Use of monitor in Digital Cinema

In “Digital Cinema Solutions”, my recently released documentary surveying the entire field of digital production and post, a number of high profile filmmakers weighed in on the effects of the ever present HD monitor on our new working environment.

"The monitor is probably the most important thing about the shooting on High Def process right now." stated noted cinematographer Allan Daviau, ASC.

“You look at the monitor and what you see is what you're getting." That’s one of the major advantages of shooting digital according to James Cameron; but how do we really know that the image we sign off on during production is the same image that will ultimately be perceived by our audience? And what about the changing paradigm of cinematography, where once the Director of Photography was thought to be the only one trusted to predict how the image from the set would translate to the screen? Now anyone who knows how to watch TV may feel qualified to judge the image on the monitor; but are they? Don’t get me wrong; it’s great to have these superb new tools to help us judge the images we capture, and it’s a great boon to the collaborative process for a director to consult a monitor and ask for specific adjustments. But, it’s still my job as a DP to be the guardian of the image and to try and make sure that what we see on set will be the same image ultimately translated all the way through post to the final exhibition, whether it be to a theatrical screen, a home TV set, or both.

I don’t like to think I’m all that old, but I have to admit that when I started shooting movies we didn’t have video assist monitors, and when they did start to appear on the scene they were barely watchable in grainy black and white, flickering, sometimes just enough to see the framing. And even this was at the steep price of robbing brightness from the camera operators optical viewfinder by splitting the beam to the video tap. In those days we were forced not to rely on these images too much, but instead to develop the ability to foresee how the image in front of us would look once it got screened in dailies and beyond. Sure, there were sometimes a few surprises, but experienced DPs developed their eye by simply running a lot of film through their cameras and then seeing the results projected or telecined. Nowadays, we are able to take advantage of the superb images we can see on our display devises, (perhaps better than anyone will ever see them again). It’s instant gratification, instantaneous feedback; quicker than polaroids or one-hour photos.

“We're gonna need less ESP...It's not going to be sub-vocal, subconscious communication,” says James Cameron, speaking of the effect of the monitor on the collaborative process. “It's going to be very conscious; there's the image, what do we want to do? What do we want to change? There’s the immediacy of actually analyzing the image that you're creating at the time; you experiment with filters, with lighting, you see it in a very immediate sense, and you don't have to wait until the next day to see how it came out, which I like a lot because I like the ability, the freedom to experiment without having to be too conservative....more creative in the sense of giving oneself permission to try things without having to worry that you've lost a day's shooting."

It is still the DPs job, however, to interpret how these images will be translated so that they can be seen by the final audience. Today’s monitors are great, but the only way I know how to feel confident of my results and of what I’m ultimately going to get is through testing. I shoot extensive tests before any digital production and I try to see them all the way out to film, or whatever is the intended distribution. If you’ve got a show in preproduction, labs and rental houses will generally offer you gear and services for testing so that you can see your work on the big screen and get everyone’s input early in the process, which can be really helpful later on.

“It makes our life so much easier to be involved from the outset.” explains Ron Burdett, CEO of Los Angeles based post house, Sunset Digital, and a founding member of The Hollywood Post Alliance. “We'd like to work with the digital filmmaker early on to help them capture a good, healthy image on digital. From there they can go anywhere, be it transfer to film, broadcast, or digital projection. Unfortunately, there are sometimes some hard lessons to be learned when filmmakers are disappointed that the images they see here in post are not what they perceived on set. It’s not just a matter of how they may have had their display devices tweaked, but also what type they were using, CRT, LCD, or Plasma. The type of display technology used can make a huge difference since they all represent black and color in different ways. We sometimes spend a lot of time trying to get back to what they thought they already had.”

Monitors are precision instruments, and really no less important than your production camera. This is especially true in HD, where there is even less room for error. The higher the resolution, the more any image capture problem is going to be magnified, and as compared to film, we are confined to a much narrower exposure latitude. “You have to be careful when you shoot with a digital camera that you have the image in terms of the setting of the iris fairly accurate to what you want to achieve," according to Allan Daviau, ASC. "Because if you overexpose an image or burn something out, that's all there is."

So we know we need to be precise in our settings and the only way to do this is to have accurate equipment with which to monitor. “An uncalibrated monitor can be merely an illusion that can cause more damage than not having a monitor at all,” says David Riddle, for many years in the business of calibrating video monitors and related test equipment. “A certified color video monitor is the only means to precisely determine that what you are seeing, in terms of exposure, latitude, color saturation, color hue, depth of focus, and framing, is correct.” He also stresses how important it is to provide a consistent ambient illumination level in which to view your monitor. With this in mind, he has created a unique, hard-shell transport and utility shock-proof case that houses several types of Sony 8” and 9” standard and high definition monitors. His custom engineered case not only helps protect the fragile monitor from getting damaged and knocked out of calibration as it travels to location, but also creates a consistent viewing environment. With a built in hood that eliminates ambient light from contaminating the display, you can evaluate your image consistently no matter the lighting environment, whether interior or exterior location.

With the attendant personnel including Director, Script Supervisor, Digital Image Tech, Producers, and other department heads, it seems the video village has sometimes grown to become a small city, and it takes a pretty good size monitor to service this crowd. A general rule of thumb is that the ideal distance to view a monitor is at about six times the vertical of the screen. So at a distance of 6 feet, you should be looking at approximately a 24” 16x9 monitor, even a little closer if you want to see all the detail HD has to offer. If a control monitor gets much bigger than that, you should probably be looking at smaller, multiple monitors.

There are many great manufacturers including Sony, Panasonic, and Ikegami, among others, turning out great full size HiDef production monitors that are at home in video village, but one that I also try to get on every shoot is the Astro model WM-3001. With it’s convenient size, (6” LCD weighing less than a half pound), it’s small and light enough to be mounted right on the camera. I like this because it keeps me on set, right where the action is, instead of being stuck back at video village. It also has a built in wave form and vector scope which can be superimposed over your picture to truly analyze what you’re looking at. This also makes it especially easy to calibrate, by first outputting the Color Bars signal from the camera to the monitor, then selecting the Vector Scope mode and superimposing it over the Color Bars to dial it in. This is a fast, easy way to get a proper color representation of the camera.

It used to be that if you got just a little off the perfect viewing angle, an LCD would appear to fade out, but with their new models, they seem to have remedied that problem. Other features include dual inputs so you can A/B switch between two sources like another camera or playback for matching. It also accepts either HD or Standard Definition.

Mark Forman, of New York’s Forman HiDefinition
Screening Room recommends that if a project is ultimately meant for large screen projection or theatrical release, that it only makes sense to periodically project your digital dailies on a large screen. “In the production stage certain visual parameters can only be seen on a large screen. On a small screen, focus will sometimes appear to be there, but when projected it will be soft. Another aspect seen in projection that may not be readily apparent on the set monitor is production items in the background. When seen, these things are usually a rude awakening.” In other words, it’s better to be safe than sorry, and a few dollars spent on a professional screening room is a heck of a lot cheaper than trying to fix it after production has wrapped.

Even more today than in the past, the Director of Photography needs to be vigilant at every stage of production and post as the image is manipulated and transformed throughout all it’s various electronic incarnations. But without good quality, well maintained monitoring equipment and a bit of practical experience gained by testing, we are only flying blind. I prefer to use every tool at my disposal to assure that what we see is ultimately what we get.