts it [I]every human is an artist, how much you're prepared to suffer for the art is the difference[/I]

Bob.

(...psst, Bob? - Not talking Polarizing filter? Just a Grad ND. YEs I know about Sun angles. toodles g....)

Another vote for the free AAV Colorlab plugin. Among it's many controls are separate saturation for a variety of colors. I use this for color correction on every project.

http://aav6cc.blogspot.com/

what's wrong with my right leg? Other, than I need to exercise more before pretending to be a Ninja :D
Not sure if it is on the cam in the above pic, but I bought a nice Light Craft Workshop variable ND filter for that lens which is just wonderful. Several times I used it to cut the too bright sunlight, depending on the aperture setting. See? I'm learnin! And even throwing big words like aperture around. :)

The little LCD screen is facing me and displaying the histogram so I can keep it in check.

The interior of the red hut (not shown) caused some issues in bright sunlight, but the Vegas FILL LIGHT kinda evens things out.

Time wise, I was screwed. Had to take two days off work to film, took 8 hours both days, and had to TRY to film so the sun was not all over the place when cut together (I hate that!) AND hope I got days without crazy clouds or rain!!! So, I was very happy in bright sun, perfect clear sky both days.

COLORLAB also has a preset for 16-235 levels which I have now found very handy! So far, Colorlad is different and in many ways to be BETTER than Vegas CC wheels. To me, being the key words here. :)

[I]"what's wrong with my right leg?"[/I]



[I]"Time wise, I was screwed."[/I]

I've been completely screwed by this myself. One vital shot was a tracking shot and whilst the location was great with the sea in the background, it had boats and a jetty about 1KM away. If I'd had a matte box and some serious ND filters I could have opened the iris enough to get them so out of focus they wouldn't have mattered.
Or I could have shot from a different angle but everyone was getting p'ed off with me and my futzing around.
Foolishly I thought I could "fix it" with After Effect. Several days of trying (ever tried to motion track waves?) I gave up and we just had to live with the clutter :( That was really bad because many of the shots were great.

It looks like you've had access to a great location. Personally I would have been getting up with the chooks and shooting before work, if that would have had the sun in the wrong direction then after work. There's more than enough light before and after the sun comes up / goes down for any camera and then the light is diffused. Colours are much better at that time of day.

I should add that with a camera such as yours it's possible to have too much light unless you've got ND filters. If you close the iris too much not only do you get a large DOF but you will hit the diffraction limit and the image will be soft. You can increase shutter speed but then you can get jerky motion through the lack of motion blur.


Bob.

that's just a pic some gawker took and facebooked. in that scene, only my blade, hands and head are being filmed :)

this production is all about teaching myself anything I feel like, so, I plan to blot out that lamp post in the real pic seen above. I think some cookie cutter over a still of the same scene re-framed will do it, and the shot is probably only a couple seconds so the eye won't even notice.

I sympathize with the shooting outdoor clutter though.... I'm really learning why studios have big, closed sound stages! WAY easier to get exactly what you want - outside has so many variables!! Another killer is WIND was tremendous at that location destroying ALL audio so I have to fake it all back in: breese sound, river, bugs, birds, feet, dialog, ..... more self learning on the fly. hahahaha :)

Thanks for all your feedback!

[I]"that's just a pic some gawker took and facebooked. in that scene, only my blade, hands and head are being filmed :)"[/I]

I know that. The point is it very clearly illustrates what we've been talking about, the challenge of filming in lighting conditions with such an extreme key to fill ratio caused by shooting under a clear sun. You're shooting under the worst possible lighting conditions, ones that send shivers down the spines of people with millions of dollars to spend fixing the problems and then you're wondering what to do about the problems you're having.

As I pointed out, that annotated shot taken by some random shows how your reds and greens can look great. All of that is happening in the shadows, much the same as shooting in the golden hours. Before sunrise is the best in my experience. The air is still, less risk of clouds moving quickly. The cool air is more stable and we're feeling refreshed. There's less people about as well so less risk of randoms walking into your shot. Midday sun is not just bad for the camera, it cooks the talent and crew.

[I]"Another killer is WIND was tremendous at that location destroying ALL audio"[/I]

Again shooting before sunrise helps here too.


Perhaps what you're thinking is that because you need [I]enough[/I] light to shoot film or video then more light is going to be better. That's a real trap. Enough is all you need and in general the softer it is the better chance you have of getting great results.

Bob.

I totally agree with the logic and experience you convey here. But, I have no choice in shooting time frames. And the Cinestyle profile negates a lot of the issue of shooting in daylight and loosing shadows or blowing out highs. I consider it an amazing camera profile and it has served me really well in keeping things dialed in to "log" / flat style.

The shoot I was hoping would be done in 6 hours ended up taking up two 7ish hour days of nonstop shooting. Suspecting it would take longer than I WISHED, I knew there was no way I could shoot everything during the few "Golden hours" over two days, so I went for prime sunlight to help everything look consistant in the end.
But I understand what you are saying, I wish I had that luxury. :D
Those two days were maybe 1/3 of the whole shot list - final 3rd of a 5 minute short.
Kept me busy!! PS: Zits on my face are all makeup

Greg, nice clapper board and at least you're going through the great learning experience of making a film. Congrats. We all start out thinking we know it all and gradually get to wonder if we'll ever know enough. Farss has patiently and kindly offered very good advice and while it's too late for your current film I would have expected you to hear that with a little more grace and to take it on board for the future.
Incidentally, your cinestyle profile isn't log and nor does it (nor would log or raw) negate the issues of shooting in full sun. You could find a lot of value in Phil Bloom's technical advice on DSLR shooting, which isn't all contained (or represented) in a poster.

Bob's advice of shooting when the sun isn't full up is really good. Another thing is to spontaneously go shooting every time you get an overcast day. Golden hour and overcast skys are absolute gold when it comes to shooting stills or video.

I hope I wasn't sounding ungreatfull or ungraceful at all, but mostly, I already did know all that stuff. My OP was about toning down the reds only in post, not shooting in daylight. Yes, daylight didn't help keep the red subdued, but I was interested in getting the reds pulled back overall - been a problem since I got this camera. Everything else looks fine.

Shooting is daylight can stink, but I see it as a fun challenge: to do the impossible, you know? To me all that matters is the end result.

I do appreciate everyone's input MAJORLY here! We kinda got off topic overall, but someone posted the answer in the first couple posts.

Never meant to come off unappreciating if I did.

[I]"Yes, daylight didn't help keep the red subdued, but I was interested in getting the reds pulled back overall - been a problem since I got this camera."[/I]

First of all red is a special colour. There's not much of a market for blue or green lipstick.
From my experience red is also the colour that's most likely to be out of gamut in the natural world. I have some various red flowers in my garden that are impossible to photograph correctly.
That's all compounded by the imaging gizmo in our cameras being most sensitive at the red end of the spectrum, in fact they're most sensitive beyond visible red. Because of that cameras have to incorporate IR cut filters. Different cameras have taken different approaches to wrangling this, some such as mine need a quite expensive IR cut filter to wrangle problems with IR pollution causing some black fabrics to turn magenta.

Trying to wrangle what's probably a characteristic of your camera in post is probably not going to yield you not much joy. Red is a vital component of skin tone, start pulling your reds back and then you're going to have pallid looking skin. There are ways you could try but they're a lot of work, I'd think it better to turn your problem with the camera into an asset, reds that pop do grab the attention of the viewer. I understand why it could bug you having a colour that leaps off the screen but perhaps you should stop worrying and learn to love your Reds :)

Bob.

learn to love the red... hahahahaha got it!

... now, about those interior shots..... ;)

Shooting in daylight?
You see, Greg, it's the things you say that make people underestimate your considerable knowledge and think they might be able to help. But now we know.