Cinematography-Theory-And-Practice

Figure 9.37. (top) The externalswitches on a typical HD camera.The second switch is H, M, L, whichmeans high, medium, or low gain.In the operations menus, you canselect what values each one represents.Many operators choose minus3dB, 0dB and plus 3dB gain for thehigh, medium and low values.The third switch (Output) can selectcolors bars as the output (bottomposition) or set the camera fornormal operation (middle position)or top position for automatic kneecontrol (DCC or Dynamic ContrastControl).The last switch can select preset,which means that the cameracannot be white balanced; instead,the color balance is controlled onlyby the built-in color filters (see Figures9.38).All the way on the left is a switchthat actuates auto black balance(sets the black level to zero IRE) andauto white balance, which adjuststhe color balance when the camerais aimed at a neutral white or neutralgray target.Figure 9.38. (middle) On the leftare two wheels that control neutraldensity (the numbers) and color filters(letters). Sony provides a chartthat shows what each setting of thewheels does. Other cameras use differentschemes for these controls.Figure 9.39. (bottom) A typical topmenu on an HD camera, it providesaccess to the various submenus.The two most frequently used areOperation and Paint. The Operationmenu only controls how you use thecamera (setting values of the gainswitch, for example). The Paint menuis where you control the look of thepicture.Other cameras will have differentmenu structures and terminology,but the basic controls of the look arethe same.cal for a cinematographer to understand how these controls affectthe image even if they are shooting with a RAW camera.The curves for film and video are important sources of informationand it is important to understand what they mean and what they cantell you about each film stock or video camera setup. In addition toviewing the curves to show what different controls have done to theimage, most color correction software also includes curves that youcan alter directly — Photoshop has curves as well. By altering themdirectly, we mean that you can push or pull on various parts of thecurve to alter the slope in different parts of the image. Recall thatchanging the slope affects the gamma (contrast) for that region of thecurve. These curves can be used to alter the overall luma (brightness)or color balance of individual regions of the image.cinematography178